Upcoming Class

I will be jumping into a conversation on the book of Ephesians on the 23rd of May during our Sunday spiritual formation class at 9.40a.m. So, there's my plug Hayward folks.

My recent research on Paul's visit to Ephesus reminds me of the direction that the gospel desires to take us as we journey through life.

Ephesus was one of the top three cities in the Roman empire. And, presence of the gospel in this city can be attributed to a few humble, yet gutsy men who didn't side-skirt the city and stay on the safe peripheral edges frequenting tame religious gatherings and sipping tea with church basement ladies. Rather, Paul and his entourage, who were not ashamed of the gospel went straight for city-center. Acts 19 gives us a virtual tour of Paul's travels in Ephesus. We might think of it as a Spirit-guided GPS. Let's see where he is led.

The text says Paul took the "interior road" that went directly into this great city. Notice, he doesn't take the exterior road, skirting the outside of this city of close to a half million inhabitants. He takes the interior road and goes straight for the juggler. He enters the mess. And, I don't even like driving on Main St. in Hayward (population 2,028 .5 in the summer!)

Once he hits the city, he moves straight to the synagogue. Which is the equivalent to walking bare-backed into a angry hornets nest. And, Paul knew this since one of his former past-time kicks was to tracking down Christians and throwing rocks at them.

After getting booted from there, Paul ends up in the public square conversing about Jesus for two years in "the lecture hall of Tyrannus". The lecture hall of Tyrannus would have been like the Greenwich Village of Ephesus. An eclectic marketplace of art, philosophy, ideas and religion. They had it all when it came to art, eduction, philosophy and culture. And, Paul brings the gospel here. He discussed and devoted himself to the message of the cross. And, in so doing reminds us that the gospel of Jesus is not preserved by being packed away in a sacred container we call "church". Rather, is to be preserved by his Church (a people, not a place) who daily take Jesus with us into the marketplace of ideas as we discuss and devote ourselves to the message of the cross.

Later in the chapter we find Paul at a public bon-fire held in the name of Jesus where converts were burning their idolatrous paraphernalia and sacred scrolls...which, by the way, doesn't' help Paul make any new friends in a city whose economy was based on the sale and purchasing of religious relics to false gods.

By the end of the chapter we get this amazing finale'. We find that the presence of Paul and his friends at a riot in the theatre of Ephesus...the riot was based on the fact that Paul had "led astray large numbers of people" which had disrupted the economy of the temple cult to the great goddess Artemis, known by the Romans as the goddess Diana, whose temple was one of the seven great wonders of the ancient world!

Image it. A few homeless guys walk into this city with no power, no money, no prestige...nothing. Knowing nothing as Paul puts it, "but Christ crucified". And, by the end of three years, arguably the most religious and most powerful city in the Roman Empire is up in arms over a Jewish rabbi named Jesus whom they had never even heard tell of three years prior! That's power of the gospel. And, the courage to be a conduit of that power by moving into the place that sometimes we fear the most.

Yes, Paul left his mark. The Spirit-guided GPS does not lead Paul outside the metropolis. No, that's not Jesus' style. The way of Jesus is to penetrate deep into the middle of godless confusion. And, the truth of Jesus is to bring His message to places that deem it irrelevant, uncool and unfashionable. And, the life of Jesus is a life that is unmistakably seen. It is a life that has the power to transform and turn entire cities inside out.