Day 04 - Ephesus, Ephesus Museum

Today was all about Ephesus. And wow! There’s a reason why you want to reserve a day for this one site. The ruins are sprawling and magnificent, bustling with visitors eager to be immersed in its ancient story.

After orienting ourselves at our entry point, we entered the Bouleuterion (city council) and everyone spent time quietly reading Acts 19, Luke’s account of Paul’s ministry in Ephesus. Pastor Chad guided our reflections on the miraculous power of God working through Paul in a city that had a particular affinity for the magic arts.

From there, we walked the main city streets—streets that Paul undoubtedly walked himself—and imagined how life on the thoroughfares would have been teeming with the energy of commerce, religious ritual, and many other aspects of everyday life in one the Roman empire’s most prestigious and wealthiest cities.

In fact, some of Ephesus’s wealthiest citizens enjoyed unbelievable opulence represented by their luxurious homes. We saw what are called “Terrace Houses,” multistory condo-like homes with elaborate décor, floor mosaics, heated floors, and even indoor plumbing!

We then ventured to the visual centerpiece of the current site of Ephesus, the Library of Celsus. If you’ve ever seen an image of Ephesus in your search results, odds are you saw photographs of the façade of this library. The photos online don’t do it justice. Photos can’t truly capture its sheer size, color, detail craftsman ship, or even the energy of the crowds that would have been abuzz 2,000 years ago.

From the library we arrived at the agora, the city’s primary marketplace. All sorts of goods were sold in this space, including humans. Pastor Anthony connected the reality of human trafficking to the ideas and impulses that saturate Paul’s letters to Ephesus, Rome, and Corinth. Paul saw the slave trade firsthand, and even he was in Roman custody when he wrote his letter to Ephesus. These realities stand behind Paul’s metaphor that we were once enslaved to sin, but through Christ we become slaves of righteousness and of God. And for Paul, true freedom is found in full service to God and his kingdom.

Our next visit was the Ephesus Museum, which houses many of the statues, reliefs, coins, and other artifacts that reveal in even higher definition life in the ancient city.

After the museum, we made our final stop of the day at the nearby temple of Artemis. Only a pillar and a few other stacked blocks remain erect. The ruins are hardly a shadow of its former glory as the largest temple in Asia Minor. Here, we considered the nature of the Artemis cult—its strong ties to magic and to Artemis’s veneration as a goddess of midwifery. In a world where pregnancy and delivery were the leading causes of female and infant mortality, these key details about the Artemis cult in Paul’s day help explain why Paul encourages women that it is Christ (not Artemis) who truly has the power to save or preserve life through the often lethal process of childbearing (1 Timothy 2:15).

Finally, we reflected on the first letter to the Seven Churches in Revelation 2, the letter to the angel of the church of Ephesus. Pastor Anthony highlighted how the Ephesian Christians faithfully held to the sound teaching of the gospel and refused to compromise on truth, but they had lost the love for one another they first enacted, and what Paul had commended (Ephesians 1:15) nearly 40 years prior to John’s letter. While vigilance for truth is commendable and necessary, we must never let our love for one another grow cold. May all we do be seasoned by truth in love.