Day 02 - Ephesus

We started day 2 as we started day 1, meeting for devotions on the deck of our hotel in Kusadasi, Turkey, watching the waves of the Aegean sea roll in… 

For his devotional this morning Marty shared his go-to prayer that he prays when he is in need of encouragement… a prayer recorded by the apostle Paul as he wound up his letter to the church in Ephesus:

“Pray also for me, that whenever I speak, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may declare it fearlessly, as I should.” (Ephesians 6:19-20)

By the end of the day, a day spent exploring the ancient city of Ephesus, and really digesting the realities of life for first century believers in a world of empire and imperial emperor worship, the words of this prayer had come explosively alive. 

Ancient Ephesus is big. Really big. Whopping big. The kind of big that makes your eyes pop and your jaw drop and makes you exclaim, “WOW!”

Ephesus was the second largest city in the Roman Empire with a population of about a third of a million people. The Celsus library (according to Wiki, the 3rd largest library in the Greco-Roman world and believed to have held around 12,000 scrolls) was in Ephesus.

Ephesus had the largest theater in the ancient world, estimated to seat 24,000. In addition to a temple built to honor the Roman Emperor Domitian, the largest gymnasium (think university) in the ancient world, also built to honor Domitian, was in Ephesus. And Ephesus was home to many, many pagan temples, including the temple of their much loved Artemis, goddess of sexual fertility. 

It was to the Ephesian believers of this world that Paul wrote:

“For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all God’s people, I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers.” (Ephesians 1:15-16) 

Their ‘love for all God’s people’… the Ephesian believers were getting it… and, living smack-dab in the middle of Roman Empire, they were proclaiming it… love… unity… inclusion… the medium is the message!

And then the day ended with a segue from Paul’s words to the Ephesian believers to Jesus’ words to them in the book of Revelation (was the ‘first love’ they had left the very thing Paul had commended them for???) and with a chilling picture and a challenge.

Imagine… Domitian is coming. Domitian, who has declared himself lord and god and who demands worship and who tolerates no other god before him… Domitian, who, in the world of man, is all-powerful and is leading a terrifying persecution of Christians, is coming. What do you do? Do you hide? Do you compromise? Do you gather in unity with your brothers and sisters in the strength and love of God? Do you stand?? 

Imagine… Domitian arrives…

“My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one- I in them and you in me- so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.” (John 17:20-23)

… do you stand?

- Laurie B.