Early Days In Ephesus

by J.L. Ferguson | Category: General | Dec 1963

(I)

Paul's first visit to Ephesus was of short duration. He came there from Corinth where an eighteen months' stay resulted in the planting and establishing there of a highly gifted church of God. When later he visited Ephesus he was to spend some three years there. His times were clearly in the Lord's hands. To spend four and a half years in the formation of two Assemblies might seem to some a disproportionately long time, having regard to the limited number of years Paul was to enjoy in freedom of movement in the progress of the gospel. But strong key assemblies are the outcome of persistent labour in the Lord, both then and now.

Actually the earliest days of the work in Ephesus did not centre round Paul, but came rather through his companions in travel, Priscilla and Aquila, who accompanied him when he left Corinth. It is evident from Acts 18 that after his lengthy stay in Corinth Paul was deeply exercised about the spiritual welfare of the disciples in the chain of assemblies along the route of his earlier missionary journey. So he set off, seemingly alone, for the port of Caesarea and the church there, doubtless then to Jerusalem, and on to Antioch. There he spent only a short time. Jerusalem and Antioch had plenty of teachers to stablish the disciples without Paul spending too much precious time among them. The wider regions of more recently planted and probably less gifted churches were calling him. So he toured again "through the region of Galatia and Phrygia in order", methodical and meticulous in his work, "stablishing all the disciples". In due course he came back again to Ephesus.

How much Priscilla and Aquilla would have to tell him! No matter where that devout pair went they promoted the work of God. Left alone in Ephesus, where as yet there was no church of God, they made their plans in the secret place, and the blessing came. Probably no one better than they could have won Apollos for the Fellowship. The Word says, "they took him unto them". Theirs was the home of the open door where the way of God could be more carefully expounded for the help of Apollos and all like him. These devoted joint-heirs seemed to have had a very deep insight into the purposes of God for the dispensation of grace and a great capacity for clearly setting it forth.

As a consequence there was soon a growing band of enlightened believers in Ephesus and when in due course Apollos felt exercised to cross over to the recently planted church in Corinth it says that "the brethren encouraged him, and wrote to the disciples to receive him". These then were the great days of early beginnings in Ephesus; "finding" days, "discipling" days, awaiting the while the coming of the mighty assembly planter and builder.

When Paul later wrote his letter to the Ephesians he does not address them as the church of God at Ephesus, but rather "to the saints which are at Ephesus, and the faithful in Christ Jesus". But to receive and enjoy the letter the saints must have been together in testimony and that is evident from Ephesians 2.20-22. Here was an assembly "built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the Chief Corner Stone". It was founded on the apostles' teaching. It conformed to Acts 2.41, 42. Not only so, but it was in the great chain of churches which the Lord was establishing through Paul and his companions and many others besides in those days: They were fitly framed together. The structure of the spiritual house was that of integrated churches of God, each one being itself "builded together for a habitation of God in the Spirit". Such was the church in Ephesus, gathered out and gathered together under the authority of the lordship of the Lord Jesus, and in the care of the elders referred to in Acts 20.17.

There is a deep pathos in Paul's message at Miletus to the elders of the church in Ephesus. Here he recounts the character of his early labours among them. His three years' service had been unto the Lord with all lowliness of mind. He had wept his way through these years. Night and day he had laboured. He had taken his stand in the busy places of concourse. He had gone also from house to house. Tireless, indefatigable Paul! Centuries later Henry Martyn caught his spirit and said, "Now let me burn out for God". He had a course to accomplish. He was a man with a mission, to whom personal safety or comfort was of but small account. His work had been threefold

1.To testify the gospel of the grace of God.

2.To preach the kingdom.

3.To. declare the whole counsel of God.

(II)

Throughout all Paul's work ran a deep sense of urgency. He went whither the Spirit willed. If He suffered him not to speak in Bithynia he would pass on. If there was "much people" in Corinth he would wait his Lord's time. From the very first day he set foot in Asia he served with unswerving thoroughness. He shrank not from declaring in his ministry anything that was profitable, however unpalatable to some it may have seemed. For this reason his conscience in divine service was at all times clear. He was pure from the blood of all men. Marvellous ministrant!

It is evident from Acts 20 that the ministry Paul received was first to "testify" the gospel of the grace of God. The thought here is to testify earnestly, indeed with all the earnestness which would attach to the word in its first New Testament occurrence in Luke 16.28. As touching Lazarus, the rich man cried to Abraham from Sheol's depths of grief, "send him ... that he may testify".

It was to all, both Jews and Greeks, high and low together. The gospel of divine grace called for repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. Paul's preaching was ever against the dark background of sin, and the paramount need for repentance. The repentant were then to look in saving faith to the sinless Redeemer for salvation and the life everlasting. These came as gifts from God, sure tokens of the beneficence of divine grace at work.

These are still the essential elements of gospel preaching. The work of the Trinity at Calvary was immense, and eternal in its efficacy. It was human sin which caused it, although divine love which accomplished it. Healing could only come to the human family through the stripes of the Son of God made flesh for our sakes. It was for our transgressions He was wounded, bruised, chastised. Only the penitent can therefore say in saving faith and sincerity, "Wounded for me". This magnifies the grace of God.

So we see in this aspect of Paul's ministry the fulfilment of Mark's account of the Lord's word in resurrection authority, "Go ... and preach the gospel". It is an unrescinded word, spanning the age of grace till the Lord comes. And for all the dear children of God, who in many lands and in great faithfulness are today giving their witness to this same glorious message we give unfeigned thanks to our God in heaven.

But Paul's preaching went wider still, as wide indeed as the great commission of Matthew 28. His work had in view not only the converting of the unsaved but the discipling also of believers unto the kingdom of God. We quote his own words in Acts 20, "I went about preaching the kingdom". He was a kingdom-herald, proclaiming everywhere the new phase of the kingdom of God. Until but a short time before it had been for long centuries associated with the nation of Israel. But that phase was gone-never to return throughout the dispensation of grace. Everywhere he went Paul preached the principles of the kingdom of God appropriate to his day and ours.

Nor is it difficult to see the form of the new phase of the kingdom. Paul was essentially an assembly planter, builder and nourisher, as were doubtless many others in these early days whose names are now known only to God. The churches which they planted, together formed the house of God, which is likened by the Holy Spirit to a building composed of living stones. The living stones were, of course, the born-again saints themselves. Paul describes them in Ephesians 2.22 as "builded together for a habitation of God in the Spirit". Peter describes them in 1 Peter 2.5 as "built up a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices."

So the saints were not brought to the new birth then left to their own devices. They were forthwith baptized and added to the nearest church of God, thus they were both builded up (and not left lying around) and builded together (and not left to spiritual isolation). The vision of those great early assembly planters was patterned by the post-ascension forty-day teaching and epitomized, for example, in the words of all authority in Matthew 28.18-20, "Go ... make disciples ... baptizing ... teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I commanded you".

The vision, the pattern was abundantly clear. Like a torch of truth the twelve apostles passed it on. Paul received it, made his notable contribution and passed it on. The mighty Conqueror of Calvary was offering, through the lips of His servants, a free pardon to the nations. It was His wish that those who accepted it should in baptism confess their acceptance to Him and become themselves illuminators of others. Thus they would be added to the new movement for God and in it they would continue "stedfastly in the apostles' teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread and the prayers".

Some called the new movement a sect, looking upon it as an impulsive and irresponsible breakaway from Israel and established Judaism. But what these people did not understand was that God had left His Temple in Jerusalem, taken away His kingdom from Israel, and had turned to the Gentiles, offering them life, and giving to them the new expression of His kingdom rule. For forty days the Lord Jesus had instructed the apostles in these things, they were "the things concerning the kingdom of God". God was now going to dwell in a spiritual house, expressed in churches of God, in which He would rule through the application of His word by God-fearing elders. Together these churches would form a holy nation, as Peter describes in 1 Peter 2 and would enter into the glorious inheritance of the kingdom of God.

Observant readers will have noticed, or had their attention drawn to, the chain of connected expressions in Acts 14.22, 28, "... the disciples ... the faith ... the kingdom of God ... elders in every church ..." Or again in 2 Thessalonians 1.4, 5, "...the churches of God ... the kingdom of God". Here in the New Testament the kingdom of God was being expressed, the saints being the kingdom subjects, the law to guide was the Faith once for all delivered to them, the rulers were the elders, but the kingdom was God's.

Therefore Paul preached the kingdom. Nothing short of bornagain children of God, baptized and brought together in fellowship in churches of God, churches that were all known to one another and grouped together in provinces, in countries, in short one united testimony for God, was before his Lord's mind. Nothing else therefore was before Paul's -nor ours, we trust.

This brief review leads us then to Paul's own description of his third line of ministry, "For I shrank not from declaring unto you the whole counsel of God". Others might shrink and shrivel, for this way soon became evil spoken of and opposition became bitter and unrelenting. But Paul had seen the vision of the ways of God in grace and nothing could dim that sight or seal his lips, either in whole or in part. What he had learned of the revealed will of God for his time he would impart to others, nor keep back a word. Indeed we catch the echo of God's words to Ezekiel, "... all My words ... receive in thine heart, and hear with thine ears. And go, get thee to ... the children of thy people, and speak... and tell..., Thus saith the Lord GOD" (Ezekiel 3.10, 11).

And so, in those early days in Ephesus, Paul rehearsed to the disciples "the whole counsel of God". Alas, that even from among the elders of the church there, men were shortly to arise who would reject for themselves some part of that counsel and tragically draw away the disciples after them. They would do to the truth of God what the Pharisees had done to the baptism of John (Luke 7.30).

Thus men began to choose for themselves those parts of the revealed will of God which appealed to them and other parts they rejected. Not only so, but they taught perverse things, they corrupted the pure teaching, they marred the perfect vision, they distorted and twisted truth, till much of what the apostles taught as from the Lord became lost to view, and much of the creation of men's thinking, which had no place in the divine will, came prominently into view.

It is in the spirit of profound thankfulness to Almighty God that we acknowledge the grace and the understanding given to our spiritual forebears whereby we feel at home again today amidst the things which belong to the whole counsel of God. At the beginning of the nineteenth century men of God began a great sorting out of the truths of God from the rubbish of long practised false teaching. At the close of the same century the vision of the House, the holy nation, the one people for God was graciously given and patiently received. In the churches of God today we know of no part of the whole counsel of God for our day which is not, in form, in evidence. We thank God and take courage!

But, beloved brethren, in the early days in Ephesus that same word of God was in mighty power. It was changing men, dedicating the lives of the consecrated, throwing on to the burning pile the useless things which once characterized them. "So mightily grew the word of the Lord and prevailed". That was because the church of God in Ephesus was part of the house of God which was the church of the living God. And where the living God dwells there should be life and growth and power and progress. It was abundantly so in the early churches. For this then we too must wait upon the living God continually. And when living stones, enjoying the living hope, offer themselves without reserve as living sacrifices, then things begin to happen. The movement lives. And the house of God, the church of the living God, comes in reality into closer line with its name.

(III)

Woe to the grievous wolves who came by stealth into the flock at Ephesus; and to the worthless shepherds who turned aside to assist them. As a consequence, perverted teaching drew away unsuspecting disciples from what had been a happy, harmonious and vigorous church. Paul saw it all coming and in Acts 20.29, 30 around 58 A.D. predicted it. Some ten years later he wrote from prison his second letter to Timothy and in it he enjoined the faithful disciples to depart from these unrighteous people (2.19, 21). They had now become manifest to all. Some two years later He who walked in the midst of the golden lampstands commended the church for the action they had taken in seceding (Revelation 2.2).

The original troublers in the church of God in Ephesus were certain men who began "to teach a different doctrine" (1 Timothy 1.3). Into a church which was steadfastly holding the whole counsel of God in a pure heart, a good conscience and an unfeigned faith these men introduced fables, endless genealogies and a sinister casting of doubt on the things most assuredly believed by the disciples. Having themselves made shipwreck concerning the faith, they proceeded to wreck also the lives of unsuspecting brethren.

What a grief it must have been to the great assembly-builder to learn of the inroads of evil in a church which had so comparatively recently come fresh from his spiritual trowel! The course of this evil was all revealed to him.

"They will proceed further in ungodliness, and their word will eat as doth a gangrene." In the face then of a disease so deadly and which could spread so fast, little wonder the apostle charged Timothy, for the guidance of the saints in the church, "Let every one that nameth the name of the Lord depart from unrighteousness". And again, "If a man therefore purge himself from these ..." (2 Timothy 2.16-21).

This was clear guidance from the Lord to the faithful in Ephesus who wished to abide in the things they had learned and of which they had been assured. They were to depart from the unrighteous men who were holding down the truth of God in unrighteousness. It was an echo of another leader's charge to the people of God, long centuries before, "Depart, I pray you, from the tents of these wicked men, and touch nothing of all theirs, lest ye be consumed in all their sins" (Numbers 16.26). They were to purge themselves out from their midst, both in Moses' day and in Paul's.

And so in Ephesus, in those still early days, the faithful tried "them which call themselves apostles, and they are not, and didst find them false" (Revelation 2.2). These false teachers, these pseudoapostles, were doubtless men who by subtlety had reached such a commanding position in the church that it was impossible to deal with them, to purge them out. Hence the call to the steadfast to purge themselves out and to take their stand as a continuing church of God in separation from those who had rejected for themselves the whole counsel of God.

In all of which we can see clearly an analogy for our own day and hear also an unmistakable voice to which they would do well to take heed who today decry any action which would divide believers in the Lord Jesus and would condemn those who separate with a view to maintaining the truth of God in its purity.

The early days in Ephesus were truly great days, halcyon days; days of first love.

J.L. Ferguson | Dec 1963
General