Two Years in Ephesus

While Apollos was at Corinth, Paul came to Ephesus and found certain disciples. He asked whether they received the Holy Spirit when they believed; they had not even heard that there was a Holy Spirit. They had been baptized into John's baptism. Paul explained that John baptized with the baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in the one who would come after him, that is, in Jesus. They were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus, and when Paul laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them and they spoke with other languages and prophesied.

For three months Paul spoke boldly in the synagogue about the Kingdom of God. When some were hardened and spoke evil of the Way, he withdrew with the disciples and reasoned daily in the lecture hall of Tyrannus. This continued two years, so that all who lived in Asia heard the word of the Lord Jesus, both Jews and Greeks. God worked special miracles by Paul's hands, so that even handkerchiefs or aprons carried from his body to the sick brought healing.

Some traveling exorcists, including seven sons of Sceva, tried to name the Lord Jesus over those with evil spirits. One spirit answered that it knew Jesus and Paul but not them, and the man leaped on them and overpowered them, so they fled. Fear fell on all who lived in Ephesus, and the name of the Lord Jesus was magnified. Many believers came confessing their deeds, and those who practiced magical arts burned their books, worth fifty thousand pieces of silver.

Demetrius, a silversmith, warned the craftsmen that Paul had persuaded many that there are no gods made with hands, endangering their trade and the temple of Artemis. Filled with anger, the crowd rushed into the theater, dragging Gaius and Aristarchus, Paul's companions. Most of the crowd did not know why they had come together. The town clerk reminded them that these men were neither temple robbers nor blasphemers. He told them to use the courts and warned that they might be accused of riot. Then he dismissed the assembly.