3. Extent of the preaching: “Two years; so that all … in Asia heard.”
4. Lessons:
(1) Be bold. Christ’s servants must always be reverent, but they should never flinch.
(2) Be logical. If the subject of the prayer meeting is home missions, don’t speak fifteen minutes on the desirability of Christian contentment.
(3) Be earnest. Better than grace in speech, or eloquence, or polish, or anything else, or everything else, is a downright, unflinching earnestness.
(4) Be patient. Paul was contented to teach his Bible class every day for two years, and he would have kept at it till he died, even though no results appeared, if God had so willed it.
(5) Be hopeful. From the little mission school you have organised at Ephesus mighty Christianising influences may perchance steal out by ways unknown to you into the great outlying wicked Christless Asia.
(6) Be trustful. Speak the word; sow the seed; point the way. So surely as God is God, your work shall not be wasted.
(1) In purified lives (Gen_35:4; Exo_22:20; Deu_7:25; Luk_14:26; Heb_10:34).
(2) In the spread of the truth.
4. Lessons:
(1) When the wonders of God’s healing providence are revealed, well may the people be astonished.
(2) When the greatness of God’s might is made known, well may the people fear.
(3) When the fear of God has entered, then must the evil in the heart be confessed and driven out.
(4) When the fear of God has entered the heart, straightway cometh the love that casteth out fear.
(5) When the love of God has filled the heart, there is no room for old money-making rubbish to cumber up the precious space.
(6) When the love of God comes in, the hate of God goes out forever.
(7) When the love of God has filled one heart, it seeks to flow through that to others. Blessed they through whose hearts it flows unhindered!(S. S. Times.)
Paul’s ministry at Ephesus
1. Preaching the truth (Act_19:8-10).
2. Proving the truth (Act_19:11-12).
3. Perverting the truth (Act_19:13-16).
4. Practising the truth (Act_19:17-20). (A. F. Schauffler.)
Paul’s preaching at Ephesus
Whatthis was we gather from the context, from the valedictory address at Miletus, and from the Epistle to the Ephesians. The apostle proclaimed--
I. The gospel as a true, Divine, and saving revelation (Eph_1:13).
1. It was not a new opinion or system; it was the word of truth. As such the apostle proclaimed it; not as its originator, but simply as its herald. He told it because he had been commissioned to tell it; and not in fragments or in shapes of growing clearness and symmetry, but at once in all its fulness and perfection. It is truth; therefore accept it, and live by it. If you refuse it, it is at the peril of your souls.
2. For it is not only truth, but gospel--good news, of which salvation is the theme. Men cannot know what the salvation is till they feel what the danger is; and that danger is beyond description--the guilt and misery of sin--guilt that man cannot expiate, and misery out of which he can by no effort or sorcery charm himself. Must it not, then, be good news to hear of deliverance?
II. Christ as the one theme in this word of truth and the one Agent in this salvation. The vagabond Jews used as their spell, “Jesus, whom Paul preacheth.” They characterised his preaching by this, and truly. He preached Jesus--no one but Jesus; the same in the school of Tyrannus as it had been in the synagogue, the same at his second visit as at his first.
1. As the one Saviour, able and willing to save.
2. As Master, presenting a perfect example, and giving ability to copy it.
3. As Judge.
4. As the Reconciler of Jew and Gentile, and of both to God (Eph_2:14-16).
5. As the chief Cornerstone which unites and sustains the Church (Eph_2:20-21).
III. Repentance towards God and faith towards our lord Jesus Christ (Act_20:21).
1. Repentance is that state of heart which every sinner ought to cherish before God, whose law he has broken, and whose sentence he has merited. To feel sin, to mourn over it, to confess it without reserve or apology, to hate it, to forsake it, and in God’s name and strength to follow after holiness. Evangelical contrition is very different from selfish despair, and from “the sorrow of the world which worketh death,” for it is the first pulsation of life.
2. Faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ--faith resting on Him as its one object; for Christ is not Saviour to anyone in reality till He be believed in. Faith is thus the cardinal or distinctive grace, and the want of it is fatal. Up till the first moment of faith no saving change is produced on the heart.
3. Repentance and faith were his twin doctrines--repentance towards God, as He it is who loved us, though we so heinously sinned against Him; and faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ, as He it is who, bearing the penalty, is “the propitiation through faith in His blood.” For repentance and faith are united closely--repentance conditioned by faith, and faith urged and necessitated by repentance.
IV. The necessity of holiness and its connection with heaven as the preparation for it (Eph_4:20-24; Eph_5:5). When among them he had insisted on purity of heart and life, on entire renovation, the putting off of the old man, renewal in the spirit of the mind, and the assumption of the new man. This purity is called learning Christ and obedience to the truth “as the truth is in Jesus.” And he says, “Ye know” it--ye know what holiness and unworldliness are incumbent upon you as expectants of glory. For Christ is Master as well as Saviour, the object of imitation as well as the object of faith. The design of His death is to bring man back to his primeval state--“righteousness and true holiness.” The sins which the apostle censures in the Ephesian Church are yet far from uncommon among us. Intemperance, for example--how many jocular and palliative names are given to it; and impurity--what neutral, nay, graceful terms have been coined to cover its baseness! But Christ’s authority interposes, and we dare not tamper with sin; the purity of heaven is before us, and we must be made meet for it. (Prof. Eadie.)
