The First Baptist Church of Ephesus – Acts 19:8-10

When Judy and I first moved to Calgary, it was to work with Missionary Ken Johnson and his wife.

A mission had already been started in the city, and it was then meeting in its second location.

Both Brother Johnson and I received criticism from people who didn’t understand that situation.

We were meeting in a school – a Roman Catholic school, called Holy Redeemer Elementary.

What our critics didn’t understand was that we were not renting from the Catholics, but from the city.

Bro. Johnson had applied to the city of Calgary for permission to rent a school gymnasium, and the only school available in the area in which he was interested was Holy Redeemer.

I know Ken Johnson well enough to say that he would have preferred a school which wasn’t used by the Catholics during the week.

And if our rent money went to the Roman Catholic diocese, he would never have arranged to meet there.

Sometime after I became pastor we moved out and met in our home, in a hotel conference room and then in an office building.

I was not surprised last month when we were back in Calgary, that the church we visited is meeting in a rented community centre.

I hope that the people of Calvary Independent Baptist Church appreciate the blessing that we have in owning this building and using it in whatever fashion we choose.

To tell you the truth, sometimes I have my doubts.

I received a e-mail from Bro. Justin Fulton, telling me that their church is just about to close on the purchase of an office building that they can use for their meetings.

It is not a “church” building, and it is not even a separate building but a part of a complex or duplex.

But it is newer, larger, and nicer than what they have been using for the last ten years.

And they consider it to be a great blessing from the Lord.

You and I ought to thank God for the blessing and convenience of our building.

We (all of us) need to take care of it, as though it is the property of the Lord Himself, because it is.

And perhaps we ought also to be a little embarrassed.

I am not sure that we ever read in the pages of the Word of God, where one of the churches of the Lord Jesus Christ owned or met in their own property.

Those churches met in the temple, in synagogues, in people’s homes, on the banks of nearby streams, but I cannot recollect a single “church” building.

And here in Ephesus, initially the church met in a school auditorium and then eventually in people’s homes.

Have you ever wondered if the Lord would bless us with more growth if we sold this building and met in one another’s homes?

This evening I’d just like us to briefly analyze these three verses.

I believe that we read here the background behind the establishing of the First Baptist Church of Ephesus.

Perhaps it would be more precise to call it the First BAPTISTIC Church of Ephesus.

I think that we can call it a Baptistic church because its doctrines were what we would call “Baptist.”

If we could rent a time machine and go back to visit that church,

we’d find a congregation and a doctrinal statement very much like our own.

Except that they spoke in an unknown “tongue,”

and that they met in a rented school auditorium,

they could definitely be a cousin of the Calvary Independent Baptist Church.

As was Paul’s custom, that church began with people from the Jewish synagogue.

We have seen this a dozen times already.

Paul went into the synagogue in Ephesus and boldly taught those people that Jesus was the Christ.

He “disputed” – “dialegomai” – he reasoned with them.

He picked up the Scriptures and proved from God’s Holy Word that Jesus was the Christ.

Did his reasoning ever become a “dispute” as we commonly use the word?

Once in a while, it probably it did.

He disputed, and he “persuaded.”

As we have already learned, this Greek word speaks about giving people confidence to accept and believe something.

In this case he persuaded people, intellectually and spiritually, to put their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Paul reasoned logically with the people of the synagogue and gave them the facts and the encouragement to believe the truth.

But unlike most other synagogue ministries that he had, Paul was able to remain among them for 3 months.

In nearly every other case, the hatred of the Jews against Jesus exploded far sooner than that.

But as we have said before, this happier reception might have been due to the work of Aquilla and Priscilla, Apollos, perhaps Luke and Timothy, and possibly even with the help of the dozen men of verse 7.

Unfortunately, never is the gospel going to be received by absolutely everybody.

Never is a whole synagogue going to be converted;

Never is a whole city going to believe on Christ;

And sadly, very often, not even whole families will be united in the Lord.

But in this case, Paul did have a very successful ministry in the synagogue in Ephesus.

And yet eventually he was forced to leave and take up his ministry in the school of Tyrannus.

Verse 9 gives us one of those words which frighten some people away from the King James Bible.

“Divers” people from the synagogue were hardened and believed not.

The Greek word translated “divers” is very common to the New Testament, being found 448 times, even though it’s not commonly used outside the Bible today.

Nearly 25% of the time it is translated “certain people,” and the next most common translation is “some.”

As I was first learning to read the Bible when I ran into this word I interpreted it to mean “diverse people,” and that was not too far off.

When diverse members of the synagogue turned against him, Paul move the school of Tyrannus.

We notice that these certain people became HARDENED toward the gospel.

As I’ve told you before the Greek word here is “skleruno” ( sklay-roo’-no ).

This is the word from which the medical term “scoliosis” is derived.

Scoliosis is the misshaping and hardening of the spine into grotesque and painful contortions, until the sufferer, usually a child, becomes twisted and deformed.

Some of the people of the Jewish synagogue became twisted hardened against the gospel.

Our olld English teachers would have told us that the sentence says that these people were passive.

The Bible doesn’t say that “they hardened THEMSELVES,” but that “they WERE hardened,” as if by something outside of themselves.

It would be wrong to say that they weren’t willing participants in this hardening, and in rejecting the gospel, but it is a fact that outside influences contributed significantly.

First, they were blinded by Satan, “lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ should shine unto them.”

And they were hardened by their sinful natures and their natural rebellion against the Truth.

They were hardened by the false instruction of their parents, rabbis and others whom they respected.

And there is a sense in which they were hardened by the gospel itself, or in their reaction to the gospel.

As the old proverb says, “the sun both melts the wax and hardens the clay.”

And it is by the grace of God that one human heart is wax and the other is mud.

So there is a sense in which, the Lord hardened these who turned against the preaching of Paul.

This is a principle which we see several times in the Word of God.

Scripture says that Pharaoh hardened his heart against the Lord and His orders to let Israel go.

But the Lord also said that HE would harden Pharaoh’s heart, and He did harden him.

“And the LORD said unto Moses, When thou goest to return into Egypt, see that thou do all those wonders before Pharaoh, which I have put in thine hand: but I will harden his heart, that he shall not let the people go.

“And he hardened Pharaoh’s heart, that he hearkened not unto them; as the LORD had said.

“But when Pharaoh saw that there was respite, he hardened his heart, and hearkened not unto them; as the LORD had said.

“And Pharaoh hardened his heart at this time also, neither would he let the people go.”

So which is it: Did these people harden their hearts against the gospel, or were they hardened? Both.

Some of the people of the synagogue steeled themselves against the gospel;

They believed not, and they even publically spoke evil against it.

But, praise the Lord, their opposition to the truth, could not stop the will of the Lord.

Not only did it spur Paul and the others to move on toward the Gentiles, but those whom the Lord had chosen to believe, did so.

Not only did Paul personally depart from the synagogue, but he also separated the disciples.

Notice carefully the language of the verse:

“He departed from them, and separated the disciples.”

First, does this verse say that these were HIS disciples?

They were disciples of the Lord Jesus.

As he told the Corinthians, he told these disciples:

“Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ.”

He taught the disciples of Christ that they should not be unequally yoked together with the unbelievers.

And HE separated those disciples of Christ from the disciples of Moses; HE did it.

It wasn’t simply that the disciples followed Paul from the synagogue.

I can’t read those words without hearing a hint of Paul’s authority as an Apostle and Missionary.

It seems to me in this separation, we have the institution of a new assembly, an ecclesia of Christ.

He took the actual steps which separated these believers from the unbelievers of that synagogue.

And then they began to meet in the school of one Tyrannus.

The word “school” has an interesting etymology, and comes from the Greek word that we have in this verse.

It is derived from a word meaning “leisure.”

It came to speak of a place where there was leisure and opportunity for learning things.

The name “Tyrannus” is speaks of a tyrant.

It makes me wonder if the master of this school was especially strict.

And what sort of school was it?

It appears to be Greek or heathen, but that is only a guess.

What was taught here?

Did they have classics back when the classics were being written?

Was this a medical school, an elementary school, a college or a law school?

Was Tyrannus a Christian, or was this merely a place available for rent during certain hours of the week?

Whatever, this site and the freedom it afforded, enable the gospel to spread mightily among the Gentiles and Greek speaking people.

So, when Paul left the synagogue and began to meet in this school;

It appears to me that when the other believers followed him;

It was at this time that they were organized first into a mission and then into a church.

When they left the synagogue, the Jews undoubtedly considered them to have apostatized.

They became anathema to them, even though some may have been family members.

But at this point they were becoming a church of the Lord Jesus Christ.

It is not a “church building” which makes a church.

It’s the authority and the ministry of Christ.