A Journey Through Ephesus: Ephesians 2 and the Temple of Artemis

In this episode of the Navigating An Ancient Faith podcast, we explore Ephesians 2 and the rich imagery of the temple—both in Jewish tradition and in the pagan world. 🏛️ We share our own experiences visiting the ancient ruins of the Temple of Artemis (a bit underwhelming 😅) and the awe-inspiring Temple of Apollo, and how these sites bring Paul’s words to life. 📖

We also dig into the Jewish view of the temple as God’s dwelling place. 🕊️ Paul’s radical vision of Jews and Gentiles becoming one body—one temple is front and center, along with the cultural and identity shifts it would have demanded.💬 Along the way, we reflect on the balance between personal faith and life in community, the historical and theological weight of temple imagery, and what Paul’s message of unity and inclusion means for us today. ✨

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Read the article 📖: Images in Ephesians

Explore 🗺️: Explore Ephesus

Buy the book 📕(Amazon): A Journey Through Ephesus

Buy the book 📕(Apple): A Journey Through Ephesus

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Chapters

• 0:00 The Temple of Artemis: A Disappointment?
• 10:57 The Metaphor of the Temple
• 25:18 Cultural Identity and Paul's Challenge
• 30:36 Paul's Radical Concept of a New Temple
• 36:28 Understanding the Role of Temples in Ancient Cultures
• 47:03 The Tension Between Individual and Community in Faith
• 51:34 Final Thoughts and Reflections

Transcript

The Temple of Artemis

JR: [00:00:00] I'm trying to think of where to go with

David: no, it was funny. But yeah, I'm like, all right, where do I go with this? Well, anyway,

JR: rabbit trails are the best part 'cause that's where the, the most genuine conversation comes

David: yeah,

JR: then we gotta get it back on

David: yeah.

JR: I'm trying to think of how to, where are we at?

David: Well, I can, I don't know. Alright, so we're gonna talk about Ephesians chapter two today, and we're gonna talk about temples. And you said before, I think you said last episode, you weren't a fan of the Temple of Artemis, were you?

JR: yeah, I mentioned that last one, that the Temple of Artemis was a little disappointing considering you know, that it's one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. But we went on to the Temple of Apollo in did. Right. And that was a twin. temple. It was actually built to mirror the temple of Artemis. and it was a lot more

David: Yeah.

JR: than the Temple of Artemis. So the Temple of Apollo man, the columns were just gigantic and most of those were reconstructed. It didn't have a [00:01:00] roof on it, like the Parthenon or anything like that, but the columns were

David: Yeah,

JR: could walk through it.

And it was just, massive. And I looked this up, I didn't realize this at the time, but the Temple of Apollo, or the Temple of Artemis twice the size of the Parthenon. and there was

David: yeah. That's one

JR: it was a side by side picture of it. And I was like, holy

David: I've seen that.

JR: and the Parthenon of course, is huge. So it was a little disappointing, but at the same time, once I got a little bit more perspective by seeing the Temple of Apollo, it helped me appreciate what used to be there at least. But there was one

David: Yeah, yeah,

JR: all that was there on Artemis, right.

David: yeah, I was kind of joking because I, I knew that there was nothing there. I'd seen pictures of just this single column that's, that's all that's left, you know, so I was, yeah, I was kind of just joking 'cause maybe I didn't tell you, but you do you see these signs, you know, this is the temple of Artemis and this is where it was, you know, it's one of the seven wonders of the world.

And then you go there and it's just a field full of, turtles. It's like a swamp almost.

turtles everywhere

JR: I'm pretty sure you [00:02:00] pitched it to me like this is one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. period,

David: prepared.

JR: I'm like, dude, I can't wait. This is gonna be incredible.

David: Well, because we had seen the pyramids, right. And you're like, all right, the pyramids, one of the Seven Wonders, wait till you see the Temple of Artemis.

JR: the pyramids were impressive, just wait.

David: Yeah. And then of course we've seen the Temple of Zeus, and that's another

JR: Right.

David: in, in Olympus, that's another one of the Seven Wonders of the world

JR: And that was

David: and

JR: was huge. the columns were huge, but it just wasn't as reconstructed as obviously something like the Parthenon

David: pretty much the base. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, I kind of known that, just, you know, we were joking around, but yeah, you're right. So one of the things that lived in Nashville for a couple years. You lived close to Nashville, and one of the things in Centeno Park is a reconstruction of the Parthenon. Of course, you and I have been to the Parthenon site in Athens, but when you walk around the Parthenon in Nashville, I had read before that the temple at Ephesus.

Was twice as wide and twice as long. And I saw something recently where [00:03:00] some researchers are saying these numbers have to be exaggerated because there's almost no way it, blows the mind to think that there was a temple that big. But according to some of the ancient writers, that's how big the Temple Artemis was.

JR: they questioned the of having structural integrity at that size. I mean, it was just ma and it was, it, I don't know if it was twice as tall, but it was taller, you know, a third taller or

David: Yeah, yeah.

JR: it was just, yeah, it kind of blows the mind, especially if you're anywhere around Nashville, Nashville, it's definitely worth going to see the Parthenon there if you can't get to Greece. 'cause it does give you an idea of the size and the scale of what you're dealing with.

And the Temple of Artemis and the Temple of Zeus and the Temple Apollo, we're pretty much twice that size. And that's hard to, you're right. It's hard to wrap your head around.

David: Yeah. I can't, it, it's hard to picture. Yeah, it would be hard to fathom that, but that's what the ancient writers said. And look, the ancients went there and they said this is one of the seven wonders of the world. Right. So it had to be amazing.

JR: Oh yeah, 

David: if it's maybe say it's a little exaggerated. It still had to be amazing because they chose that [00:04:00] temple and said, no, this is one of the seven wonders of the world.

JR: Oh

David: You know, because that's a list that goes back 2000 years.

JR: Yeah. I wonder if they could come to modern Nashville and say, why did they copy the Parthenon? 

David: Why would you,

JR: you park?

David: you have this whole park.

JR: There's

David: have this whole park, why would 

JR: Artemis was twice this size man, but y'all chose the, the small one, you know? Well,

David: The small one in Athens.

JR: that's

David: Well knock yourself out, I guess. You know, there's probably a lot better temples.

JR: I don't know.

David: Yeah, that's right. Well, yeah. So anyway, there's nothing left of the temple and you and I were talking a little bit before we hit record, you know, the site, uh, there were earthquakes damaged it.

It's been rebuilt a couple times. Then the site was pillaged by you know, something like the goths and then, you know, you or I were talking about, so you just have this pile of marble and basically everyone just started using the marble, right? It would, I was thinking about it. It would almost be like if you moved into a little depressed town that used to be a booming town and down the street from you was a abandoned Lowe's hardware.

And [00:05:00] people like, no, just go take whatever you want. You know,

JR: Right.

David: right. There would be nothing left after a while. It'd just be stripped clean, right?

JR: get a few outlet covers or something like that. Something handy, you know, get you,

David: Water testing kit. No one buys those, you know, but,

JR: The mouse traps are still there, so yeah, knock yourself out.

David: but yeah, that's what happens. Like everyone just, you know, reuse these things. So the wife wants a new marble kitchen and you go, well, I'll go down to the temple site and drag some marble home, you know? And that's literally what happened. Yeah, that's right. Right. It was just used to rebuild. And I think actually I, I had heard when we went there, uh, we figured like 12 years ago, 13 years ago, that they dragged some of the marble to build the Hagga Sophia in Istanbul.

JR: Yeah. That's right. I don't know how they figured that out. I don't know if it's the type of marble or something, 

David: yeah.

JR: ' they either had to drag it all the way. I mean, that's more than a few miles away. Right. and so you can imagine

David: yeah.

JR: taking apart that those columns block by block, maybe squaring 'em off there and then dragging them, hundreds of miles up to [00:06:00] Istanbul to do the Sophia.

David: yeah. At that point they'd probably float 'em up the shoreline up to Istanbul. But, but yeah, that, I suppose they traced the marble back. But there's been some other things that they've traced the marble from. The Temple of Artemis that they think this is, you know, where the marble ended up. But yeah, over time it just got pilled because, well, another thing is you and I saw that quarry outside of Philippi, you know, and that was really new.

That was really, that was a modern quarry and that was really cool. But can you imagine what it took to quarry marble? But then you have the, well, the largest temple in the world that's in ruins, that's been picked clean and, and man, there's all your quarried marble right there. So why not just go raid the site, you know,

JR: Well, that's what happened to the outside of the pyramids.

David: outside of the pyramid?

JR: It, was it granite or it was a smoother stone on the

David: Yeah, that's true.

JR: it just got all pillaged to basically build chiro. You know, that it used to be a nice, smooth, a gold top. And of course, over the years you still got the mammoth pyramid sitting there, and that takes your breath away. In the ancient world, it would've even [00:07:00] been more impressive 'cause it would've been perfectly smooth down the side. But

David: That's right.

JR: know, that got swiped

David: And it would've been that polished white marble shining in the, you know, the sun glistening off it. Yeah. It would've been even more of a credible sight than it is right now. But that, yeah, I had forgotten about that, but that's true. So anyway, we're talking about the Temple of Artemis because it was the centerpiece of Ephesus, and we're talking about Paul's letter to the Ephesians.

And so we're going to look at chapter two today, where the temple becomes I think, the primary image, but it's one that Paul builds up to, right?

JR: I.

David: So Ephesians chapter one, he lays out the plan of God. We already covered that, how God is bringing all things, in heaven and on earth, under the reign of Christ, and it involves Jew and Gentile together.

And so chapter two, then Paul starts building on this argument that the plan of God is for Jew and Gentile to together become the people of God. And so just to start walking through chapter [00:08:00]two a little bit, and then we'll get to our scripture and we'll do the thing where you can listen to it and then we're gonna come back and talk about it.

verses 11 through 16, Jew and Gentiles are being brought together to form one body. Verse 15 says, his purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace. So this idea of the body being one person, but it's Jew and Gentile together. Right? 

JR: It's hard right now to understand like how radical this would've sounded to both groups really at the time, know what I mean? to not only the Jews who were the chosen people. And

David: people.

JR: you obviously have the Old Testament of the Torah and the, the Old Testament books that reinforced that, but then to the, to the Gentiles even that, it sounded radical to them too. if they look back, this is funny, I wonder if they, they kinda look back at it and maybe like the way we look at something like political correctness today, you know what I mean? Because there's a little bit of an eye roll when political correctness goes too far. And I wonder if, like, do you think that some like of the Jews at the [00:09:00] time kind of rolled their eyes and thought, well here we go, God forbid we have anything just for us, you know, we, we have to include everybody now.

So, now yeah, now the Gentiles can be the chosen people too. This is just great. I bet you there was some, yeah, a little bit of a cultural push back with that idea.

David: Well sure there certainly would've been sects of Judaism that, They basically enjoyed the exclusivity of the whole thing. Right. But if you go back to the Old Testament, it was always clear, and this is part of what Paul lays out in chapter one, it it was always clear that the Jews were to be a light to the gentile world in order to bring all people You know? Now the part about being a light and chosen, we talked about that last time, you know, that sounds appealing, but the whole like be welcoming in of everyone else, and that's where you get the people. I'm sure. And you could find examples probably in the Old Testament that were like, uh, we kind of like this exclusive status that we have sitting here.

Right?

JR: My granddad would be rolling over in his grave if he knew that we're letting anybody into this club, now. 

David: [00:10:00] Greeks in the synagogue. I've heard of everything now. Right. You know, but that's,

JR: right. it is hard to understate the cultural shift that Paul

David: Yeah. Yeah,

JR: out, I don't know, well, we'll get into the temple analogies also, but just like the Temple of Artemis, it's hard to understate how important it was to that culture at the time their entire lives were built around this.

David: yeah,

JR: the same way, it's the same concept when Paul starts talking about that Gentiles can now be part of the chosen Jewish people phenomenon. so what we're talking about today is kind of the what, the disintegration of culture, the, the end of a story. and the results that happened from that and, the people's reaction to that. Does that make sense?

David: yeah. Yeah.

JR: Well, I kinda threw it out there and I was like, I don't know if that made sense or not, 

David: Yeah, it's a huge, it would've been a huge cultural shift. Yeah, that's right. So Paul's talking about the geo Gentile relationship coming together form one body. And that's where we're going to get to the passage today, and we'll let you listen to it. Ephesians two 17 through [00:11:00] 22, because he's going to build up to this idea of the image that he uses to describe all this is the construction of a temple.

And that would've had a lot of meaning. And that's what we're gonna unpack in this episode. But first, take a listen to Ephesians two versus 17 through 22. 

JR: okay, there you go. it's some language. just because sometimes when I read these types of verses [00:12:00] I kind of say, okay, yeah, we're a temple. And, there's some imagery that I may not understand. What is it that Paul's trying to say? And, why this is so important to the culture of the people of the Temple of Artemis. 

David: Yeah, it is easy to read a section like that and just think, okay. There's a lot of images that Paul throws out there. You know, he throws out things like citizenship and, You can almost read this as, Paul's saying it, he has this idea and then he goes, oh, it's kind of like a temple, right?

JR: Yeah.

David: like you said, sometimes we hear the word temple and we go, oh, a church. But what we've been talking about, right, is that image of a temple meant a lot more, there was a lot in that idea of an image. And, and so we really gotta unpack this section and, and see why Paul, I think is intentionally building this metaphor up to the idea of a temple.

So let's first start with verse 19, right? It says, consequently, you no longer foreigners or strangers. You are fellow citizens. Now, we talked about this when we did Philippians, but citizenship was [00:13:00]a big deal,

JR: Sure.

David: right? Because to be a citizen of Rome meant you had a lot of rights. Paul was a Roman citizen.

And in Philippi, he was talking to people Most of them would've had their citizenship because it was a Roman colony. Now, Ephesus, I'm not sure how many people were Roman citizens. Certainly the politicians, the elites, the Roman soldiers would've been citizens. But there are a lot of people who might not have been Roman citizens.

So when Paul says, even that idea when Paul says you are now fellow citizens in this thing that God is creating in the kingdom of God, right? I mean, that had a lot of weight to it. We're so used to just, you know, wherever you're born, that's where you're a citizen and you don't think about the idea of citizenship being something that means a lot to you unless you may be immigrate to another country

JR: Right. But

David: and gain your citizenship.

JR: kind of do the work and you, you gain citizenship. But what you were saying, and this is to your point about Rome, this is and. Empire that was obsessed with [00:14:00] status. And so in Rome,

David: Yes.

JR: status. it's plain and simple. If you were a Roman citizen, then you held this implicit importance, and if you weren't, then you know, you may not have been a total outsider, but you were certainly at least a second class person.

And so you're right, it's it. It's not like the modern idea of citizenship because Rome was so and it was obsessed with status and citizenship was the way that they manifested that status. 

David: Yeah, yeah, that's right there. There was a lot more to it than just what we might think today. A lot of times Roman citizens didn't have to pay taxes. That was for all the slaves and all the conquered people to pay. Right.

JR: what a rip off.

David: And so like, yeah. Can you, yeah. Can you imagine that like another tier of citizenship in the US where, you know, it's like, well, when you hit this level, you don't have to pay taxes anymore.

JR: well.

David: It's like, okay, how do I get that right?

JR: argue that, but we'll let that, we'll let that lie right there, you know?

David: Yeah. there's a lot we can do with that, but we won't go there. But yeah. So he [00:15:00]introduces this idea of citizenship, and so it, it sometimes, because Paul does this, sometimes he kind of mixes metaphors and it's like, alright, what is he doing here? But he's trying to build this case that they are one people under the reign of Christ in the kingdom of God, right?

And so he brings up citizenship. This is no longer gonna be a divisive thing. If you call yourself a follower of Christ, you're not gonna hold your Roman citizenship card around and wave it around and act like you're better than everyone else, cause now we're all fellow citizens. So then we get to verse 20 where, It's interesting 'cause he doesn't say temple yet, So after this idea of citizenship, he says, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets with Christ, Jesus himself being the chief cornerstone. Okay, so now he's introducing some of this building metaphor, right? ' cause he's talking about a foundation.

So the foundation of the apostles, of prophets, that's like the Old Testament. And with Jesus Christ himself as the chief cornerstone. Now a cornerstone, I don't [00:16:00] know. I've heard, I've heard that it might be a better translation to say the capstone, but a cornerstone was kind of the the square piece that made everything else square when you're laying the foundation.

JR: Yeah.

David: But then I've also heard arguments that the way Paul uses the term, it might be more of the capstone. So if you're building an arch, which Rome was obsessed with arches, right? That capstone was the piece that fit. Right at the top, and it actually held the integrity of the arch together.

JR: That's where all the strength was from. Was that keystone, right in the middle,

David: Yeah. Yeah. I've heard people talk about this idea that it almost makes more sense that this is a capstone he's talking about, because, you know, he's already talked about the foundations being laid, the building's being built up, and then with Christ himself as the chief, and it would make more sense that you have this grand arch that Christ fits into and the whole structure is held together.

Right.

JR: Well, you're right. I kinda like the idea that both of those ideas of work as a metaphor. I just read an article [00:17:00] about I think it's called the Bow back stones. Have you heard of these? This is like the largest megalithic stones that they've ever discovered. And there's something like 800 tons. And they're the foundation of this, Well, I'm not even gonna go there 'cause I'm, I, I'll get it wrong, but it's the foundation of this ancient temple, something like that. And these stones weighed like

David: Okay.

JR: tons, which by comparison, I think a locomotive, a a modern locomotive is like 200 tons. And so this thing was like four, the size of four locomotives, right?

And anyway, they were massive. And when invaders came into destroyed the city, was common in the ancient world, they would completely tear down and dismantle everything. But they couldn't ever mess with that foundation stone, right? It was just, you're, you're just not moving it.

David: that's, yeah.

JR: what they did is they built on top of it.

And so the megalithic, side of Baback, it's like a Roman, temple to Baal now, but they don't

David: Oh, okay.

JR: think that the foundation was Roman. It's a different, I don't know how, [00:18:00] however archeologists figure this out. In any

David: Mm-hmm.

JR: they think is that Rome came in, wiped out the existing temple or whatever structure that was built on this, but they can't touch that stone.

Right. You know, so, so like,

David: Yeah.

JR: we're not tearing this up, but we are gonna build on top of it. Right. But I just think it's a cool analogy that invaders might come in and destroy everything, but whatever they built was still on top of that earliest foundation that was laid by the original builders. And I don't know, you

David: Yeah, that's right.

JR: when I think of it, you know, in terms of Christianity or, or what Paul's talking about, Christianity can be torn down and rebuilt over the generations and it might look totally different. You know, the church we go to today might look completely different than what. A hundred years ago, or even 50 years ago, but as long as Jesus is that foundational cornerstone, then something new can always emerge from that, you know? 

David: Yeah,

JR: I don't

David: no, that's that that's an interesting image. Well, and you were saying that we took that tour one time of the temple in Jerusalem. We're gonna talk about that more today too. And it, you're [00:19:00]right that, you know, Rome in what, 70 ad destroys the temple, right? But when you destroy a temple, you don't destroy the foundation.

What? I mean, what are you gonna do? Pull these things, pull these 200 ton things up out of the ground and you can't smash 'em? Right. And we saw that one big, they said it was the largest stone they found in the temple structure. You have to go underneath, there's tunnels that they've built and, you know, we saw that one huge stone.

And yeah, it's like you're not destroying that. and so you're right, like Eva, the temple can be destroyed, but the foundation is almost impossible to destroy, 

JR: And maybe that's Paul's metaphor of the cornerstone, maybe it's where that comes from. I think it's just interesting to play with both of those metaphors that Jesus as

David: Yeah.

JR: the grounding standard as well as the one who holds it all together, right?

The one with the arch, the strength, the, the

David: Yeah. I.

JR: key piece, right? If you take that out, the, the entire thing collapses. So both of those metaphors work, but yeah, when I had read that about the Balbeck stones uh it just kind of made me laugh. I was thinking, yeah, [00:20:00] that, that actually works too. You know, the foundational piece, you're not ripping that out.

You can build something else on top of it. It may not look like what was before To your point about the temple of Artemis stones being used for the hagi of Sophia. It's being repurposed for something totally different, but it's still those stones. Right. You know, and so it's just kind of interesting. analogy and I think it's something that may, the ancients understood a little bit deeper than we did, and it worked

David: Oh sure.

JR: It worked better in the first century than the 21st century.

David: Yeah, That's right. So Paul talks about this idea of laying the foundation, and then he talks about Christ himself being either like the, the cornerstone or the capstone. Think of either one, maybe both. Maybe there was some kind of, you know, play on words that, Hey, choose your analogy here.

both of them work, but he's clearly leading up to something. And so then in verse 21, he says, finally gets to the analogy in him, the whole building is being joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. Okay, so now he's building the picture [00:21:00] of Jew and Gentile together, being constructed as a holy temple.

And as we've been saying, like that's gonna have a lot of meaning to the. People who he's writing to in Ephesus, to Jews who are reading this, it's gonna mean a lot. And so that's the analogy that Paul builds on. And then just to finish this section up, he says in him, you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit. Now that's interesting too because in some ways the individual is to function as a temple, but a dwelling doesn't necessarily imply a temple. It could just be a place where God dwells, right?

JR: Yeah,

I was gonna say that that verse it sounds not just personal, you know what I mean? You,

David: yeah.

JR: this better than me because you know Greek, but you in this verse might be better understood as y'all, right? To use a southern term, y'all are being built together.

It's not just about

David: Yeah.

JR: me personally, being a temple, Us, you know, as, as a community. And this brings up kind of a little rabbit trail. ' cause like I said, [00:22:00] you've studied Greek, and I've heard that the word, you has several different words in Greek distinguishing the singular thing or the group of things, right?

And one of the limitations of the word you in English is that we use that same word for a single person or a group of people, right? It's the same word. And so I was kind of thinking that, I wonder if that plays into sort of hyper personal individualistic kind of modern reading of the Bible that we tend to have, that our modern culture has. I think it's a common

David: Yeah.

JR: we try to, that what you and I try to untangle on the podcast a lot of times is that there's space for what scripture means to me personally. But that should be kind of down the list of understanding as far as the purpose of most. Right. And I wonder if that use of the word you meaning personally versus you as a group of people. I wonder if that's why we kind of get caught in that trap as a modern, I don't know, but what do you think about that idea?

David: Well, no, that's interesting. So just as you were saying that, I looked it up real quick and that [00:23:00] you is plural.

JR: Okay, cool.

David: So and you're right that our word, you looks the same whether I'm talking about you personally or you and your entire family. But in, in Greek, you can see the difference.

You, it's like, okay, they're talking about a collective view here. So it is interesting that. He's talking you again, going back to chapter one, he's talking about them collectively as the Gentiles forming the church there in Ephesus. So again, he's kind of doing the same thing he did in chapter one. This is what's happening with the Jews, right?

But then he says, but you also are included in the plan of God. And there again that you would be plural. So you're right. That's a good point. He's doing the same thing here. He's building on the foundation of the apostles and prophets. Well, that's a Jewish thing, right? But then he says, and you too, you're being built into a dwelling of God.

So you're included. he's including the Gentiles in part of this construction of a temple. And he's like, this applies to you. You're the dwelling place of God too.

JR: The outside group is now on the inside.

David: Yeah. But the [00:24:00] way Paul uses this, you can think of other places he's used this. So he talks to, he does use it individually as well, because I think in Corinthians he says, don't you know your body is the temple?

JR: Right. So that

David: Right. And so he's talking that of the singular, but then he's talking about you collectively are part of the temple.

And so it can be used both ways. Paul uses this metaphor actually a lot of different ways. And one doesn't mean that the other is wrong. You know, it's not, people are always like, oh, well

JR: Right.

David: he used it singularly here, so now he's contradicting himself. And like, no, that's not how metaphors work. He can,

JR: Right.

David: a lot of flexibility to them, right?

JR: it. Sure.

David: Yeah. So, yeah, that, that's interesting because he's doing the same thing. He's talking about them collectively and saying you're included in this plan, this temple that God is building. You're part of it. A place where God dwells, right. And so that's why I think this image of the temple goes back a couple of verses, but really chapter two is all leading up to this thing that I think Paul [00:25:00] had in his mind that he thinks, yeah, God is building a new temple of which includes Jew and Gentile, and this is going to be the place where God dwells.

Right? And so that's why I would say that the image of the temple is the key image to understanding chapter two.

JR: Right.

and to understand the Jewish understanding of a temple, sometimes we also have to bring in this idea of the pagan understanding of the temple. 

David: That's right. That's right.

JR: of. What culture and community, you know, when Paul was in the middle of this, it's easy to sort of look at this as like, you'd view a modern debate between a religious person and an atheist.

You know, oh, they're squaring off. You know, they're, but you gotta understand this is so much deeper than that. These are people that their, their complete identity was in, the. God, art Artemis or, you know, the, the Greek gods. that was their identity. And a lot of time we've talked about this in other episodes, that particular towns would pick a particular God, Greek or Roman [00:26:00] God and say, this is our identity.

And for Paul to come in and dismantle that, I mean, that's, man, that's a big deal. It's a bigger deal than we give it credit for. I think, again, I, I think we

David: Yeah.

JR: look at it like, like a debate, you know, the theist versus the atheist and, it was a lot more than that, I think it helps us frame why. Paul's message would've felt so threatening to the people at the time. It wasn't just theology, it was economics, it was power, it

David: Yeah.

JR: identity, it was deep seated cultural essence. Right. I was trying to think of a modern example of this and, you know, of a culture losing their identity. And just a few days ago, I, I was reading this book it was actually about the discovery of a, a temple in South America. But any case I was reading about this indigenous tribe and the Amazon that was displaced due to like illegal logging and things like that, but was what was most fascinating to me was the crisis of identity that these indigenous people went through when the modern world of reframed their entire [00:27:00] existence up to that point.

it was just fascinating. And so there's stories like this from. I don't know, post-Soviet Russia, you, you know, you hear about these stories, or even in the Europe, in, in the United States or Europe, sort of the post-Christian identity, right? And all these examples, there's this big loss of identity. I don't know, when a story dies really is, you know, your identity is lost when the story dies. And so whether this is a story of, a people group of faith, but when that narrative disappears, like people rush to look for new meaning, and in a lot of times it creates an existential crisis. And I just want us to appreciate what Paul was up against because it was so much more than our modern, oh, these are, these are two different people that disagree.

And so they're going at it, right? They're, they're pushing their ideas. It's like, no, this was an identity ending endeavor of what Paul was doing.

David: Yeah. Yeah. And as you were talking, it can even be an unhealthy identity, but it's an identity.

JR: Sure.

David: you even talk about the slaves coming out of Egypt, right? And, and it's like, well now [00:28:00] you're free. And what are the first, what's the first thing they say?

JR: that's a

David: Like, oh, I wish we were back in Egypt.

And it, it's like, why, why would you say that? Because that's their identity.

JR: that's that's

David: Even the, even the identity of slavery. And you could point to someone, you know, when the Soviet Union fell, right, there was a sense of like, okay, now all you people are free. But you heard people crying back out for the old oppressive regime because at least we had an identity.

And with all this freedom, it's like, we don't know who we are anymore. Right. So, yeah, I think, I think it's a great point.

JR: No, it's just a complete existential crisis that everything you've built your life around your understanding of, who you are as an individual and as a culture. that's all disintegrating and that's what Paul's doing

David: Yeah.

JR: this. not just to the pagan of Ephesus that worshiped in the temple of Artemis, but to the Jews who their identity was in their exclusivity to the Gentiles who, because they're on the outside, have probably followed some of these pagan gods and pagan rituals.

I mean, he's dismantling everybody's identity through all this.

David: Yeah. [00:29:00] And that's a really important point. That's hard for us to understand because when Paul says you are being built into a new temple. So that's what he's saying. we, again, I think we hear that and we think, oh, you're gonna start a new church down the street. No, that's not what Paul is talking about.

JR: Yeah.

David: so if you're Jewish, right? Let's talk about the temple in Jerusalem. Like that was the temple, right? That was the place where God dwelt. And we can even go back through, you know, the history of it there. There are a lot of people at the time believe that God no longer dwelt there, because I think in the Book of Ezekiel, it talks about how, there's this image that Ezekiel creates about how God's judging the unrighteous.

And then, I actually have the verse here. The cherub lifted up their wings and the wheels beside them. That's the idea of the throne cherubim, And then the glory of God of Israel was over them. And the glory of the Lord went up from the midst of the city and stood on the mountain that is on the east side of the city.

That's Ezekiel 11:22 and 23. A [00:30:00] lot of people, even Old Testament scholars, even Jewish rabbis would point to that and say, that is a picture of God leaving the temple of God's presence, leaving, leaving the temple. And so even when the new temple is built, there were a lot of people who said, look, we haven't seen any miraculous evidence that God dwells here.

JR: Yeah.

David: he, like he did the first time right, where his spirit like descends on the temple and God says, okay, I dwell here now.

JR: So you're saying that the original listeners might have heard that and say, look, a new temple sounds great, but that doesn't guarantee that God's gonna dwell here.

David: Yeah, it could be that, but it also, it it, what I'm saying is the idea of Paul saying, you are built into a new temple that undermines the physical temple sitting in Jerusalem. If you're a Jewish listener to this,

JR: Right. And again, to go

David: that's not that.

JR: being our identity, that's pretty shaking.

David: Yeah, because a, again, if you're a Jew, so this is where we're gonna talk a lot about, the last couple of minutes here, [00:31:00] about the difference between the pagan world and the Jewish world. But if you're a Jew, you don't see temples in every town.

JR: Right,

David: right. You see synagogues, but that's not a temple. You see synagogues in every town.

But there was only one temple. And in fact, if you go back to the Samaritan woman, I'm trying to think of all these ideas. 'cause they all tie together and, and they all, they all help shape what you were just saying, which is this is not just a lighthearted comment that Paul is making. Right? So one of the things that the Samaritan woman, she's an outsider because Samaria believed that God had the true temple should have resided in Samaria.

And they actually built a temple there.

JR: Right.

David: Well that was blasphemous to the Jews.

JR: Sure.

David: Right? So it's interesting 'cause I was thinking about that. You go around Israel, you won't see temples everywhere now you might see pagan temples that come later. But there was one temple, and so when Paul says, you know, God's building a new temple, your response is, well wait a minute.

What about that thing [00:32:00] standing in Jerusalem right now?

JR: undermining the very temple that's our entire religion is based around, right from all the way

David: Yeah, yeah.

JR: you know, that was temporary and could be up and moved to Solomon's temple that's sitting there in all its glory. You know, that's,

David: Yeah.

JR: a multi gener.

This is another thing that's worth mentioning. It was a multi-generational effort to make this happen, when you say that Jesus is building a new temple, or God is building another temple, which Jesus is the cornerstone. I wonder if there was a little bit of, look a we have a temple. It's completed.

There's nothing wrong with it. It's actually

David: If you're Jewish. Yeah, yeah,

JR: setup. You know, I'll take you there sometime. uh, versus also the, this idea of we're starting over. Do you have any idea how long this took? The generations and the blood, sweat and tears that went into this and

David: that's true.

JR: that started it died before they saw the end of it and Yeah.

So I wonder if there's a little bit of that too. It's like, this is not a minor endeavor. What you were saying about this is not a new church up the road. 'cause we bought the old movie [00:33:00] theater and we're gonna,

David: Yeah,

JR: we're gonna

David: that's right.

JR: it there. Right? You know, it's a lot

David: Yeah.

JR: a lot more of a long-term view than, 

David: Right.

JR: something immediate that's gonna be great.

gimme six weeks. It's gonna be a fantastic You know, this is a lot longer term

David: Yeah. And I, I, as we're talking about this, I think about when Christ made this claim, he was standing in the temple, right? I just saw season five of the chosen, so this comes to mind, but he's standing in the temple and he says, destroy this temple and I'll build it back in three days. Well, what an absurd statement.

JR: Yeah.

David: Right now, Christ is talking about himself,

JR: Right.

David: this is the mindset of the Jewish person though. What other temple would he be talking about besides the one, temple in Jerusalem that is supposed to be the dwelling place of God. So what an absurd statement that Christ makes when he says, destroy this temple and I'll build it back in three days.

You know, we've been working on this thing 50 years.

JR: And we still not done with it. 

David: That's the idea of how a Jewish person would hear this language of Paul proposing basically a new temple. Now, if you lived in Ephesus, [00:34:00] we've already talked about this. Of course, the, the whole of your identity is the temple of Artemis, right? And so when Paul is saying, Hey, God's doing this thing and we're gonna build a new temple, okay, that's pretty threatening.

And look, Paul's already lived through this, right? Because Paul's writing this letter to, the Ephesians where he lived for two or three years, and Paul himself was involved in this riot, right? You go back to the book of Acts. In fact acts 19, one of the objections of Paul with this riot breaks out is says there's a danger not only that our trade will lose its good name.

You talked about the economic impact, but also that the temple of the great goddess, Artemis, will be discredited. So Paul, even when he was there. Was starting to undermine the legitimacy and the identity of what it meant to be an Ephesian.

So now Paul's writing these Gentile people in Ephesus and he's saying you're part of this thing that, you know, God is building and God's building a new temple. Well, that, that has a lot of implications if you're an Ephesian, right?

JR: Yeah. Jew or Gentile.

David: Yeah, that's [00:35:00] right. And the people probably already said like, look Paul, you already stirred this pot once, you know, are, are you really going there again?

JR: Yeah.

David: Right.

JR: Yeah. We just look back and

David: the scene in the great

JR: Of course he's going here.

David: Yeah.

JR: The original shock

David: Yeah. Paul, you really going there? Yeah. Paul's like, hold my beer. He we're about to go here. Right.

JR: exactly.

David: yeah. So a new temple then. Again, it undermines, it would discredit the temple of Artemis. And we've already been through this. Paul, there was a whole riot, you know, the people in the great theater and Ephesus wanted to kill you over this.

JR: you learn anything

David: But, you know, but again, Paul's like, Nope, let's, let's not go, you know, let's go there.

So,

JR: it

David: yeah. So then we've talked about this idea then what Paul's proposing is Jew and Gentile together. The church under the cornerstone or capstone of Christ is becoming the new temple. And the thing that I don't think we always think about is this automatically almost undermines the pagan temples and the Jewish temple.

like I said, I think we hear that as, oh, you're starting a new [00:36:00] church, but it's like, no, you just undermined the two most important temples of the, in the world at that time. Almost, 

JR: yeah, the, these two groups identity, you're, you somehow undermined both of them at the same time. If he undermined one the other group would think, ha gotcha. You know what I mean? they

David: Yeah.

JR: somehow, he offends everybody equally. So I guess that's a good thing. But, uh, yeah, it just completely reframes their, their culture, their identity, everything. 

David: Paul was not worried about being canceled. He,

JR: no.

David: don't think he cared about that.

JR: Pre-woke. That's good.

David: Alright, so let's talk a little bit more then about what a temple is, because we've said this several times now, but I don't think a lot of modern people appreciate the image of a temple and what it meant. Right. And we've talked about this, we've hit on this in other episodes, but in the pagan world, a temple was designed to do something very specific.

Right. We've walked through how you built a temple and you built it so impressive that you wanted the God to come. Dwell there. I mean, think of the Parthenon, right? What happens to the [00:37:00]Parthenon? Parthenon is built and Athena, I mean Athena and, oh

Who was the contest between Athena and,

JR: Oh yeah, yeah, that's right. Poseidon. According to myth, Athena Poseidon competed to be the patron of the city. That's right,

David: Yeah, that's right. Okay. So yeah, I knew Athena, but Poseidon was the other, God who was kind of. In competition there. Right? So the gods are actually competing. That's actually on one of the, outer carvings. Frescos at the end is Athena and Poseidon competing. And of course Athena wins the contest.

So Athena becomes the patron of Athens. Right? That's where we get the name Athens. So, and there's, yeah. Hence the name. There's another account where Athena, disguises herself as a mere mortal and walks around and sees the Parthenon, and she's so blown away that she's like, yes, my blessing will reside on this city.

Like I accept basically the offering of this temple to me.

JR: Right. And then she resides

David: And there.

JR: her

David: And then she resides there. Yeah. Yeah. Now, [00:38:00] one of the things that's really important to understand is when people are doing this. We've talked about this, from time to time, it's the attempt to bring the gods down and exert some kind of control over them, 

JR: yes. A house for the God to reside in, and once the God resides in there, now we get the benefit of, yes, you're right. It's, it's basically human control over the gods don't think they ever thought that they had full control, but it was basically right that we now have the blessings of this God for our city and our city alone.

David: Yeah. And the, one of the key differences between pagan temples and the Jewish temple was, uh, like I said, you don't go around Israel and see temples.

JR: Right.

David: There's, there was only one, but you do go around, look in North Africa, all the Middle East, Greece, Turkey, like, there's all kinds of temples everywhere.

JR: Yeah.

David: We've seen several temples to Apollo. We've seen temp several temples to Zeus. We've seen several temples to Athena.

So even the [00:39:00] Parthenon sitting in Athens, the claim wasn't that she now resides here exclusively, but it was always, we have to keep making the offerings. We have to make the sacrifices because the next town over, you know,

JR: She

David: put up their own.

JR: may

David: She's gonna start

JR: We don't mind her having a summer house or that type of thing, but you know, yeah, we gotta pull her back. At least for the harvest or something like 

David: Yeah, yeah, that's okay. Get away from the city a couple months, that's fine. But you know you reside here, right? Because that's where the blessing is. That's where our sacrifices are. And then we reap the benefit and the protection of the God dwelling here. So in a pagan sense, the temple was very much constructed to lure a God and lure their blessings to bless your city

and also to protect their city as well, 

JR: So where did that idea change when it came to the Jews? Why did the concept of the temple change?

David: Yeah. So in the Old Testament, man, once you see it, you actually start to see it everywhere. In the [00:40:00] Old Testament, one of the things that God is clear about is. That the way the pagans build a temple for their God, that's not the way you're gonna do for me.

They're not going to build temples to lure God to live there.

And what's interesting is when you look at the Old Testament, God is always the one instructing the Israelites on how to build the temple.

JR: right.

David: Now that's really interesting to me. 'cause as sometimes in, uh, what is the book of Deuteronomy or numbers or something where God's telling them how to build the temple, Sometimes you can read that and you're like, come on. I think they know how to square a stone and then how to, you know, it's, it's almost at certain point you're almost thinking like this is insulting their intelligence

JR: Yeah. Yeah.

David: almost. Right? Right. Like, if I asked you to build me a table and then I stood over you and it's like, all right, now Jr.

You wanna sand that spot now use these kind of screws. You wanna sink? Yeah. Put a screw there.

JR: look, why don't

David: I'd say, yeah. Or you'd say, why don't you, why don't you go write on your computer or something and leave me alone. I got this. Right. You know,

JR: and [00:41:00] buy one. 'Cause this is. Driving me nuts.

David: Yeah, that's,

JR: No, but you're right.

David: that's right.

JR: the point you're making is that, God had a little bit different angle on, the temple that he was going to reside in. he made it clear, I don't want you to go all out and use your human understanding to try to lure me into this temple. Here's what I

David: Right.

JR: Right. and this is how the sacrifices are gonna go once the temple's built. And these are the dimensions and this is how it's all gonna be laid out. As opposed to human intervention saying, let's go bigger. You, you know, let's do everything in gold. Let's, you know, we really gotta make this attractive

David: Yeah.

JR: for Zeus or whoever.

Right? And, I like that distinction

David: I like that distinction. Yeah. So that's important to recognize that that's what happens in Exodus, Deuteronomy numbers, where God gives the instructions. That's what happens in the prophets. Same thing. God says, I want you to build a new temple. And God gives them the dimensions. He tells them everything.

Here's how to build it. And that's a [00:42:00] very important point because God does not want his people to be building this edifice kind of under their own what? Under their own creativity. You know, you could see them, like you said, starting to build this and say, Hey, let's make this a little bit grander, right?

I'm gonna put my signature on, you know, on this piece and really make it nice over here. I know this is what God wanted, but I'm gonna really make this nice over here. 'cause that starts to get into the Pagan way of thinking.

JR: Well, it's just interesting that you brought that up because when you were talking about different towns trying to build a bigger temple to Artemis or a bigger temple to Zeus than the

David: Mm-hmm.

JR: two towns over, that there's this kind of competitive aspect to it of we can do something even better, and then we'll have more of that God's favor.

It's almost like, which is so much built into the character of what we know of God is that not what he's looking for. He's not looking for us to compete against each other to try to curry God's favor. He's basically saying this entire episode Yes, [00:43:00] God initially favored the Jews as a light to the Gentiles, but the entire project was to bring both of these groups together and be the God of both Jews and Gentiles.

And so it's the

David: Yeah.

JR: of, Hey, you guys, duke it out. And I'll tell you what, I'll live summers in, the number one place. I'll live winners in the number two place and everybody else, sorry, you don't get a, don't get a piece of God because You didn't raise enough money, 

David: Yeah. So that's the idea of a, that's the Jewish idea of what a temple did. And, and it was very much, it was understood that, you know, we're not building this to lure God in. God says, you build this exactly how I tell you and my spirit will descend and dwell among you. And then of course, after a while we already talked about this, but that's where Ezekiel writes this vision of the spirit of God leaving.

And again, it had nothing to do with, you know, the temple and sacrifices. In fact, you know, the prophets are well known of saying, well, I'm tired of all your sacrifices, you're not being my people. And [00:44:00] so my spirit is just, is going to leave, which is a very different idea from the pagan idea of what a temple is.

JR: It was integral, but it's not what mattered. Ultimately, it was the character of the people that mattered, and God's spirit either dwelt

David: Right.

JR: left the people based on their character, which again is the pattern of the Old Testament.

David: Yeah. So then you bring all these ideas, and we can wrap up with this. You bring all these ideas together. Then back to this idea of what Paul's saying in chapter two, you know, Jew and Gentile together, you're both being built up, constructed to become a holy temple. Right? That's, that's not just a cute little metaphor that Paul came up with that had implications all throughout their life.

JR: Well, I just like how Paul can zoom in and zoom out between the individual and the community and that they both matter. You know, we were talking earlier about how, the U is plural in this one use, and so he's talking about the community, but he does kind of jump between these two ideas and I think it's interesting. What are your thoughts on how that plays out today? Because that's still attention today. Is [00:45:00] the Bible talking to you individually? are you individually one of the elect or is he talking about the elect as a group of people? I know I'm going back to back. Last episode, but the point is, is

David: Yeah,

JR: kind of this tension even today between the individual and the community. What are your thoughts about that?

David: I think it's a good tension to have because we already talked about how Paul can use the temple communally, you plural, right? But then he can also say your body is a temple.

JR: Right,

David: A And so there, there's a tension in so much that like the individual has to be connected to the larger, but it does soon.

When you said that there is one more aspect of a temple that's really interesting, that the Jewish Bible and the New Testament puts a different spin on the pagan world. Alright, go back to the Parthenon in Nashville, We go inside, right? And there's this image of Athena in there, right?

You've seen that, right? We've been inside side

JR: of what was originally in the Parthenon that

David: of what they thought. Yeah. And it's a pretty, like, it's a huge statue. It's gilded with gold. It's [00:46:00] got all this imagery on it, but it's the statue of Athena, right? Alright. So all the Pagan Tims would've had that. The Jewish temple, you will not find an image. In fact, God instructs them again not to build an image.

Right?

JR: true. Sure.

David: So that's another big difference. Well then you get into this language of human beings being made in the image of God. And when you understand the whole arc of Old Testament, new Testament theology, one of the things that's doing is it's saying, you are my image, right? I don't want a statue in the temple of Jerusalem.

You are my image. And so that gets at that idea of, man, it's the individual and it's the communal, right? It's like the temple is the church, but it's like you as an individual, you gotta know, even when you're going out, running errands, when you're getting coffee, right? You are my image. I don't wanna statue in a building somewhere.

JR: No, that's heavy.

David: And so that's a powerful, well powerful image, right?

JR: Yeah.

David: No pun intended.

JR: Well, we've said it before in the past that the Bible [00:47:00] is a lot less about do this, don't do that. And more about the tension between two ideas you know, you say by faith or you say by works, you know, and you could just go on and on between these two extremes that were supposed to kind of held this healthy tension between, and this is another one

David: Yeah.

JR: a great example of it, that that. The what? The tension between the idea that I am a wretched sinner, that's worthless. And the other extreme of I am a child of God, I'm a prince, I'm of the most high. Right. And we have to hold that tension to understand the, again, it's not about don't touch that, or, or this is unclean or don't, you know, there's a tendency to think the Bible's about that, but especially when the New

David: Yeah.

JR: in and what God's plan becomes a little bit clearer with including the Gentiles and things like that, that yeah, you have this tension between the community and the individual.

And that's a healthy tension to have. And so, yeah, if you go to one extreme or the other, that's probably not where you should

David: Yeah.

JR: long. There's nothing wrong with [00:48:00] aspects of it, you know? 'cause Paul uses the metaphor in both ways. you wanna hold the tension between that, how is my individual character helpful to the community?

Right? And how does that community reflect the image of God? How can I be the image of

David: Yeah,

JR: and how can my place in the community also reflect that individuality of, of the image of God,

David: yeah, And to summarize it, you could say, you know, what is an image without a temple? And what's a temple without an image?

JR: right? Yeah.

David: It's like, like, it's like the two go together. So to say, no, it's only about the image. And it's like, well, the image of Athena just by itself, outside of the temple is just kind of strange, right?

It's, it's out of context.

JR: Yeah.

David: But in her temple it makes sense. The Jewish idea is, you know. We said the image, this temple doesn't have an image because people are the image bearers. Oh. So it's same thing. It's like, well, you take the Im, you take the individual away from the temple that Paul's creating and it's out of context.

[00:49:00] And I think that's that tension you're talking about.

JR: cool. I like that, man, that that really kind of does put a bow on the whole thing.

David: Yeah. It keeps the tension there. But it also makes, it makes you understand the context of, well, the church and the individual you might say.

JR: right.

Well, it's just a layer to the metaphor that, like you said at the beginning, sometimes we read this, that we're a temple and we kind of flippantly say that, oh, we're talking about building another church and. you're right. It's so much more. And once you understand the ancient context of both the Pagan and the Jewish understanding of the temple, it adds so many layers.

It's, it's like stacking lenses upon lenses that you can really understand

David: Yeah.

JR: the hidden structure of what Paul's trying to lay out and why this is such a perfect metaphor that he uses.

David: Yeah. So I, I feel like we could just keep going with this temple imagery and all that, but I think we flushed it out enough to know that Paul's just not throwing out a simple image, right. That there's a lot to this idea, but I guess to wrap it up, I don't know.

Do you have any final [00:50:00] thoughts?

JR: Yeah, because I think at some point in this episode, it's worth mentioning that New Testament temple imagery should include what happened at the crucifixion, right? That the veil was torn when Jesus died, which is deeply, deeply symbolic. That separation between God and man has been remo removed and. That Jesus is the new intermediary. Right? So understanding the Old Testament sacredness of the temple is obviously important, but it should always be seen the New Testament through the lens of that temple veil is now gone. And Paul doesn't mention this explicitly in these verses, but the crucifixion was pretty recent. So this new understanding of the function of the temple would cer certainly be fresh on the reader's mind at the time. Right. I mean, so Paul is talking about both something historic, but at the same time something new or a new aspect of the temple that I think the listeners would've understood through the lens of the crucifixion and that veil tearing and that Jesus is the new intermediary between God and man.[00:51:00]

That's why he's the capstone. At least that's the better image of the capstone as opposed to the cornerstone that he's the new intermedia between, that he's holding this,

David: Yeah.

JR: new thing together. 

David: Yeah, and you're right, it was pretty fresh. If you think of it, probably within 25 years maybe, of Paul writing this letter. So someone like Paul especially, is certainly wrestling with the implication of what happened in Jerusalem and what that means for the temple, right? What that means, the veil, right?

The sacrifice, the whole thing. It's like people were wrestling with this. I guess my, my last thought would be that one other aspect, you know, is that the closer you were to the temple, the closer you dwelt to God. Right? And one of my favorite psalms is where, David, I wrote it down somewhere, has this idea.

Yeah. Lemme just read this real quick. How lovely is your dwelling place? Lord Almighty, my soul yearns, even faints for the courts of the Lord. My heart and flesh cry out for the living God. Even the sparrow has found a home and a swallow, a [00:52:00] nest for herself where she may have her young, a place near your altar.

Lord Almighty, my king of my God. What's King David saying there? He's, he's actually saying that the sparrow that built the nest up in the rafters of the temple is lucky. Like more lucky than me

JR: Right.

David: because they're closer to your altar than I am. And so, I think we can't talk about this idea of a temple without this idea that you made a pilgrimage to the temple because that's where you were close to God.

And I guess maybe similar to the veil being torn, is this idea of that barrier is no longer there.

God's spirit means that you don't have to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem to experience the spirit of God.

JR: Yeah. Exactly. 

David: Again, keep that, tension between the individual and the communal as well, right? Because it's not just a, oh, I can experience God sitting in my room. Yes, that's true. But it's also, we can experience God when we gather together, right? We don't have to be in a temple.

So there's that tension even in that statement right there.

JR: Well, and this goes to the modern kind of, I [00:53:00] can be a Christian without being in church or without being in a community. And it's like, again, there's another tension. It's like, yes, you can, you know, we do have direct access to God through Jesus, but to ignore, what is it that Paul says, don't ignore gathering together.

don't ignore community. When we ignore community, we're, we're leaning one way to one extreme that we shouldn't be in. is deeply personal on an individual level, your relationship with God. But it's also lived out through community, through either the local church or just the community of believers that we surround ourselves with.

David: Yeah.

JR: Again, you just can't ignore those two things. And I don't know, like that imagery. it is a good place to end because I do think that there's a tendency to listen to temple imagery and to go back to the Old Testament and say, okay, well let's look at God instructed us to build the temple and let's see what we can understand through the, the symbols there, you know, and that's all very important. But it's also important to recognize that the News Testament listeners would have this through the lens [00:54:00]of the relatively recent crucifixion and the imagery of the veil tearing between it and, what that is. 'cause Paul talks about it in other verses, even if he doesn't talk about it here.

So it's, it's one of those things where, hold that in the back of your mind when you're thinking about New Testament temple imagery to go along with everything we talked about in this episode.

David: Yeah. Yeah. I, and I would encourage the listener, go back and read Ephesians chapter two now with all this in mind and see if, see if this kind of buildup to Paul saying, I'm constructing a new temple. See if that doesn't hit you differently.

JR: Well, one

David: And

JR: we talked about in the fairytales is, you know, when you read these things five, 10 times, just, just stuff pops out at you. And it's the same thing with this, you know, we kind of have a general outline of what we're going to talk about, and then we re-read the chapter over and over and over and you're like, oh, wow, look at this.

You know, that's where these kind of ideas pop to us. It's not in the initial first reading. it's

David: yeah,

JR: it's in seeing

David: it's

JR: different

David: different.

JR: that it makes perfect sense or [00:55:00] that the images pop a little bit louder.

David: Yeah. Yeah, All right, and that'll bring us to Ephesians chapter three next episode. And we're gonna be talking a little bit more about this idea of mystery.

Now, we mentioned this a little bit, episode one of Ephesians, but how Paul uses this language of mystery, hidden knowledge, secret knowledge. And we're gonna talk about what they would've gone to was this idea of mystery religion and the Eleusenian mysteries. And so

JR: love

David: we're gonna unpack that image.

JR: Yeah. Okay. Been there, done that too. Well,

David: That's right.

JR: I don't, I don't want people to misunderstand that. When I say been there, done that, we've been to Eleusis.

David: We did not participate in any uh,

JR: The

David: although I was kind of,

JR: this.

David: gotta say like I, I kind of was secretly hoping maybe that they had some kind of like, oh, the Eleusinian experience. If you, you know, go around the back and

Yeah.

I'm like, oh,

JR: can. Yeah, We could market that, you know, the

David: Kon or whatever.

JR: Yeah, the new energy drink. Kykean, you know, ,

David: Anyway, no, [00:56:00] we did not participate, but

JR: right. This seems like a good place to walk away so.

follow us on Facebook. Join the conversation there. Uh, take a look at our show notes. You can make, leave comments on your platform like Spotify, and we'll answer those the best we can. So yeah, if you have any ideas, if we missed anything, as always, leave us a note, shoot us an email, leave a comment.

We'd love to keep the conversation going on those other platforms.

David: Yeah, that's right. And I will say the show notes has a couple of links specifically for Ephesus if you want to do a little bit more reading. So check those out as well.

JR: Okay. We'll do it again. Uh, next episode. Look forward to it. 

David: Yeah, me too. talk to you then.