Third Missions Trip - Acts 19-20
Paul meets Twelve Disciples
The apostles themselves (or many of them) appear to have received John’s baptism, but no question of rebaptism was raised for them. Probably their endowment with the Spirit at Pentecost transformed the preparatory significance of the baptism which they had already received into the consummative significance of Christian baptism
Christ’s Power Demonstrated
Among practitioners of magic in ancient times Jews enjoyed high respect, for they were believed to have exceptionally effective spells at their command. In particular, the fact that the name of the God of Israel was not to be pronounced by vulgar lips was generally known among the pagans, and misinterpreted by them according to regular magical principles. Several magical papyri which have survived from those days to ours contain attempts to reproduce the true pronunciation of the ineffable name—Iaō, Iabe, Iaoue, and so forth—as well as other Jewish expressions and names such as Sabaoth and Abraham, used as elements in magic spells. The closest parallel to the Ephesian exorcists’ misuse of the name of Jesus appears in a magical papyrus belonging to the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, which contains the adjuration: “I adjure you by Jesus, the God of the Hebrews.”32
Paul Plans His Trip
The Planned Route
The Public Riot
The cult of Ephesian Artemis was of earlier date than the Greek settlement at Ephesus; the name Artemis is non-Greek. Artemis was traditionally venerated as the protector of wild creatures. This association with wild creatures survives, in an altered form, in her worship on the Greek mainland as the “queen and huntress, chaste and fair” of Ben Jonson’s poem; Ephesian Artemis, on the other hand, seems to have acquired some of the features of the great mother-goddess venerated from time immemorial in Asia Minor. Her temple, replacing an earlier one which was destroyed by fire in 356 B.C., was reckoned one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. It covered an area four times as large as that of the Parthenon in Athens; it was supported by 127 pillars, each of them sixty feet high, and was adorned by Praxiteles and other great sculptors of antiquity.61 It stood about a mile and a half northeast of the city which Paul knew. All knowledge of its whereabouts had been forgotten for centuries, when its foundations were discovered on the last day of 1869. The great altar, west of the main building, was discovered in 1965.
The Town Clerk
There was one citizen of Ephesus who was particularly alarmed by the people’s riotous conduct. This was the town clerk, the executive officer of the civic assembly, who took part in drafting the decrees to be laid before it, and had them engraved when they were passed. He acted also as liaison officer between the civic government and the Roman provincial administration, which had its headquarters in Ephesus.