Chapter XVIII.--ST. PAUL AND THE SONS OF SCEVA.

We have said that St. Paul began his Third Apostolic Journey by going again through Galatia and Phrygia: then, having passed through the "upper coasts" of Asia Minor, he came again to Ephesus, after Apollos had gone to Corinth. At Ephesus St. Paul now found certain disciples, about twelve men, who had been taught by Apollos, before Aquila and Priscilla had expounded to him the way of God more perfectly: to these men St. Paul said, "Have ye received the Holy Ghost since ye believed? And they said unto him, We have not so much as heard whether there be any Holy Ghost. And he said unto them, Unto what then were ye baptized? And they said, Unto John's baptism." Then St. Paul explained to them that John the Baptist came to call all men to repentance, and that his baptism was only meant to prepare the way for that of Jesus, and to lead all men to believe in Him, and be baptized in the way which He should appoint. "When they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. And when Paul had laid his hands upon them, the Holy Ghost came on them; and they spake with tongues, and prophesied." St. Paul, anxious to convert the Jews, spake boldly in the synagogue for three months, "disputing and persuading the things concerning the kingdom of God." But, as usual, many of the Jews were determined not to believe; and not only rejected the truth themselves, but spake evil of it, and abused it to the multitude, so as to try and prevent their believing it either. St. Paul, seeing this, would teach no longer in the synagogue; and "departed from them, and separated the disciples, disputing daily in the school of one Tyrannus"; that is, he assembled all who were willing to listen to him, in a large room or "school"--a name given to those buildings or rooms used for instruction in any kind of knowledge. In the school of Tyrannus, who was a teacher of some science, and probably a convert, St. Paul now preached to all who would come and listen. "And this continued by the space of two years; so that all they which dwelt in Asia heard the word of the Lord Jesus, both Jews and Greeks. And God wrought special miracles by the hands of Paul: so that from his body were brought unto the sick handkerchiefs or aprons, and the diseases departed from them, and the evil spirits went out of them." They were healed by merely touching those articles which the Apostle had touched. Such a wonderful exercise of miraculous power must have drawn many to listen to the teaching of one, who did such things; and no doubt many, who so listened, became true Christians.

We must now say something of the unhappy state of the province of Judæa at this time, of which the Bible gives no account. A Roman named Felix had been made governor of Judæa A.D. 51, whilst St. Paul was at Corinth: Felix treated the Jews cruelly, and ill-used them to such a degree, as to drive them into open rebellion; and this, of course, led to severe punishments and fresh cruelties. The whole country was in a sadly disturbed state: robbers infested every part of it; men came forward pretending to be the Messiah, for the Jews, who disbelieved in Jesus Christ, still expected the coming of the promised Messiah; murders and executions took place constantly: the High Priest was murdered at the very altar, and many persons were killed in the temple. In short, as Josephus writes, "God seemed to have abandoned Jerusalem as a detested city, and to have sent the Romans, to punish the Jews for their sin in rejecting and crucifying the Lord Jesus Christ."

During this dreadful time of trouble, a Jew from Egypt came to Jerusalem, and having persuaded many of the unhappy inhabitants of Judæa to believe the lies he told them, he led an immense number of them to the top of the Mount of Olives, promising that the Lord would there work a great miracle, and deliver them and their country from the hands of the Romans. Of course nothing of the kind took place. Many of these wretched dupes were slain by the Roman soldiers, and the rest fled away, in order to save their lives.

The land of Judæa was indeed in a sad state; the sufferings of the Jews were terrible; but they had deserved them. Often and often had they been entreated to repent and believe in Jesus, but they would not; and now the mercy of God was forced to give place to His just anger.

Let this be a warning to us Christians, never to force the Lord to take away His mercy from us. If, by our obstinate impenitence and continuance in sin, we force Him to punish us _as we deserve_, we must perish miserably for ever. But God sees our hearts, and if we are really sorry for our sins, and are earnestly trying to conquer ourselves and resist our evil passions and desires, He will have mercy upon us, and not be extreme to mark what is done amiss.

We have seen that St. Paul remained for two years in Ephesus, converting many by his preaching and his miracles. His success as usual raised the envy and anger of the unbelieving Jews, who were anxious to draw the people away from the Apostle, by making them believe that they could work miracles as well as St. Paul. The means they took we shall shortly hear.

The Gentile inhabitants of Ephesus were much given to the study of all the arts of magic, and were considered to be very clever in the practice of them. We have already spoken of sorcery, witchcraft, and magic: how far the professors of them were allowed to appear to do wonderful things by these means, we do not know; but we do know, that any attempt to have such communications with evil spirits was sinful in the sight of God, and that the Jews were especially forbidden to practice any such arts, or to hold communication with those who did so. In spite of this, many of the Jews did follow these sinful studies.

St. Luke says, "Then certain of the vagabond Jews, exorcists, took upon them to call over them which had evil spirits the name of the Lord Jesus," using that Sacred Name as they would have used any of their magical spells or words. "Vagabond" means wandering; and we generally use the word to describe idle, worthless people, who go about begging or stealing, instead of working honestly to gain their own living. "Exorcists" was only a name given to those who professed to cast out evil spirits by the arts of sorcery.

"And there were seven sons of one Sceva, a Jew, and chief of the priests, which did so." The spiritual state of the Jews must indeed have been sad, when the sons of a priest could be found thus wilfully practising arts, upon which the sentence of death was pronounced by the Law! These men, seeing that when St. Paul spake to the evil spirits in the name of Jesus, they immediately left the bodies of those whom they had possessed, wickedly determined to use that Holy Name, in order to heal a man in whom was an evil spirit. And they said, "We adjure you by Jesus whom Paul preacheth" to come out of this man. "And the evil spirit answered and said, Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are ye?" The devils were forced to acknowledge the power of Jesus, and that for His sake they must obey His servant Paul; but they plainly told these Jews that they were in no way subject to them: and they gave a strong proof of this, for "the man in whom the evil spirit was leaped on them, and overcame them, and prevailed against them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded." Such an event as this showed clearly that all power belonged to God alone, and that all magical arts were useless, as well as sinful. "And this was known to all the Jews and Greeks also dwelling at Ephesus; and fear fell on them all, and the name of the Lord Jesus was magnified,"--more thought of, and treated with greater respect.

And many that believed, who had, before they became Christians, practised magical arts, now convinced of their extreme sinfulness and folly, "came and confessed, and shewed their deeds,"--expressing their repentance for these former sins.

Nor was this all: "many of them also which (still) used curious arts" saw the wickedness of such practices; and warned by what had happened, showed their repentance by their acts; for they "brought their books together, and burned them before all men." This was a great proof of their earnestness to put an end to the use of magical arts in others, as well as in themselves; for they did not attempt to sell these books to others, but destroyed them. The books were very valuable, for "they counted the price of them, and found it fifty thousand pieces of silver"--all this money these men were willing to sacrifice, in order to please God. This is a _warning_ as well as an example to us, who are too often unwilling to deny ourselves in anything, or make the least sacrifice in order to please or obey our Lord.

"So mightily grew the word of God and prevailed,"--that is, the blessed truths of the Gospel spread on every side, so that the numbers of Christians increased daily.

St. Paul, who had now been nearly three years in Ephesus, began to think of continuing his journey; and "purposed in the spirit, when he had passed through Macedonia and Achaia, to go to Jerusalem, saying, After I have been there, I must also see Rome." Just at this time, St. Paul heard an unsatisfactory account of what was going on at Corinth. We have seen that the Apostle had passed eighteen months in Corinth, forming a Church there; and that Apollos had afterwards preached the Gospel in that city with great success: but very soon afterwards, false teachers rose up--that is, persons, who were not sufficiently instructed themselves, fancied that they were able to teach others. But, as they did not themselves understand the whole truth, they could not teach it to others; and therefore their imperfect teaching created great confusion, and unsettled the minds of many believers. Some of these "false teachers" were converts from the Gentiles, who, having been converted by Apollos, now called themselves his disciples; though they mixed up with the truths he had taught them, many of the doctrines and opinions of their philosophers. Some of these teachers on the other hand, were converts from amongst the Jews, who would not give up the idea that it was necessary to keep the whole Law of Moses, observing all the forms and ceremonies ordained by it. These Jewish Christians called themselves followers of Cephas, the Greek word for Peter. These two sets of teachers, both teaching doctrines contrary to the truths of the Gospel as delivered to the Corinthians by St. Paul, made two parties in the Church, so that there were constant disputes and great confusion. Mean time also, many of the native Corinthians, who had joined the Church, began to return to the sinful ways and practices they had followed when they were heathens.

This was the account that now reached St. Paul at Ephesus; and greatly did it grieve him.

So he at once sent into Macedonia two of his company, Timotheus and Erastus, that they might pass on to Corinth, and try to put an end to all these evil doings: he himself remained at Ephesus a little longer.