Exploring Ephesus: City of Apostles (2015) | Full Movie | Dr. Mark Wilson | Dr. Andrew Jackson

[Music] [Music] hello I'm dr. Andy Jackson and I've been leading biblical tours in Turkey for many years but today is a very very special day because I'm going to be meeting a very close friend of mine dr. Mark Wilson who's the author of a very popular book called biblical Turkey 20 years ago we journeyed through Turkey together and now we have an opportunity to go and explore the ancient greco-roman city of Ephesus I'm sitting here in a beautiful location near the Aegean Sea it's the bay of the modern city of Izmir and this is biblical Smyrna [Music] [Applause] [Music] so here I'm waiting with a lot of anticipation to meet mark and also to have you and invite you to join us on this really unique time of exploring Ephesus oh there's mark now I'm so excited 20 years ago it's hard to believe isn't it times move so fast that we're the first time we travel together through Turkey remember that absolutely that was my first time in Turkey I was just beginning my own doctoral studies working on the seven churches on the other side of that now and as you know in 2004 Jamie and I moved here to the city to ancient Smyrna lived here six years and now we're in Antalya so it's been an amazing journey for us and it all started right here with you and 1992 on that trail we still look good really looking forward to this trip together to discovering and exploring emphasis with you well it's gonna be a great journey so let's head down there now yeah absolutely let's get going mark you know both of us have been it lived in Israel and studied the life of Jesus and the Gospels but it's amazing to me how many people do not realize Turkey really is the focus of the New Testament two-thirds of the New Testament is either written to our from turkey you know we have most of Paul's missionary journeys taking place here and of course here in western Turkey we've got the seven churches of Revelation so so much New Testament takes place in this wonderful land absolutely this is such a beautiful you know just ten years ago majority of Turks didn't even know that they were living in the land of the New Testament one story I don't know if I've told you but I have a friend who is driving through Turkey maybe 15 years ago and he picked up a turkey hiker and he was talking to them and the hitch-hiker asked my friend well what are you doing here and he said well we're driving through the journeys of Paul the Apostle Paul he goes well hitchhiker goes well who's the Apostle Paul and he goes well he's one of the main leaders in the New Testament and then my friend asked him well where do you live in Turkey and he goes Tarsus you know Paul's hometown awesome town is that kind of a good example at that time it's getting much better though well let's take off yeah barça's weeks more emphasis there's gonna be a lot of topics that we're going to be able to discuss and I know one of the topics I wanted to focus in on is the three years of ministry that Paul spent in Ephesus long as he spent anywhere in any city and so I'm really looking excited to look more into it was three years of ministry there yeah I agree we've got a great adventure ahead one of the things I'm looking forward to is our visit to Patmos where John received the revelation so if times get a little seasick but I'm hopeful yeah yeah okay yeah I'm looking forward to that boat trip and then just how John received the book of Revelation and also the seven churches of the book of Revelation and you know I think that is very important as we talked about and as we travel into Patmos and we go down to Leo to see it discussed a lot about on the seven churches of Revelation yeah so after Paul dies John becomes the leading figure in the church in Ephesus yeah and I think just the fact that Ephesus is the center of early Christianity and biblical Christianity and there's so much that it will be applied to our own faith today overcoming in our faith not being conformed to the culture around itself I think that we're just going to have a lot of topics to discuss and it's really going to be a rich time I agree it's going to be a great time yes [Music] now we've got a history of the site before us this is a beautiful view of Ephesus yeah the whole history the city is built around these three hills on pion in the middle yeah course is on the left and then to the right is a look yeah and Ephesus was located in different locations at different time in history the ione and settlement was over here on Mount pian then they moved over to the Temple of Artemis area the Lydians and the Persians and then from there now Alexander the Great comes yeah Alexander the Great and then in his general the Civic us moves the mystic City between these hills we can see the incredible raw walls from the Hellenistic period here on top of mount choruses and then in front of us we've got the Roman Forum that they developed [Music] and of course another thing we can see is the route of the sacred processional from the Temple of Artemis through the magnesium gate and then down through the city yeah and then later on as the Goths came in and destroyed the Temple of Artemis and then the Byzantines moved out right over here to where the st. John's Basilica is located and then after the Byzantine Ephesus the Turks came in and conquered in that and that was over that area there that would be Turkish in Ephesus so this gives us a view of all of the history of Ephesus it's a beautiful view [Music] [Music] here we have one of the seven wonders of the ancient world it's the site of the Temple of Artemis of the Ephesians it was at one time larger than a football field today it's just an open field with a column because the Gauss came in an ad 262 and destroyed it all but what is your thoughts about what it looked like during the time of Paul and John and the early Christians that lived here I was a tremendous sight it had like a forest of 127 columns the largest religious temple in the ancient world of the time that functioned in four ways within the city it was a repository for civic decrees it was a bank it was an asylum for fugitives and of course its most important function that has a religious center and it was from this temple that all the sacred processionals that regularly went through Ephesus both began and ended [Music] Andy who's this interesting figure you've got in your hand yeah this is a replica of the goddess Artemis and this is the type of replica that would have the priests of Artemis used to take and walk in the sacred processional through Ephesus an upper City down through the lower City and from here the the visitors could have looked through the temple and saw the original standing in the center of the temple the Apostle Paul mr. missionary journey heading to Ephesus went across the Roman province of Galatia to Laodicea when he entered the province of Asia and then he came up to me and Ravalli to the city of magnesia up to where we are right now as he was heading to to Ephesus yeah Paul must've extremely excited when he reached this point looked up and saw this magnificent triple arched architectural structure read the bilingual Greek and Latin inscription that's above us telling him that see sex Tilly aspo Leo had built this aqueduct for the city of Ephesus dedicated to the Emperor Augustus and Tiberius and after weeks of travel his destination was soon to come yeah very late close to Ephesus let's go on out [Music] and here we are Mikes thistles and thorns looking at the important Eastern gated the city of the magnesium gate and this connected emphasis with its sister city magnesia on the meander about 15 miles southeast and through this gate the sacred processionals related the artemis came in to the upper city yeah and paul came down from Laodicea down the meander Valley then he went right through this gate into the city of Ephesus let's go [Music] well here we are you know two million people come here now look this is a big open area this is upper Ephesus what role did it have playing in the city of Ephesus well this is the governmental center of the city called the Civic Agora or the Roman Forum x19 we read that the town clerk intervened in the riot and his offices would have been in this area he also mentions courts would be in session this is the area where the courts would have taken place in the city here to our right is the bullet Aryan the town council would have met here so very important part of the administration of ancient Ephesus it's really an impressive area Memphis [Music] Roman Emperor worship what a lot of people would call imperial cult was very much a part of the religious environment of Ephesus and Paul and John would have interacted with Emperor worship in Ephesus and here we are at a place that is very well known for Emperor worship yeah we're looking at what archaeologists believe is the sanctuary to diva's julius that's the divine julius caesar and Theia roma the patron goddess of the city of rome right the greeks worship living emperors as divine beings wherever the Romans wouldn't do that it was only after the Emperor died that they were again to worship Him so when you read in the book of Revelation chapter 12 about the two beasts right when you look at the woman seated on seven hills in revelation 17 Mystery Babylon this is all related to the Imperial cult worship that took place in the city like Ephesus the Imperial called Emperor worship was such a part of Ephesus and we have so much more to see let's go see okay a lot to see Oh Andy we're coming into the mission square here I mean this is incredible site that's right ahead yeah I mean these even how high this is up here it's just quite amazing yeah it's a massive infrastructure here our substructure here that they built this temple on top of this Imperial called temple we're looking at of course is extremely important for the history of Ephesus in the first century BC around 27 the Greek Assembly authorized the first Imperial called temple in the province of Asia and that was in Pergamum in the during the reign of Augustus in 26 ad they built a second temple in Smyrna right during the time of Tiberius but the Romans said it wouldn't given Ephesus in Imperial called temple because of the prominence of the Artemis temple and it wasn't until the end of the first century around eighty nine ninety the emperor Domitian built this temple and it's the area just right here below is just the lower structure a substructure the temple actually was on top and this was a massive complex of Emperor worship and the Imperial cult and this was built at the time that the Apostle John was living here in ministering years so I'm sure that was something that that was really the Christian community here when they saw this being built must have really stirred up some emotions as it relates to the true Living God versus the Roman Emperor that makes an important propaganda statement that Caesar is Lord over the side that's right that's right [Music] we're looking at a very important scripture here related to the Imperial cult it talks about Ephesus being the first and the greatest metropolis of Asia there it also mentions the second neos of the Sebastian the second temple warden of the Emperor here and this is the key word the Icarus that we find in Acts chapter 19 talking about emphasis as being the temple keeper for the Temple of Artemis this column summarizes that they really just essence of Ephesus because it has Emperor worship on one side and then it has an image of artemis on the other side and I think with both of them together it summarizes really the religious context of evidence of yet internal identity of Ephesus is the Imperial cult and the worship of Artemis and when we put them together on one column it really summarizes what Ephesus is all about now [Music] mark you wrote a book on the theme of victory in the book of Revelation which is a very important theme for us as Christians today becoming overcomers in our faith he tell us a little bit about that we especially see it in the letters to the seven churches and they conclude with promises to the victors and the churches for overcoming and this theme of victory is epitomized especially in this relief of the Greek goddess nike that's behind us she's holding in her left hand the victory wreath that's awarded to the winners of the various games who were held in cities like Ephesus in her right hand she's holding a palm branch and when we see the victors in heaven from every nation people tribe and tongue gathered around the throne they're holding palm branches in the right hand so the symbols that she has in her left and right hands are very important imagery for understanding the book of Revelation and we want to be overcomers absolutely [Music] we're standing in front of this incredible structure the reconstruction of the library of celsus and one of the most interesting parts of this is a menorah graffito that's on the step leading up to the library this graffito of course tells us that we've got Jews living in this city which we know from literary sources like Josephus the Jewish historian that ten times he mentions the fact Jews lived in this particular city right and you know is the tradition of Paul wherever he went whatever city he went to he to visit the synagogue first and that's true in Ephesus his first visit to Ephesus from Corinth he visited the synagogue and then when he left he came back and the first thing again he went back into the synagogue so we know the first Christians in Ephesus were Jewish and most likely they became believers and Pentecost in Jerusalem because we know that Jews from Asia were located at that time so we know the earliest Church in Ephesus were Jewish by the way do you have any information on where the synagogue might be in Ephesus today well the Austrian archaeologists been working here for a hundred years and unfortunately I haven't found any signs of a synagogue or even very few other objects related to the Jewish community you can't wait till they find that [Music] hack 16 tells us that Paul on his second journey is wanting to preach the gospel in the province of Asia but as he gets into this area the Holy Spirit directs him northwestward to the port of Troas now if we read between the lines Ephesus is his destination it's a perfect place for him to set up his ministry fourth-largest city in the Roman Empire capital of the province of Asia a large Jewish population transportation hub both land and sea and of course the center of artemis worship here but from troas then he goes over to Macedonia and from Macedonia goes down to a Chaya and ends up in Corinth yeah and after spending about 18 months in Corinth yeah Paul along with Priscilla and Aquila and probably his team come across the Aegean to the port here and then they walk in to the great Harbor Road that we are on right now and the first thing that they see when they enter Ephesus is the great Roman theatre Ephesus almost but very excited over two years since he set out for this place he's finally arriving in Ephesus [Music] we're standing in the terrace houses in downtown Ephesus and this is the area where the elite of the city would have lived behind us as the home of furrious Aptus and these homes were built first in the 1st century AD and lived in for several centuries and we're in this type of environment the early Christians would have held their meetings yeah when we talk about the church in Ephesus during the time of Paul and John we're really talking about numerous house churches and in 1st Corinthians chapter 16 verse 19 Paul makes is clear when he writes the churches in the province of Asia send you greetings Aquila and Priscilla greet you warmly in the Lord and so does the church that meets in their house this is a peristyle type a home the public space where visitors would come and it's in this area the early church would meet and you can see from its size maybe 40 or 50 people could have gathered and it's in this type of a space that the worship of Jesus Christ would have taken place in the city of Ephesus [Music] arriving a very special place in Ephesus on this hillside above the city related to st. Paul so let's go ahead and enter the depiction of Paul we're looking at here is the earliest portrait who we have in Turkey dates from the late 4th to early fifth century you can see his name Palos to his right it shows a scene from a later Christian document called the acts of Paul and Thecla and here Paul is preaching in the city of Iconium and Thecla is listening to his message out the window and accepts the message and becomes a believer and in the acts of Paul and Thecla we have the earliest and the only physical description of Paul that we have and in this portrait we see that he's bald-headed his eyebrows are meeting in his nose is hooked yeah and it's very interesting to me that we've mentioned that during the time of Paul and John that the churches met in houses house churches and then after John they started on here in Ephesus they are also started meeting in caves and cave churches and this is a perfect example with this fresco Paul [Music] this is really well preserved right here absolutely probably the best one the prisoner yeah so this is really an interesting cave we see sitting in descriptions on the walls over here on the side Paul tells us that he taught publicly in house the house and we know that he spent three months in the synagogue and then he moved to the hollow of Tyrannus and he taught for two years it was a very interesting tradition related to Paul's time at the hall of Tyrannus daily life in a city like Ephesus began at sunrise and ended at noon so Paul would have been working at the commercial Agora as a leather worker tent maker in the mornings then in the afternoons he would move into the Hall of Tyrannus to engage with visitors to this city the residents about the gospel of Jesus Christ and it was during this period of time that he reached so many people in the province of Asia yeah I think a lot of times we envision Paul in lecturing for two years in other words within behind a pulpit did the kind of thing but actually the Bible tells us that he engaged in the discussion questions and answers and really a disciple eeen approach and probably engaged a lot of the co his co-workers of Pallas and priscilla and aquila were involved in the training of those there were part of the school another dimension of Paul's time during this time of course is a concern about what's going on in Corinth he's beginning now to hear about the problems developing in the church and here in the body life of the church in Ephesus as they're dealing with spiritual gifts and other issues he's getting a background now that he's later gonna be writing and his first letter to the Corinthians addressing these issues hey you had Corinth on his mind [Music] what's exciting to me about this gate Andy is he was standing here in the first century during the time of the Apostle Paul right it was dedicated to the Emperor Augustus by two of his freedmen we can see their names mazayef sand Mithra Dottie's and on a regular basis while paul was in the city he would go through this gate on his way to the commercial Agora let's go on in yeah that kind of reminds me of the story of when Paul was with Priscilla and Aquila and they had a leather business trade in Corinth and then when they came here together it's most likely that they set up the same leather trade right here in the commercial Agora and Paul spent most of the time when he was in ministry actually doing leather trade so it's quite in a location it's this fantastic commercial Agora and it's also the area where one of the most famous incidents in acts 19 takes place related to Demetrius and the silversmiths and why was the Demetrius so upset with Paul well you know when Paul first came here there were just a handful of Jewish believers but after three years of ministry there was large numbers of Jews and non-jews coming to the Lord and there was a real movement that was really affecting the religious environment of Ephesus and Demetrius says this he says and you see and hear how this fella Paul has convinced and led astray large numbers of people here in Ephesus and impractically the whole province of Asia so his outrage was not so much just having to do with the religious affront to Artemis but it was affecting their pocketbooks unable to sell souvenirs to all these religious pilgrims who are in the city Demetrios and the silversmith must have started the riot getting involved others around them and they would have gone out this exit here as they made the way then to the theater where the disturbance continued [Music] and now we're headed up to the great Roman Theatre of Ephesus that held 25,000 people yeah is it Demetrius and the silversmith initiated this disturbance of others out in the streets joined them here and there sort of a mob mentality prevailed and most of the people join this group going into the theatre not even knowing what they were doing total confusion they just rushed right in here wow this is incredible can you imagine the confusion the pandemonium that was going on here on this crowd assembled in the theater 25,000 people shouting great as Artemis of the Ephesians to appalls companions in here the shouting continued some of the Jews in the city tried to put their leader to speak he was shouted down I mean absolute chaos yes and what was Paul doing during this time well Paul wanted to appear before the crowd and in his defense but the disciples didn't let him and even some of the officials of the province Friends of Paul sent him a message begging him not to come into the theatre what's so interesting about this of course is the sound goes out to the harbor nobody in the upper City could even hear it so finally word gets through these crowded streets the town clerk he makes his way down here trying to bring this crowd under control and of course the thing he threatens him with is that they are rioting against Roman law and he says we're going to be in big trouble with the Romans if we don't bring this riot to a close and of course he does that and settles it and the illegal assembly is over yes and because of this big scene of this Artemis riot seems like this motivated Paul even though he was planning to leave soon anyway to go ahead and and depart out of Ephesus and on to Macedonia [Music] wow what a view how does fantastic it is you know mark 250 miles straight across from here is the city of Corinth and Paul spent a lot of his time when he was in Ephesus with preoccupation with a lot of the things that were going on in the Corinthian church some of the problems they were having that kind of thing writing to them actually visiting them well is a very complicated situation as you know Brendan this is I mentioned in acts 19 but we see that some of the church wrote him a letter about the problems representatives from the church came to discuss with him some of the problems and then in this context while he's in Ephesus Paul writes the first letter to the Corinthians and he continued a relationship and even in the first Corinthian letter he said I'm gonna come and visit you and he did after the Artemis riot he takes off and he spends three months with him so he continued Paul continued to have a heart for the development in the growth of the church in Corinth [Music] [Music] [Music] we're travelling through the very waters to which Paul passed on the end of his third journey he's traveling with eight companions including Timothy and Luke and he's decided to bypass Ephesus he's in a hurry to reach Jerusalem trying to get there before the day of Pentecost they stopped from the island of samos which is behind us right and the next day they make their way down to Malika's somewhere along here he decides I cannot leave the province of Asia without seeing the official elders one more time yeah and in acts 20 when Paul's talking to the elders he gives them up to this point most of the opposition towards Paul's ministry has been outside of the church and now he predicts and prophesized that there will be false teachers that will arise among them and I would like to read Paul's own words in acts 20 he writes guard yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers these shepherds of the Church of God which he bought with his own blood I know that after I leave savage wolves will come in among you and will not spare the flock even from your own men will arise and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples after themselves so be on your guard remember that for three years I never stopped warning each of you night in with tears and then this comes true when Paul was released from prison out of Rome and he goes to returns back to Ephesus with Timothy and he leaves Timothy in Ephesus be due to deal with the false teaching that now has arisen well within the city of Ephesus now it's a very important change in Paul's relationship with the Ephesian Church has been very true very true [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] mark we got on our boat early this morning in Hephaestus and probably for hours we've been traveling across the Aegean Sea and we come to the island of Patmos how far actually is the island of patents from Ephesus we're about 75 miles southwest of Ephesus today it happens is a Greek island in the 1st century it was part of the Roman province of Asia it's a small island about 13 square miles shaped like a kidney bean yeah many people ask this question and I know I often think about it is what was it like on the island of pappus when John lived here we really don't know much happiness's mentioned hardly at all in literary sources probably very similar to a it looks today a barren desolate rocky island we know there was a Roman garrison up in the Acropolis area small population of Greeks who lived here on the island at this time but it was a pretty much an isolated forsaken place then Wow so John lived in in exile and an isolated location and this is where he received the book of Revelation [Music] hey mark this is a great place for us to sit and have a chat sounds good in the second half of the first century AD the early church faced three significant challenges first after the fire in Roman AD 64 Nero was looking for a scapegoat to pin the blame for the fire on and the Christians were a very convenient target and the first major persecution of the church now occurs in the city of Rome and according to tradition both Peter and Paul are martyred at this time and shortly after in Judea the Jewish revolt takes place in AD 66 and pretty soon Rome of course the sending troops led by the general Vespasian to try and put down this rebellion that's going on among the Jewish people and then suddenly in the Roman Empire after Nero commits suicide we have four individuals who serve as Emperor during the year ad 69 called the year of the Four Emperors with this patient emerging now as the Emperor of the Roman Empire right and that such the setting for Jesus's warning to the disciples on the Mount of Olives is last week of his ministry where he says when you see the Roman surround Jerusalem you know flee the land and I think this is the motivation that John and took some of the his community some of the believers and actually left Jerusalem and went to Ephesus and they're settled in Ephesus and he had a 40-year ministry in Ephesus where he wrote 1st and 2nd 3rd John and the Gospel of John and of course here he came to Patmos and he wrote the book of Revelation [Music] here we are Andy at the Church of the apocalypse and according to early Christian tradition one of the most important events took place in a cave around which this church is built John received his revelation of Jesus Christ now what does the book of Revelation tell us about the circumstances of this event yeah in Revelation 1 9 John gives us a very distinct statement of why he is on the island of Patmos it reads I John your brother and companion in the suffering and Kingdom and patient endurance that are ours and Jesus was on the island of Patmos because of the Word of God and the testimony of Jesus so here John really is expressing his heart of identifying with the suffering of the Christians and Ephesus and in the seven churches of the book revelation [Music] was the book of Revelation tell us anything about the occasion when John received the apocalypse yeah there's a specific passage revelation 1:10 where John gives a very clear description of how he received the book of Revelation it says on the Lord's Day I was in the spirit and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet which said write on a scroll what you see and send it to the seven churches to Ephesus Smyrna Pergamum Thyatira Sardis Philadelphia and Laodicea you know there's all kinds of interpretations on what it meant to be in the Lord's Day and in the spirit what are your thoughts on that well this is the first of four occasions we're told John was in the spirit when he received the revelation of Jesus Christ look at the surroundings where we're at in the first century a very bleak desolate situation for him living in a cave and suddenly now the Lord takes him up to show him these incredible visions of what's going on in heaven so this was a total disconnect from what his life was here on the island - what was going on in the heavenly places that was quite a lords [Music] [Music] [Music] going down the meander Valley it's beautiful Valley here and we're going to Laodicea and one of the things that I think we over see a lot of times in the book of Acts it describes the results of Paul's ministry and Ephesus is that all of the Roman province of Asia heard the gospel all Jews and Gentiles and the Roman province of Asia was about the third of the disk of matter and a turkey and at that time most likely the seven churches of the book of Revelation was planted and I'm just wondering your thoughts on that well there's certainly more than seven churches in Asia in the first century but Ephesus Smyrna Pergamum were the three most important cities so naturally they had churches Sardis Philadelphia and Laodicea as well as the intera secondary cities we see the route of the order of these churches falling geographically a road that would have made a circle around that would ended in Laodicea as you know Andy these number seven is a very important symbolic number in Revelation and kind of links back to the menorah the candlestick with its seven bowls and we see Jesus walking among the candlesticks there in Revelation chapter 1 yeah and you know it's 20 years ago I remember when we were at Laodicea there was just nothing there and so I'm really excited I'm sure you are as well to just see the new discoveries the new archaeological work that they have done in Laodicea let's just enjoy the beautiful meander Valley [Music] [Music] laid to sea became a very wealthy city in the first century due to strategic geographical position also its textile production contributed to its wealth as well as the banking enterprises that went on here in 1860 when the major earthquake devastated the city Rome offered to help to rebuild but the lay of the sea and said we're wealthy enough we can rebuild it ourselves yeah and I think the pride of riches also entered the mindset of the church because Jesus rebukes the Church of Laodicea in John's revelation where he says you say I am rich I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing but you don't realize that you are wretched I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in fire so you can become truly rich they certainly seem to have adopted this attitude of self-sufficiency that was in the general citizenry at large [Music] mark one of the most familiar verses in the letter to the Laodiceans is this I know your deeds that you are neither cold nor hot I wish you were either one or the other so because you are lukewarm neither hot nor cold I'm about to spit you out of my mouth and over the years we've heard a number of different interpretations of this imagery what is your understanding of this passage it seems to refer to the water situation of the city of lay of the seal which is behind us here we're standing looking at the water system that actually brought cold spring water from an underground spring about three miles to the south you can see it's a double channel of stone that brought water to a water tower again behind us that distributed throughout the city so much of the year this water been very cold water going into the city also behind as you can see the white travertines from the city of Hierapolis that sat above them and this was a great spa center even in antiquity people went there to get treatment for various ailments and benefiting from the hot mineral spring water that was there and then just to our east as a city of colossi and above that city sat Mount Cadmus a very high mountain - most of the year had snow on it and so in that snow melted that fed into the licorice river that flowed into the meander so these images the geography of this city I think lends very much to helping us in to interpret what this passage of how - cold and lukewarm and clearly lukewarm as a negative image there that the way Jesus uses it we just left Laodicea through the vision gate on our way to Ephesus that right outside the Ephesian gate is his very well-preserved Roman bridge and Paul would have passed along this way on his way to Ephesus on his third journey the messenger that brought the book of Revelation to Laodicea also would have taken this same road to Ephesus which is about a hundred miles ahead of us [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] well here we are Andy st. john's basilica let's go see it [Music] no this was Byzantine in turkish ephesus and this is the acropolis this this is actually a defensive wall that was built around st. john's basilica many people confuse st. john's basilica with this wall but actually it's behind the wall and it sweetie as we enter up so it's interesting to me is all of us recycled stone that comes from various buildings in ephesus sea freezes column fragments even some inscriptions here built into the wall that they've brought in something called SPO Lea [Music] while we're looking here and the aren't we at the incredible rooms here on this st. John for silica we can see over here from some of the cords around over here as you know Andy scholars date the writing of the book of Revelation either early around 69 before the destruction of Jerusalem or late around 95 before the death of John right regardless of which date we hold to we know that John came back to Ephesus after his exile on the island of Patmos yeah when he came back he reestablished and and built up the church in Ephesus and also in the Roman province of Asia and he became known as the apostle of love in first John he writes dear friends let us love one another for love comes from God everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God whoever does not love does not know God because God is love well let's go visit the grave of this Beloved Disciple [Music] mark many people in our groups asked us if this is the exact place where the Apostle John was buried well I think he was buried here the early christians and ephesus preserved the memory for centuries that john was buried in this necropolis or cemetery of the city then in the early 4th century they built as very simple four-posted cavour ium that we're looking at here that covered by a dome or canopy then in the 5th century we have a church built over the tomb but that was destroyed by an earthquake and then in the 6th century the Emperor Justinian builds this magnificent Basilica over the tomb so we can say this is the exact spot I think so you know the Temple of Artemis used to be the great drawing place of pilgrims from all over the world but it was destroyed in AD 262 so when this was built and and the tomb of John this became the pilgrimage site for Christians from all over the world this again [Music] we've had a wonderful visit to Ephesus and II and I was wondering what do you think the legacy of the first century church here is for Christians today some of the most important early Christian leaders lived and ministered here in Ephesus we know Paul did a Polish priscilla and aquila Timothy and also some of the most significant letters of the New Testament were written to or from here Paul wrote first Corinthians we have Ephesian letter first a second Timothy and also John wrote the history letters and the Gospel of John and then of course the message in the book of Revelation was written to hear and by the way I was wondering in there it says that the lampstand was could be removed what was what what's your thought about that well I think the translation there would be better if it said the lampstand would be moved because many visitors come here of course I know in your groups too and and look at the situation situation here and think that nothing happened after the first century but we have a very rich history in Ephesus following that period we have ignition passing through the province of Asia in the second century writing a letter to the church here around 1:10 right and through this period of the first several centuries there was a lot of persecution that took place generally in the Roman Empire but after the legalization of Christianity in the fourth century we have a third ecumenical council taking place here in Ephesus and of course the growth of the church is going along with many important developments in the history of the city here the harbour began to be increasingly silted and not utilized plagues happen here earthquakes periodically bring great destruction and so we see the church though continuing through this period so even with all of these obstacles the church continued to grow and develop and as Jesus said the gates of Hades will not overcome the church and so the theme I think it's great to finish here in Ephesus is one of victory that we are to be overcomers in our faith and we certainly that's the legacy that we see here in Ephesus I mean it for me it's really been great to be back in Turkey with you again after over two decades and to re-explore Ephesus a lot of changes taking place here but we've made some wonderful fresh discoveries so that we missed the first time around mark I've really enjoyed exploring Ephesus we do [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: Vision Video

Views: 44,965

Keywords: Christian Videos, Christian Films, Christian Movies, Religious Movies, Films, Movies, Entertainment, Feature Films, 7 churches of revelation, Apostle John, Apostle Paul, Ephesus, Patmos, Dr. Mark Wilson, Dr. Andrew Jackson, Trailer, Stuart Bennett, Teaser Trailer, Tourist Destination, biblical Turkey, Ehpesians, Official Trailer, seven churches of Revelation, Documentary, Exploring Ephesus City of Apostles 2015 Full Movie

Id: 6sa3P4udi2I

Length: 58min 30sec (3510 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 09 2020