Today’s second reading depicts the Ephesian church’s congregational culture. They offered fellowship to people of varied social backgrounds, support for itinerant strangers, and restraint in public discourse. Priscilla and Aquila met and traveled (circuitously) with Paul from Rome to Ephesus. “Of the same trade” (tentmakers /leatherworkers), the three lived and
worked together. From glittering Alexandria, eloquent, scholarly Apollos arrived at the port city, Ephesus, and taught boldly in the synagogue. (Alexandria may explain a Jewish
man named for a Greek god and his rhetorical skills from that philosophical center.) Working couple Priscilla and Aquila go to hear this “foreign seminary professor” speak and discover they understand Christian baptism more accurately than he. Demurely, they didn’t publicly embarrass a “foreigner,” but “took him aside and explained the Way of God more accurately.”
Apparently, no ill feelings resulted. When Apollos left for Achaia, the couple may have been among Ephesians Christians who wrote to the disciples there to welcome him. Consequently, believers in southern Greece were “greatly helped” and error was “powerfully reputed.” The Ephesian Christians welcomed strangers. With conviction and thoughtfulness, but without embarrassing an educated guest, tentmakers corrected a scholar. Thus, the Gospel was more accurately proclaimed elsewhere.
Do our parishes welcome incomers from different backgrounds, social and educational levels? When disparities arise, do we address others with discernment and good intent? Do we support scholarship and, if necessary, correct inaccurate or incomplete teaching? We have lessons to learn from the congregational culture of that first-century church in Ephesus.
