Day 5 - Ephesus, Turkey Part I

DAY 5

I spent time reading in Acts & Ephesians last night in preparation for our time in Ephesus today. Wow. We arrived in Kusadasi, Turkey early this morning. We weren’t sure how we were going to get from Kusadasi to Ephesus (35 km away) as taxi prices were really high. It was a God-send actually as we found a smaller, private tour for a decent price that we did with two other couples from the cruise.

The first stop was the house that John provided for Jesus’s mother Mary after he was crucified. Philip and I noted that God probably laughs because as people we tend to pay much more attention to places and things whereas all he really cares about is people.

Our next stop was Ephesus. It is the second largest ancient city today (largest is Pompeii). It was beautiful. The city was split into two quarters: the legislative and the social. A few notable highlights from our time in Ephesus:

· It would cost 1 denerii to go to the public toilet for 40 minutes. People would use their whole 40 minutes sitting side-by-side with people talking. No thanks!

· The public baths sounded really quite cool. They had a section with running olive oil where massages would be given. Men could enter the baths for 1 denerii, women were charged 2 (because they tended to stay much longer)

· It was cool to see their hospital/medical school. We saw carvings of one of the earliest signs of medicine - the symbol of the herald's staff entwined by two serpents in the form of a double helix

· We saw a stone board that was the start of the bakgammon game

· The library was beautiful but told a story of the sin of the city. There was actually a secret passageway in the library that led to the brothel across the street. “Going to the library” had a very different meaning. . .

· We saw symbols in the stone that represented the Greek letters sometimes seen in the ichthys: Iesous Christos Theos Yios Soter (Jesus Christ Of God Son Savior). Our guide explained that because of the severe persecutions of Christians that often when Christian merchants would come to the port, they would use the ichthys (the Christian "fish") to communicate with each other. The first person would draw on the ground the upper half of the fish and if another believer saw it, they would come and complete the bottom of the fish.

What really came alive to me in Ephesus was the ministry of the Apostle Paul. . .

According to the Book of Acts (18:19-21), Paul's first visit was merely a stopover on his way to Antioch, Syria. In Acts' version he returned overland to Ephesus from Antioch and visited churches that he had established in Galatia and Phrygia along the way (18:23; 19:1). Once back in Ephesus, Paul settled down and conducted his ministry here for over two years (19:10). Some scholars think that Paul may have moved directly from Corinth to Ephesus and set up shop without returning to Antioch. Whichever, Ephesus was the center of his missionary activities for at least 27 months, perhaps 3 years (20:31).

With Ephesus as their base of operation, Paul and his associates spread the Gospel into the adjacent cities and regions of Asia. His choice of Ephesus made sense because it was big, cosmopolitan, multicultural, and a political, economic, and religious center, a meeting place for people, goods, and ideas from all over the Mediterranean. Such diversity of culture and ethnicity was not benign but spawned culture conflict, simmering hostility and ethnic hatreds.

The story of Paul in Ephesus is told in Acts 19:1-20:1. Acts says that he went first to the synagogue, but Ephesus has yet to yield any synagogue remains. From there he moved to the hall of Tyrannus for his ministry of preaching and healing. Paul called his hearers to join a new community, one stripped of ethnicity, and built on self sacrifice and mutual helpfulness.
Out of almost three years, Acts details only two incidents to highlight what Paul encountered in Ephesus. The city was known as a center for magic and miracles and the first story is about itinerant Jewish exorcists who tried to heal in the name of Jesus as Paul did, but were unsuccessful (Acts 19:13-16). Later a number of converted magicians burned their books on the magic arts. (19:19).

The second incident was the near riot in the theater prompted by the silversmiths' protest against Paul. According to Acts, Paul was so successful ("the word of the Lord grew and prevailed mightily" - Acts 19:20) that he threatened the livelihood of the craftsmen who made silver souvenirs of the Temple of Artemis and sold them to the foreign tourists and pilgrims.

After spending some time in Paul's footsteps, we traveled back out of the ancient city and briefly stopped outside of the basilica where John the disciple is buried.

While the Ephesus trip had tremendous significance to us within a faith context, ironically we had a Muslim tour guide. He was really fantastic the entire day. He took us into a Turkish mosque (the current Turkish population is 90% Muslim and only 4% Christian). Turkey is known for its beautiful rugs and carpets. This actually stemmed from the fact that people traveling on camels used to take their rugs with them to pray as the only requirement for “place” to pray is that it is clean and that the person is facing Mecca. The travelers could unroll their rugs and pray anywhere. Personally, I’m glad I don’t have to roll out a rug and am VERY glad I don’t have to try to figure what direction to face when I'm praying.

More about Turkey tomorrow. . .