As Paul wraps up his parting words to the Ephesian elders, we'll learn what happened to the Church at Ephesus in the decades that followed.
Transcription (automatically-generated):
Well, unbelievably, in this Bible study, this very Bible study, Paul is going to actually leave Miletus, where he has been speaking with the Ephesian elders for four weeks. That's how long it's taken us. But in reality, it was likely just an afternoon for Paul and the elders. You will recall that Paul the apostle is on his way to Jerusalem following the leading of the Holy Spirit. He has stopped briefly at the coastal town of Miletus, where he has called the elders of the church from nearby Ephesus to come and meet with him one last time.
Paul had ministered in Ephesus for three years and planted a church there, so it was especially precious to him. In Acts 20, verse 32, we'll pick up Paul's parting words to the pastors from Ephesus. And now I commit you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and to give you an inheritance among all who are sanctified. All the knowledge Paul had shared with them, all the warnings he had given them, would not be sufficient to protect them from the attacks of the enemy and keep them on track with the Lord. No amount of information could do that.
Therefore, Paul's hope was not solely in the information he had shared, but in Christ, who said, I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overpower it. Paul's hope was in the Holy Spirit, given by Jesus to every believer, that they might have the power to obey him and the wisdom to apply the scriptures. Speaking of the Spirit, Jesus told his disciples, when the Counselor comes, the one I will send to you from the Father, the spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will testify about me. Paul was well acquainted with the power of the spirit. He described his ministry to the Colossians as, striving with all his strength.
That works powerfully in me. Paul's hope was in the power of the word of God. He would later write this to Timothy after Timothy had been leading the church in Ephesus for several years. All scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. And last, we know that Paul would be faithfully praying for the Ephesians.
It was his custom to pray for the churches he had planted, and his deep love for them kept them on his mind over the years and miles that lay ahead. Information is insufficient for the Christian life. When the information of the scriptures is taken in by a person filled with the Holy Spirit, well, then something supernatural takes place. The spirit gives that man or woman a mind to understand the things of God. And the spirit gives them the power to obey what they read in the scriptures.
And when a group of people come together to do that, Jesus is faithful to build them into a church. Would you make a note of this on your outlines? Without the power of the spirit to apply the word of God to our lives, the Bible is simply truthful information. Without the power of the spirit to apply the word of God to our lives, the Bible is simply truthful information. A church loves the word of God.
Hopefully, that's apparent. But there is a great danger that we can fall in love with the information found in the scriptures. Without understanding our desperate need to be filled with the spirit, there is a danger that we can read the Bible and understand how we should live and what we should do and then think that because we understand, we will do. In other words, we can fall into the trap of thinking the only reason we don't do the things we ought to do is because we don't know that we ought to do them. We're just ignorant.
And so once we have the right information, we'll be good to go. But that's not how it works, is it? Paul was a better Christian than any of us will ever be. And yet he wrote this. It's on your outlines.
The apostle Paul said, I do not understand what I am doing because I do not practice what I want to do, but I do what I hate. Nothing good lives in me that is in my flesh, for the desire to do what is good is with me, but there's no ability to do it, for I do not do the good that I want to do, but I practice the evil that I do not want to do. In my inner self, I delight in God's law, but I see a different law in the parts of my body. Waging war against the law of my mind and taking me prisoner to the law of sin in the parts of my body. What a wretched man I am who will rescue me from this body of death.
Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. The Bible is the truth. It is God's word. And it lays out how to walk in his ways, how to live a life that is pleasing to him and is as full of his love, joy, and peace as possible. But if you try to do what is in the Bible in your own strength, all you will find is that you have greater knowledge about all the ways that you're messing up.
You'll discover that you can now see your sins with greater clarity, but you cannot actually change at the deep soul level that makes us who we are. The secret is the power of the Holy Spirit. He gives us the power to obey Christ and his word, rather than our emotions and our carnal desires. He even changes the way we think, giving us what Paul called the mind of Christ. We have a desperate need to be filled with the power of the Holy Spirit every day, a desperate need.
And so when we read God's word, we need to think about it this way. I see how Christ is calling me to live. I see what he wants me to do. I see that it's good I can't do it. But praise God.
He gives me his spirit so that through his power, I can do it. So, Lord, please fill me with your spirit so that I have the power to obey your word and experience your love, joy, and peace in my life. The best, most thorough Bible teaching in the world will not give you the power to change your life. All it can do is point you to Christ, and he gives the power by his spirit.
When Paul refers to the word of his grace, he's referring to the gospel which he earlier called the gospel of God's grace. He says to the Ephesian elders that he commits them to the gospel. He entrusts them to the gospel and tells them it is able to build you up and give you an inheritance among all who are sanctified. If we needed a reminder, here it is. The gospel is not something we need to hear once and then respond to.
It is something we need to hear and respond to and then hear again and meditate on again and dwell upon again over and over and over and over. The way Paul speaks of the gospel makes it clear that the gospel not only saves us but is instrumental to our ongoing sanctification and encouragement. Our need to be reminded of the gospel is why Christ gave us the gift of communion. For if we receive it with the right heart and posture, it reminds us of what the Lord has done for us, how much he loves us, that our sins are forgiven, and that we have fellowship with God through the blood of Jesus. And note this what does Paul say gives us an inheritance among all who are sanctified?
How do we earn our place among the children of God? We don't. The word of his grace, the gospel of God's grace is what gives us this glorious inheritance. We receive it as we receive all things in the Christian life by faith in Christ. And our job is to stay focused on who we are in Christ by returning to the gospel and focusing on it daily.
So make a note of this very simply. We have a daily need for the gospel. We have a daily need for the gospel to be washed in it, saturated with it. It's the gospel that protects against false teaching because in it, God declares that those who are in Christ are already forgiven. Jesus's work was total, and nothing need be added to it.
Faith alone in Christ is what saves a person, and when you understand that, you will be protected from false teachings that seek to add things to the gospel. The gospel also protects against false teaching because the sacrifice of Jesus on our behalf demands our entire lives. The true gospel leaves no room for a Christ who serves as an accessory to our lives, only a Christ who comes into your life to reign as king, reign as Lord. The gospel protects against minimizing the cost of Christ, and the gospel protects against adding to the work of Christ on our behalf. Our brother Peter encouraged believers to be on your guard so that you were not led away by the error of lawless people and fall from your own stable position.
But - and here's what Peter instructs us to do to protect ourselves from being led away - Grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Be filled with the spirit. Take in the word of God. Meditate on the Gospel daily.
You may recall from our previous study that Paul wrote to Timothy, his pastoral protege, about false teachers who were in it for the money teaching a prosperity gospel. In 1 Timothy 6:5, Paul called them, those who imagine that godliness is a way to material gain. Paul will now remind the Ephesian elders that he could never be accused of such wicked motivations or ulterior motives. In verse 33, Paul says, I have not coveted anyone's silver or gold or clothing. You yourselves know that I worked with my own hands to support myself and those who are with me.
We talked about this earlier in our study of Paul's travels. In the Book of Acts, he was single, no wife, no kids that he needed to take care of. And when he was beginning a ministry work in a new city, he would sometimes work part-time or full-time and then minister for the rest of the day. There were several seasons where he was pulling 14-hour work days when you put his ministry and his job together, and he was doing that every day except for the Sabbath. That's how Paul got started in Ephesus.
And then once the church was birthed in a city, the congregation would hopefully do the right thing and subsidize Paul's ministry so that he could devote himself full-time to shepherding the church. And Paul wrote quite a bit about how churches should support their pastors financially. The point he desired to make to the Ephesian elders was that nobody could examine his life and his ministry and conclude that he was in it for the money. He had lived among these brothers for three years, and his conduct spoke for itself. The Bible teaches that there is an evil spiritual force behind the love of money that seeks to enslave men as its worshippers.
To the Jews, this spiritual force was known as mammon, and Jesus taught plainly, no one can serve two masters, since he will either hate one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money. And Hebrews 13 commands, believers, keep your life free from the love of money. Be satisfied with what you have. For he himself, the Lord, has said, I will never leave you or abandon you.
Believers are not to trust or desire money more than God, nor are we to find greater security and safety in money than we do in belonging to our heavenly Father. And if this is true for all believers, and it is, it is especially true for those who are called to shepherd the church. Paul would say it plainly in his letter to Titus, where among the requirements for elders, he wrote that they must not be greedy for money. Any pastor truly called by the Holy Spirit will not be motivated by money. Therefore, when you see a pastor who is motivated by money, know that they are not qualified for that position.
That's not my opinion. That's what Paul writes in the word of God, verse 35. In every way I've shown you that it is necessary to help the weak by laboring like this and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus, because he said, it is more blessed to give than to receive. Paul tells the elders, I've lived and ministered in such a way that nobody can accuse me of ulterior motives. And that is how you are called to live and minister as pastors.
I've given you an example over the past three years, and my example was based on the example of Christ, as Paul had written earlier to the Corinthians. Imitate me as I also imitate Christ. The example of Jesus' life is that of a man with a laser focus on his relationship with his heavenly Father. And in that relationship he found satisfaction. It was where he was filled with the spirit daily.
And because his deepest needs were met in his relationship with his father, Jesus was able to live a life not focused on himself. He could give himself away and have eyes to see beyond his own fleshly desires. And Jesus did this by ministering to the weak. Paul told the Ephesian elders that such ministry was inherent to their calling. The weak may be fellow believers struggling financially.
The weak may be believers who are young in the faith and therefore not yet strong in the faith. They may be emotionally underdeveloped and more than a little rough around the edges. They may be wrestling with doubt, fear, or anxiety. They may be battling strong sins. They may be overcome by grief or despair.
There are many ways that a believer may be weak. And Paul tells the elders, you're called to minister to them. And if there's not enough money to support all of you, you're still called to do whatever you can to care for the flock, as I did when I worked 14 hours days among you while establishing the church in Ephesus. And when you get tired and discouraged, remember the example of Christ and what he said. It is more blessed to give than to receive.
And I suggest you that all believers are called to minister to the weak among us. And here's what you'll discover. You will find yourself among the weak more than once and in more than one way. And when you do, what kind of brothers and sisters do you want to be surrounded by? Now give yourself to the task of being that brother or sister in Christ, so that the weak among us are cared for.
So that when you're the weak among us, you will be cared for, which will happen. Write this down. When believers are satisfied in Christ, they will be able to minister effectively to the weak. When believers are satisfied in Christ, they will be able to minister effectively to the weak. You're not going to be very effective at blessing or ministering to anybody else when instead of getting your deepest needs met in Christ, you want other people to meet them.
You're just going to come to church and be demanding of everyone complaining that nobody's giving you the attention you deserve. Nobody's caring for me the way I should be. I should be the center of attention. You're never going to minister effectively to other people unless your deepest needs are being met in Christ. The interesting thing about the quote from Jesus that Paul shares it is more blessed to give than to receive, is that it's not recorded anywhere in the gospels.
This is the only quote by Jesus recorded outside the gospels. It was a clearly known quote among Christians, meaning that one or more of the twelve disciples had shared it. And this shouldn't alarm us, as Paul was well established as an uppercase-A Apostle and the other apostles recognized his ministry. Also, the gospels do not contain anywhere close to every word that Jesus spoke during his ministry, nor do they contain anywhere close to every deed and miracle that Jesus did. One of my favorite verses in the whole Bible is found at the end of the Gospel of John where he writes this.
See if I can get through it without choking up. He says there are also many other things that Jesus did which if every one of them were written down, I suppose not even the world itself could contain the books that would be written. That always hits me, because what you see in the gospels is just a tiny, tiny part of what Jesus did. Everywhere he went, he was speaking profound truths, working miracles, healing the sick, just more wonderful than we could imagine. I want to be clear that only the Bible contains the words and deeds of Jesus that he wanted us to remember.
There are many false gospels, such as the gnostic gospels, that are not part of the Bible and claim to offer bonus content about the life and teachings of Christ. And to this day, they will circulate with rumors like, this is the real gospel that Christianity doesn't want you to know about. The truth is that these false gospels have been floating around for centuries and centuries, and they've been debunked for centuries and centuries. They're forgeries, they're fakes, they're fabrications, they're lies. And yet they still come around to this day every few decades to deceive more gullible people.
Tons of great books go into detail about this, and there's many great YouTube videos on the subject. They're easy to find. And I just want to share one really practical point on that. Anytime someone claims to present a new truth to you or claims that what you believe is untrue, take the time to study the arguments and the counterarguments. This drives me absolutely insane.
The average person will hear an argument and go like, oh, I don't know what to believe anymore because I heard this argument. Well, did you think about googling the counterargument? One more search and you'd probably find great answers to that question. So if you ever hear something, go listen to the argument. That's fine, but for crying out loud, go look at the counterargument too.
Don't just be like, oh, I've found something that makes me doubt my faith. I'll just leave it at that. Go and actually look up the answer because I promise there's a really, really good answer. Someone sends you a video and says, watch this video on the Gospel of Thomas.
It proves the Bible is lying about Jesus. You watch the video and it's compelling, it's disturbing, and you think, is it true? Is the Bible a lie? Literally? Just stay on YouTube and type, "Is the gospel of Thomas true?"
And watch some videos by a few decent Christian apologists, examine the arguments and the counterarguments, and I'll tell you what you'll find. As Jay Warner Wallace says, I'm not a Christian because it works for me. I'm a Christian because it's true. And that's what you'll find when you examine all of the evidence. Verse 36.
After he said this, Paul, he knelt down and prayed with all of them. There were many tears shed by everyone. They embraced Paul and kissed him, grieving most of all over his statement that they would never see his face again. And they accompanied him to the ship. There's nothing better than the love of God.
Nothing. And Paul loved the church with the love of God. And that is why they loved him so much. They had witnessed him pour out his life for three years for the sake of the gospel, showing them what the love of God was like. And like Jesus, Paul was so grounded in his relationship with the Lord that he was able to live and minister free of self interest.
No wonder people loved him. No wonder they loved him. And more importantly, no wonder the Lord anointed and approved of Paul's ministry. Within a few years of Paul's meeting with the Ephesian elders, his pastoral protege Timothy, became a key elder in Ephesus and the primary point of contact with Paul. Via letters and from these letters, we learn that Paul's warnings were indeed urgent, as the Ephesian church would face the threat of false teachers.
In his first letter to Timothy, this is on your outlines. Paul writes, as I urged you when I went to Macedonia, remain in Ephesus so that you may instruct certain people not to teach false doctrines or pay attention to myths and endless genealogies. These promote empty speculations rather than God's plan, which operates by faith. Now, the goal of our instruction is love that comes from a pure heart, a good conscience, and a sincere faith. Some have departed from these and turned aside to fruitless discussion.
They want to be teachers of the law, although they don't understand what they're saying or what they are insisting on. Instead of obeying the explicit commands of scripture, certain men were veering off into speculations about the Old Testament, fruitless discussions about minor issues and genealogies. I sometimes encounter people who fit this description. They ignore clear commands of Christ while focusing instead on tertiary issues like angels or Old Testament numerology and conspiracy theories related to biblical topics. They say things like, oh, did you know that in an ancient Hebrew scroll which was recently discovered, the word blank is used to mean blank, which is different to the interpretation in our English Bibles.
I mean, what if every Christian and the entire church for the past 2000 years has been wrong about this and only me and the group of people I talk with on the Internet are right? What if. And Paul's instruction to Timothy was tell them to cut it out. Keep the main thing. The main thing, stay focused on the gospel and obeying Christ.
Paul then names names, mentioning Hymenaeus and Alexander, writing that they had rejected the gospel and shipwrecked the faith. He noted that he had - get this - delivered them to Satan so that they might be taught not to blaspheme. That means Paul had ordered them removed from church membership and excommunicated from the church. And the concept is sobering. When you look at what Paul says, the concept is sobering because it implies there is a measure of protection against Satan that is provided by being part of a church body.
This is not the only place in the New Testament where we see Paul do something like this. His point in doing this is, okay, you don't want to obey Christ. You'd rather obey Satan than go and be with Satan and see how that goes for you. Because we're not playing games here. You can't have 1ft in the kingdom and 1ft in the world.
If a person is truly saved, losing fellowship and spiritual protection will affect them deeply. It will convict them and lead them to repentance. If they walk away, don't miss it at all. Feel no conviction in their spirit. It proves sadly, that they were never saved.
In his second letter to Timothy, Paul is forced to address the fact that false teachers have stirred up a revolt against him and his teaching in churches throughout the province of Asia. He mentions Phygelus and Hermogenes, writing that they had deserted him. Hymenaeus is mentioned again later in that same letter, along with Philetus. Paul writes, this saying is trustworthy, for if we died with him, we will also live with him. If we endure, we will also reign with him. If we deny him, he will also deny us.
If we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot disown himself. Remind them of these things and charge them before God not to fight about words. This is useless and leads to the ruin of those who listen. Be diligent to present yourself to God as one approved a worker who doesn't need to be ashamed. Correctly teaching the word of truth avoid irreverent and empty speech, since those who engage in it will produce even more godlessness, and their teaching will spread like gangrene. Hymenaeus and Philetus are among them. They have departed from the truth, saying that the resurrection has already taken place. They are ruining the faith of some. Nevertheless, God's solid foundation stands firm bearing this inscription, the Lord knows those who are his and let everyone who calls on the name of the Lord turn away from wickedness.
It seems Hymenaeus and Philetus were teaching that Christians had already received their resurrected bodies and were now going to live forever on the earth.
And because Paul shortly follows that by saying, let everyone who calls on the name of the Lord turn away from wickedness, we can reasonably infer that they were using this false teaching to claim that Christians were therefore sinless and incapable of sin, because we're in our resurrected bodies now. And they would use that logic to justify, guess what? Sinning almost certainly meaning indulging in sexual immorality. In the apostle John's third epistle, he addresses a false teacher in Ephesus named Diotrephes, writing, I wrote something to the church, but Diotrephes, who loves to have first place among them, does not receive our authority. This is why, if I come, I will remind him of the works he is doing, slandering us with malicious words.
And he's not satisfied with that. He not only refuses to welcome fellow believers, but he even stops those who want to do so and expels them from the church. This Diotrephes guy was displaying classic characteristics of a false teacher who rises within a church, slandering godly pastors out of a desire to draw followers to himself, to satiate his ego. He was also working to isolate those in the church in Ephesus by keeping them away from any believing visitors who would come to town because they would have surely looked at what was happening and said, what the heck is going on here? This is unbiblical, this is wrong.
And so Diotrephes employed a classic cult tactic which is isolating people. Revelation two, you may recall, contains a letter recorded by the apostle John, but dictated by the Lord Jesus to the church 30 to 40 years after Paul met with the elders on the shore of Miletus. It provides some fascinating insight into what happened in their church in the decades following Paul's words in Acts chapter 20. You can turn to Revelation chapter two, if you'd like.
It's the last book in your Bible. Revelation, chapter two. You can listen to the full teaching on that letter in our Revelation series on the website, but let's read some of it right now. In Revelation chapter two, verse two, Jesus says to the church in Ephesus 30 to 40 years later, I know your works, your labor, and your endurance, and that you cannot tolerate evil people. You have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and you have found them to be liars.
I know that you have persevered and endured hardships for the sake of my name and that you have not grown weary. Praise God. They heeded Paul's words spoken at Miletus. Timothy heeded the exhortations Paul shared in his letters. The elders guarded the church against false teachers, tested everything against the word of God, and kicked people out who tried to spread unbiblical teachings.
In verse seven, Jesus also commends them for hating the practices of the Nicolaitans. Nicolaitan was a term used for men who propagated the false teaching that there are tiers of spirituality. They taught that pastors should be priests because they are closer to God than the people of the church. This is a false teaching because the New Testament teaches no such hierarchy. It teaches that all who desire to have access to God can have equal access to God.
Pastors serve in their capacity not because they have special access to God, but simply because it is the role in which Christ has called them to serve. As Paul told Timothy, there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus. And in between all that good stuff is a serious warning from the Lord Jesus. He tells them in verse four, but I have this against you. You have abandoned the love you had at first.
And there it is. The great danger that can arise from being focused on the word and the truth of the scriptures. We can become so concerned with the Bible and learning everything about it that we can miss the forest for the trees. We can forget that the entire reason the Bible exists is to point us to Christ. In Romans 125, Paul eviscerates those who worship nature writing.
They exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served what has been created instead of the creator. Paul's point was, can you imagine anything more foolish than worshiping creation rather than the creator? The reason creation exists is to point to the creator. We hear that and think, you are so right, Paul. And yet Christians with good intentions can fall in love with the Bible to such a degree that they forget the reason it exists is to point us to Christ.
That's the reason we love the word of God. That's the reason we love to study the scriptures - because as we learn them, we learn more about Christ, which informs and blesses our relationship with Christ. The Ephesians had their doctrine on point. They had the information locked down. They obeyed the commands of Christ.
They saw in the scriptures. And yet, in doing all that, their emotions, their passion for Christ, their love for him, began to fall away, and they began doing what is right, because it is right, and that is good. But Christ does not want obedience for obedience's sake. He wants obedience because we love him. He wants our hearts.
He wants our affections.
And it's so easy for our flesh to say, can't we make it a checklist instead?
Write this down. The Bible is not an end to itself. It exists to point us to Christ. The Bible is not an end unto itself. It exists to point us to Christ.
Well, Jeff, I love the Bible. Praise God for that. How do I know if I'm making the same mistake the Ephesians made? It's simple. Is your love for God's word and your time in God's word producing in you a greater love and passion for the Lord?
Is your love for God's word and your time in God's word producing in you a greater love and passion for the Lord? That's the question. If it is, praise God, you're doing it right. If it's not, Jesus tells us what to do in verse is remember then how far you have fallen. Repent and do the works you did at first.
I'll ask the worship team to come up. Let me read it one more time, he says. Remember then how far you have fallen. Repent and do the works you did at first. In other words, think back to when you did have a love and a passion for the Lord.
Think back to when you were moved to tears regularly by his love and his grace. Think about the things you were doing at that time. Think about the posture of your heart. Think about your attitude and approach to Bible study, church worship, and prayer, and go back to that.
Passion for Christ is not something for new believers only. It's not something we're supposed to outgrow. On the contrary, the more of him we see, the more we love him. Our zeal for God should only increase along with our knowledge of God.
Happily, Ignatius's letter to the Ephesians, written a decade or two later, shows they did indeed heed Christ's admonition delivered through the apostle John and recovered their love for Jesus in full measure. And all I'm going to say in closing is, this is Jesus is the point of everything. He is the point of everything. And I want to invite you as we pray in a moment to reorient your life around Christ for the first time or for the millionth time. Whatever deep need you have, it can be satisfied in Christ.
And the deepest needs you have can only be satisfied in Christ. So let's pray together. Lord, thank you so much for your word. And thank you that it is the truth. And thank you that it is life.
Lord, we love your word so much. We are so grateful and thankful for it. But, Lord, we pray, please do not let us miss the forest for the trees. Do not let us miss the fact that everything in your word is written to reveal you and to point to you, that we might know you and see you more clearly. So, Lord, please let us not be eager to simply add information and knowledge about you, but let us be desperate to know you, to know you more, to be closer to you, to experience your nearness to a greater degree, to be moved with love and with gratitude and with zeal as we come to slowly, bit by bit, wrap our heads a little bit more around how amazing your love for us really is.
So, as we ask regularly, Lord, would you please search us, know us, examine our lives, and if there's any area that is not submitted to you, any area where we're choosing to sit on the throne in our lives, Lord, please come in, invade that area, shine a light on it, so that we can get off the throne and invite you to reign there, too. And please help us to reorient our entire lives around you. Help us to take the actions we can take. And then, Lord, by your spirit, would you please reorient our thoughts around you, would you please reorient our emotions around you and do the work that only your spirit can do. Fill us with your spirit, Lord, because we need you so desperately, so desperately.
In your name we pray. Amen. Amen.