Wednesday Before Pentecost
Lectionary Texts:
Romans 8:1-11
John 7:37-39
Thanks to Vicki W. for her addition to end of the world places. I've been through Wales on a Britain tour, with no more than a photo stop and lunch in that town that begins with two L's. I can neither spell nor pronounce it. Welsh spellings often seem to have little to do with their pronunciation. Like Ireland, Wales has had its language taken over by English. English is like a weed. Wherever it springs up, it takes over. Welsh, like Gaelic, is a Celtic language unrelated to English. It is still spoken in rural parts of Wales, but is close to being on the endangered language list. I had a professor who was Welsh, W.D. Davies (pronounced "Davis.") English was his second language. He was a Cambridge don, whom Duke was able to lure away with a big salary, I am told. Though he was totally fluent in English he spoke it with a strong Welsh accent. It was not like any other accent I had ever heard.
Back to Acts. Refresh your memory by rereading Acts 19:23-41.
Harvard scholar Helmut Koester thought that Luke's understanding of many aspects of Ephesus indicates that he wrote from there and may have been from there. I agree. No city was more devoted to its patron divinity than Ephesus was to the goddess Artemis. I have mentioned her temple there, about four times the size of the Parthenon. The Artemis temple was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. The Parthenon was not. Ephesus, having a population of about 200,000, was a seaport right in the middle of the very prosperous eastern Mediterranean trade routes.
I think Demetrius the silversmith is given too little credit for seeing the long range economic implications of Christianity. Pagan religions like the Artemis cult were a huge business in the Roman Empire. His perception of the threat and his being highly vocal about it were enough to provoke a riot that was in all likelihood anti-Semitic. Christians were not yet a separate religion from Judaism in the popular Ephesian understanding. Paul was fortunate not to have been at the scene. His companions Gaius and Aristarchus, both of whom are mentioned in Paul's letters, were seized but release by the town clerk, because no one had heard them actually speak against Artemis, only for Jesus Christ. Alexander, a non-Christian Jew spoke in defense of his people, although it is not clear whether he separated Christians from his own Jewish people.
This story marks a major shift in the progress of first century Christianity. Although Paul will soon journey to Jerusalem, he has spent less and less time in the synagogues and more and more time preaching to gentiles. As much as he would like to deny the increasingly clear handwriting on the wall, he by this time knows that the mission to the Jews is failing badly, while the mission to the gentiles is making all the success. Please understand that "all the success" is not that much. The growth of Christianity is dramatic when starting from nothing, but still the Christians are only making up less than 1% of the population at this point.
The situation appearing difficult for Paul in Ephesus, along with the growing need of the poor Christian community in Jerusalem, is calling Paul to move on, after what had been his two best years in any one place.
O God,
As we read of the witness of Paul and his Christian brothers and sisters in this first Christian century, keep us mindful of our own need for our own witness in this soon to be post-pandemic world, many of whose Christians have lost touch with the church and even with the faith over this last year. In Christ's name.
Amen.
Faithfully,
Christian
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