The Living Bible (349 page)

Acts
18

Then Paul left Athens and went to Corinth.
^2-3
 There he became acquainted with a Jew named Aquila, born in Pontus, who had recently arrived from Italy with his wife, Priscilla. They had been expelled from Italy as a result of Claudius Caesar’s order to deport all Jews from Rome. Paul lived and worked with them, for they were tentmakers just as he was.

    
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 Each Sabbath found Paul at the synagogue, trying to convince the Jews and Greeks alike.
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 And after the arrival of Silas and Timothy from Macedonia, Paul spent his full time preaching and testifying to the Jews that Jesus is the Messiah.
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 But when the Jews opposed him and blasphemed, hurling abuse at Jesus, Paul shook off the dust from his robe and said, “Your blood be upon your own heads—I am innocent—from now on I will preach to the Gentiles.”

    
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 After that he stayed with Titus Justus, a Gentile who worshiped God and lived next door to the synagogue.
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 However, Crispus, the leader of the synagogue, and all his household believed in the Lord and were baptized—as were many others in Corinth.

    
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 One night the Lord spoke to Paul in a vision and told him,
“Don’t be afraid! Speak out! Don’t quit!
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For I am with you and no one can harm you. Many people here in this city belong to me.”
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 So Paul stayed there the next year and a half, teaching the truths of God.

    
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 But when Gallio became governor of Achaia, the Jews rose in concerted action against Paul and brought him before the governor for judgment.
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 They accused Paul of “persuading men to worship God in ways that are contrary to Roman law.”
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 But just as Paul started to make his defense, Gallio turned to his accusers and said, “Listen, you Jews, if this were a case involving some crime, I would be obliged to listen to you,
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 but since it is merely a bunch of questions of semantics and personalities and your silly Jewish laws, you take care of it. I’m not interested and I’m not touching it.”
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 And he drove them out of the courtroom.

    
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 Then the mob
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grabbed Sosthenes, the new leader of the synagogue, and beat him outside the courtroom. But Gallio couldn’t have cared less.

    
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 Paul stayed in the city several days after that and then said good-bye to the Christians and sailed for the coast of Syria, taking Priscilla and Aquila with him. At Cenchreae Paul had his head shaved according to Jewish custom, for he had taken a vow.
*
¹⁹
 Arriving at the port of Ephesus, he left us aboard ship while he went over to the synagogue for a discussion with the Jews.
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 They asked him to stay for a few days, but he felt that he had no time to lose.
*

    
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 “I must by all means be at Jerusalem for the holiday,”
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he said. But he promised to return to Ephesus later if God permitted; and so he set sail again.

    
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 The next stop was at the port of Caesarea from where he visited the church at Jerusalem
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and then sailed on to Antioch.
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 After spending some time there, he left for Turkey again, going through Galatia and Phrygia visiting all the believers, encouraging them and helping them grow in the Lord.

    
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 As it happened, a Jew named Apollos, a wonderful Bible teacher and preacher, had just arrived in Ephesus from Alexandria in Egypt.
^25-26
 While he was in Egypt, someone had told him about John the Baptist and what John had said about Jesus, but that is all he knew. He had never heard the rest of the story! So he was preaching boldly and enthusiastically in the synagogue, “The Messiah is coming! Get ready to receive him!” Priscilla and Aquila were there and heard him—and it was a powerful sermon. Afterwards they met with him and explained what had happened to Jesus since the time of John, and all that it meant!
*

    
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 Apollos had been thinking about going to Greece, and the believers encouraged him in this. They wrote to their fellow-believers there, telling them to welcome him. And upon his arrival in Greece, he was greatly used of God to strengthen the church,
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 for he powerfully refuted all the Jewish arguments in public debate, showing by the Scriptures that Jesus is indeed the Messiah.

Acts
19

While Apollos was in Corinth, Paul traveled through Turkey and arrived in Ephesus, where he found several disciples.
²
 “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?” he asked them.

    
“No,” they replied, “we don’t know what you mean. What is the Holy Spirit?”

    
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 “Then what beliefs did you acknowledge at your baptism?” he asked.

    
And they replied, “What John the Baptist taught.”

    
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 Then Paul pointed out to them that John’s baptism was to demonstrate a desire to turn from sin to God and that those receiving his baptism must then go on to believe in Jesus, the one John said would come later.

    
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 As soon as they heard this, they were baptized in
*
the name of the Lord Jesus.
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 Then, when Paul laid his hands upon their heads, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they spoke in other languages and prophesied.
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 The men involved were about twelve in number.

    
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 Then Paul went to the synagogue and preached boldly each Sabbath day
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for three months, telling what he believed and why,
*
and persuading many to believe in Jesus.
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 But some rejected his message and publicly spoke against Christ, so he left, refusing to preach to them again. Pulling out the believers, he began a separate meeting at the lecture hall of Tyrannus and preached there daily.
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 This went on for the next two years, so that everyone in the Turkish province of Asia Minor—both Jews and Greeks—heard the Lord’s message.

    
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 And God gave Paul the power to do unusual miracles,
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 so that even when his handkerchiefs or parts of his clothing were placed upon sick people, they were healed, and any demons within them came out.

    
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 A team of itinerant Jews who were traveling from town to town casting out demons planned to experiment by using the name of the Lord Jesus. The incantation they decided on was this: “I adjure you by Jesus, whom Paul preaches, to come out!”
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 Seven sons of Sceva, a Jewish priest, were doing this.
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 But when they tried it on a man possessed by a demon, the demon replied, “I know Jesus and I know Paul, but who are you?”
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 And he leaped on two of them and beat them up, so that they fled out of his house naked and badly injured.

    
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 The story of what happened spread quickly all through Ephesus, to Jews and Greeks alike; and a solemn fear descended on the city, and the name of the Lord Jesus was greatly honored.
^18-19
 Many of the believers who had been practicing black magic confessed their deeds and brought their incantation books and charms and burned them at a public bonfire. (Someone estimated the value of the books at $10,000.
*
)
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 This indicates how deeply the whole area was stirred by God’s message.

    
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 Afterwards Paul felt impelled by the Holy Spirit
*
to go across to Greece before returning to Jerusalem. “And after that,” he said, “I must go on to Rome!”
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 He sent his two assistants, Timothy and Erastus, on ahead to Greece while he stayed awhile longer in Asia Minor.

    
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 But about that time, a big blowup developed in Ephesus concerning the Christians.
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 It began with Demetrius, a silversmith who employed many craftsmen to manufacture silver shrines of the Greek goddess Diana.
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 He called a meeting of his men, together with others employed in related trades, and addressed them as follows:

    
“Gentlemen, this business is our income.
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 As you know so well from what you’ve seen and heard, this man Paul has persuaded many, many people that handmade gods aren’t gods at all. As a result, our sales volume is going down! And this trend is evident not only here in Ephesus, but throughout the entire province!
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 Of course, I am not only talking about the business aspects of this situation and our loss of income, but also of the possibility that the temple of the great goddess Diana will lose its influence, and that Diana—this magnificent goddess worshiped not only throughout this part of Turkey but all around the world—will be forgotten!”

    
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 At this their anger boiled and they began shouting, “Great is Diana of the Ephesians!”

    
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 A crowd began to gather, and soon the city was filled with confusion. Everyone rushed to the amphitheater, dragging along Gaius and Aristarchus, Paul’s traveling companions, for trial.
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 Paul wanted to go in, but the disciples wouldn’t let him.
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 Some of the Roman officers of the province, friends of Paul, also sent a message to him, begging him not to risk his life by entering.

    
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 Inside the people were all shouting, some one thing and some another—everything was in confusion. In fact, most of them didn’t even know why they were there.

    
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 Alexander was spotted among the crowd by some of the Jews and dragged forward. He motioned for silence and tried to speak.
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 But when the crowd realized he was a Jew, they started shouting again and kept it up for two hours: “Great is Diana of the Ephesians! Great is Diana of the Ephesians!”

    
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 At last the mayor was able to quiet them down enough to speak. “Men of Ephesus,” he said, “everyone knows that Ephesus is the center
*
of the religion of the great Diana, whose image fell down to us from heaven.
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 Since this is an indisputable fact, you shouldn’t be disturbed no matter what is said, and should do nothing rash.
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 Yet you have brought these men here who have stolen nothing from her temple and have not defamed her.
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 If Demetrius and the craftsmen have a case against them, the courts are currently in session and the judges can take the case at once. Let them go through legal channels.
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 And if there are complaints about other matters, they can be settled at the regular City Council meetings;
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 for we are in danger of being called to account by the Roman government for today’s riot, since there is no cause for it. And if Rome demands an explanation, I won’t know what to say.”

    
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 Then he dismissed them, and they dispersed.