Turkey, Part 1

Speechmeister, PowerPointmeister, I'm not sure, but good to see all of you here. Welcome to everyone. Good to have our visitors and guests here with us today, and good to welcome to those tuning in on the internet as well for our webcast. So let me get this up and going here, and we'll get started. Okay, as many of you know, a number of us from the Colorado area went to Turkey for the feast this year. Actually, there were 18 of us from Colorado who went there. That was about a quarter of the total number of 77 who went there for the feast.

And I refer to Turkey as the other holy land for reasons that we'll get into here, because if you've been to Israel, otherwise known as the holy land, you've seen only a small portion of the lands of the Bible. Much of what we read about in the New Testament actually took place outside of Israel in what is today known as the area of Turkey or the other holy land.

It's a very fitting name because much of what took place is recorded in the book of Acts. It actually took place here in what is today Turkey, and we were able to visit a number of those sites. One in particular we'll talk about quite a bit later on today, and that is Ephesus. So, okay, that's a bit odd.

Okay, when all else fails, unplug and re-plug.

Okay, excuse me a moment here. Yes, no, yes, no. All right. Okay, hopefully it'll stay this way.

Okay, there we go. Yeah, all right. Sorry for that interruption there. Where was I? Yeah, I was saying one of the reasons that I... well, two reasons I wanted to share this information with you is, one, I had a number of people who asked me before the trip, will you be sharing with us what we saw, what we learned on the trip? And I assured them that we would. But also because it's very important, as I've talked a lot in my sermons about context over recent years, it's very important for us to understand the context, to really understand what the words that are written for us there in the Bible are really trying to tell us there. So that's why we went on the trip. This was a biblical study tour combined with the Feast of Tabernacles there. And the purpose of it was to better understand the background of the Bible. So I would like to share a number of the key points that we learned with you. And for those of you who did go on the trip, the Deltzes, Connie and I, the Lockwoods, I will mention actually a lot of what I'm going to cover today we did not cover in the trip. But it is... so a lot of this will be new to everyone here. But it is very important in helping to understand the culture and the background of the books of the Bible. So where does Turkey fit in the Bible story? Here's a map and it shows many of the names that we come across in the Book of Acts. For instance, Cappadocia, Galatia, the area where the Book of Galatians was written to, Bithynia, areas like that, Macedonia, and so on. And you can see that a number of those are located here in what is today Turkey, Asia Minor. Here these little starred areas indicate the seven churches of Revelation, clustered generally in the western part of what is today Turkey along the GNC coast right over here. So we'll get into one of those in quite a bit of additional detail later on. But most of what is recorded about Paul's missionary journeys in the Book of Acts took place here in Asia Minor. Here, for instance, is a more detailed close-up map showing where Paul went on his three, what are commonly called, missionary journeys.

And the first journey, which is marked in orange, let's see, starting here from Antioch, he goes up through what is today central Turkey, the city of Pisidia, Iconium, Lystra, those areas, Derby, went through there and then returned back home. On his second trip, which is colored in, let's see, that would be the one in orange, yeah, he starts off, visits some of the same areas again. They're in central Turkey, then goes over to the coast to Ephesus, then crosses up and over into Greece and then eventually returns back to Jerusalem again.

And then on his third journey, which is marked in red, Paul again crosses through the same area, goes through Ephesus again, actually spends two years there in Ephesus on this trip. I should mention when he goes through and visits these different cities, he'll stay anywhere from a few days to a few weeks to a few months. And in the case of Ephesus, actually two years, they're in the same place for reasons that we'll get into a little bit later on here.

We'll talk a lot about Ephesus later on in the sermon today. So this is an area that we see from this map was very important, the history of the early church there that is recorded in the book of Acts. Let me show you here something that I think is a very graphic illustration. This is a list of the 27 books of the New Testament. How many of those do you think were written to areas or individuals in what is today Turkey or written from Turkey to other areas there or describe events that took place mostly in Turkey?

Well, actually most of them, those indicated in a darker or a darker orange here, were either written from Turkey or to individuals in Turkey or describe events that took place there in Turkey. For instance, Paul wrote the books of 1st and 2nd Corinthians from Turkey. And then he wrote the epistles of Galatians, Ephesians, Colossians, 1st and 2nd Timothy, Titus, and Philemon to different individuals and congregations in Turkey. And also, John most likely wrote his gospel and the epistles of 1st, 2nd and 3rd John from Turkey as well, probably from Ephesus.

And the book of Revelation was written from the island of Patmos, or at least divisions were from the island of Patmos off the coast of Turkey. And I've also included the book of Acts in this list because many of the events that are described there took place in what is Turkey as well. So what we were able to see on this trip was truly the other Holy Land, because we were able to see so much of the setting of the New Testament, the world of Paul and of his writings.

And it's quite a different world from the world we've been going through in our studies of the Gospels there in Judea and Galilee, because this is a very urbanized area. Paul is basically visiting Greco-Roman cities during that time, as opposed to small towns like Capernaum, Betsiata, Corazin, places like that. So what about the history of Turkey and the Bible?

It actually goes much further back than just the New Testament period there. You may be surprised exactly how far back that history goes. Here's a satellite map of Turkey to orient ourselves. This is showing the modern-day country borders. So we have Turkey here. We have the Black Sea up here, a GNC, Mediterranean Sea. To orient ourselves to some of the modern-day nations, I mean to say, over here is Iran. Excuse me, this is Iraq. Here's Iran. Here's Syria. This is where a lot of the troubles are taking place up along the border area here.

We were perfectly safe. We're about 700 miles away from where all the trouble, the news headlines, are coming from basically in this area around here and much further south. Here's Israel, Lebanon, Cyprus. Here's Greece over here. A lot of the migrants that we read about are people fleeing from Syria and Iraq, going through Turkey, crossing over onto the Greek islands right off the coast so they can get free passage into the EU countries.

Here's Italy, which would become, of course, the heart and soul of the Roman Empire. We'll talk about that a little bit later as well. So this kind of orients us to the modern-day countries here. Anciently, this was also very important areas here, which we'll talk about in just a few minutes. But before all of these nations existed, there's an individual in the Bible by the name of Abraham. He lived about 4,000 years ago, and he appears on the scene in the Bible in Genesis 11.

And Abraham, as we know, lived where? He lived in what is called Ur of the Chaldees. Now, this was long thought to be the city of Ur that is in modern-day Iraq, which is located down about right here. However, in more recent years, a lot of scholars have come to conclude that he actually probably lived in an Ur that is located right here, basically along the Turkish-Syrian border. And here's where it is on the map, actually right up here, in a city that is called Urfa.

And one of the reasons for this is, where does Abraham go? What's the next place it is mentioned after Ur? This is what the city of Urfa looks like today. It's a very ancient city, goes back thousands of years there. But the next place it is mentioned, after Abraham living in Ur, is he moves to a city called Haran. And all scholars agree that Haran, there's the modern city of that name, or modern town of that name, just maybe 20-30 miles from Ur, Urfa. So again, very near the Syrian-Turkish border there. And this is what that area looks like today. It also is a very ancient town.

These are much more modern ruins from this city of Haran, but gives you some idea of what the terrain looks like. A very dry desert-like area there. So there is quite the likelihood that Abraham actually lived in what is today Turkey, when he was called, and lived there before he moved down into the Holy Land. The land that God had promised to him and his descendants there. So we find another connection between Abraham and Turkey in Genesis 23, several chapters later. And this is when Abraham's wife Sarah dies, and he wants to have a suitable burial place for her. So he negotiates with an individual to buy a burial cave in what is today Hebron, not far from Jerusalem.

So who does he negotiate with? Well, he buys the property from the Bible calls the property owners, the sons of Heth. H-E-T-H. And these sons of Heth are all otherwise known as people we know of as the Hittites. The sons of Heth are the Hittites. And the account there in Genesis 23 even mentions Hebron the Hittite. So this is who the biblical sons of Heth were. And here's actually what they look like. We have pictures carved in stone of the Hittites. These are from the Istanbul Archaeological Museum, which we're able to visit there as well. So the Hittites would later, I'm not sure whether they lived in Turkey and some of them colonized the area around Hebron, or whether they lived around Hebron and migrated up into Turkey. I'm not sure where they started, but they were there in the area around Jerusalem in the period of Abraham's time. So they did establish a major kingdom up in the eastern part of Turkey. They dominated that area for a number of centuries. Here's another carving of some of the Hittite warriors riding in a chariot of that period there. So other than those connections, we don't really find the area of Turkey mentioned in the Old Testament because it wasn't pertinent to the story. It wasn't pertinent to the story of after Abraham, of Isaac, Jacob, the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, and so on. Where Turkey did become very significant in the historical story of the Bible is in the approximately 400 years between the end, when the Old Testament was written, and the beginning of the New Testament with the birth of Jesus Christ. It was a very, very significant and important area historically. In Daniel, historically and prophetically, in Daniel 2, Nebuchadnezzar, King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, sees a dream. And we're familiar with the story. Hopefully you've been watching the Beyond Today programs on this or doing a series. Quite interesting, quite eye-opening about that. I just watched one last night about the handwriting on the wall. Nebuchadnezzar saw this image of this giant statue, and the statue was a prophetic image of the history from Daniel's time, approximately 500-600 BC, on down through the return of Jesus Christ.

And this would also depict the kingdoms that would rule over the Middle East and over Turkey during that period as well. So the image, you probably remember the story, it had a head of gold, which Daniel identifies as representing Nebuchadnezzar's Babylonian kingdom there. The head of gold, it had a chest and arms, two arms. This is significant. We'll talk about this in a minute here. A chest and two arms representing the Medes and the Persians, two different peoples who combined, the two peoples representing the two arms, are represented by the two arms there. That was the Medo-Persian Empire, which followed the Babylonian Empire. Then there were the belly and thighs of bronze, representing the Greek Empire of Alexander the Great and his time. And then finally, coming down to the two legs of iron, and feet of iron, mixed with clay, which represented the Roman Empire. So this was a prophetic picture of what would happen for those centuries between about approximately five, six hundred years from Daniel's time on up to the time of Jesus Christ.

I'll give you a brief overview and show you the areas that those empires ruled. In green we see here the area controlled by the Babylonian Empire, the first head, head of gold, control all of Iraq, which is predominantly this area here. Iran is over here. Israel, Judah, Egypt, down here, Sinai Peninsula. So they controlled all of the Holy Land here, and a little bit of what is today Turkey, some of the southeastern coastal area here, control all of Syria, Lebanon. Those areas were controlled by the Babylonian Empire.

They didn't really control all of Turkey, just that small sliver of it. But next came along the Medo-Persian Empire. The handwriting on the wall, if you're familiar with the story, describes events that took place during night that Babylon fell to the Medes and the Persians. So they took over all of the territory, formally controlled by Babylon, and also expanded further over into Pakistan, what is today India, Afghanistan, Iran. It was pretty much where that empire was centered in ancient times. They took over all of the Holy Land, Egypt, and as well as all of modern-day Turkey there, and expanding over into Macedonia, modern-day Greece.

It's during this period there that the events of the biblical book of Esther take place. Esther is a young Jewish girl by the name of Hadassah. It's interesting. What does the name Esther mean? Esther is actually a...you might see a Babylonian name. It's the same as Ishtar, or Easter. Esther, Easter, Ishtar. See the same linguistic connection there. So the king of the Persians divorces his first wife, and Esther becomes his second wife.

The book of Esther describes how, through a series of events, the Jewish people were about to be exterminated by Mordecai. Esther, with God's help, comes in and saves the Jewish people there. Keeps them alive there. So again, this took place during the period of the Persian Empire there. Also, following up on that relevant to the period of the Persians are the biblical books of Ezra and Nehemiah, because the Cyrus allows the...excuse me, it wasn't Cyrus, but the Jews are allowed to return back. Having been taken into captivity by the Babylonians, they are allowed to return back and re-establish their kingdom, their nation, you might say, in Jerusalem and rebuild the temple there.

Then another remarkable historical figure appears on the scene, and that is Alexander the Great. The Great Conqueror there. The Persians, as we saw on the map earlier, had pushed their empire over into all of Turkey, and over into Greece as well. Under Alexander, the Greeks started pushing back in a very mighty way. Alexander was a brilliant general, and he would be the head of the Third Empire, represented by the figure that we saw earlier from Nebuchadnezzar's dream.

Alexander invaded the area of Asia-Meyre, or Turkey, in 333 BC. A few years after that, he was able to overthrow the Persian Empire. Like the Persians, he ruled over basically all the known world at that time, and as you see on this map, took over all the area of the Persian Empire, expanded even further out into modern-day India. You may remember that he sat down at one point and lamented the fact that he had no more world to conquer. He basically conquered the entire known world at that time, and then died at the age of 33, I believe it was, in Babylon there.

So it's during this period when the Greeks ruled Asia-Meyre that a number of the major cities that are mentioned in the Bible rose to prominence. Cities like Ephesus, in particular. Other cities that are mentioned in the seven cities of Revelation, Pergamum, Heropolis, some of the other places that we visited there, rose to become their own many kingdoms in that period there.

And then a new kingdom arose, which was the Roman Empire. And from about 200 BC to about 100 BC, the Romans gradually expanded out from Italy and took control of the territory of modern-day Greece and Asia-Meyre, as we see reflected on the map. Expanded out from here all the way around the Mediterranean eventually, but into the area of Greece and Eastern Asia-Meyre, the areas that we'll be talking about predominantly today. So eventually they would expand and rule all of the lands that the Greek Empire had previously controlled. The Greeks, it wasn't really a matter of battling, the Greeks were just basically absorbed into the Roman Empire.

And the Romans adopted a lot of the Greek culture, including worshiping the various Greek gods there. That's why back in grade school you probably had to memorize all the Greek and Roman gods. The same gods, just different names for them. And you probably remember a little bit of that there. So that's why in the New Testament period we see all these peoples worshiping all of these gods, even though it's the Roman Empire, they're worshiping the same gods that had been worshipped by the Greeks earlier there.

And they just renamed them, giving them Roman names instead. So again, as I mentioned, they eventually expanded and controlled the Holy Land as well and Egypt. And they eventually encompassed and surrounded the entire Mediterranean Sea. They even had a name for the Mediterranean Sea, the Romans did. They called it our lake there, because they control all the lands around the entire Mediterranean there.

So in the period leading up to, in the first century BC, shortly before the birth of Jesus Christ, a lot of very key events happened that helped shape that area and prepare it for the coming of the Messiah.

First, there was the Roman general Pompey, who took control of Jerusalem and the Holy Land. Then there was an individual who came along by the name of Julius Caesar. And he rose to power and was assassinated there in the first century BC, a few decades before Jesus Christ was born.

Then there followed after that a civil war between Augustus and an individual by the name of Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt. They were on one side and Caesar's great nephew, Octavian, otherwise known as Sigur Caesar Augustus, as he would later become known, were on the other side of the civil war.

Octavian eventually won and took the title of Caesar Augustus, as he is called in the Gospel of Luke. That sets the stage then for the birth of Jesus Christ and the Apostle Paul in the beginning of the New Testament period there.

Now, I want to digress a bit outside of the Bible and talk about some of the prophetic implications.

I mentioned earlier that the Roman Empire was represented by two phases of the Roman Empire.

We tend to think of the Roman Empire as existing and falling there in the 400s AD. Well, actually it didn't fall. It more or less fell into disrepair or shifted. The power, the energy of the Roman Empire actually shifted under the period of a Roman Emperor by the name of Constantine the Great.

He's the one who officially legalized his version of Christianity in the Roman Empire. He actually in 330 AD moved his capital from Rome over to Constantinople in Asia Minor. In doing so, he was unknowingly fulfilling this aspect of the prophecy that we read about earlier, where the image had two legs corresponding to the two divisions of the Roman Empire. What this looked like on a map is this. The Roman Empire eventually got so big that at different times it was ruled by two essential co-emperors, you might say, sometimes even four, because it was just too big to administer from one central location.

Constantine formalized it when he moved his capital over to Constantinople, which is modern-day Istanbul.

The Roman Empire entered a new phase then. The old capital of Rome wasn't really abandoned, but it kind of fell by the wayside. Constantinople became the new center of energy and influence in the Roman Empire.

Most historians refer to this area then as the Byzantine Empire, but that's what historians call it. They never call themselves the Byzantines. They so-called themselves Romans. The emperor was called the Roman Emperor, the emperor of the Roman Empire.

Historically, what we had then is basically one Roman Empire that existed for about a thousand years, headquartered in Rome. Then the Roman Empire had a second phase, representing the second leg, that was centered here in Constantinople. It lasted for about another thousand years.

The Roman Empire didn't fall in the 400s. It shifted and continued on for another thousand years, as what is called today the Byzantine Empire.

This was important. We didn't spend a lot of time discussing this on our trip there.

Constantinople became probably the world center of wealth and influence during much of that period. Here's an artist's conception of it based on the archaeological finds. It was situated on a peninsula, surrounded by salt water on three sides. It had a very nice port here. The most prominent feature for the Constantine's period, as it looked like a little bit after the Constantine's period, was this giant hippodrome there in the city. You can actually still tell where that hippodrome was because of several obelisks that are still standing that were along the central spine where they would race the chariots around. You might think of the NASCAR races. This was their version of NASCAR at that time. And chariot racing was very, very popular.

As a matter of fact, there were some riots that killed, I believe, the figures about 30,000 people after some of the chariot races there. They were very passionate about their sport. And the charioteers were worshiped like our major sports stars today. They were the real stars.

So that gives us a bit of an overview of what the city would have looked like then, very much based on Roman-style architecture. The climate is very similar to Italy. There, those of you who've been to Italy. I mentioned the city, as we see it, surrounded by salt water on three sides. So they had a problem getting enough fresh water there to supply the city. So they built these giant aqueducts that brought water in from as much as 30 miles away to bring fresh water into the city for a water supply. Because they couldn't just take the water out of the salt water, they were surrounded by it. So they brought, let's see, I don't remember how many aqueducts, a dozen or so giant aqueducts, some of which still stand at A. Actually, one of the modern streets runs through the arches. That gives you some idea of the size of those arches. They're big enough for about two lanes of traffic to go underneath just one of the arches there. This is a double-decker aqueduct, too. It actually had a water line here on the first level that they needed to add to the water supply, so they added another one above it. So you still see remains of these around Istanbul to this day. And to store all of that water, they built these giant cisterns. This is one that we visited called the Basilica Cistern. It's the most popular among tourists there. These columns are, I believe, 70 feet high, more than twice the height, probably about three times the height of this room that we're in here, and covers at least several acres there. And the water today is only about 18 inches deep there, but during that period, the water could have gone all the way up to the ceiling there. So it's just a very, very impressive water shortage. And this is one of a number of them that they had there to supply water, because this is the capital of the empire. It's going to be besieged a number of different times. The way you break a siege as you surround the city, cut off people's water supply and food supply, and starve them out during that period. However, with these massive water supply, water storage systems there, they could survive for years on the water that they were able to store there for the city. So that was a big defensive measure, as well as a practical measure, to supply the city with water. However, the most dominant building there in the ancient city of Constantinople was a church building called the Hia Sophia. That's Greek, which means the Church of the Holy Wisdom. Hia, Holy Sophia Wisdom in Greek. This is the view of the building that the emperor would have had from his palace, looking across to this giant, giant church building. It was built by the emperor Justinian in the 500s AD. The structure still stands today, more than 15 centuries later, which is just astonishing considering that this is major earthquake country there. Here's a view of the interior of it. It gives you some idea of the sense of the scale when you realize these are people down here.

Giant. This was the largest freestanding dome for about a thousand years until St. Peter's Basilica was constructed in Rome. It's almost as high as the dome of the US Capitol building if you've ever been inside that. Just enormous. Would have seeded thousands, literally thousands, of people there.

Today it has been when the Muslims conquered Istanbul in 1453, they converted it into a mosque. Generally, they destroyed Christian churches. This one was so big, so magnificent, that they converted it into a mosque. Today it serves as kind of a standing museum there today. It's not a museum. You go around and look at artifacts.

It's a museum. You go and just admire the splendor of that architecture. It was so magnificent that it's recorded that when Justinian walked in and saw the completed structure, that he said, Solomon, I have outdone even you. Meaning that his temple was greater and more magnificent than Solomon's temple. It is truly a...I wouldn't support that view of history, but it is truly incredible to see this. All the more to realize that, yes, this is stood there for 15 centuries in what is one of the major earthquake areas of the world. Incidentally, a fair amount of this gold coloring that you see up there is literal gold. Gold-plated tiles there. There are all kinds of mosaic pictures all over up in these very high domes. Just really, really incredible. It's quite a sight to see. You can look at a lot more details of it on the internet there. I might mention also that during Constantinople's reign as the central kingdom of the earth, they built giant defensive walls, many of which still exist today. This one was just a few blocks from our hotel. I know Scott Lockwood and, let's see, Shane and I went out and did a little tour of it, walked around. These are giant defensive towers there. These walls preserved the city, kept it safe for about 15 centuries, until the Turks finally...excuse me, about 15 centuries, about a thousand years before it finally fell to the Turks in 1453. As depicted in this painting here. So those walls were big enough, strong enough to keep the city safe for a thousand years. Here we think stuff is old if it's a hundred years old. Those walls are a thousand years old. That church is 15 centuries old. So history really comes alive when you visit an area like that.

Let's see, I digress quite a bit here, but from my notes, let me find out exactly where I was. So, yeah, basically that's a thumbnail sketch of Turkey's history as it relates to the Bible and Bible prophecy. We've covered there about 3,500 years in about a half hour here. Istanbul is truly one of the most fascinating places in the world.

But now for the remainder of our time, I would like to go back and focus in on the first century, on the time of the Apostle Paul and the first century church. Because if you want to see what life was like for Christians there in the first century, I think probably the best place to go and get an idea of that is Ephesus. The city of Ephesus there.

Because it has some of the best preserved Roman ruins in the world. You can see some ruins there in Ephesus and in other areas of Turkey that you just cannot see, even in places like Rome or Pompeii or Herculaneum, some of the other famous sites from the ancient world of Rome. So I've given you a little taste of Istanbul, which is where we started our trip. We spent four days there on the front end of our trip. And then after that, we went out to visit the seven churches, the cities that are mentioned there in Revelation 2 and 3. Because of logistics, we didn't visit them in the order that they're listed there in Revelation. However, I'll go ahead for continuity's sake and cover them in the order that they're described there in Revelation. And cover them and cover some other interesting tidbits along the way.

So I won't talk about all of them. I'm just going to talk about one of them today, Ephesus, because that is the most complete one. There's also much more written in the New Testament about Ephesus and any of the other cities that are mentioned there. So we'll talk about the other six next time and just talk about Ephesus today. So I'll start here with the prophetic description of Ephesus in Revelation 2, verses 1 through 7.

I'll mention, too, I'm not going to go through and interpret all of this. The Home Office did a series of Bible studies on that, going back several months where they spent an hour on each one of those seven cities. So I'm not going to duplicate all of that. I just want to bring out a couple of points as we go through them. So reading through this, John writes, To the angel of the church of Ephesus write, That's actually what it's talking about.

Nevertheless, I have this against you, that you have left your first love. Remember, therefore, from where you have fallen, repent and do the first works, or else I will come to you quickly and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent. But this you have, that you hate the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. He who has an ear to hear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches, to him who overcomes, I will give to eat from the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God. So again, I'm not going to go through and give you an explanation of all of that. You can watch those Home Office Bible studies on your own. But I will just comment a little bit about the background of Ephesus. It was one of the major cities of the Roman Empire. Here it is on a map. It was a port city, probably the third largest, actually probably the second largest port city in the Roman Empire, second only to Alexandria in Egypt. Actually, the port of Rome was considerably smaller. Rome is actually about 20 miles inland from the coast, and it was served by a port called Ostia, which I may talk about that at some point later here. But Ephesus was a huge port. It was the largest port in the Aegean Sea, larger than Corinth, Athens, any of those cities. It was a key hub of the Roman road system there in Asia Minor as well.

Earlier we talked about the Medo-Persian Empire. The Persians actually built an ancient superhighway, you might think of an interstate highway, all the way from their capital in Susa, in modern-day Iran, all the way to the city of Ephesus for purposes of trade. It ran from right over here all the way to Ephesus. This made it a major trade route, going back for many centuries all the way to the time of the Persian Empire.

At its peak, Ephesus had a population estimated at about a half a million people, which makes it an enormous city for that time there. If you were traveling to Ephesus by sea and you came up to the port, the most dominant thing you would have noticed, dominating the harbor there area, was the Temple of Diana, which plays into the Book of Acts, which we'll be covering here in just a few minutes. This temple was known as one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. It was so big, it measured about 200 feet by about 400 feet. It had about 130 of these columns here, which again are about 70 feet high. Just enormous. An entire football field would easily fit within this temple of Diana there. Diana was one of the most famous goddesses of the Greeks and the Romans. She was known as Artemis to the Greeks and Diana to the Romans. Here are two statues of Diana that were found in Ephesus. They're very well preserved. The theory is that they were actually probably buried for preservation, as Christianity grew in that area. The ancient Diana worshippers probably buried her statues to keep them preserved, which they were. They're in very good shape there. Let's talk about Diana a little bit. These statues may have actually stood in the temple of Diana at one time. Unfortunately, if you go there and try to see the temple of Diana, there's nothing left except a single column standing up out of a swamp. There, the columns were removed. The temple was destroyed by earthquake, by fire. The remains of the temple were just carted away and used in other building projects over the years. Unfortunately, there's nothing to see there to this day. Artemis, or Diana, was the goddess of fertility and the hunt. We actually see this reflected in these statues here. Regarding the goddess of the hunt, she has two other small statues beside her here. These are deer. She's typically depicted with a bow and arrow as the huntress there. She was accompanied here by these two deer. In terms of being the goddess of fertility, I'll try to put this delicately. Actually, I don't have too many children here today, so maybe I'll put it in delicately. Anyway, she's been long thought to have multiple breasts here. Actually, I don't believe that's true. Ask me later. I'll explain why. More recently, your scholars theorize that these are not actually breasts, but are depictions of other fertility symbols, namely bee larvae, bee eggs you might think of, or eggs, or bull testicles. There are references to all three of these in ancient literature of statues being paraded down the street with garlands of bull testicles around their necks as a fertility symbol. Bees were also a symbol of fertility. Eggs are an obvious symbol of fertility. Why bees? Well, because if you look at the statues carefully, you can actually see one quite plain right here. You see a bee there on her garment. So that's one idea why they think these may represent bee larvae. There is a symbol of fertility. Part of her worship there in her temple involved ritualized temple prostitution to be blunt about it, which means that worshipers would come there. They would have sex with a priest or priestess and would give a monetary offering there. That was their form of worship.

This temple then became a center of great wealth there and that overflowed into the city as well. Ephesus was a very prosperous city because of the wealth from the worship of Diana and her temple there. People would come literally from all over the ancient world to pay homage to Diana to worship at her temple there. That plays into the story that we'll read about in the book of Acts here. This was a major part of the kind of culture that the first century Christians lived in. An extremely idolatrous culture. We'll get into that a little bit more in the remainder of the sermon here. Ephesus did play a major role in the history of the church there in the first century. It's mentioned repeatedly in the book of Acts. It's mentioned repeatedly in Paul's writings. Some of the really striking events that we read about in the book of Acts took place there in Ephesus, as we'll see. Let's go through and briefly read some of those references to the city of Ephesus. The first one takes place in Acts 18 during Paul's second missionary journey that we talked about earlier. His first one just went into central Turkey and then he returned. The second one he went through central Turkey over to the coast to Ephesus, probably around AD 51 or 52. Pick up the story here in Acts 18 verses 19 through 21. Fairly brief mention, but it says here, Paul came to Ephesus and left Aquila and Priscilla there, but he himself entered the synagogue and reasoned with the Jews. When they asked him to stay a longer time with them, he did not consent, but took leave of them, saying, I must by all means keep this coming feast in Jerusalem, but I will return again to you, God willing. And he sailed from Ephesus. So we see a couple of things from this brief mentioned here. It's a fairly brief visit because he has to travel on to Jerusalem for one of the feasts here. But he does leave Aquila and Priscilla. These are two long time people that he's known who are originally in Rome, were banished from Rome under Emperor Claudius and traveled to Corinth. They lived there. It's mentioned in the epistles to the Corinthians. From there, they move over to Ephesus and they help form the nucleus of a church congregation there. Paul leaves them there for that purpose to form the nucleus of a local congregation. So the next event then takes place a few verses down in the same chapter in verse 24. It says here, now a certain Jew named Apollos, since he's named after the Greek god Apollo. If you actually study the origins of a lot of the New Testament characters, a lot of them were named after gods and goddesses there.

That was very typical of that day. So he's coming out of this pagan background there. So he's named Apollos, born at Alexandria in Egypt. An eloquent man and mighty in the scriptures came to Ephesus. So he began to speak boldly in the synagogue. So we see also that, yes, there's enough of a Jewish population in Ephesus that they have at least one synagogue there.

When Aquila and Priscilla heard him, what did they hear him? In the synagogue. They're Christians, but they're attending the synagogue as well. When they heard him, they took him aside and explained to him the way of God more accurately. So just another mention here of Ephesus and another major figure who's going to play a prominent role later on. This is his origins, his first contact with the church there in Ephesus. The next mention now we skip down to Paul's third missionary journey when he stops in Ephesus and stays there for two years. This is probably about three or four years later, around A.D. 55. And we find this in Acts 19 verses 1 and 8 through 10.

And it happened while Apollos was at Corinth, now he's become a leading figure in the church, and is now at Corinth and Greece on the other side of the Aegean Sea, that Paul, having passed through the upper regions, came to Ephesus. And skipping down to verse 8, and he went into the synagogue and spoke boldly for three months, reasoning and persuading concerning the things of the kingdom of God.

But when some were hardened, and did not believe, but spoke evil of the way before the multitude, he departed from them and withdrew the disciples, reasoning daily in the school of Terenas. And this continued for two years, so that all who dwelt in Asia heard the word of the Lord Jesus, both Jews and Greeks. So this tells us several interesting things. Again, that Ephesus was a big enough city to have at least one synagogue there, probably only one, but it's apparently a fairly good sized one as well. It also tells us that Paul went to the synagogue and taught, which is his typical pattern, and they tolerate him for three months until things get a little bit testy there, and he ends up moving to a nearby school, probably owned by a church member. A church member has a prominent role in this school, and then goes on teaching there. So Paul continues doing this for two years, teaching both Jews and Gentiles and building up the church here. But notice this interesting line in here, so that all who dwelt in Asia heard the word of the Lord Jesus.

How did all the area of Asia, which is basically all of western Turkey there, hear the word just from Ephesus? Well, it's interesting. What is Paul's typical pattern? Paul's typical pattern is he travels everywhere, teaching. That's what we see throughout Acts. That's why he has these epistles written in all these different church congregations around the Mediterranean world there.

He breaks his pattern in Ephesus. And why does he do that? He stays in Ephesus for two years. It's longer than we see him staying in other places. Why does he do that? Well, because Ephesus, again, is one of the major port cities of the Roman Empire. Paul, when he stays in Ephesus, doesn't have to go to the world. The world comes to him.

In Ephesus, the world comes to him because it's such a big port. People are coming and going all the time. And as it says here, all who dwelt in Asia heard the word. Well, Ephesus is a huge trading center. It's more or less a regional capital there, so people come from all over. Later on, well, we know this historically from some of Paul's other epistles. There's a church in Colossae.

Colossae is about 80 miles, if I remember correctly, from Ephesus. There's also a church in Heropolis, which is about 10 miles from Colossae. There, we know that from the Epistle to the Colossians. There. There's Philemon, who's apparently an elder or overseer of one of the churches there. And is runaway slave Onesimus, from which we get the Epistle of Philemon. They're in that area, too. They're about 80 miles from Ephesus. How did they come into knowledge of the truth? There's no record and acts of Paul ever going out to visit Colossae or Heropolis, where we know they had congregations there. So what happened? Well, probably individuals from those cities came to Ephesus for trading purposes, business purposes, whatever. Stopped in the synagogue, heard Paul preaching there, or in the school of Tyrannocere. Hear Paul's preaching and become converted. And they go out and spread that word back to the cities. And that's probably how a congregation got established in Colossae and in Heropolis, and in the various other areas there that are merchant. Pergamos, Smyrna, Laodicea, all of these other towns there, Thyatira, all of those.

So it's rather interesting. That seems to be the way... That seems to be why Paul stayed there in Ephesus, because he didn't have to go out and travel, because there's so many people coming and going to Ephesus all the time, that he's able to stay there and have people come to him to hear the message of the Gospel and salvation through Jesus Christ. So it's an interesting sidelight. It's not spelled out in the Bible. The reason why Paul stayed there, but I think he did. I think that's why he did. Because Ephesus was such a prominent city there, and had all of those people coming to visit there. So continuing on with the story then, next we find Ephesus mentioned in the Epistle to the Corinthians, 1 Corinthians 16, verses 8 and 19.

And this epistle was written from Ephesus to the church in Corinth during the spring of AD 55. We know it was springtime because he refers to Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread. And Paul writes to the church in Corinth, verse 8 of 1 Corinthians 16, But I will tarry, or I will wait, or stay in Ephesus until Pentecost.

So we do see this mentioned here. And then later on in verse 19, he says, The churches, again, there are other churches than just there in Ephesus at this time, greet you. Aquila and Priscilla greet you heartily in the Lord with the church that is in their house. Why does he mention Aquila and Priscilla? Well, because again, they came from Corinth before they moved to Ephesus. So the people there in Corinth, many of them would have known Aquila and Priscilla. And we also see here that they are hosting a church that meets in their house. Their house is probably big enough to support a congregation, maybe 20, 30, 40 people meeting there. So apparently they have done quite well economically there in Ephesus. So returning then to the book of Acts and Acts 19, we find some other well-known events that take place in the book of Acts that actually occur here in Ephesus. So Acts 19 and verse 11, it says here, Now God worked unusual miracles by the hands of Paul, so that even handkerchiefs or aprons, that's a terrible translation, basically means pieces of cloth, were brought from his body to the sick, and the diseases left them, and the evil spirits went out of them. This is where we get our practice of anointed cloths. It is from this verse here that Paul, because of distance, sends out pieces of anointed cloth to those who are sick and call on the elders there. So this is the verse on which we base that practice today. Continuing on, we find another that's just a sidelight there. But continuing on, verse 13, Then some of the itinerant Jewish exorcists, this is again talking about Ephesus, took it upon themselves to call the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had evil spirits, saying, We exercise you by the name of Jesus, by the Jesus whom Paul preaches. Also, there were seven sons of Sceva, a Jewish chief priest, who did so. And the evil spirit answered and said, Jesus, I know, and Paul, I know, but who are you? Then the man in whom the evil spirit was leaped on them, overpowered them, and prevailed against them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded. Verse 17, This became known both to all Jews and Greeks, or Gentiles, dwelling in Ephesus, and fear fell on them all, in the name of the Lord Jesus was magnified. And many who had believed came confessing and telling their deeds. Verse 19, Also many of those who had practiced magic brought their books together and burned them in the sight of all.

And they counted up the value of them, and it totaled 50,000 pieces of silver. So the word of the Lord grew mightily and prevailed. So the reason I mention this passage here is it gives us, again, an insight into the culture in which the Christians of the first century are living. What are some of the characteristics we see here? We see people possessed by evil spirits.

Why? Why this kind of demonism? Well, because what are they worshipping? They're worshipping demons in the form of all of these gods and goddesses that are really nothing but demons in that period. We see magic, the occult, people with magic books or scrolls they bring, and a total 50,000 pieces of silver.

That would be the equivalent of, if the silver is a common denarius, which was a common piece of silver at that time, it was a day's wage. So 50,000 pieces of silver, the equivalent of 50,000 man days of work. Let's say that's $200 a day. You're talking 50,000 times $200. You're talking multiple thousands and thousands of dollars. It's the value of these books here when they hear the truth about Jesus Christ and the kingdom of God. They burn those books, realizing that it's nothing but demonism there. As it says in verse 20, so the Word of the Lord grew mightily and prevailed under these circumstances here.

Next, in the same chapter down a few verses, verse 23, we find quite a dramatic story that takes place here in Ephesus concerning the worship of Diana, which we talked about earlier. And here we see a huge collision between Christianity and the pagan world of Ephesus. And about that time, there arose a great commotion about the way.

This is what Christianity is initially called in the book of Acts. It's called the way. It's not called Christianity yet. That would come later. Why is it called the way? Because it is a way of life. It's a very starkly different way of life compared to what was going on in that culture at that time. And then we see I talked about this worship of Diana generating great wealth.

And here we come into a story that illustrates that. For a certain man named Demetrius, a silversmith who made silver shrines of Diana, he's talking about little idols of Diana, a few inches tall, made out of silver, brought no small profit to the craftsmen. He called them together with the workers of similar occupation. They actually had guilds at that time where the leather workers would have a guild, the pottery makers would have a guild, the silversmiths would have a guild. So it would have been maybe dozens, maybe even hundreds of people in this guild making these little idols of Diana to sell to all the tourists coming to worship Diana there.

And said, men, you know that we have our prosperity by this trade. Moreover, you see and hear that not only in Ephesus, but throughout almost all Asia, Asia, minor, that province, this Paul has persuaded and turned away many people saying that they are not gods which are made with hands. So not only is this trade of ours in danger of falling into disrepute, but also the temple of the great goddess Diana may be despised and her magnificence destroyed, whom all Asia and the world worship.

Now when they heard this, they were full of wrath and cried out, saying, Great is Diana of the Ephesians. So the whole world was filled with confusion, the whole city was filled with confusion, and rushed into the theater with one accord having seized Gaius and Aristarchus, Macedonians, Paul's travel companions. And when Paul wanted to go into the people, into the theater, the disciples would not allow him. Why wouldn't they allow him?

Well, because there's a riot about to take place here. We see that as verses go along. Then some of the officials of Asia, Ephesus again is a regional capital there, so these are Roman government officials there, who were his friends, friends of Paul, sent to him pleading that he should not venture into the theater.

Some therefore cried one thing and some another, for the assembly was confused, which is typical of a riot. And most of them did not know why they had come together. It's kind of humorous, the story as it develops here. And they drew Alexander out of the multitude, the Jews putting him forward.

And Alexander motioned with his hand and wanted to make his defense to the people. But when they found out that he was a Jew, all with one voice cried out for about two hours, Great is Diana of the Ephesians. So you have this huge crowd in this theater shouting out for two hours, Great is Diana of the Ephesians.

If you can't argue with somebody, shout them down. It's common in the political discourse these days. Verse 35, when the city clerk or administrator, may have been more the equivalent of mayor or city council member, something like that, had quieted the crowd, he said, Men of Ephesus, what man is there who does not know that the city of the Ephesians is temple guardian of the great goddess Diana?

And of the image which fell down from Zeus? What's that referring to? Well, there's a theory here that the original worship of Diana took place here because a meteorite fell and hit there near this city. And they assume this is divine. This is one of the gods or goddesses falling to earth from Zeus, who's the great god.

And therefore they built the temple of Diana where this meteorite fell. That's why sometimes Diana is depicted not in white marble like the statues we saw earlier, but in black stone because of what color are meteorites? They're black. That may be an explanation of what... There may be a historical event that led to this fable about Diana falling from the sky from Zeus.

Continuing on, therefore, since these things cannot be denied, you ought to be quiet and do nothing rashly. Otherwise, this is typed down. Cool it. Chill out here. I've mentioned before the pox Romana, the Peace of Rome. The Romans generally gave people leeway to administer things, to worship as they wanted to, so long as it didn't upset the status quo, so long as it didn't create unrest because what happens when you have unrest? Well, people don't pay their taxes. When you have unrest, things get upset, the economy gets disrupted. The Romans took the view that so long as you were peaceful and quiet and paid your taxes to Rome, we'll let you do pretty much whatever you want. And we see this overall attitude reflected here. Look, you guys are about to cause a riot and all hell is going to come on us if the higher officials, if Rome, if the emperor gets word of this. And we see this reflected in the comments that are made here, continuing in verse 37. For you have brought these men here who are neither robbers of temples nor blasphemers of your goddess. Therefore, if Demetrius and his fellow craftsmen have a case against anyone, the courts are open and there are proconsuls. There are legal government officials who can hear your complaint. So don't start a riot. If you have a legal complaint, make it to the officials, the judicial officials here, the proconsuls. Let them bring charges against one another. But if you have any other inquiry to make, it shall be determined in the lawful assembly. The unspoken assumption, not this unlawful riot that you're about to start here.

For we are in danger of being called and questioned for today's uproar. There being no reason which we may give to account for this disorderly gathering. And when he said these things, he dismissed the assembly, the crowd, the rioters. After the uproar had ceased, Paul called the disciples to himself, embraced them, and got out of town.

Departed, left, and crossed over to Greece, to Macedonia, because the atmosphere is so hot there. So we see a couple of interesting things here. So basically, the city official steps in and says, look, you guys, you better put a lid on this. Because if these guys have broken the law, let the courts deal with it. Because if word gets out to the emperor that we nearly had a riot here, what's going to happen?

Well, he's going to send in the legionnaires, and bad things happen. So that hushed up the crowd, frankly. That put a lid on it. And they disperse after this, after which Paul, realizing the danger of the situation, calls the church members together and embraces them, gives them a hug, and leaves.

And travels on to Macedonia, and eventually to Corinth, and back down to Jerusalem.

Then in the next chapter of the Book of Acts, Acts 20, Paul is returning to Jerusalem at the conclusion of his third missionary journey. And he mentions Ephesus again here. We'll just hit the high spots of this account.

Acts 20, verses 16 and 17. Paul had decided to sail past Ephesus so that he would not have to spend time in Asia, that's the province name there, where Ephesus is located, for he was hurrying to be at Jerusalem, if possible, on the day of Pentecost. Why? Well, because Jerusalem has the three pilgrimage feasts of the year. Feasts of Unleavened Bread, Pentecost, and feasts of Tabernacles. And then notice, so he sails past Ephesus, deliberately bypasses it, and what does he do? He goes to Miletus. What's Miletus? Miletus is the next major port south of Ephesus along the Turkish coast. From Miletus, he sent to Ephesus. Ephesus is about 60 miles away, and called for the elders of the church.

So why did he bypass Ephesus and meet with the elders there in Miletus? Well, it says here he was in a hurry. He wanted to get to Jerusalem for Pentecost. And that's certainly a very valid reason for him there. But I think he probably also, in light of what we just read about, that happened on his second trip there, that if he stops in Ephesus, there may be another riot or something like that. That's still an open source spot there between all of these people who make their living off worship of Diana. And he probably doesn't want to put himself in danger, or the church members in danger, by stopping there and possibly having a repeat of that riot, or near riot, where a couple of his friends were drug into this mob and nearly torn limb from limb before the riot dispersed there. So I think that's probably what is going on. I don't think he's doing it just for his sake, because what's happened to Paul by this point? Well, he's already been stoned and left for dead. He's already been beaten. He's been shipwrecked and things like that. But he probably wanted to spare the church there from another antagonistic situation arising there, as it happened earlier. So let's talk a little bit about Miletus. We had exactly one afternoon off during the feast there, and Charles Melere arranged for several of us to drive about an hour and a half down from our hotel near Ephesus down to Miletus, this very town that is mentioned here. And it actually turned out to be one of the highlights of the trip for me. There were actually only five of us who went down. Charles Melere, myself, Jim and Arnie Hopkins from Columbus, and a member from Canada, Peter, whose last name I don't remember. But it was a highlight. Not much is left of the city itself. There is a nicely preserved Greco-Roman theater that was originally built by the Greeks and modified by the Romans. This is our feast coordinator, Charles, standing in the chief seats of the theater.

This is the sky box, you might say, of the theater. These are the front row seats there. You can see the columns. They actually had a covered canopy there for the bigwigs. The hoity-toity there, seeing the presentations there. So this was there, this very well-preserved theater that exists to this day. Paul would have certainly seen this theater when he sailed into the harbor because it stands up on a hill overlooking the harbor there. Very, very prominent. The city also has some very well-preserved Roman baths. To give some sense of scale, here's two of our people. There's Charles in the redshirt. See the size of these Roman baths. These actually did not exist in Paul's day. These were built. These were actually funded by the wife of Marcus Aurelius. He was the emperor in the movie Gladiator, if you remember that, about the late 100s AD. These weren't built there, although it's possible these were built on some earlier baths that might have existed there during Paul's time. These are some of the big, spectacular remains there in the city of Miletus.

But the most interesting thing about the city was this spot. Me standing overlooking a big mud puddle about the size of this room. Why is this significant? Let's get back to a little bit of the history that we talked about earlier. This was the location of a monument that was constructed in the first century BC to commemorate the victory of Caesar Augustus, or Augustus, who would later become known as Caesar Augustus, Octavian, over Mark Antony and Cleopatra that we talked about earlier, at the great naval battle of Actium off the coast of Greece in 31 BC.

This was the head of the harbor at Miletus. You can see a little bit of the monument left. There's this white marble block with carvings on it. It's a tube about 6 feet, 7 feet on all sides. You see these rows of columns here. This is where that monument to commemorate that naval battle took place. This was at the head of the harbor. The harbor extended out between these two hills into the background.

Now it's all silted in over the last 2,000 years, so the coastline is actually about 6 miles away. But in rainy season, there will actually fill up a few inches of water in the remains of this harbor right here. Now, why is this significant? Well, it's significant, and it was touching to me because this is one of the few places mentioned in the Book of Acts that you know that Paul had to have walked within about 10 or 15 yards of this very spot. Because everybody who entered that harbor came to this spot and walked up a lower road to a T-intersection. And the person taking this photo is on that road, so Paul would have walked right by within 10 or 15 yards of this very spot. There just aren't...I can't think of any other spaces where you can definitively say that that happened, other than possibly a couple there in Jerusalem. So quite touching to me to be literally walking in the footsteps of the Apostle Paul there at that time. So I won't read the rest of the account. I'll just summarize it for it briefly. That Paul there meets with the elders from Ephesus, and it's a very deeply moving story that he meets with them and says that basically I'm never going to see you again. I have to go to Jerusalem, and I know what awaits me there, chains and captivity.

And I know that from among yourselves grievous wolves will arise, not sparing the flock. And the Church is going to divide, and some of you are going to be behind that division. And then he hugs them, and he boards a ship and travels down to Jerusalem. And we know how the story ends. He's captured, he's taken to Rome, and stays some time there.

He is freed, but then eventually is re-arrested and beheaded in the reign of the Emperor Nero.

So it's a very, very touching spot in the light of what happened there at Miletus, in Paul's message to the elders of the Church there.

So in the few minutes we have left here, I'd like to take you all on a little tour, kind of giving you the historical background, the cultural background. But I'd like to show you some of what Ephesus looks like today, what we're able to see on our trip there.

One of the most prominent things, if you entered the harbor of Ephesus and it was an enormous port there, one of the first things you would have seen was this great huge road that's probably the width of this room that led from the harbor up to the theater built into the hillside that overlooked the harbor.

Giant theaters seated about 25,000 people there.

And a spectacular view overlooking this road and down to the harbor. Here's what it looks like.

Let me show you. This view is looking back toward the theater. This is the view from the theater looking down that road and it would have ended at the harbor. That's where the harbor would have been in Paul's time right there.

What has happened? Where's the water? Well, it's about six miles out there. You can't see it now. Well, actually, you can see a little tiny sliver way out there.

What happened is a river ran down around the hill over here, emptied into the harbor, a beautiful harbor, nicely preserved with hills on the sides to protect it from storms.

But what happened is they have their spring floods there and it washes a lot of mud and debris down into the harbor.

So they had to continually dredge the harbor and keep it clear. Eventually the harbor was just too much and the harbor silted in.

And now, like at Miletus, the water is about six miles away.

So as the ship silts in and the ships can't get there anymore, the trade dries up. The commerce, the economy dies because it's a port that is built on trade.

All of the ships, the fishermen that go out to bring food to feed the city of a quarter to half a million people, can't get in anymore.

They can't sail in and out of the port because the port is silting in. So the reason there are so many spectacular ruins there in Ephesus is the economy started dying off, shrinking, because they lost their main economic resource, which is the harbor.

And over a period of several centuries, the people just walked away.

Just packed up their belongings, loaded them on a cart, and walked away because the jobs were gone. You could no longer make a living there.

The economy collapsed. So this is why we have some of the best preserved Roman ruins, not in Rome, not in Italy, but over here in Asia Minor.

And the ruins are spectacular. There is good, if not better, in many ways than those at Pompeii.

Part of that, because Ephesus is such a much bigger city. The population of Pompeii was about 25,000. The population of Ephesus is 10 to 20 times that.

So a much bigger city, much more spectacular theater. The acoustic sensidale in this theater are just outstanding.

Again, the seats are about 20,000 people, and I'm 15 or 20 rows up. And you can hear and understand people talking in a normal voice down there, down in the area.

So it wouldn't have taken much projection at all for actors to be heard by all 25,000 people in that theater there.

So spectacular, spectacular view. Here's a view, moving along, here's a view of the main street of the city.

It zigzag, came up to the theater, then made a right turn, and then went up a valley. And this is the valley part of the main street.

You can see the paving stones going all the way back to Paul's day there, the columns and shops along the side.

Here's an advertisement, what is interpreted as an advertisement for the city. It's a footprint, and beside it is a woman.

This is a big port city. Who comes to port cities? A lot of sailors who've been at sea for a long time.

This is saying, here's the weight of the women. So I won't go into more detail there.

Here's one of the temples, alongside the main street, was just lined with different temples to various gods, goddesses.

Here's one to the Roman emperors. There was Roman emperor worship. The emperors, many of them, after they died, were deified as gods as well.

Sometimes their wives as goddesses. So this is a temple for emperor worship.

You'll notice, I'll give you a close-up of this figure at the back of that, that is Medusa, with her bad hair day, permanent bad hair day, of snakes.

You think you have hair problems? Try to call them a head of snakes.

She seems to, she doesn't seem to have been worshiped, but seems to have been kind of an all-purpose protective goddess.

I say that because they find her image on a lot of tombstones, stone coffins of that day.

There they don't find temples to Medusa, but they do find her likeness in all kinds of places.

Again, to illustrate the commonality of the idolatrous practice, here's kind of a shrine or altar, you might say, set up at a major intersection of the main street there.

In Ephesus, it's kind of hard to make out because pieces are missing and it's partially broken up there.

Right very near that is this statue to the goddess of tennis shoes, otherwise known as Nike.

Is her name? That's where the name comes from. Anybody see the Nike swoosh on there?

You see it? Swoosh!

Somebody paid some designer probably hundreds of thousands of dollars for that. He stole it from 2,000 years ago.

So, this again is just one of the goddesses there.

Here's alongside the main street. If you can just envision a main street about half the width of this room.

And on either side of it are shops. It's the shopping mall. It's the strip mall of the day.

Over here is the street. Here are columns that go up and they support coverings over the shops.

And the floors of the shops are covered. There are these beautiful tile mosaics here.

And then the shops actually go back. You can see the brick walls and so on.

So here's the main street. Here's the covered walkway. Here are the shops.

All along there where you can pick up your latest shoe fashions, your clothing, your food, anything you want along in there.

Here's another interesting illustration to illustrate the prevalence of the idolatry and the culture of that day.

This is Charles and Don Harms. I took this because of this little niche behind it.

They're standing right outside the doorway of a house here.

There's a niche here that probably had a little platform that stuck out and was held up by this beautiful small marble column here.

So you see this niche and an invisible little platform there. What is that niche?

If you know what you're looking for, if you've been to Pompeii, you may have had a tour guide explain that.

Then it's called a Llorarium. Llorarium. L-A-R-A-R-I-U-M.

This was a place where the household gods of the house would have been placed.

Each day, if you were a good Roman, as you left your house, you had this right by your doorway.

You stopped and you paid homage to your household gods.

As you came back in to the house, you stopped and you paid homage to the household gods and codices.

Here's an illustration of what it looked like. This is a painted version of it from Pompeii.

You see the little niche. This one is very elaborate.

It has a little shelf in front of it.

It painted lorates in the back.

The serpent, which was a symbol of what it represents off the top of my head.

These would have been the primary gods and goddesses that the Romans of that household worshipped at that time.

You see this on many, many Roman houses, those that are preserved to that day.

Here's what it looked like. It just looked familiar.

It looked familiar to anybody.

You see these very, very commonly practiced in third world Catholic cultures, and particularly these little shrines with candles and photos and knickknacks and mementos of deceased family members.

It's taken directly from this. This is what it would have looked like in a first century Roman house in that period.

Your little statues of gods and goddesses about yay-yay-hay.

There, and that's what you would have stopped and worshipped or acknowledged every time you went in and out of the house.

There are some of these they find in bedrooms. Some are in what we would call the living room of the house. Generally they are found right either inside or outside the main entrance to the house there.

So again, this illustrates the sheer pervasiveness of the pagan culture in which the early first century Christians lived.

Here's...this is on a side street. This is actually taken no more than 20 or 30 steps from that previous photo that I showed you.

This is a side street. Notice this little shrine or...actually I'm not sure what to call it because it's part of a support for a wall.

But there's a depiction of the goddess Diana right there. We saw earlier the statues.

You see it. This is an angled view. This is a straight on view of goddess. You see the big headdress. You see her arms outstretched. You even see the tops of the deer that are missing on these statues. You see her very elaborate garment that she's wearing there.

So this is just right along one of the streets there. Our guide didn't point this out. I just happened to notice it as Don and I were exploring some of the back alleys there.

This is the Agora, the giant super-target, super-wallmart of the city of Efesnes. The big marketplace. This also would have had these shops like we talked about earlier.

This Agora covers several acres. This is where you would go and buy anything that you wanted in addition to the other shops.

This is right just out of sight over here is that main road going up to the theater, which is back over here on the other side of this.

So all of the ships coming in would have unloaded their cargoes near here. So they had all of these trade goods being brought in from all over the Roman world to Efesnes here.

All of the fish brought in. You've got a city of a quarter and a half million people. How do you feed them in days where you don't have refrigeration?

You've got to bring in enough food every day to feed a quarter to a half a million people. You don't have refrigeration in your house. Yeah, you can keep your bread for several days, but your vegetables, your fruits, but everything else, your meat, your fish, all of that. It's got to be brought in fresh every day. So you've got to go to the market every day and get your meat or your fish to feed your family there. So tremendous amount of commerce taking place there. Much of it in this in the Agora.

Also, the bats we talked about. Efesnes had running water throughout the system, very elaborate system there for that. They had hot bats, medium bats, and cold bats there. This is one of the hot bats. It actually had an elevated floor. You see these little stacks of bricks that held up the floor about three feet. And they would circulate hot air under that. This is the origin of our saunas. It's taken directly from the Romans. So you would go in there, you'd sweat up a storm, then you would go and rinse off in the tepidarium. Tepid water, medium warm water, and then take a dip in the frigidarium, the cold water, to rinse yourself off. That's how you'd get your hot, you'd sweat it all off there, you go to the tepidarium, then you go to the frigidarium. And take a cold rinse, and then you're refreshed and ready to go for the rest of the day. So this is one of the sections of that. And no city would be complete without its public toilets here. This one seated about 50 people at once. You can catch up on all the neighborhood gossip there with a person sitting right next to you on either side. It was a very... that's just the way they did it there. I'm not sure if they had different hours for men and women or what. Nobody's quite figured out how that worked. The common assumption is everybody went in there because you're all wearing togas anyway, so nobody's going to see anything. So you just... you don't take a seat and do your thing. It had running water. You can actually see part of a water pipe here in the wall. So water ran down and flushed out everything from underneath the seats. And it also had running water. You see a little water channel in front of the seats. And what you had at each seat was a stick with a sponge on the end of it. It's a coastal city. You're just playing with sponges out there in the Aegean. There's no shortage of those. So that was your toilet paper then. You had a stick with a sponge on the end of it. And after you did your thing, you rinsed it out in the running water in front of there for the next person to use it. And that's the way it works. So pretty efficient system. I wouldn't want to do it, but they did it. Here's a giant library. There were massive libraries. You may have heard of the Library of Alexandria, the most famous one of the ancient world.

The city of Pergamum, which we also visited, had the second largest library of the ancient world. This may have been the third one. This is called the Library of Celsus. Celsus was a senator of the Roman Empire. And this was built to honor him by his son. And just very, very elaborate library there. Very, very, very impressive building. It had been totally reconstructed, by the way. It was nothing but a pile of rubble.

But it has been reconstructed today. The city also had a very wealthy section that you can tour. These are some of the mosaic floors from there. This is either a goddess or perhaps the woman of the household, not sure which. Here's some other very beautiful mosaic floors. Again, this is a port city, so it's depicting some of the water gods or sea gods and goddesses there.

This man is actually half man and then the lower half of his body is like a fish or an eel or serpent or something like that. So, very, very beautiful mosaic again shows the utterly corrupt idolatrous culture in which they live. And of course, no visit to Epsis is complete without a stop to get your genuine fake watches or things like that. So, get your fake Rolexes, you know, anything you want there. And your t-shirts and all of that. One of the more interesting displays there was this. Incidentally, by tradition, Mary, the mother of Jesus, lived there in Epsis and is buried there. I don't buy that. She would have had to have been about 110 or 120 to live there when she supposedly lived there.

So, I just don't buy that. But you can. But there is a big church and shrine there that supposedly the house that she lived in and where she was buried and all of this kind of stuff.

I think bluntly that worship probably is a derivation of the worship of Diana there. And notice the similarity of the postures.

Same identical posture there. This is a real statue. This is typically the way you see Mary depicted all over Europe and virtually any Catholic church you go to. Statues of Mary and all of this. It's the same exact posture from Diana that goes back many, many thousands of years. So, that is... let's see. I had some more material, but I'm going to go ahead and skip through that idea.

I just wanted to... I was going to go through and read a few more references to Ephesus after Paul. But I'll go ahead and skip through those and just leave you with those impressions here. So, I was going to have a little bit of a Q&A session, but since we're running a bit late, I'll go ahead and dispense with that. But if you do have any other questions about that, feel free to check with me afterwards. We'll be leaving to head down to Colorado Springs. And next time, which will be sometime in late December, I believe it is, we'll continue and cover the other six cities... actually, seven or eight cities that we covered on the trip as well. There's not nearly as much to see as those who won't spend nearly as much time covering that. But I hope this gives you a better insight into the trip and the culture of that time, and watch a lot of our spiritual ancestors of the early church live. So, that's it. We'll have another hymn and dismiss services.