At that time, there was a Jewish man living in a town called Alexandria. His name was Apollos. Somebody there taught him some things about Jesus. He could talk really good, and he knew God’s book properly, and he liked to teach people about Jesus. He taught them the things he knew, but he didn’t know the whole story about Jesus. He only knew the message John the Baptiser taught to people. Apollos went to Ephesus, and he went to the Jewish meeting house there, and he talked strongly to everyone, and he told them all the things that he knew about Jesus. Priscilla and Aquila heard him talk, and they said to him, “Come with us, and we will tell you more about Jesus.” So he went with them, and they told him the rest of the story about Jesus, and they told him how God saves people.
Acts 18:19Plain English VersionThat ship stopped half-way, at a town called Ephesus. They got off that ship there, and Paul went into the Jewish meeting house in Ephesus, and he talked to the Jewish people there. They asked him to stay there longer, but he said, “No, sorry, I’ve got to say goodbye and keep going. But if God wants me to come back here one day, I will come back.” Then he got on a ship to go to Syria country, and he sailed away from Ephesus. But Priscilla and Aquila stayed there. See the chapter |
21 Cross References
But that man, Paul, he talks to big mobs of people, and he says, ‘Don’t buy those things. Those statues that people say are gods, they are not gods at all. It was people that made them, so don’t show respect to them.’ Lots of people here in Ephesus listened to him, and now even the people from other towns in this Asia country agree with him, and they don’t want to buy the things we make.
Then an important government leader in that town got the mob to stop shouting, and he said to them, “Listen, Ephesus people, everyone knows that we Ephesus people look after the special house for Artemis, the great woman god. And everyone knows that we look after the statue of her that fell down from the sky.
At that town called Ephesus, I got trouble for telling people about Jesus. Some men there tried to kill me, and I had to fight back. I was like a man fighting wild animals. But, if God will not make me alive again after I die, it means I got all that trouble for nothing. Some of you reckon that dead people will never live again. If that is true, then we can be like the people that say this, “We are going to die tomorrow, so today we will have fun. We will eat and drink as much as we like, and we will not worry about tomorrow.” That is what they say, but it is not true.
Remember when we were in Ephesus, and I left that town to go to Macedonia country. At that time, I told you to stay there in Ephesus. There were some people there that were teaching the wrong message, and I wanted you to stay there and straighten them out. Those people think a lot about old time stories that are not true, and they think about the lists of names of people in their families, and then they use those stories and lists of names to teach lies to people. Anybody that listens to them just gets into useless arguments. People shouldn’t do that, but instead they have to learn about God, and the way he works. They have to learn to believe in God and to do whatever he wants. So I want you to tell those lying teachers to stop teaching those lies.