The Ephesians Story (Part 3)

Lord, what I would ask of You is that You awaken our hearts to see things the way they really are, the way they really were, and the way they ought to be. Cleanse us as You always cleanse us and have cleansed us. And our spirits, Lord, that they be alive and that our spirits here. Amen.

Very quickly, we’ll start where Paul of Tarsus and Barnabas went to Galatia, were gone two years, raised up four churches, came home, spent a couple of years loafing in Antioch. Obviously, they did not know we were supposed to evangelize the world in one generation. There was a coming of Peter to the Antioch church, and with them the Judaizers, who got things really worked up. It would appear that one of those Judaizers did not go to Jerusalem to settle the dispute between Antioch and Jerusalem but rather sneaked off to Galatia while Barnabas and Paul met with the apostles and the elders in Jerusalem. Barnabas and Paul got back to Antioch and discovered that there was a mess going on in Galatia; somebody was up there circumcising Gentiles. Barnabas and Paul had a fight; Barnabas took off for his home country of Cyprus, and Paul went back to Galatia. He preceded his trip there with a letter, known as the Book of Galatians. The letter to the Galatians. Then he went to Galatia, found out he was well received, and that that guy hadn’t made as near as much progress in circumcision as he was afraid he had.

They went on to a little town called Philippi that later became the precious church of Paul’s life. Went to Thessalonica, Berea, and then Corinth. Came home again and sent a couple of Jews from Corinth to Ephesus to go before him. Gathered up eight men and went to Ephesus. The church was raised there for a period of about two years, and then, after two years, he trained those eight young men in the smaller towns of Asia Minor. He then starts home on a very complex journey. He stops in Corinth. He writes a letter to the Romans because now Priscilla and Aquila have arrived, and Christians have gathered there from all the Gentile churches, and they’re having a ball. He then writes a very introductory letter to Rome, very basic for those new Christians who have been joined with these people whom he has sent to Rome.

He gets to Jerusalem because he’s trying to keep the unity of the churches. He who wrote the book of Galatians shaves his head for the unity of the body of Christ among a bunch of legalistic believers in Judea and Jerusalem. The young man he takes with him, whose head is also shaved, has a remarkable resemblance to whom? Titus. And they thought Titus, being a heathen, had gotten into the temple. There was a riot, and he ended up arrested, beaten, and shipped off to jail. Finally, he appealed to Caesar and was sent to Rome as a prisoner. Had a shipwreck. Got there finally. There were brothers and sisters who met him on the Appian Way. Don’t ever try to walk on that road. It’s walled on both sides, and the buses are 3 inches wider than the road is. Try to press your body up against the wall with one of those great big 10-ton things coming down on you.

Anyway, he is in Rome; he is a prisoner. In the meantime, a ninth brother is coming into existence. Probably comes from the town of Philippi, that dear, precious little church. I don’t know where he came from; that’s a wild guess, but somehow or other, this young man is going around preaching the gospel and doing what Timothy, Titus, Tychicus, Trophimus, Secundus, Gaius, Aristarchus, and did anybody ever look up the others’ names? I can’t remember. Alright, I think it’s in Acts 22 or 23. If anyone has a Bible back there, I would really appreciate it if you could look it up.

He goes to the town of Colossae, which is near Asia Minor, but not in it. I don’t know where all he goes, but one place is Colossae, and a fellowship of believers is raised up there, and the brothers and sisters there have never known Paul of Tarsus, and they know he’s in prison, and they vicariously fall in love with him, and they send this young man who raised up that church to Rome. His name is Epaphras. Sometimes they’re called Epaphroditus. That’s a good heathen name. All the Christians among the Gentiles had good heathen names. It was not until after Constantine, 300 years later, that we began to give our children Bible names. It’s a heathen practice. You name your son Apollos, Zeus, you name him Mercury, you name him whatever. Constantine started naming kids after Bible characters. It’s a heathen practice for those of you who have Bible names. Anyway, Epaphroditus goes to Rome. He is, by the way, my favorite New Testament character other than Paul. I consider him to be one of the greatest Christians of the first century. Now, there’s not much that’s known about him, but he was an amazing brother.

He is in Rome, and Paul sends him home with four letters. He’s going to take two of them to Colossae and then he’s going to pass them out in Asia Minor. Then he’s going to go home to Philippi and give them a personal letter, and he’s going to deliver one letter to Philemon, a friend of Paul’s, which, to me, is one of the most fascinating pieces of literature in the world. Paul manipulates Philemon like you wouldn’t believe in about 18 sentences, something like just unforgivable what Paul does to that man, about a runaway slave named Onesimus. I think it is a hilarious letter. I mean, every time I read it, it gets better and better, and it gives some real insight into how Paul almost faces the subject, backs away from it, changes the subject, almost penetrates that, backs away from it, and the whole book is just full of hints. And you know what the hint is? Dummy, set him free, my cow, why thrash around with this problem? Let the boy go. Give him his citizenship. Give him his freedom. But he never says that. Don’t beat him or send him off to the copper mines of Cyprus. Set him free. That’s the only reasonable solution to the problem.

Now, Epaphroditus comes home to Colossae. Colossae is not a large town. We would be stretching our imaginations to believe it was a town of over five or 10,000 people. Now, I want to describe Colossae to you, and I believe you’re the brother who asked for the five-fold gifts. I want you to remember that the book we call Ephesians was first read in the city of Colossae, and it was a circuit letter that was passed out all over Asia Minor. In fact, and I hate to bring this up because it always makes people uncomfortable. Perhaps the first church to receive it was the church in Laodicea because that church is actually mentioned in Colossians. Be sure and pass it around.

Now, I want you to see the ekklesia in the city of Colossae, our town, and I want you to remember that Paul has never met these people, and I believe he preaches his gospel to them in those two letters. More clearly than anything else, other than Romans, we see what Paul of Tarsus spoke on during those four months that he was with the churches.

Here’s not only Colossae, but any town you’ve heard mentioned in the New Testament outside of Israel, which will look like this and be composed like this. I’d like for you to drop every preconceived notion you have. At the center of the town will be a forum. The Romans built that to remind the people that they belong to, and are under the control of, and are enemy-occupied by Rome. The downtown center of the town is usually decent, sometimes downright pretty. It has some colonnades. If there are any stores there, they will be filled with products from Rome. This is where the wealthy shop; it’s mostly for them. Now, somewhere leading off will be a street that is the market street, and there, people will be bringing their goods to sell or barter. But the truth is that they barter; they do not sell. You must understand that most people in the Roman Empire never, in their lifetimes, actually held coins in their hands. They never had money. They bartered. Unless there was some particular need for it, they would take, after bartering all that they could, they would take what they had, and they would sell it to basically a bank, which would be a money changer. He would, of course, take a good-sized discount, and coins would then be used. Coins were not a common way to live; barter was, for most people, the only way they lived.

Now, this town has a population of 10,000; let’s really stretch it. Of those 10,000, 1% are the wealthy; they do not live in Colossae. They live on the hills around it in villas. They are the ones who gave the money for the forum. Rome did not build it; the wealthy Romans sent there, or those who moved there, built it. They live in villas and they have slaves. The law in Colossae is only relevant to those people; no one else is under the protection of Roman law. In fact, everything else is pretty much anarchy. You protect yourself. You get beaten up or things are stolen from you, your house is ransacked, don’t bother to go to the police. You don’t exist.

Saints, in the first century. Almost all the literature that has survived is about that top 1%. It has taken a hundred years of archaeology for brilliant men to ferret out who the rest of the people were. They don’t even get mentioned. They are not considered. They’re not thought of. Now, here are some things that you need to understand. One of them is, there was no such thing as freedom. It was not yet a concept in the minds of men, not the kind of freedom you know. When half of an empire is slaves, and the rest of the people, except for the rich and one other group, are virtually slaves, you don’t think in sweeping terms of freedom. That’s a term that only a Roman might understand. These people are not protected by law, and they do not have steady jobs. They go to the marketplace every day, hoping someone will hire them. They might be hired for three days, five days, ten days, or fifteen days. They might get hired for three months in good weather. The Romans might hire them to help build a bridge. But when that’s over, it’s over. There’s no such thing as employment. For Jerry, it’s like living in Atlanta, where just every day you hope the phone rings, and you get a job. That’s the way they all live.