New Testament in a Year

Paul speaks in Ephesus about Jesus

19 While Apollos was in Corinth, Paul travelled through the region of Asia. He arrived in Ephesus and he found some believers there. ² Paul asked them, ‘When you believed the message about Jesus, did you receive God's Holy Spirit?’

The believers answered, ‘We did not even know that there is a Holy Spirit.’

³ So Paul asked them, ‘When someone baptized you, what kind of baptism was that?’

‘We received the baptism that John spoke about,’ they answered.

⁴ Then Paul said, ‘John baptized people who knew that they had done wrong things. They wanted to stop doing these things. But John also said to the people, “You must believe in the man who will come soon.” This person is Jesus.’ ⁵ When the believers in Ephesus understood this, Paul baptized them. This showed that they now believed in the Lord Jesus. ⁶ Then Paul put his hands on each believer's head. When he did this, the Holy Spirit came down on them. They spoke in different languages and they spoke messages from God. ⁷ There were about 12 men there.

⁸ For three months, Paul went to the Jewish meeting place in Ephesus on their day of rest. He was not afraid to speak to the people there. He talked strongly with them about the kingdom of God. ⁹ But some of them did not accept what Paul said. They refused to believe the message about Jesus. Some of them said bad things against the Way of the Lord Jesus and many people in the group heard this. So Paul stopped speaking to people in that meeting place. He left there and he took with him the other believers. Every day he talked with people in another place. It was a large room, where a man called Tyrannus usually taught people. ¹⁰ Paul taught the people there for two years. During that time, all the people who lived in Asia region heard the message about the Lord Jesus. This included Jews and Gentiles.

The sons of Sceva tell bad spirits to leave people

¹¹ God was helping Paul to do special miracles. ¹² Because of this, people were taking pieces of cloth and clothes that Paul gave to them. Paul had used these things, and people took them to those who were ill. After they touched these cloths, the sick people would become well again. Bad spirits also left them.

¹³ There were some Jewish men who travelled about to different places. They caused bad spirits to leave people. Some of them wanted to use the name of the Lord Jesus when they did this. These Jews said to the bad spirits, ‘We tell you to come out of these people. We say this with the authority of Jesus, the man that Paul teaches people about.’

¹⁴ Sceva was a leader of the Jewish priests in that place. He had seven sons who were telling bad spirits to come out of people. They used the name of Jesus when they did this. ¹⁵ But one day the bad spirit in a man said to them, ‘I know who Jesus is. I also know about Paul. But I do not know who you are.’ ¹⁶ The man who had the bad spirit in him then jumped up. He fought with the seven sons and he was too strong for them. He hurt them badly and he tore their clothes off. So the sons ran away from the man's house. Their bodies were bleeding and they wore no clothes.

¹⁷ All the Jews and Gentiles who lived in Ephesus heard about this. They became very afraid. Now they respected the name of the Lord Jesus very much. They knew that he was very powerful. ¹⁸ Many of the believers agreed that they had done wicked things. They told other believers about this. ¹⁹ Some of them had used magic to do powerful things. These people brought all their special books and they burned them in a fire. Everybody saw what they did. The books had cost a lot of money. The value of all the books was 50,000 silver coins. ²⁰ As a result of this, more and more people heard the good news about the Lord Jesus. The message was powerful and people's lives changed.