Day 07 - Ephesus & Ephesus Museum

Okay. We’re confused. This is the blog for day 8 – or is it day 9. Or maybe only day 7. By this time in our trip no one is quite sure what day it is. All I know I that my Google calendar says it’s Day 9 while our Blog counter has us only at Day 7. I think all any of us really know is that we are becoming thoroughly immersed in the 1st century world of the Apostles Paul and, now finally John. And that we are covering this territory far faster and in much greater comfort than any of the apostles or early missionaries.

We have arrived at last in Ephesus. Here is where the Paul settled in for several years. Here is where he wrote several canonical letters including those to the Corinthians (the exact # is something scholars seem somewhat uncertain (confused) about – and certainly something that not our merry band of confused GTI Pilgrims are likely to resolve). However, our faithful bible leader Craig clearly reminded us today that the themes of the book of Romans, written in Corinth, were likely hammered out right here in Ephesus as Paul held daily seminars in the “School of Tyrannus”.

We actually began our time here in Kusadasi (just outside of Ephesus) by spreading our confusion to the hotel staff who never did figure out why Americans would want the air conditioning turned on at a time when Turkish people are busy starting their furnaces for the season!

But the food was great and most seemed to sleep well. So, we could spend a full morning touring the recovered and restored site of Ephesus itself. An amazing venue large enough and grand enough on scale that we didn’t just “look at” the ruins but lived into them for half a day. A highlight was sitting in the very theatre on the actual seats where Paul was being accused by a riotous mob of turning the world upside down (Acts 19).

We also were reinforced in understanding that it was (at least by tradition) in Ephesus that John spent his last years before the exile on Patmos from where he wrote the letters to the Seven churches of the region. We also saw evidence of the strongly attested tradition that this is indeed where Mary the mother of Jesus lived out her final years, cared for by John who had been given that assignment by Jesus himself on the cross.

We do have a free afternoon for shopping, using the spa, getting a massage, or whatever else we need/desire before the confusion sets in again. Because essentially we now are scheduled to omit a night of sleep, leaving the hotel at 12:30 AM (sic!) to catch a 4:15 AM flight to Greece.

Yet, as Ozan, our Turkish guide always told us (or maybe it was Craig – I get confused) we’ve always been needing to ask at each stop – why are we here? It seems clear we are probably here to be forced to ask ourselves whether, like Paul, we are still witnesses to a Gospel that is still “turning the world upside down” or whether we also are still like the churches that the corrective admonition of the seven churches to whom John wrote in Revelation. At minimum this trip is helping clear up any of the confusion we may have over that.