Acts 19:1-10--Paul in Ephesus

Acts 19:1-10
English Standard Version

Paul in Ephesus
19 And it happened that while Apollos was at Corinth, Paul passed through the inland country and came to Ephesus. There he found some disciples. 2 And he said to them, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?” And they said, “No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.” 3 And he said, “Into what then were you baptized?” They said, “Into John's baptism.” 4 And Paul said, “John baptized with the baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in the one who was to come after him, that is, Jesus.” 5 On hearing this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. 6 And when Paul had laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they began speaking in tongues and prophesying. 7 There were about twelve men in all.

​8 And he entered the synagogue and for three months spoke boldly, reasoning and persuading them about the kingdom of God. 9 But when some became stubborn and continued in unbelief, speaking evil of the Way before the congregation, he withdrew from them and took the disciples with him, reasoning daily in the hall of Tyrannus. 10 This continued for two years, so that all the residents of Asia heard the word of the Lord, both Jews and Greeks.

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We are going to see in today's passage how God not only used Apollos to go back into areas where Paul had little success, but God is going to use Paul to give a full gospel presentation to those that Apollos had been teaching in Ephesus (before Aquilla and Priscilla were able to take him aside and explain the gospel more fully to him), and there is going to be a great harvest of souls here because those that were baptized into the baptism of John the Baptist waiting for the coming Messiah are enthusiastic to know the One they were waiting for has already come, and His name is Jesus.

Paul knew that this group in Ephesus had not come from the work done by the apostles or deacons centered in Jerusalem nor from the church that was centered in Syrian Antioch, for they had never heard of the Holy Spirit.  They only knew the need to be baptized to show they wanted to forsake their sin and be ready for their King to come and they wanted to be a part of His Kingdom.  Paul was able to explain to them that Jesus did come, and He is King, but His kingdom is not of this world--we are part of a spiritual kingdom that is unshakable and will never pass away.

However, there were some that were content to believe in the shadow without the fulfillment--they wanted to live as if the Messiah had not come (and never would come) for if it was true that He came and they missed Him that the next time He would come He would come as judge over them, and that is a message that many are unwilling to hear.  These unbelieving Jews spoke evil of the Way (that is Jesus who said, "I AM the Way, the Truth, and the Life, no man comes to the Father except through Me" in John 14:6) before the congregation of Jews gathered in the synagogue there in Ephesus.  For this reason, Paul no longer tried to teach them inside the synagogue and took the believing disciples and taught them instead in the lecture hall of Tyrannus.

This teaching continued for two years so that there were many Jews and Gentiles who heard the truth of the gospel and believed.  It is likely that Ephesus became a sort of "base of operations" for Paul and his team as they were welcomed there and the church there participated in the gospel work sending out other missionaries to the entirety of the province known as Asia in southwestern Turkey (an area that Paul and his companions wanted to go to earlier, but they were prevented from entering by the Holy Spirit so that they would go north and cross over into Macedonia).

We will see how Paul and Apollos see themselves as teammates and not competition with each other when Paul addresses the factions that have formed in Corinth over who preached the gospel to them--for some believed when Paul was first there, and others when Apollos came back to minister to them.

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1 Corinthians 3:5-9
English Standard Version5 What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. 6 I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. 7 So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. 8 He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor. 9 For we are God's fellow workers. You are God's field, God's building.