Paul by N. T. Wright

Author:N. T. Wright
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2018-01-05T00:00:00+00:00

Journeys Through Asia Minor

10

Ephesus I

WE DON’T WANT to keep you in the dark,” Paul wrote to Corinth, probably in AD 56, “about the suffering we went through in Asia.”1 Our problem is that though Paul wanted the Corinthians to know about what a bad time he had had, he doesn’t say what exactly had happened. We, at least, are still in the dark. Apart from what Paul says in this letter we have only hints and guesses. Luke, wanting no doubt to tone down any serious trouble that his principal subject had faced, gives graphic descriptions of various things that Paul did in Ephesus, the main city in the province of Asia, and of the famous riot in the theater with a vast crowd shouting “Great is Ephesian Artemis!” (as well they might; the Temple of Artemis, on the northeast side of the city, was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world).2 But nothing in his account of Paul’s time in Ephesus suggests anything out of line with what we have come to expect, which is that Paul preaches the Messiah in the synagogue, opposition mounts, there are threats and disturbances involving local magistrates, and Paul finally has to leave town.

But 2 Corinthians tells a different story. With this, we probe into a dark place in Paul’s life, and perhaps a dark place in his heart and mind. Some have even suggested that his theological position changed radically as a result of these experiences. I do not think that is the case, but we are now approaching a quite new stage in our investigation about what drove him on and how what he had seen of Jesus on the Damascus Road had left its transforming mark on his life, his heart of hearts, and his outward vocation. We may also be pointing ahead, from this darkness, to the extra question of why on earth Paul’s work turned out to be, in historical and human terms, so ultimately successful.

These questions are already raised by what he says at the start of 2 Corinthians:

The load we had to carry was far too heavy for us; it got to the point where we gave up on life itself. Yes: deep inside ourselves we received the death sentence.3

If somebody came to see me and said something like this, I would recognize the signs of serious depression. This was not just an outward death sentence—the Paul we have come to know could have coped with that reasonably well—but one “deep inside ourselves.” (The “we” in this letter is clearly a way of referring to himself. Though he mentions Timothy as being with him in writing the letter in 1:1, what he says is so personal and intimate that we must take it as a roundabout way of talking about himself while perhaps shrinking from the shocking immediacy of the first-person singular.)

He goes on at once to describe his eventual reaction to this inner death sentence: “This was to stop us relying on ourselves, and to make us rely on the God who raises the dead.

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