Day 07 - Ephesus, Ephesus Museum

As one might expect, after days wandering through archaeological ruins, many things begin to look alike. Rocks on top of rocks, olive trees, fig trees, hummus, chicken and rice.   Statues, headless statues, busts, pillars, cats and more cats. It seems like there are cats & dogs everywhere around here. 

Just when you begin to think it’s all looking the same, the words written by Paul and John merge in powerful ways with the ancient culture that we are standing in the middle of.

Things become alive again.

OK. We are now in the town of Ephesus. Among many things, Ephesus was known as the center of the dark arts in witchcraft. It was also the most important wealthiest city of its time. We focused on two eras of biblical history: The time when Paul was there, and around 30 years later when John wrote to the Seven Churches as recorded in Revelation.

When Paul first arrived at Ephesus, he met several disciples of John the Baptist. Paul asked them if they had been baptized in the Holy Spirit and they replied no. So John baptized them and they began to exhibit gifts of the Spirit. Cool!!

Paul taught in the synagogue for three months. He stayed for at least another two years. And during that time, it seemed that all heaven broke loose in Ephesus. The good news of Jesus rocked the city, and the gospel spread fast and far.

Facilitating that expansion was the fact that Ephesus was a major port city of around 300,000 filled with merchants, sailors, soldiers, a rhetorical center, a medical school, trade areas, arena, and they even conducted something called the medical Olympics to see who is the best at surgery. I don’t think I would want to be part of that competition :-).  All this combined in a way to ignite the spread of the gospel.

The city had tremendous wealth. They have recently unearthed seven homes of the wealthiest families in the center of the city. The attached photos include painted walls, large spaces and beautiful mosaics. It is likely that some of the early churches would’ve met in these homes as the city became more and more “Christian“.

It was in the setting of wealth that Paul wrote from Ephesus to Timothy instructing him about generosity. Some of that is recorded in 1 Tim 6:6-10. As a group, we talked through what could be when we leverage our resources to move the needle in making a positive difference in our world. We as people will thrive best when we have purpose in life. Embracing systematic no strings generosity is like kryptonite to greed. It begins with God- given humility. Humility leads to contentment and contentment unlocks generosity.

After talking about how to move the needle, we walked through the community restroom of Ephesus which had 38 seats.  In the middle someone would’ve played a harp or some other instrument while people were using it. You can see the pictures of what that looked like. 

From there, and right next door, we stopped by the biggest brothel that was ever unearthed. It was right across the street from the wealthy homes, the library… basically in the center of everything. It’s just something that people did then. 

The big structure that you see a group photo in front of is the Celsus Library. It’s one of the most iconic pictures taken in Turkey today.

We then walked past the theater currently being refurbished and over to the Agora which was the large marketplace. It was 111 m x 111 m. This Agora was the slave trade capital of the Roman Empire. In that culture, the father had the right to welcome or dismiss children from his family. If the father stretched out his arm, the baby would be kept. If not, the baby would be left exposed in the Agora or on a mountain side. People then looked over the exposed children in the agora to see what ones had potential to be sold. There is even a document recovered that explains what to look for in babies to see if they are worth rearing.  Little girls were picked to be raised as prostitutes. Christians distinguished themselves because their view of life was very different. All life mattered. It was in that setting; Paul uses in an image they would relate with. in Ephesians 1:4-6, he talks about “us” being left exposed in our sin and God chose us… He picked us out and adopted us and gave us his identity.

In 81 A.D. the Caesar Domitian selected Ephesus as his “Vatican“. He had them erect a platformed area to make a large temple and a statue of him 20 feet tall. As time went on he became more and more paranoid about losing power and persecuted anyone he saw as a threat. He even forced his wife to call him “my Lord and my god“. He demanded worship and if you wouldn’t do that, it was punishable by death. Also, to do business in the Agora, you had to offer incense to Domitian and receive a mark on your right hand to prove that you did. That mark was required to do trade. That put the Christians in a very tough spot. The people of Ephesus would have understood exactly what John wrote in Revelation 13:16-17.  

Then it was back on the bus and to the Ephesus Museum where our guide Gokhan took us through some of the history of the city. Including some of the original coins, the worship of Mother Goddess dating back to 5750 BC, and then a model of the Artemis temple. 

There are so many other things in Jesus/John’s letter that the people of Ephesus would’ve resonated with. It was also impossible to fully connect the 7 letters to their respective cultures in this blog, so stay tuned to our Virtual Turkey series that will debut after the first of the year. It is our hope to do small group studies during that series using the materials and people who attended the Turkey trip. 

We wrapped up the day back on the Aegean Sea with a beautiful view of the Turkish scenery and some of our team taking a dip in the Aegean.