Bible Matrix ⑦_145_REV 2:1~7 – The background/history/meaning of the church

[차원용]

Bible Matrix ⑦_145_REV 2:1~7 – The background/history/meaning of the church in Ephesus, the early church that existed at AD 27~100

Bible Matrix_⑦_145_REV 2_1~7_Early church in Ephesus, Past.pptx

123.12KB

Bible Matrix ⑦: Historical & Scientific Views on Daniel and Revelation

Part 2. Revelation

Revelation 2:1~7 - To the Church in Ephesus, perseverance but you have forsaken your first love Revelation 2:1~7 – (1) The background/history/meaning of the church in Ephesus, the early church that existed at AD 27~100

Bible Matrix  ⑦ _145_ REV 2:1~7 – The background/history/meaning of the church in Ephesus, the early church that existed at AD 27~100

○ The history: Ephesus was an ancient Greek city built in the 10th century BC, on the coast of Ionia, located 3 kilometers southwest of present-day Selçuk in İzmir Province, Turkey. Ephesus was ruled by the Roman Republic (BC 509~BC 27) from BC 129, then the Roman Imperial (BC 27~AD 394) and the Eastern Roman Empire (AD 395~1453). Ephesus was the third largest city of the Roman Empire with 250,000 Roman citizens.

○ Where is the site of the Temple of Artemis: Ephesus has the meaning of 'desirable' and 'admirable', and it has also the site of the Temple of Artemis1) built in c.BC 550, the goddess of fertility and the moon in Greek mythology, and the Temple of Artemis has been designated one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

1) In Greek mythology, Artemis was the 'goddess of fertility' and 'goddess of the moon’. In Canaan, she was called 'Asherah' or 'Ashtoreth', and the Arabs called her 'Al-lat’, and the Egyptians called her ‘Isis’, the Greeks ‘Artemis’, the Romans ‘Diana’, and the Ionians ‘Artemis’.

○ The church in Ephesus was the first church as the early church, established between AD 36 and 42, 10 to 15 years after the death of Jesus (AD 26 or 27), and was the church of the apostles as the Apostolic Church. When the apostles who focused on preaching the word of Christ were expelled from Jerusalem by the Jews, the Apostle Paul (AD 5~68) visited Ephesus during his 2nd (Acts 18:19) and 3rd (Acts 19:1) missionary journey, did mission work, established a church, and became a pastor of the church in Ephesus(Acts 19:8~10).

○ In AD 68, the Apostle Paul was beheaded in Rome at the age of 64 during the persecution of Christians by Emperor Nero (suicided, reigned AD 54~68), the fifth emperor of the Imperial Roman Empire, so the minister of the church in Ephesus was over to Timothy as written in 1 Timothy 1:3. Timothy, the pastor of the Ephesian church, invited John (AD 6~100), who was living in Jerusalem, to Ephesus.

☞ John and Mary - When Jesus died on the cross, He asked John to take good care of his mother, Mary (John 19:25~27). Eusebius of Caesarea (Eusebius Pamphilus, A.D. 263~339), called the Father of Church History, wrote ‘the Church History or Ecclesiastical History, Latin: Historia Ecclesiastica’, which was the history of the early church in 10 books chronologically and systematically arranged from the 1st to 4th centuries. Inferring from his book III of the Church History (Eusebius, Hist. Eccl., III, 31; V, 24, P.G., XX, 280, 493), John lived in Jerusalem with Mary, and  took Mary to Ephesus in AD 66, right after the Jewish War (Jewish-Roman War, AD 66~73) broke out.

☞ John became the leader and pastor of the church in Ephesus - As a result of the Jewish-Roman War, Jerusalem and the Temple of Jerusalem were completely destroyed in AD 70 by General Titus (AD 39~81), son of the Roman emperor Vespasianus (reigned AD 69~79). In AD 80, Timothy was martyred by stones thrown by the crowd while preaching the word of Christ during the 'Goddess Artemis Festival in May', saying, "Goddesses are nothing but idols“. Following Timothy, John became the leader and pastor of the Ephesians church community.

☞ John and the Emperor Worship - As I already mentioned in Bible Matrix ⑦_124 and Bible Matrix ⑦_125, Emperor Domitian (reigned 81~96) was also a ruthless autocrat, and his persecution of Christianity was severe. Usually, after the death of the emperor, he was deified and declared as a God, but Domitian declared himself as 'God', that is, 'Lord and God' from the time he was alive, and he severely suppressed and persecuted Christians who did not participate in The Emperor Worship or Imperial Cult. Domitian built his own temple (shrine and statue) and forced his soldiers to bring random people to the temple to worship and burn incense. If the person brought in did not worship, he was imprisoned and tortured, assuming that he was a Christian.

☞ John, exiled to Patmos, died naturally at 95 - Around AD 94, John, who was preaching Christ in Ephesus, was arrested by Roman soldiers while passing in front of the temple of Emperor Domitian, and was forced to worship the emperor. When he refused, he was taken to Rome and sentenced to death. After being plunged into boiling oil in Rome and suffering nothing from it, his soldiers reported to the emperor that 'the whole body melted and the bones bent but did not die’, and then the emperor told his soldiers, “This must be a man sent by God, do not kill him by man’s hand but banish him to the island of Patmos”, so John was exiled to the island of Patmos in the Aegean Sea in AD 95. And he was on the Patmos for 18 months and wrote Revelation (c.AD 95~96). When Emperor Domitian was assassinated in AD 96, John was released from exile and returned to Ephesus, and then he wrote Gospel of John and he raised disciples. And he died of natural causes in AD 100 at the age of 95, as I mentioned in Bible Matrix ⑦_125.

○ Ephesus began to be devastated by earthquakes around 614, and in the 7th~8th centuries, like other Mediterranean cities, Ephesus had to endure several invasions of the Arabs, and surrendered to the Turks in 1304. And finally in 1453 the Ottoman Turk Empire took Constantinople, the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire (AD 395~1453), and thus, all of Turkey was Islamized, and in 1914 Ephesus was Turkishized as Selcuk.