Day 6 - Ephesus

Hello everybody!! Today we started our day by celebrating our beloved Dr Marshall’s birthday on  the coach! Today, the theme I saw woven through the ancient sites we visited is about the story we tell ourselves. 

Our first stop of the day was in the ancient city of Ephesus. Founded in 1000 BC by prince Androklos of Athens, Ephesus prospered as a bustling port and trade city. After being conquered by the Persians, liberated by the Ionian union, and ruled by the Macedonian kingdom, Ephesus was surrendered to the Roman Empire, where it later became the capital of the Roman province of Asia. With an estimated population of around 25,000, this city was the 4th largest in the Roman Empire after Rome, Byzantium, and Antioch. Ephesus was also the westernmost stop of the Silk Road, therefore serving as a cross-continental and cross-cultural diffusion hub between the East and West. 

Ephesus has extraordinary significance in Christian history. While the Apostle John was imprisoned on the island of Patmos during the reign of Emperor Domitian in 96AD, he received the “Revelation of Jesus Christ”. He was instructed to “write on a scroll what you see and send it to the seven churches: to Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia and Laodicea” (Revelation 1:11). These letters to the seven churches in Asia Minor form three chapters, while the remaining chapters tell of God’s judgement of the world in the last days. Together, they form the book of Revelation, the final book of the Bible. 

Many claim that Revelation is simply too symbolically ambiguous to be part of the Bible. Honestly, this book used to scare me a little, because of all its descriptions of Biblically-accurate angels (they look nothing like what I thought…) and eternal lakes of fire and end-times and judgement. I didn’t understand much about Revelation, so I didn’t try to learn more about it, and so I didn’t understand much, therefore creating my own self-fulfilling prophecy.

But, getting to walk around the ruins of Ephesus, one of the greatest ancient churches I’ve read about my entire life, gave me a more tangible idea of the Bible. I realized that somewhere along the way, I had let my initial impression of apprehension dictate the story I told myself about this book. 

Now, I see the theme of hope woven through the ruins of Ephesus and the book of Revelation. The first word of Revelation as it was written in Greek is apokalupsis, which means a revealing or unveiling. God’s desire, as sent through John, is to reveal more of Himself to His people in order to strengthen them through both current and coming tribulation. At the time John wrote this book, Christians were undergoing severe persecution by the Roman Empire. In the Annals, Roman historian Tacitus details events during the reigns of Tiberius to Nero. He reports the first persecution of Christians in 115 AD: “Therefore to eliminate this rumor he falsely produced defendants and inflicted the most extraordinary punishments upon those whom, hated for their crimes, the people called Christians (The Annals 15.44.2).

I see two ways the book of Revelation serves as a source of hope for Christians in the past, present, and future:

1. We live in a fallen world. Regardless of which religion one believes in, we can all agree that we live in a broken world. Out of the seven churches in Asia Minor that John writes to, God only praises two: Smyrna and Philadelphia. These two churches which God withholds rebuke from are also the ones undergoing persecution. To Smyrna He reminds them to “be faithful even to the point of death and I will give you life (Revelation 2:10)”, and to Philadelphia he commends them by saying “I know that you have little strength, yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name” (Revelation 3:8). These letters to the churches of Asia Minor served as a reminder for the early Christians that not only was this suffering part of God’s plan, but that also He would be with them through it all. 
2. A new heaven and a new earth. John writes of a new creation where God dwells with His people and where “He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away”(Revelation 21:4). The last chapter of the story of life, which begins and ends in Paradise. Where truth will triumph and justice will prevail. Where there is no darkness, no weeping, no death, and no pain. When Jesus comes back. 

The more I think about it, the more incredible it seems to me that we shape the reality we perceive by the story we tell ourselves. Learning about the historical context and symbolism of Ephesus pushed me to challenge my existing assumptions about the book of Revelation, where Ephesus is highlighted. Yes, Revelation is a book of judgement and end times. But also a book about God’s plan for humanity, His promise, and a future hope. 

Another story I saw today was in the ancient coins at the Ephesus Archaeological Museum. Coins, rather than simply a store of value or medium of exchange, also served as a sign of dominance and power. I think it is pretty cool how ideologically similar our modern coins are to those from ancient times, although virtually everything else,—like how coins are made, what they’re made of, and how much they cost—has changed.

The earliest coins found in the nearby Temple of Artemis date back to around 650 BC. In Ephesus, these pebble-shaped lumps of electrum (a natural alloy of gold and silver), bear the image of a lion, symbolizing wisdom, power, and courage. Other designs featured the Emperor, his relatives, art, and statues. Today, modern coins depict images of people and items we respect in our culture: like the Founding Fathers, Statue of Liberty, and the Declaration of Independence on America’s currency, or the Vanda Miss Joaquim flower, the first President, and the Merlion on my home country Singapore’s currency.

The story I see here in these ancient coins is of power. When the Turks conquered the city of Ephesus in 1304, they needed a way to quickly assert dominance over this critical military and commercial port. So, they built a mint! 

This mass production of coins served as a reminder to Ephesians of the sheer power and might of the Ottoman Empire. Coins were highly valuable and exchanged all over the Empire at rapid speeds, and therefore served as perfect vessels to transmit new ideas and envelop new subjects into Ottoman culture. Each token of shiny metal perpetrated the narrative of a new beginning and the start of a new chapter. Equivocating a deeply embedded symbol of value with new Ottoman ideals could also have subconsciously helped new subjects to associate welfare and prosperity with their new Emperor. They wanted subjects to understand the glory of the Ottoman story, and start to envision themselves within it. Through coins, Ottomans overruled and eradicated existing cultural norms, values, and traditions, and replaced it with the ideals and symbols of the Ottoman Empire. 

Today has been my favorite day of the course so far. I really can’t describe how incredible it was to walk down the marble streets of Ephesus, past the Trajan fountain, in the Library of Celsus, up and down the terrace houses, and to the Great Theatre, piecing together Roman and Biblical history and trying to picture myself woven into the story of this great city. 

Ephesus, Revelation, and coins will always make me think about the stories I tell myself. Stories I tell myself about who I am, what I believe, what I think, and where my hope is. What stories are you telling yourself?