In this episode, Chad and Keith walk through Acts 19, which provides context to understand the recipients of Ephesians and establishes the pattern woven throughout the epistle: calling and conduct.
In this episode, Chad and Keith walk through Acts 19, which provides context to understand the recipients of Ephesians and establishes the pattern woven throughout the epistle: calling and conduct.
Intro (Keith): Welcome to the Kanakuk Institute podcast, where we continue to equip leaders with biblical skills for a lifetime of ministry.
Chad (00:13): Well, welcome back to the Kanakuk Institute Podcast. Chad Hampsch and Keith Chancey in studio once again. We are going to jump into the book of Ephesians. We’re studying the book of Ephesians and excited. Keith last time kind of gave us a snapshot of the book of Ephesians, really the themes of the book, chapters 1 through 3 focusing on the calling of God and 4, 5, and 6 focusing on the conduct, how our conduct is impacted directly by our calling. For those of y’all that are listening, whether you have studied in the New Testament a lot or not, one thing that you may or may not know that’s really important: when we study a New Testament letter, sometimes called an epistle, a New Testament letter, we often, actually, need to go back. And what do I mean when I say “go back”? Well we’re talking about a letter written to a church in a place called Ephesus and this church is planted all the way back in the book of Acts, Acts chapter 19, by the apostle Paul, who once was Saul, we talked about that on our last episode. And so, Keith, we’re going to focus on a couple verses so we can kind of just get an understanding of what was happening as this church was established, and we’re looking at Acts chapter 19. The heading of that section of scripture is called, “Paul at Ephesus.” It’s really focusing on Paul’s time in Ephesus. And, Keith, we wanted to capitalize on a couple verses, one of the verses we talked about as we were working through this text was, just the significant of verse 4, and really 2 through 4, but 4 and how verse 4 really ties together the idea of baptism, the idea of repentance, and the significant of John the Baptist. Keith, help us to understand where does this fit and what does this teach us about what was going on in Ephesus at the time?
Keith (01:57): Wow, you know, well, in verse 1 of chapter 19 of Acts it says, “It happened that while Apollos was at Corinth, Paul passed through the upper country, and he came to Ephesus and found some of the disciples, and he said to them, ‘Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?’ And they said to him, ‘No, we have not even heard whether this is… there is a Holy Spirit!’” You know, this was a time that the Holy Spirit had not come yet. And so, they were a product of exactly what was going on. They were just seeing Jesus, and they’re going, “My goodness, he is different.” And he is claiming to be the son God, and they’re seeing the miracles that he’s doing. And so they’re followers and they’re going, “Wow!” And so then, Paul gives instruction, and he said, “Into then what were you baptized?” and they said, “Into John’s baptism.” And Paul said, “John baptized with he baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in him who was coming after him, that is Jesus. And when they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Wow! I just love that! When they heard about Jesus, somehow, in a unique way, even before the Holy Spirit was moving, Jesus, when he talked to them, they wanted to believe in who he is and what he was going to do. You know, as I think about my experience as a young man, for the very first time I heard the gospel, hearing the word repent. And the word repent being turning away from my sin and then turning to God. That I said, “I no longer want to live in the bondage of my sin, but I understand that my sin is sin and it’s an offense against God. And I want to turn away from my sin and I want to turn to God, who gave me hope and gave me the comfort and gave me the peace that I do not serve a dead God but a God that would die on the cross for my sins, raise from the grave and offer to me salvation, and I would be a recipient of the greatest gift ever given. Wow! Chad that just blows me away that that’s what God was doing right there in Ephesus.
Chad (04:15): Yeah, that’s so good, so just as we’re thinking about the book of Ephesians, it just gives us perspective of what was going on in that church, right? Paul shows up and there were these early disciples, probably disciples of John the Baptist, and they hadn’t heard of the Holy Spirit and now we just see this amazing outpouring, the Spirit shows up in their life and now we see kind of the progression of how this plays out in the city of Ephesus as this church grows and becomes established. And what I love, just to kind of continue through this text, is in verse 8, we see Paul immediately, he’s engaged with these disciples, they learn about the Holy Spirit, you know, they’re connected to John the Baptist, and now he goes to the synagogue, and what we often see in the New Testament is the disciples who were primarily Jewish – all of the disciples were Jewish – Luke being our only author that was not Jewish, and they go immediately to the synagogue. And what is he doing in the synagogue? Well, he’s reasoning and persuading them about the kingdom of God. Obviously crucial for a Jewish audience, right? They had been waiting for the kingdom of God. They had been waiting for the Roman oppression to go away. Paul shows up, he goes into the synagogue. Keith, 1 Peter chapter 3 is just ringing in my ears, that we are to always be ready to make a defense for the hope that is in us. Not a defense that we beat people up, but for hope. That there is a hope that we have as believers, and we’re going to see that rooted as we look through the book of Ephesians. So, so far what we’ve seen here in chapter 19 of Acts is that Paul shows up, the Holy Spirit is given to these disciples of John the Baptist. Paul goes into the synagogues and starts reasoning and so people are beginning to believe. Now in verse 11 and beyond we see something miraculous happen. So not only is there teaching happening, but their teaching is accompanied by outpourings of the Holy Spirit. Describe what happened there and what can we take away?
Keith (06:12): Oh man, you’re right Chad, well you know, when you see the instructions that Paul just gave and he says, “You guys, you need to repent.” And what you just said, the persuasion that they began to teach them about the kingdom of God that was to come, and now you see this extraordinary moment and I just think it’s funny. I’m just going to read it to you because it says in verse 11 it says, “God was performing extraordinary miracles by the hand of Paul, so that handkerchiefs, aprons that he carried from his body to the sick, and the diseases left them, and evil spirits went out. And also there were some called Jewish exorcists who went from place to place and attempted to name over those who had evil spirits in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ saying, ‘I adjure you by Jesus, whom Paul preaches’ (verse 14) 7 sons of one Sceva, a Jewish chief priest were doing this.” And I just think that’s kind of funny. Here’s this priest and he’s a demonically controlled man, and it says that the evil spirit answered to him when he says saying, “Come out (you know) be healed in the name of Jesus.” And the evil spirit says, “I recognize Jesus, I know Paul, but who in the fat are you?” I mean that just cracks me up that even the demon understood this guy had no authority. And that’s what’s really amazing about this story. And it says, “the man in whom the evil spirit was upon leapt on him, subdued him, and overpowered him, and he ran away out of the house naked and wounded.” Wow! What extraordinary things do we see here? Even the demons understand who God is. And that when you know Christ, there is a difference. You know right and wrong. When the Spirit came upon you back in the first part of chapter 19, they repented. You see that there were instructions that were given. Their lives were different at that moment that they came to Christ, they turned away from their sin and turned to God, and their persuasion was different that they began to teach others about God’s word and now they begin to live different and they live different than the demonic. They live different than those who didn’t know who Christ was. That’s beautiful. What an incredible moment that these guys were able to see. And I think we see the same today. Because there’s such evil in the world, people that are in the pulpit, people that are calling themselves Christians that no more are calling people to repentance than anything in the world, and they just have a message of nothingness.
Chad (08:58): That’s so good. And to continue through the text, because the text really gives us the result, and Keith, what I love about this from Acts is it parallels Ephesus perfectly. It’s calling and then conduct, right? We start with a baptism of repentance, we talk about convincing in the synagogues, now we see the miraculous outworking. And then look at the response in verses 17, 18, and 19.
Keith (09:22): I love that.
Chad (09:23): They said, “This became known to all, both Jews and Greeks, who lived in Ephesus, and fear fell upon them all and the name of the Lord was being magnified. Many, also of those who had believed kept coming and confessing their practices.” So, they recognize something, right? They heard about Jesus, Paul connects it to John the Baptist, their being taught, they see the miraculous, and now all of a sudden they go, “I want to tell you about my old life.”
Keith (09:52): Right, isn’t that cool?
Chad (09:53): What, practically speaking, help us understand that connection, Keith, to what we believe at our core, and how it moves us to be people that go, “Let me tell you what’s really going on with my life.”
Keith (10:07): You know, I like that question because I think it’s something we need to ask every single person: What’s your story? Just sit down with a cup of coffee and with no matter how young or how old someone is, just say “Let’s talk about your story.” And that story should always be about Jesus. Because a lot of times what we do is we want to talk about our pain, our fears, and those things, but the real story that we want to have heard is the one of the day that they accepted Jesus Christ as their personal savior. You know, Chad, I’ll never forget, in high school coming from where I came from, I was a mess. I did not know God, I’m a senior in high school, mad at God, and I think I told you guys this story before. I gave my life to Christ, and... because a guy asked me that: Chancey, what’s your story? And I told him that I was angry against God, and he shared with me, “You know it’s not God you should be angry against. It’s sin.” And that day I realized that God didn’t sin, I sinned. Adam and Eve sinned in the garden, and I’m a recipient of something called grace, and that I’m a new creation. Yay God! Thank you. But I didn’t know how to practically apply that. But I did know this: I had a foul-mouthed tongue. And I cursed, I said things I shouldn’t say, and I talked about Christ, but now I had a redemption of the blood of Christ, and I was in his sanctification process, and I knew I needed to quit saying the things that I did. God was convicting me, “Chancey, you need to quit cursing like that.” And when I caught a football and missed it, Oh! I would curse everything. And one day I took that before the Lord and Ephesians 4:29 says, “Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word that it’s good for the need of the moment that it might give grace to all that hear. That day that I read that scripture, I said, “I have got to stop this.” I couldn’t do it, though, on my own. You see, my conduct could never stop cursing unless my calling had been changed through Jesus Christ and the blood of Christ. Because I knew Christ and I was in his understanding of who he was and what he has done on the cross, that day when I asked Jesus, “will you take all this violence from me?” And I’m going to tell you something, the next day in practice after this happened, the players asked, “Did you get abducted?” Because I wasn’t that same guy of so angry when things didn’t go my way. And people began to go, “What just happened to you?” And what it was? It was the Holy Spirit moved me to be different.
Chad (12:38): So good. Verse 19 kind of brings it all to a head and it’s where we’ll close, but it says, “And many of those who practiced magic brought their books together and began burning them in the sight of everyone, and they counted up the price of them and counted 50,000 pieces of silver.” You know, Keith, they have a book burning party, and I think really the text is showing us that their old way of life is done. I’m taking my old way of life, I’m putting it on the fire, because I have a new life, and so, as we’re looking at this church in Ephesus, it’s just amazing to watch the progression be a perfect parallel, perfect mirror of what we’re going to see in the book of Ephesians: calling and conduct. The old way has gone away, the new way has come. I have been buried with Christ in his death, I have been raised to walk in newness of life. What encouragement would you leave us with as we just capitalize on that thought? That my old way is being burned in the fire. What would you encourage us with?
Keith (13:38): Well I can’t say it much better than what those guys just said themselves. That they were confessing and they were disclosing their evil practices and they said, “I am going to burn the books that I have believed.” And I think in America today, we have got to burn the books of what people are beginning to say, “Right is wrong, wrong is right.” We’ve got to say, we’ve got to take back truth. And we’ve got to stand on the principles of God, the convictions of God. And we’ve got to walk victoriously in Christ, and we’ve got to bring back the Bible to our world in everything that we do, we’ve got to begin speaking the truth, and as we talked about, that we want to persuade others from the word of God. We’ve got to give instructions of repentance. And we want to live extraordinarily in that we are going to call out those people that are living unrighteously before God. So you know what? Chad, I can’t be more excited about this book that we’re about to study, because God is an awesome God.
Chad (14:35): That’s good, and a perfect way to segue as we close out our time here in Acts chapter 19, which is giving us the context for the book of Ephesians, and great encouragement for us to go and get rid of the old and walk in the newness of life, not because we’re changing our conduct, but because God has changed our calling. We’ll see you next time as we jump into Ephesians chapter 1 here on the Kanakuk Institute Podcast. Thanks for joining us.