Expositor's Bible Commentary Commentary Acts 19

Ephesus was on the western coast of Asia Minor, at the mouth of the Cayster River and between the Koressos mountain range and the Aegean Sea. It was founded in the twelfth or eleventh century B. C. by Ionian colonists from Athens as a gateway to the vast resources of the Asian steppes. In 334 B. C. Alexander the Great captured it at the start of his “drive to the East.” From Alexander’s death to 133 B. C. it was ruled by the Pergamum kings. With the inevitability of a Roman takeover, Attalus III, the last of these kings, willed the city to Rome at his death; and Ephesus was made the capital of the newly formed Roman province of Asia. Ephesus relied upon two important assets for its wealth and vitality. The first was its position as a center of trade, linking the Greco-Roman world with the rich hinterland of western Asia Minor. But because of excessive lumbering, charcoal burning, and overgrazing the land, topsoils slipped into streams, streams were turned into marshes, and storm waters raced to the sea laden with silt that choked the river’s mouth. The Pergamum kings promoted the maintenance of the harbor facilities at Ephesus, and Rome followed suit. But it was a losing battle against the unchecked erosion of the hinterland. In Paul’s day, the zenith of Ephesus’s commercial power was long since past. The second factor the life of Ephesus depended on was the worship of Artemis, the multibreasted goddess of fertility whose temple was one of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world. King Croesus of nearby Lydia (reigned 564–546 B. C.) had built the first temple to Artemis one and a half miles northeast of Ephesus. It was rebuilt on the same site in the fourth century B. C. after a fire, its size being almost four times that of the Parthenon at Athens. With the decline of its commerce, the prosperity of Ephesus became more and more dependent on the tourist and pilgrim trade associated with the temple and cult of Artemis. Around it swarmed all sorts of tradesmen and hucksters who made their living by supplying visitors with food and lodging, dedicatory offerings, and souvenirs. The temple of Artemis was also a major treasury and bank of the ancient world, where merchants, kings, and even cities made deposits, and where their money could be kept safe under the protection of deity. At the time of Paul’s arrival, the people of Ephesus were becoming conscious of the precariousness of their position as a commercial and political center of Asia. After revisiting the churches of Galatia (cf. 18:23), Paul “took the road through the interior” and came to Ephesus. He arrived after Apollos had left for Corinth, entering the city probably in the summer of 53. There he found “about twelve men” (v.7) who professed to be Christian “disciples,” but in whom Paul discerned something amiss.

The question Paul put to the twelve, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed,” suggests two things: (1) that he assumed they were truly Christians, since they professed to believe; and (2) that he held that true faith and the reception of the Holy Spirit always went together. These two assumptions caused Paul some difficulty when he met these twelve men, for something in their life indicated that one or the other assumption was wrong. When they answered his question by saying, “We have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit,” he knew the second assumption was not in error. So he asked further about the first one and found that they claimed to have been baptized only with “John’s baptism.” The account is extremely difficult to interpret, principally because it is so brief. Probably these twelve men thought of John the Baptist as the height of God’s revelation—perhaps even as the Messiah himself (cf. Jn 1:19-34; 2:22– 36, which counters such thinking). Presumably a John-the-Baptist sect existed within Jewish Christian circles in Asia in the first century (cf. Ephesians 4:5). As in any such group, some (such as Apollos) would have appreciated John the Baptist and yet looked forward to the greater fulfillment of which he spoke; others (such as the twelve men here whom Paul met in Ephesus) would have stayed in their devotion to the Baptist himself without any real commitment to Jesus.

The question Paul put to the twelve, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed,” suggests two things: (1) that he assumed they were truly Christians, since they professed to believe; and (2) that he held that true faith and the reception of the Holy Spirit always went together. These two assumptions caused Paul some difficulty when he met these twelve men, for something in their life indicated that one or the other assumption was wrong. When they answered his question by saying, “We have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit,” he knew the second assumption was not in error. So he asked further about the first one and found that they claimed to have been baptized only with “John’s baptism.” The account is extremely difficult to interpret, principally because it is so brief. Probably these twelve men thought of John the Baptist as the height of God’s revelation—perhaps even as the Messiah himself (cf. Jn 1:19-34; 2:22– 36, which counters such thinking). Presumably a John-the-Baptist sect existed within Jewish Christian circles in Asia in the first century (cf. Ephesians 4:5). As in any such group, some (such as Apollos) would have appreciated John the Baptist and yet looked forward to the greater fulfillment of which he spoke; others (such as the twelve men here whom Paul met in Ephesus) would have stayed in their devotion to the Baptist himself without any real commitment to Jesus.

Despite their being known as disciples, Paul preached Jesus to the men as he would to any Jew. “John’s baptism,” he said, “was a baptism of repentance” that pointed beyond itself and the Baptist to “the one coming after him”—that is, to Jesus. So on their acceptance of Jesus as the focus of Christian faith, they were baptized “into the name of the Lord Jesus.” Then Paul laid his hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit and evidenced the same signs of the Spirit’s presence as the first believers did at Pentecost—namely, tongues and prophecy. Doubtless in Paul’s mind they were not rebaptized but baptized into Christ once and for all.

Despite their being known as disciples, Paul preached Jesus to the men as he would to any Jew. “John’s baptism,” he said, “was a baptism of repentance” that pointed beyond itself and the Baptist to “the one coming after him”—that is, to Jesus. So on their acceptance of Jesus as the focus of Christian faith, they were baptized “into the name of the Lord Jesus.” Then Paul laid his hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit and evidenced the same signs of the Spirit’s presence as the first believers did at Pentecost—namely, tongues and prophecy. Doubtless in Paul’s mind they were not rebaptized but baptized into Christ once and for all.