4. Paul and the Twelve Disciples of Ephesus (19:1–7)
1While Apollos was at Corinth, Paul passed through the higher country and came down to Ephesus.1 There he found some disciples.
2“Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?” he asked them. “No,” said they; “we never even heard that the Holy Spirit is available.”2
3“What baptism did you receive,3 then?” he asked. “John’s baptism,” said they.
4Then Paul said, “John baptized with a baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in the one who was coming after him, that is to say, in Jesus.”
5When they heard this, they were baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus.4
6Then, when Paul had laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they proceeded to speak with tongues and to prophesy.
7The men were about twelve in all.
1 Having visited the churches of South Galatia, Paul continued his westward way to Ephesus, “taking the higher-lying and more direct route, not the regular trade route on the lower level down the Lycus and Maeander valleys.”5 Part of Asian Phrygia, through which he passed, was popularly known as Upper Phrygia. He would approach Ephesus from the north side of Mount Messogis (modern Aydin Daǧlari).
By the time he reached Ephesus, Apollos had crossed the Aegean to Corinth. Shortly after his arrival in Ephesus, Paul met a dozen men whose knowledge of the Way was considerably more defective than Apollos’s had been before Priscilla and Aquila gave him the instructions he lacked. When the men are called “disciples” without further qualification, that (in accordance with Luke’s usage) seems to mean that they were disciples of Jesus.6 Had Luke meant to indicate that they were disciples of John the Baptist (as has sometimes been deduced from v. 3), he would have said so explicitly.7 How they acquired their knowledge of Jesus can only be guessed—it must have been from a source independent of the main Jerusalem-based stream which Luke traces in Acts—but when they heard of him, they believed in him. This at least is implied in Paul’s question, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?”8
2 Paul’s question implies something else: when he met them and conversed with them, he not only sensed that their knowledge of the Way was defective; he was able to put his finger on the defect. There was nothing to show that they had ever received the Holy Spirit. Hence his straightforward question. Their answer to it proved that his diagnosis was correct.
Their answer must be understood in its context. Standing by itself, it might mean that the very expression “Holy Spirit” was new to them. If they had any Old Testament background at all, they would have had some idea of the Spirit of God, sometimes called his “Holy Spirit.”9 More particularly, since they had received John’s baptism, they would presumably have been told that John’s baptism was preparatory, in view of the approach of one who was going to baptize with the Holy Spirit.10 If so, they did not know that Jesus, in whom they had believed, was the one who would administer this baptism with the Holy Spirit, or that this baptism had now been inaugurated. Certainly they had never received the Holy Spirit. In this they were less advanced than Apollos, who when he came to Ephesus was already “aglow with the Spirit” (18:25).11
3 Paul’s question about their baptism implies a connection between the receiving of the Spirit and baptism.12 He assumed that they had been baptized (an unbaptized believer is scarcely contemplated in the New Testament), or else they themselves had mentioned their baptism. It was an anomaly in his eyes that a baptized person should not have received the Spirit, so he questioned them more closely, and learned that they had received John’s baptism. Where and from whom they had received it is not said: it is conceivable that they had received it at John’s own hands in Judaea a quarter of a century before, but there are other possibilities. There is no way of knowing if John’s distinctive ministry was continued by some of his disciples after his death.
4 John’s baptism was one of preparation rather than one of fulfilment, as Christian baptism now was. Accordingly, Paul explained to them the anticipatory character of John’s baptism and its close association with his announcement of the stronger one than himself who was about to come. Paul’s summary of John’s message combines the Markan account, with its emphasis on repentance, and the Johannine account, in which John points expressly to Jesus as the coming baptizer with the Holy Spirit.13 Now that Jesus had come and accomplished his mission on earth, now that he had returned to the Father’s presence and sent to his followers the promised gift of the Holy Spirit, an anticipatory baptism was no longer appropriate or adequate.
5–7 The twelve men then received baptism “into the name of the Lord Jesus” (the same form of words as is used of the Samaritan believers in 8:16). This is the only account of rebaptism found in the New Testament. The apostles themselves (or many of them) appear to have received John’s baptism, but no question of rebaptism was raised for them. Probably their endowment with the Spirit at Pentecost transformed the preparatory significance of the baptism which they had already received into the consummative significance of Christian baptism. Similarly there is no suggestion that Apollos was required to receive Christian baptism over and above the baptism of John, which he already knew; his existing experience of the Spirit would have made such a requirement unnecessary. But the Ephesian disciples had no such experience of the Spirit. They were therefore baptized in a Christian sense, and when Paul laid his hands on them, they received the Spirit in pentecostal fashion, with audible signs of his entering into them. There may be an intentional parallel here between the imposition of Paul’s hands on these men and the imposition of Peter’s (and John’s) hands on the Samaritan converts at an earlier date.14 G. W. H. Lampe, in pursuance of his thesis, finds that Paul’s coming to Ephesus marks “another decisive moment in the missionary history.”15 Ephesus was to be a new center for the Gentile mission—the next in importance after Antioch on the Orontes—and these twelve disciples were probably to be the nucleus of the Ephesian church. By this exceptional procedure, then, they were integrated into the church’s missionary program.16
5. The Lecture Hall of Tyrannus (19:8–10)
8Paul then went into the synagogue and spoke freely17 for three months; in his discourses he spoke persuasively about the kingdom of God.
9But when some were obstinate and would not believe,18 but spoke evil of the Way in front of the congregation, Paul withdrew from them and took the disciples away, discoursing day by day in the lecture hall of Tyrannus.19
10This went on for two years, so that all those who lived in Asia, both Jews and Greeks, heard the word of the Lord.
8 Paul had already established relations with the Jews who met in the Ephesian synagogue, when he paid them a flying visit on his way from Corinth to Judaea. Then they had pressed him unsuccessfully to stay longer. Now, however, having completed his business in Judaea and Syria, he had come back to Ephesus and resumed his synagogue discourses in accordance with his promise. But the familiar pattern of events began to reproduce itself. For three months he enjoyed the freedom of the synagogue, debating with its members and setting forth the truth about the kingdom of God—that is to say, all that is implied in the death and exaltation of Jesus.20
9 In extending this liberty to Paul for three months, the synagogue authorities in Ephesus showed themselves more enlightened than their counterparts in Thessalonica, who had tolerated him for no more than three weeks. But at last the weight of opposition to his preaching, even in Ephesus, reached a point where he could no longer make use of the synagogue as his teaching center. He had to find a new center where he would not be interrupted with public slanders directed against the gospel and the Savior whom it proclaimed. This center he found in the lecture hall of Tyrannus. Tyrannus (a name otherwise attested in Ephesus) is usually supposed to have been the lecturer who regularly taught there; it is just possible, however, that he was the owner of the building, who was willing to rent it to Paul at times when it was not required by the regular lecturer (or lecturers). According to the Western text, Paul had the use of the building from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Whatever the textual basis of this reading may be, it probably represents what actually happened. Tyrannus (if he was the lecturer) no doubt delivered his lectures in the early morning. At 11 a.m. public activity came to a stop in the cities of Ionia (as in many other parts of the Mediterranean world),21 and Lake and Cadbury are no doubt right in saying that more people would be asleep at 1 p.m. than at 1 a.m.22 But Paul, after spending the early hours at his tentmaking (cf. 20:34), devoted the burden and heat of the day to his more important and more exhausting business, and must have conveyed something of his own energy and zeal to his hearers, who had followed him from the synagogue to this lecture hall, for they were prepared to forgo their own siesta in order to listen to Paul.
10 For two full years this work went on.23 While Paul stayed in Ephesus, a number of his colleagues carried out missionary activity in neighboring cities. During those years his colleague Epaphras appears to have evangelized the cities of the Lycus valley, Colossae, Laodicea, and Hierapolis—cities which Paul evidently did not visit in person (Col. 1:7–8; 2:1; 4:12–13). Perhaps all seven of the churches of Asia addressed in the Revelation of John were also founded about this time. The province was intensively evangelized, and remained one of the leading centers of Christianity for many centuries.
6. Conflict with the Magicians (19:11–19)
11God accomplished mighty works of no ordinary character through Paul.
12Sweat-rags and aprons which had been in contact with his body were actually taken from him and applied to those who were sick, so that their diseases left them and evil spirits were expelled.
13Some of the itinerant Jewish exorcists also undertook to pronounce the name of the Lord Jesus over those who were possessed by evil spirits. “I adjure you,” one would say, “by that Jesus whom Paul proclaims.”
14There were seven sons of one Sceva, a Jewish chief priest, who were doing this.24
15But the evil spirit answered them, “Jesus I know, and Paul I know, but who are you?”
16Then the man who was possessed by the evil spirit sprang on them and overpowered them; indeed, he so got the better of them all25 that they made their escape from that house naked and wounded.
17This became known to all those who lived in Ephesus, Jews and Greeks alike. Fear fell on them all, and the name of the Lord Jesus was magnified.
18Many of those who believed also came and made confession, divulging their spells.26
19A considerable number of those who had practised magic arts27 brought their scrolls together and burned them in the sight of all. They reckoned up their value, and found that it amounted to fifty thousand silver coins.
11–12 Paul’s ministry in Ephesus was marked by manifestations of divine power, especially in healing and exorcism. The use of pieces of material which had been in contact with Paul for the healing of the sick is reminiscent of the healing of those who touched the fringe of Jesus’ cloak (Mark 5:27–34; 6:56). One may also detect a parallel here to the healing effect of Peter’s shadow in 5:15.28 The pieces of material were presumably those which Paul used in his tentmaking or leather-working—the sweat-rags for tying around his head and the aprons for tying around his waist.29 No intrinsic healing efficacy is ascribed to these things; the healing efficacy lay in the powerful name of Jesus.
13 So potent did this name, as invoked by Paul, prove in the exorcizing of demons from those who were possessed by them that other exorcists began to invoke it too. Among practitioners of magic in ancient times Jews enjoyed high respect,30 for they were believed to have exceptionally effective spells at their command. In particular, the fact that the name of the God of Israel was not to be pronounced by vulgar lips was generally known among the pagans, and misinterpreted by them according to regular magical principles. Several magical papyri which have survived from those days to ours contain attempts to reproduce the true pronunciation of the ineffable name—Iaō, Iabe, Iaoue, and so forth—as well as other Jewish expressions and names such as Sabaoth and Abraham, used as elements in magic spells.31 The closest parallel to the Ephesian exorcists’ misuse of the name of Jesus appears in a magical papyrus belonging to the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, which contains the adjuration: “I adjure you by Jesus, the God of the Hebrews.”32
14–16 Among those Jewish exorcists were the sons of one Sceva,33 a Jew, described here as a chief priest. It is possible that this Sceva actually belonged to a Jewish chief-priestly family, but more probably “Jewish chief priest” (or even “Jewish high priest”) was his self-designation, set out on a placard: Luke might have placed the words between quotation marks had these been invented in his day.34 The Jewish high priest was the one man who was authorized to pronounce the otherwise ineffable name; this he did once a year, in the course of the service prescribed for the day of atonement.35 Such a person would therefore enjoy high prestige among magicians. It was not the ineffable name, however, but the name of Jesus that Sceva’s sons employed in their attempt to imitate Paul’s exorcizing ministry. But when they tried to use it, like an unfamiliar weapon wrongly handled it exploded in their hands. “That Jesus whom Paul proclaims” was a name well known to the demon that they were trying to cast out,36 but what right had they to use it? The man possessed by the demon, energized with abnormal strength, assaulted the would-be exorcists so violently that they ran for their lives from the building in which they were, their clothes torn off and their bodies battered.
17 The news of this incident spread quickly and filled those who heard it with awe; this name, invoked by Paul and his colleagues with such beneficial effects, was plainly no name to be trifled with.
18–19 The whole atmosphere of this passage, in fact, tallies admirably with the reputation which Ephesus had in antiquity as a center of magical practice. Shakespeare sums up that reputation in words which he puts into the mouth of the Syracusan Antipholus in his Comedy of Errors:
“They say this town is full of cozenage,
As, nimble jugglers that deceive the eye,
Dark-working sorcerers that change the mind,
Soul-killing witches that deform the body,
Disguised cheaters, prating mountebanks,
And many such-like liberties of sin.”37
Yet even among the Ephesian practitioners of magic the gospel proved its power. Many of them believed, and came to Paul and his fellow-missionaries, confessing their sorcery and revealing their spells. According to magical theory, the potency of a spell is bound up with its secrecy; if it be divulged, it becomes ineffective. So these converted magicians renounced their imagined power by rendering their spells inoperative. Many of them also gathered their magical papyri together and made a bonfire of them. A number of such magical scrolls have survived to our day; there are specially famous examples in the London, Paris, and Leiden collections.38 The special connection of Ephesus with magic is reflected in the term “Ephesian letters” for magical scrolls.39 The spells with which they abound are for the most part the merest gibberish, a rigmarole of words and names considered to be unusually potent, arranged sometimes in patterns which were essential to the efficacy of the spell. They fetched high prices. On the present occasion it was reckoned that documents to the value of 50,000 drachmae went up in smoke. (The public burning of literature as an open repudiation or condemnation of its contents can be paralleled from both ancient and modern times.)
7. Further Progress Report (19:20)
20So mightily did the word of the Lord keep on spreading and increasing in strength.
20 Luke pauses at this point to make a fifth report of progress.40 One further episode from Paul’s Ephesian ministry remains to be related, but the plan of Acts requires a break here.