Video first posted: September 5, 2026
Below is a machine-generated transcript of the Song of songs 3 v6-11 (Part 88) BitChute video, with a few minor manual edits. At the bottom, after the transcript, is a machine-generated summary of the transcript.
| Hello. In this video, we're going to continue meditating on the spirit of Solomon, the one that is described by the Lord in Song of Songs, chapter 3, verses 6 through 11. But we're looking at the influence of that spirit of Solomon in the early church. And in particular, we've been looking at how it began to contaminate even Paul, who was the one who | |
| amongst the apostles was the most resistant to it. And we've been going through the book of Acts and where we left off in chapter 19 around verse 33. So we're going to continue from there to see how the Lord is revealing that negative influence of the spirit of Solomon on Paul and in | |
| revealing the damage that it was doing and the burdens that Paul carried that he did not need to carry, but was carried because he partially embraced that spirit of Solomon. So we had left off in around verse 33. So we're going to continue there. And we had begun to look at this man that suddenly appears, the man, | |
| named Alexander. So we'll read here from Acts 19, verse 33, it says, And they drew Alexander out of the multitude, the Jews putting him forward. And Alexander beckoned with the hand and would have made his defense unto the people. And we were sharing in the previous video how, at least personally, I was a tad confused by Alexander because | |
| When I would read this passage, I would think for some reason that Alexander was a Christian because it made no sense for me that Alexander would appear, this man would appear to speak in defence unto the people if he was not trying to defend the Christians that were being criticized in this rally | |
| this pro Artemis rally that was going on here. But and then I would say, why would the Jews put him forward? And my initial thought was that the Jews here, the word is referring to the Christian Jews, the Jews who had believed. But I believe that that ambiguity, the fact that it's not that clear is almost a silent way of God showing how | |
| When you're in the spirit of Solomon, a Jew who is opposing the kingdom of God and a Christian are not that different. And I believe that's the ambiguity that is kind of reflected in how Alexander is portrayed. Because the Lord doesn't go out of his way to explain why the Jews would bring Alexander to speak to the crowd. | |
| in the middle of this situation. But we saw when we did a search in the previous video that what is believed to have happened is that the Jews wanted Alexander to speak to the all close, and that's the word in Greek for multitude, to distance themselves from what Paul and the Christians were doing. As if they were wanting to say to people, hey, we have nothing to do. | |
| With this attack on Artemis, on your idolatry of Artemis. That is something that Paul is stirring up. And when you think about it, that's even more offensive to God. Because these Jews who are opposed to Paul and to Christ are doing it supposedly because they want to uphold the real faith. | |
| the faith in the God of Israel, the God of Moses and all that. And then suddenly they want to say, hey, we have no problem with you people worshiping a false goddess. We have no problem with you participating in idolatry and all these things. So we have no problem with you guys breaking the second commandment. | |
| Even though we love Moses, we love the law, we love the Ten Commandments, we don't mind if you do that because that's your problem. Obviously they would not say that out loud, but it's like, no, you're all going to hell, but we don't care because you're the Gentiles. You're an inferior class of humanity. We are the chosen people. So there's no zeal of righteousness in their hearts. Not even a sense of offense that | |
| Artemis was being worshipped in that place and they were okay with saying, hey, we stand by your idolatry. We have nothing to do with the attack that's happening against your worship of a false goddess. So the thing we wanted to mention before the end of the previous video is the meaning of the name Alexander. | |
| the name can have a positive context and a negative context and obviously here it has it is to be taken in a negative context uh and the negative context comes when you look at the meaning here um we'll click here alexandros is the name in Greek um and uh it comes from alecton uh and aner aner means um uh male uh | |
| And we've seen that word in a previous recording, if I'm not mistaken. It's one of the Greek words to refer to a male as opposed to a female on there. You can see here on there. And it's with reference to the gender of the person to a male as opposed to a female. So it's not the word for man, the generic word for man that we kind of sometimes use in English. | |
| And the first part is here. You can see here it's a defender, defender of man. But it's interesting that in this strong concordance entry that they have here in the Blue Letter Bible, the translation is a bit different. The elector part at the beginning of the name, they say here it refers to a cock. | |
| or a male of any bird, a rooster. So it's referring to the animal. But for some reason, and now I'm wondering, because I'll be very frank, I have not bothered to click here to see the name of the name as they defined it here. And I think that was of God, that God kept me from seeing this translation. Let me do a search very quickly here. | |
| If I say meaning name Alexander, let's see what pops up. And it says to defend or protect man, defender or protector of man. The interesting thing is that I have seen it as meaning the helper of man. But I think that this is I'm getting the sense that this is consistent with what was in my heart. | |
| defender or protector of man has this connotation of someone obviously in a legal case defending an accused person like a defence attorney. And therefore, it is very protective, very motherly. It's like a shepherd, like a pastor or shepherd protecting the sheep | |
| from being attacked, which is what pastors do constantly because they see God as the evil wolf coming to destroy their sheep through his judgment. So they protect or shield God's people from God's judgment. So they become the defender of man, if that makes sense. So that's the spiritual connotation that is behind that name in a negative sense. | |
| That it's a person who is there pastorally to protect God's people from God's judgments. So to protect them from God, let's put it that way. So there's a pastoral feel to it, to the name. So, okay, so it says they drew Alexander. And the interesting thing here is that the word drew was translated from probibazo. | |
| And probibazo comes from pro, which means forward, and biazo. And biatso literally means to use force, to apply force. And it's the same word, as you can see here in Matthew 11, 12, that is used to speak of violence. | |
| But it says. Matthew 11 12. And from the days of John the Baptist. Until now. The kingdom of heaven suffereth violence. Biazzo. Suffereth violence. And the violent take it by force. So. So probibazo. Has this connotation. That they violently. Pushed him. Forward. They pushed him forward. Out of. To. | |
| you know like out from the crowd and to place him in front of the crowd to speak so it's a forcible pushing here for example it says to cause to go forward to lead forward to bring forward to drag forward that's probably about so that's what they did to Alexander the Jews they instigate the urge they induced by persuasion so they basically pushed Alexander out of | |
| By force. And that also has a spiritual significance. Because that's how the Canaanite spirit operates. The Canaanite spirit operates by peer pressure. So literally. They were literally pressuring him. Through the crowd. You know like pressing him forward. Through the crowd to go and speak. So in the Canaanite world. The Canaanite spirit is the pastor gone bad. | |
| So when you're in an environment controlled by the canine spirit where the pastor is reigning in an unrighteous way, then everything is done by communal pressure, crowd pressure. The community presses you to do things one way or the other. It's not so much by upholding an objective law that is independent of you, a law whose popularity does not matter. | |
| You know, two plus two is four, no matter how many people agree with it or don't agree with it. It's not a popularity contest. So in the canine realm, everything is by pressure, by social pressure. You're pressured into doing things. And that's how they control you. So it's not through righteous judgments, looking at something objectively. And that's why in the canine realm, | |
| people tend not to speak out on their own, to be brave enough to believe in something by themselves, even if no one else believes in them, believes in the same thing. So that just shows you the Canaanite spirit that was moving here, moving in the Jews. And as we've been seeing, the Jews here represent the people who worship the temples. | |
| The Temple of Solomon who go by that spirit that we need a. And this is literal and figurative. They promote a temple. They promote a place where you can see a visible. Priesthood exercising priestly liturgical stuff. They need that. And it's a spirit of elitism. | |
| That promotes this elite class of priests. And the elite class of priests need a temple. To be doing their priestly stuff in. So they promote that temple spirit. The temple of Solomon spirit. And that's why these Jews at this moment. Were in alignment. Were aligned with the people in Ephesus. Who worshipped Artemis. And the temple that they had built in Ephesus. | |
| Because those idolaters and the Jews were of the same spirit, just like in the same way. The Christians who live under the pastoral matriarchy are in alignment with the pastoral matriarchy, the soul matriarchy spirit of the world. The non-believers, they're aligned because they're tied to the same spirit. | |
| Okay, so then they put him forward. And the word interesting here for putting him forward is proballo. And ballo means to throw. That's where we get the word ball. You know, we throw a ball. So pro means forward. So they threw him forward. That's what the peer pressure spirit does. It pressures you. It's external. The canine spirit to establish a certain basis. | |
| base of order they do it through the pressure of the Jebusite spirit so the Jebusite spirit comes when there's a Canaanite environment the Jebusite spirit is what the Canaanite the Canaanites use to enforce a certain level of order and it's like an external pressure of these of these external judgments of man coming upon you to make you do something and so they were doing and then they threw him forward to do what | |
| what they wanted him to do. So then Alexander, it says here, beckoned with the hand and would have made his defense unto the people. Okay, so, all right, so let's continue here. Well, let's look at the word beckoned here, kataseio. Kata, according to, and seio, | |
| means to shake, to agitate, to cause a tremble, to agitate the mind. So it's referring to shaking. So basically, when he beckoned, he shook his hands. That's what he was doing. And he beckoned with the hand. He shook his hands to try to get the people's attention. And I know there must be some significance to that. | |
| shaking part but it's not I don't know it at this time but we did mention I think in the previous video the fact that God mentions that the use of his hands so see the thing is God is just not mentioning things for the sake of mentioning them if he's talking about Alexander using his hands shaking his hands to get people's attention it's a figure of something spiritual | |
| And as we've said before, the word hand, it can mean several things, but one of its meanings that it seems to show a great deal in scripture is connection to service. You serve with your hands. That's what you use your hands for. You use them to serve like a waiter serving food with their hands. And the spirit of service | |
| is connected to the pastoral ministry. That's the ministry that serves people like a waiter. So this hand here is talking about pastoral work, pastoral service. And the shaking, that movement, the shaking of the hands, him waving his hands in front of the crowd, is what the pastors do all the time to get people's attention. Yeah, thank you, Lord. That's what the Lord is saying here. So in other words... | |
| They're saying, look at me, look at me. I am important because I am the server. I am the one appointed by God to serve you. Look at my hand. I have pastor written all over me. I have server, servant of God, waiter of God all over me. And I will use my service to control you, to get your attention and control it. Just like Alexander was trying to get control of the crowd at that moment. | |
| through his hands. That's what pastors spiritually do all the time. Look at me, look at me, pay attention to me because if you do, then I will serve you something. I will please you in some way, but it will always be the quick pro quo thing. I will serve you so that you will then be loyal to me. But they advertise their service. I hope that makes sense. And I pray in the spirit that that word goes into the atmosphere and that people will see that. | |
| That that waving of the of the hands by the pastor in front of them saying, look at me, look at me. I deserve your attention because if you do pay attention to me, I will give you something that you want. I will serve you something. And that's why I am important because of my ability to serve you pastorally. I will provide pastoral service for you. | |
| That's why you need to look at me, look at me, look at me. And as we've shared before, pastors, when they're doing things right in the spirit, they are anonymous. Just like the shepherds, the pastors who were announced, that the angels announced to them that the Lord Jesus had been born. They were pastoring in the night, in the anonymity of darkness, the anonymity of the night. | |
| and God doesn't even bother to mention the names of any of the pastors, the shepherds, that were told that Jesus had been born, and that's a figure. It doesn't demean them, but in that context, God had to make sure their names were not mentioned because it was to emphasize that the pastoral ministry is supposed to be like that, anonymous servings, | |
| without drawing attention to itself. And Alexander here, | |
| beckoning with the hand is the very opposite and that's what pastors do all the time and God finds them finds that repulsive okay so okay so let's keep reading here verse 34 and see the thing is all of this happens when you allow the spirit of Solomon in that's why you know this is being mentioned here so Acts 19 34 the next verse says but when they knew that he was a Jew all with one voice | |
| about the space of two hours cried out great is Diana of the Ephesians, or in Greek it says greatest Artemis of the Ephesians. And so when they found out he was a Jew, they said, oh, he's not one of ours. So it's kind of ironic because the Canaanite spirit, they were both Canaanite, the Jews and the followers of Artemis. But | |
| see and that's what happens the king that spirit is a spirit of vulcanization it separates people into, you know, your clan my clan uh your family my family those who are of my soul interest um and those who are of your soul interest like uh people who share soul communion soul bonds um | |
| So everybody gets divided into families. That's why the leftists, for example, in America and all over the world, they divide people by race groups, ethnic groups. They have to divide people by soulish factors of soul connection. So black people have to be grouped into one separate group. | |
| And they identify with each other because they're of the same colour and they may speak a certain way and so forth. And same with the other racial groups, the Hispanics. They talk a certain way. They have a certain culture, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So they become a second group and so on. And so they create all these separate groups. And then these groups, when their interests are conflicting with each other, they will fight each other. | |
| Because it's all about interest. How will you help me? Because that's what the King of the Spirit is always about. How will you help me? I will help you if you help me. How does this benefit me? Because that's what the pastoral spirit promotes. This constant desire to be pleased. And to please but only in the context of getting some pleasing back. | |
| So the thing is here that that's why, you know, even though they were of the same spirit, the Jew was not allowed to speak because he was a different race. And they cried out for two hours. And I feel like the Lord allowed this to happen as a sign of how powerless the Jew was, the Jewish people were. | |
| because God was no longer with them. They did not have the ability to conquer even a crowd, a multitude of people to get them to listen to them. I hope that makes sense because God intended the Jewish people to be the outpost from which the kingship of God would reach all the nations of the earth. That was always his intention. And here the Jews are showing themselves powerless, completely incapable, | |
| of exercising any dominion over any other group. And why? Because they don't care about anyone else but themselves. And even to this day, they couldn't care less if every Gentile in the world does not believe in the God of Israel and goes to hell. They're just waiting for their Messiah to come and establish them as the superior race on earth and to validate their Jewishness. | |
| So they don't care about anybody else. So how can you have any? So because they don't care about anybody else, they also have no, no ability, no conquering ability to truly conquer unto God other people. Okay. And they may have an ability to conquer others to get something from them. And it's part of like the overflow or the afterglow of the blessing of Abraham on them. | |
| So they can conquer things and become powerful in different places. But it's always in the context of being powerful for themselves, not to conquer something unto God. They don't have that ability to conquer nations. And that's why they've always been just visitors in a nation, but never conquerors of the nations. Okay. And then... | |
| Verse 35, Acts 19, the next verse says, And when the town clerk had appeased the people, he said, Ye men of Ephesus, what man is there that knoweth not how that the city of the Ephesians is a worshiper of the great goddess Diana and of the image which fell down from Jupiter? Oh, and by the way, before thinking about this verse quickly in verse 34, when it says two hours, this might not be the, | |
| the most exact answer but as I was thinking about two hours it felt in my heart as if as if God was referring again to the two female ministries of pastor and teacher and that's what was dominating them for two hours because you see the number two and three in this chapter let me see if I do a quick search here of the number three as you can see | |
| It's mentioned in Acts 19.8 when Paul is in the synagogue where he shouldn't be. I remember the number three being mentioned, but I think it's in the next chapter. Three is male, two is female. When they're compared one to the other, three male ministries, two female ministries. | |
| Um, but the thing is, I do believe that, uh, the reference to two here, the fact that they, they were able to do all the shouting for two hours and not three is, is, is like a subtle way of saying they were pastoral and teacherly. Uh, and that's as far as they, as they could get because they could not be true males, even though they were calling themselves males, uh, earlier, uh, when, uh, Demetrius is speaking, he says, uh, | |
| Let's see if I can be serves. This word serves in Acts 1925. When Demetrius is referring to the crowd, speaking to the crowd, he calls them serves. And the word serves in Greek is on there as a word we saw a moment ago, males. But they were they shouted for two hours, which kind of emphasizes their femaleness as opposed to being male. They call themselves males, but they are really females, especially because | |
| For two hours straight, they were worshiping or shouting the greatness of a female. In this case, Artemis or Diana, as they translated it here. And I think that's the emphasis here, that all these men for two hours, like women, praising a woman. That's how masculine they were. Okay, but then coming here. So when the town clerk had appeased the people, Acts 19.35, | |
| He said, ye men of Ephesus. So, and interesting, he refers to them as men. And I believe the word there is aner. Aner, again, here, as you can see. So, again, the maleness. You men of Ephesus. You, not women, not people in general. You males of Ephesus. What man is there that knoweth not how that the city of the Ephesus. And let's see the word man here. What man... | |
| And notice that the word man here is anthropos, which is the generic word for human, like where we get the word anthropology and so forth or anthropomorphic. You know, that's when you kind of give human qualities to something that's not human. I think that's what anthropomorphic means. But notice that in English, we just see men and man in the same verse. But in the Greek, it's two different words. One is aner, aner, which emphasizes maleness. | |
| And the other one is Anthropos, which just emphasizes humanity. So what human, what human is there that knoweth not? And the word knoweth is Edo, I'm pretty sure. Yeah, I'm sorry, ginosko, which is heart knowledge. What human does not have heart knowledge that the city of the Ephesians is a worshiper of the great goddess Diana? | |
| And the word great here is magus. So it's properly translated. And of the image, the word image is not there in the Greek. And so the translators added it to kind of explain what fell from Jupiter, according to this. And the phrase which fell down from Jupiter is just diopetes. So it doesn't even, doesn't sound like it says Jupiter. So I'm curious here. | |
| means fallen from Zeus, from heaven. | |
| Um, oh, okay. Uh, from the alternate of Zeus and the alternate of pipto. Pipto means to fall. I've seen that word before. So the petes part means fall. And the deal part apparently is kind of a deformation of, of Zeus because, uh, Zeus, uh, we say Zeus with a Z sound, but in Greek, it's, it's a TZ kind of, uh, sound, TS kind of sound. Um, uh, like, uh, | |
| So the T and the S kind of are together there. And if you kind of dull the S a bit, the T starts sounding like a D. So that's what I'm getting. I might be making this up, but that's what I'm getting from this. So Diopetes, the Dio part kind of points to Zeus and the Petes part points to falling. So fall to what fell from Jupiter. | |
| Jupiter is Zeus. Zeus is the Greek name for Jupiter. Jupiter is the Roman name. Okay, so, and I wonder what this means. Fell from Jupiter. Fell from Zeus. I know there's significance there to why God put this here. All right, so let's continue. Acts 19, 36. | |
| Yes, I just got it in my heart. The word image is not there. So if you read it without the word image, then it's almost like it becomes like a little clearer that spiritually speaking. I mean, I know that humanly speaking, he was referring to some image. But that was claimed to have fallen from the sky, you know, from Zeus. But. | |
| If you read it spiritually here, it's almost as if God is hinting, he's referring to the goddess Diana. So worshipper of the great goddess Diana and of that which fell down from Jupiter, from Zeus, who was like the biggest God of the Greek mythology. So the way I take it in the spirit is as if God is saying, yeah, that great goddess is a fallen goddess. | |
| It's the result of something that fell from the male God, Zeus. In other words, it's like man. Man had a call to be one with God. We were created in the image and likeness of God. But when man fell in the Garden of Eden, we fell from that image and likeness, if that makes sense. We fell from that. | |
| and we've been in a fallen state ever since. And this is kind of a figure of how, like God kind of very silently pointing to the patriarchal spirit is what keeps humanity in a fallen state separated from the maleness of the spirit of God. I hope that makes sense. Fallen and separated from the calling we have to manifest the spirit nature of God. | |
| That's what God is saying here. I believe in my heart. It's like a very subtle indictment. This is to the church. As long as you stay under the spirit of Solomon, under the pastoral system that you have, you will always be in a fallen state. Fallen from the calling that God had for you. Just like that image fell down from Jupiter. Notice that Jupiter, it doesn't say that it was... | |
| The fact that the word fallen is used instead of like deposited, like it descended, that would have been a different word, like it descended from the sky, you know, very softly landing like a spaceship or something. No, fell. The word peep toe is embedded there. The word for fallen, like when you fall flat on your face, it's not a good image. | |
| If that makes sense. And no pun intended. It's not a good image. And we are like that. We are like a fallen image. Because we were made. And I just realized. We were saying. We were made in the image and likeness of God. We were made in his image. But our image is fallen. Our ability to manifest. The nature of God has fallen. Because we are under the pastoral system. We worship in the church. | |
| we worship the great goddess Artemis. And we do it every time we uphold the pastoral system. Okay, and then, okay, so now Acts 19.36, the next verse says, seeing then that these things cannot be spoken against, ye ought to be quiet and to do nothing rashly. So notice, so in verse 35, the town clerk, | |
| whose name is not mentioned, it's kind of peculiar. He's stating fact for the most part. You who are supposed to be men of Ephesus, the males of Ephesus, you know that everybody knows that this city is renowned for its worship of this goddess Diana. And you say, well, this is not | |
| a fact that she was a great goddess. Well, she was a great goddess, just like the whore of Revelation, I think 18 or 19, she's called great too. Let me just see. Great because man has made her great. That's what it means. Not that there's inherent greatness, if that makes any sense. Let me see if I can just confirm that. The word great here is Megas. If we click here to go to see the usages of Megas and just go to Revelation, | |
| If I click here, here in the Blue Letter Bible, it will take me to all these usages of Magus in Revelation. Notice, I didn't realize this, the word Magus is used 82 times here, it says in Revelation. And look at all, none of the other books even come close. The one that has the most usages of Magus aside from Revelation is Luke, the Gospel of Luke with 27, that's second place. And that makes sense that it's Luke because Luke is the Gospel | |
| written from the ox face or the bull face. That's the face of the evangelist. And the evangelist is the ministry most directly connected with greatness, with mega greatness, tallness and greatness. So it kind of makes sense that that's the second book that has the most appearances of megas. But it's second by a long shot. Revelation has 82 of them. But let's just go very quickly here to Revelation 17 or 18 or 19, somewhere in here. Okay, it's the second book. | |
| Page of results. Here, for example, Revelation 17, 5, and upon her forehead was a name written, Mystery Babylon the Great. So see, the fact that it's great doesn't mean that it's justified by God. I hope that makes sense. Because Babylon itself is called the great, the magus, the mother of harlots and abominations of the earth, the mother of whores. I hope that makes sense. And Babylon is called the great city. | |
| and here, Revelation 17, 18, and the woman which thou sawest is that great city, the biggest city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth, which has been allowed to reign over the kings of the earth. So, okay, so now going back to Acts 19. So what we're trying to say here is that in Acts 19, 35, that describes what the town clerk said at the beginning as he was appeasing the crowd. Oh, and that's interesting, the crowd did, | |
| listen to the town clerk but not to alexander um I find just the contrast there alexander couldn't get their attention but the town clerk did so the town clerk appeased the people and then he stated fact he said you are supposed to be men males of ephesus I'm appealing to your maleness and he's saying everybody knows that the city is famous for its worship of the of the great goddess and it was a great goddess | |
| Because man had made her great. Just like the great whore of Revelation 17. The megas god. So this is all statement of fact. And of that which fell from Jupiter. And it's a statement of spiritual fact. Saying you are. Worshipping something that is. That is fallen. From its original. Maleness. And that's why God. Why he refers to them as males. You're worshipping something. That is. | |
| Fallen from maleness. So this is all statement of fact. And okay, so now let's continue. Verse 36, Acts 19, 36. Seeing then that these things cannot be spoken against, you ought to be quiet and to do nothing rashly. So he's saying no one can argue with that. He's not approving Diana or the worship of Diana. He's just saying the fact that the city is known for its worship of Diana is | |
| It cannot be argued against. And that was a fact. It doesn't make it right, but that was the fact. So seeing that these things cannot be spoken against, and spoken against, I think, is anantiretos. And anantiretos, as we can see here, | |
| comes from anti and reo. Reo means to flow, to speak. It has this prophetic connotation of a prophetic flow. No one can prophetically speak out against these things and say that they are false. In other words, that it's false, that there's a lot of worshiping going on of this deity in this city. Okay. And you ought to be quiet, it says. | |
| Katastelo and katastelo means to lower. Kata is according to and stelo means to avoid or withdraw. So it's like pipe down, like withdraw yourselves and be quiet, like stop this agitation. That's what he's calling them to do. | |
| Stop your agitation. Withdrawal. What is he doing in all of this? He's saying. Reign in your Canaanite emotions. You're stirring yourselves. Canaanitely. Because. You feel that your identity. As the worshipping city. Of Diana. Is being attacked. And he's saying. Withdrawal. Withdrawal your passions. | |
| Withdraw your passions. So all of this is very spiritual. And okay. And then do nothing rashly. And rashly is a proper test. It says here. But let's keep reading here. Acts 19 37. For ye have brought hither these men. Which are neither robbers of churches. Nor yet blasphemers of your goddess. But it's interesting. Uh. | |
| We had seen before, if we go quickly to, I think verse 32, Acts 19.32, we saw the word assembly here, which was ekklesia. And we saw that this is the first time in the Greek text of scripture that the King James people translated ekklesia as assembly. Every other time before Acts 19.32, we saw was the word church. That's how they translated it. So if they had been consistent, they would have said, for the church was confused. That assembly, | |
| was a figure of the church in its current state. But the thing is that you would think, therefore, that if we saw the word churches here in verse 37, that it would be ekklesia. But no, it turns out. So ironically, the word that they always translate as church was not. And a word that is not translated as church was. See, because these translators had the spirit of Solomon in them. | |
| So without the meaning to, they were, see, they were all doing this in the context of poetic license. And I feel that's what I felt God saying to my heart before this call, because I was thinking about something else. And it's as if God was saying these, the translators were trying, were seeing the Bible as a, as a book of literature, you know, like a Shakespearean work of literature art. | |
| So they wanted to, so they would do the poetic licensing of translating words in different ways because it sounded more poetic, more Shakespearean, more elegant. So they were seeing the Bible as a book of literature instead of seeing it in a very direct sense. This is the words coming from the mouth of God and we don't want to miss a thing. They weren't thinking like that. They were seeing the Bible as some sort of literary work. | |
| And that's why they would take these licenses every now and then because they thought that it would make their translation more elegant, more literarily praiseworthy instead of saying, let's stick to what scripture says literally. But the thing is, the word churches here, as you can see, robbers of churches, it comes from one word, | |
| But you don't see Ekklesia here. So it's hierosilos. Hierosilos. And the hiero part, as we were sharing in the previous video, hiero, this is priest. Whenever you see the word hiero, you have to connect it to priesthood. And it's also the word for temple. One of the two words for temple that we saw in the previous video was, I think it was hieron and naon. Hieros and naon. But hieros, | |
| And I'm not pronouncing the H here because I think it's not pronounced in Greek. So, hierosilos. So, this looks like priest or temple. And the second part, silos, obviously must mean something related to robbing or stealing. So, let's go just to confirm here. But the thing is, the word ekklesia, which is what you would think would be here because they used the word churches, robbers of churches. | |
| That word is not there. It's not present here. So let's go to hierosilos here very quickly. So it says hieron means temple. If you can see the tooltip there. And the silos part comes from silao, sulao, which means to rob. So sulao, as you can see here, it says to rob or to spoil. But what I find very peculiar, very, very, very, very, very, | |
| very peculiar, is that the only time that Silao is used is here, as you can see it. I hope you can see it here. It's 2 Corinthians 11, 8. It's the only time in all of Scripture that Silao is used. So why are we here in Silao? Because we were looking at the phrase, robbers of churches, which comes from hierosilao. That was the word that the town clerk, the town's clerk, used when he was addressing the crowd. | |
| So he referred to, they are not robbers, they are not hierosilao. And it's like God put that word in his mouth for him to say it exactly like that. Because 2,000 years later, we'd be looking at the word and seeing that the silao part points to 2 Corinthians 11. And what is Paul saying here? This is Paul speaking to the Corinthians. | |
| And he says, I robbed other churches, taking wages of them to do you service. I silao other churches. And if we go very quickly to 2 Corinthians 11, 8, to see the word churches there in the Greek. Now it's ekklesia. Isn't that interesting? So Paul admitted that. | |
| And obviously he was using hyperbole here because he was he was indicting the Corinthians that, you know, they were treating him so badly. And he was saying, I gave you preferential treatments, treatment that other churches, the other ekklesias would give me money would help would give me offerings. And I would invest that all those offerings on you on serving you. So he robbed. So isn't that interesting? | |
| the town's clerk in Ephesus is saying, these are not robbers of churches. These are not hierosilos. But then Paul turns around and says, I am a robber of churches. But this time the word is ekklesia. And I know that Paul was speaking in hyperbole, but you can see there that God is saying, this is what Paul was doing. | |
| See ... God wants us to serve. Sometimes God will invest more in someone than what they quote deserve. But it's like. But I feel that that's not what's going on here. It's like God saying. I gave you resources Paul. | |
| And you're investing them in the wrong people. Instead of investing them in the ones who deserve the investment. The ones who are providing for you and you should provide for them back. You're taking what they're taking their love towards you and then channelling it to someone who does not love you. | |
| that's exactly what he was doing with the jews and the gentiles the gentiles were the ones supporting him the gentiles were the ones defending him and helping him and believing in the Lord and accepting Christ and accepting Jesus as the messiah the saviour of the world they were the ones | |
| supporting him and he was taking that and then going to the jews and trying to get the jews to believe and all that the jews gave him back is a whole bunch of persecution and trouble so he was robbing the gentiles to serve the jews I hope you see what we're saying here it's like so yeah so Paul and Paul was not allowed to speak in that in that meeting it's as if to say hey if Paul had been allowed to be part of that | |
| gathering then there would have been a church robber in the house if that makes sense | |
| But Paul was not allowed to speak. We see at the beginning of Acts 19 that Paul wanted to be part of this whole demonstration thing to defend the Christians who were being kind of attacked verbally in that gathering. And he was, I'm sure Paul was concerned that it would escalate to physical violence. But the thing is that | |
| Paul wanted to speak and God didn't let him. And because he was not there, then there were no church robbers in that place. OK, so. So let's go back here to Acts 19. So the town's clerk is saying to the people, these are not. Church robbers and | |
| But he really said temple robbers. They're not robbers of temples. And this is a spiritual message. It's like God saying. To the church. To the Christian spirit of Solomon church. That worships the temple. They hate the remnant. The remnant. Why? Because they say they are like temple robbers. Who desecrate the holy temple. | |
| And the holy temple to them is the pastoral church, the building and the pastors and the ordained ministers inside of it. And the whole structure, the organization around that temple building and around those ministers, that whole system is their temple. And when someone comes and says that temple is not of God, that temple is contaminated, that temple is of Satan. | |
| They go, oh, you are desecrating our holy temple. So to them, the remnant are like temple robbers who are trying to take things out of the temple and use them outside the temple. Because it's like saying, if you don't practice Christianity within our system, the system we have created, the temple system, then you are taking the holy into an unholy realm. | |
| And that's why the accusation is, oh, you are a lone ranger or you are you are following false doctrines and this and that and the other. You're not honouring those whom God has honoured as the ministers of our of the body of Christ. So they are constantly accusing the remnant of being temple robbers, temple desecrators who take robbed things from the temple and try to use them outside. | |
| And isn't that interesting? That's exactly what the what the Roman Church, the Roman Catholic Church did when the when Martin Luther and the Protestants revolted. He said, you're know that the Christianity is only holy within the realms of our temples. You're trying to take out the stuff that we have in our temple, the Christianity is in quote unquote Christianity inside our temples and trying to practice it outside. | |
| All your ministers are not valid because they're not ordained within our system. And you're trying to create these false sacred priesthoods on the side. And that's why the Roman Catholics would look at with disdain at the Protestants. Like taking what they robbed the temple. They took things that were holy from the temple and try to use them in an unholy place. In an unholy way because it's not within the confines of the temple. | |
| But it's like the town's clerk is the spirit of God speaking here. And he's saying, no, these men are not robbers of temple as you accuse them of being. And this is a message of God in the spirit. And we release it out in the atmosphere to all those worthless followers of the temple spirit inside the churches, the ones who go to church on Sunday, every day, every week of the year, all over the world. | |
| You are constantly accusing the remnant of being temple robbers. And God is saying they are not. And you are accusing them of something false. You're making a false accusation against them. You're speaking in Canaanite rage against them. And I'm telling you to shut up and be quiet. Be silent and withdraw and restrain yourselves. And listen to the judgment of God against you. | |
| That you are making false accusations against his remnant. Okay so it says. So Acts 19 37 again. For ye have brought hither these men. Which are neither robbers of churches or temple robbers. Nor yet blasphemers of your goddess. And blasphemers is blasphemeo. So that was correctly translated. And then of your goddess. Now the thing is that's very interesting. | |
| I find this so, I don't know, it's a subtle detail. And if you're not paying attention, if you're just reading it very quickly to kind of get the... If you read this like a novel, like, oh, you want to know what happened. And you will read scripture and miss a lot of things. But if you're trying to get, like God is saying something with every word, if you... | |
| Listen to the passage in the spirit Under the spirit of God and you're paying allowing God to speak to you You will notice that the man this town's clerk town clerk here said your goddess Isn't it interesting? He didn't say our goddess He didn't join himself with the crowd in worshiping Diana | |
| He didn't act as a defender of the temple and its system. He's just stating a fact. These men have not been blaspheming against your goddess. And what is the spiritual message here? See, when the remnant begin to speak about the soul is second and the spirit is first, | |
| And all this effeminate stuff that the pastoral system has put into Christianity, quote unquote, Christianity with all this love and compassion that is not of the spirit. It's not love of the spirit. It's not compassion of the spirit. It's soulish love, soulish compassion and no, no judgments, all that, all that rubbish. | |
| When the remnant begin to speak like that, when people in the spirit begin to speak like that, they're accused of saying, you are blaspheming against the soul. You are speaking evil things. All you're saying that God is not in love, that God does not care about people, that God does not have compassion. And what God is saying here is, no, these men and women of the remnant are just trying to set things right. | |
| They're trying to do what I am calling them to do, to reestablish the dominion of the spirit over the soul. They're not saying that the soul is evil. They're not saying that the soul should be destroyed. They're not saying that there should be no compassion, no love, no understanding. What they're saying is what I am saying through them, that it has to be done in the spirit. Thou should love the Lord your God with your whole heart, your whole soul, your whole mind, your whole strength. And then you shall love your neighbour as you do yourself. | |
| That's what these men are doing and they're doing it because I've called them to do that. And they're not saying that you will not have compassion anymore or that you will not show love or understanding towards others or that you will never are never to be pastoral towards anybody ever again. That's what God is saying here. And then Acts 1938. | |
| And God did not let Paul say a single word in this whole incident. Because Paul would not have said any of this. Because Paul was already contaminated by the spirit of Solomon. So it had to be this anonymous town clerk that showed up out of nowhere. This guy with no name. Saying all these things. And he's saying them in the spirit. Then verse 38. | |
| Acts 19, 38, next verse. Wherefore, if Demetrius and the craftsmen which are with him have a matter against any man, the law is open and there are deputies. Let them implede one another. In other words, instead of going by canon out of motion, because that's what you've been doing, just railing against these men out of out of this sense of, oh, they hurt my feelings. Oh, well, they are coming against our identity, our communal community identity. | |
| and our values and what we hold dear in our community. Instead of going by all that emotionalism, you have to come with maleness. You are the males of Ephesus. That's why he referred to them as males of Ephesus in Acts 19 in verse 35. He said to say, I'm appealing to your maleness right now. Get out from that effeminate behaviour, that female behaviour, and now bring something concrete and objective | |
| If you have something against them in the matter of the law, then bring it up. But I don't want this emotionalism. Oh, they're hurting our feelings and this and that, the other. No, no, no. Or they are affecting our trade. | |
| Our Girgashite. Situation. None of that. Are they actually. Stealing from you. Are they doing something. According to the law. Do apostolic judgments. And judge them correctly. And then verse 39. And the next verse says. But if you inquire anything. Concerning other matters. It shall be determined. In a lawful assembly. | |
| And here we will see the word assembly again. And assembly here is. As we would imagine. It's ekklesia. It's church again. So it says. But if you inquire anything concerning other matters. It shall be determined in a lawful. In a lawful ekklesia. In a lawful church. God is saying. Through all of this. Your church is illegal. The Sunday services that you hold. Every week. | |
| At your temple building. All of them are unlawful in my eyes. I have no interest in them. I am not a part of them. And if you're going to say something. You have to come and say it in a lawful assembly. In a lawful church. Your churches are unlawful. This is like the town's clerk was saying to this crowd. Your church. | |
| your church right now what the church you're conducting right now is unlawful and if you're going to really raise a matter against these men you have to do it in a lawful church lawful ekklesia let's translate ekklesia the way it's always translated up until acts 19 lawful church so um so if you acquire anything concerning other matters it shall be determined in a lawful church | |
| And then, uh, verse 40, Acts 19, 40, for we are in danger to be called in question for this day's uproar. There being no cause whereby we may give an account of this concourse. So like, like speaking from a natural perspective, it's like the task was saying, Hey, Ephesus, we're going to get in trouble. Uh, you guys are just causing an uproar. Just, uh, just, just, uh, causing mayhem. Um, | |
| And but according to Roman law, you're not doing anything, anything that is proper or legal. And you're you know what? What's going to happen if you keep this up, you're going to get the Romans soldiers to come and impose order and impose martial law. And then we're going to get in trouble, trouble with Rome. And it's like this is but in spiritually speaking, it's like God say. | |
| If you keep this up, you are drawing the ire of God. So God here is like the Romans, you know, coming to Ephesus and imposing some sort of martial law or something because the crowd is getting too rowdy. And it's like God saying, you are drawing the wrath of God against you by doing these unlawful churches, the unlawful assemblies. | |
| Where you come to worship the great goddess Diana the pastoral matriarchy spirit Okay, and then and then acts 1941 the next verse says And what he had the spoken he dismissed the assembly notice the word assembly Over and over again ending in Greek pretty sure it's the word ekklesia again, so just out of curiosity | |
| I'm going to click here to see how many times Ekklesia is used in Acts 19. So I'm doing a search here and let's see. In Acts 19, it appears one, one, two, three verses. I thought it was going to be more, but yeah. So yeah, the three verses where we mentioned it, but okay. All right, so | |
| So he then dismissed the assembly after he had spoken. And what God is saying is. These are all. This is like a. All of this is prophetic word about how God is going to disassemble. The church system. I hope that's making sense. He's going to disassemble the church system. And. And. The temple of Solomon church system that we have right now. He's going to disassemble it. He's going to dismiss it. | |
| Um, and okay. And, and in his heart, in the Lord's heart, it's already disassembled. There's no legitimacy to anything going on in the church system nowadays, none whatsoever. Um, and those who go there go at their own peril, uh, uh, at the peril of drawing the wrath of God. Um, okay. | |
| And I find it interesting that the word dismissed was translated from apoluo. Apoluo, which sounds a lot like Apollo. Apollo's, you know, the fellow that we were talking about, brother, in the previous, in, I think, mostly two videos ago. Apollo's the one who arrived in Ephesus and seemed to represent something that Apollo was missing. | |
| um and it's like when apollos shows up the spirit of apollos then then the church the ekklesia of the temple of solomon um is dismantled that that's what God is declaring prophetically here and I just feel in the spirit that that's like that and he's and says here and when he had the spoken he dismissed the assembly in the word this spoken was a part upon | |
| And, uh, when you look at this word in the Greek, if I remember correctly, it usually has this connotation of a kingly decree. Um, so when he declared in a kingly decree, uh, these things, then the assembly was dismissed. The church was, was, I think means, uh, like to loosen, like when you lose, let, uh, um, there's a, let's say a horse tied up and you | |
| untie the horse and you let him go you know so he's free to go um so um so that's what God is saying that through the spirit of apollos that we'll talk about I guess uh in the next video if there is one um on this series because I'm not sure if this is going to be the last one or not I'm still not too clear but I believe at some point we will briefly uh talk about apollo's | |
| And what he represented that Paul had started to lose out on because he clung or he began to cling to the spirit of Solomon. OK, so. OK, so then. All right, so that's where the chapter ends. The town's clerk dismisses the whole crowd and the whole uproar is ended. And notice what happened. | |
| How many Christians were injured in the making of this event? Zero. They had dragged a couple of brothers here in verse 29, Acts 19, and the whole city was filled with confusion and having called Gaios and Aristarchus, men of Macedonia, Paul's companions in travel, they rushed with one accord into the theatre. So they had a couple of Christians | |
| kind of captive, literally. And brothers who weren't supposed to even be there, as we shared before, they were supposed to be in Macedonia, but they were there because Paul was straying spiritually. But the thing is that they were in danger of being attacked, but they weren't. And what we wanted to say here is that | |
| Isn't it interesting how God is saying, Paul, you're not going to talk because if Paul had spoken, we would have all, you know, down the centuries been convinced that it was Paul and the anointing of the spirit in him that ended the situation here and prevented it, you know, causing a leading to harm to the to the believers in Ephesus. But Paul, but God said, no, Paul, you're out of here because if you speak, then | |
| all hell will break loose. I'm pretty certain that if Paul had spoken, this would have turned into violence eventually. I am pretty certain against the Christians and maybe even against the Jews themselves. Who knows? But the thing is that God kept Paul out and he allowed this man, the town's clerk, who obviously was not a Jew. You would say, well, how do you know? Well, first of all, it doesn't say it here. But second, um, | |
| When is he mentioned for the first time? Here, verse 35, Acts 19, 35. And when the town clerk had appeased the people. So the town clerk is suddenly mentioned. And he's mentioned immediately after the two previous verses. It's like God doing this contrast. This worked out because the town clerk was not a Jew. See, verse 33 and 34, the two previous verses says, and they drew Alexander out of the ochlos, the multitude, the Jews putting him forward. | |
| And Alexander said, | |
| So in other words, the town's clerk was not a Jew. And this Gentile was the one who defended the Christians against this mob of Canaanites. | |
| who had gathered to do some harm to them. I hope that makes sense. And it's like God showing Paul the contrast. The Gentiles, a Gentile called, who knows what I was going to say called, but the name of the town's clerk is not here. So a Gentile of an unknown name appeared | |
| and was the one who defended the Christians from being attacked. And the Jews who were there were only there to say we had nothing to do with it. And I'm pretty certain that if Alexander had spoken, he would have said, not only are we the Jews guiltless in this matter because we're not the ones who are trying to oppose your idolatry, your violation of the second commandment. | |
| He would not only have emphasized that. He would have also said. But these Christians are. And they should be. You should do them. You should. Inflict your justice upon them. And Alexander. And the Jews would have used this. As an opportunity to suppress. Paul and the Christians in Ephesus. And they would have used. The crowd the pagan. Idol worshiping crowd. As in as a tool. | |
| to shut down Christianity in Ephesus. So the Jews, so God is showing Paul the contrast. You keep preaching to these Jews and all they do is get in your way and get in my way, which is more important. They keep getting in my way. And I've told you, stop talking to them. But you keep insisting. And notice the contrast now with the man who is not a Jew at all. | |
| And he's the one who defended you and prevented any harm being done to you and to the Christians in Ephesus. Notice the contrast. The Gentiles are for you. The Jews are against you. And that's why Paul has to admit later in that verse that we saw about robbing. I have robbed others to serve you. And that's what Paul was doing. I have robbed from all the love and support that I've received from the Gentiles. | |
| to serve you worthless Jews who are not, who are thankless and ungrateful towards me. Because that's what he was saying in that verse that we saw in Corinthians. That's what he was saying to the Corinthians. But spiritually, he was admitting in that verse that he was serving, that he was taking from the blessing and protection that the Gentiles were giving to him | |
| And using it to try to convince the Jews, the ungrateful Jews, who would only turn around and persecute him and try to kill him. Every time he reached out to them. Using the resources, the emotional and the material resources that Gentiles are providing for him. So this whole chapter is a big indictment against Paul. And the fact that how it ended. | |
| how it was a Gentile who defended them. And notice the Gentiles, even as they were all stirred up, this big crowd of Artemis worshipers. For two hours, they were shouting and doing all that stuff, but they never physically assaulted a single Christian. They would have been eventually stirred into that frenzy, especially if Alexander the Jew had spoken. But even so, they were restraining themselves, restraining themselves, | |
| And then the town's clerk spoke and the crowd was dispersed. You know, imagine it's one guy, the town's clerk, it's just one fellow. And that one fellow was able to convince the whole crowd. And obviously he did kind of bring up the backup, you could say, in verse 40, when he said, kind of hinted, you guys caused trouble today and... | |
| The Roman soldiers are going to be on your case tomorrow and they're going to make life hell for you if you cause trouble today. So he did, you know, rely on that threat of the Romans coming. But even so, you know, when you have a crazy crowd of people, they do whatever they want. And there's no holding them back. The Jews had no problems attacking Christians. | |
| whenever they could. They were not as patient as this crowd, as evil as this crowd was. So it's like this contrast, how the Jews were treating Paul, how the Gentiles were treating Paul. And yet Paul had preference for the Jews. OK, so now we'll go into. Chapter 20. | |
| and see what's going on. Oh, and just by the way, going back, sorry, to the name Alexander, if you look it up in scripture here, Alexandros, it's often used in a negative sense. And a lot of people here wonder if the Alexanders that are mentioned in Timothy and the two letters | |
| to Timothy are the same Alexander as the guy from Ephesus. But let's read here, 1 Timothy 1.20, of whom is Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have delivered unto Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme. And then 2 Timothy 4.14 says, Alexander the coppersmith did me much evil. The Lord reward him according to his works. So who knows? But it's interesting that God mentions these things | |
| two Alexanders in a very negative sense. And those are the last two times Alexander is mentioned in scripture. And before that, it's Acts 19.33, the verse that we read earlier. And this Alexander, the Jew that was kind of was going to speak out against God. And then Acts 4.6 is the previous time that Alexander was used here, as you can see. And it says, and Annas, the high priest, | |
| Notice high priest. The temple of Solomon. The priestly system. And Annas the high priest. And Caiaphas. And John. And Alexander. And as many as were of the kindred of the high priest. Were gathered together at Jerusalem. So the priesthood was gathered at Jerusalem. Notice how God just keeps pointing. See the spirit of Jerusalem. The spirit of Solomon. The temple of Solomon. In Jerusalem. The one that kept the apostles trapped in Jerusalem. | |
| When Paul was going out of Jerusalem and reaching out to the Gentiles, the other apostles got trapped by the spirit of Solomon in Jerusalem. And God is linking it to Alexander. And Alexander is linked, uh, the name in a negative sense is linked to the pastoral ministry. Um, um, because it's a defender, you know, like a, like a, like a shepherd defending the sheep from the evil wolves. Um, | |
| And the only time that Alexander is mentioned in a vaguely positive light is the first time it's used. It's here in Mark 15, 21. And they compel one Simon a Cyrenian who passed by coming out of the country, the father of Alexander and Rufus to bear his cross. So the father, Alexander was the son of the man that carried the cross the rest of the way to Golgotha when the Lord just could not, | |
| continue carrying it and we've shared before this is a figure of how we are called to complete the afflictions that are pending of Christ Colossians 120 I believe I could be wrong on that but somewhere in scripture God very clearly says we are to complete the afflictions that are pending Jesus did not do everything unlike what a lot of the spirit of Solomon worthless harlot pastors preach on Sunday Jesus did not do | |
| The whole thing. We're called to complete. What he left missing. On purpose. So that we could share in him. And share in his glory. And be one with him and the father. He didn't come. Just to save us from hell. Like stupid little sheep. That needed to be saved. And once we're saved from hell. That's fine. That's it. That's all we wanted to do. On behalf of humanity. No. The Lord Jesus came. So that we would. | |
| become one with him and with the father for eternity to restore what we lost in the garden of Eden to be the image and likeness of God himself which is what is fallen as described in Acts 19 as we saw the towns court talking about the image having fallen from Zeus in other words fallen from the maleness it was called | |
| To embrace. And manifest. But I don't know why. Alexander here is mentioned. In what seems like a positive light. Oh thank you Lord. Yes. Thank you Lord. It makes sense. See Alexander was not the one. Carrying the cross. Not the one who did. The completing of the afflictions. He was the son of the man. And what I get from that. Is that. | |
| It's almost like, you know, it's like the church, the early church got lost very quickly. Like the ones who started it had a lot of good things in them, but then the children of them, their descendants immediately lost what their fathers had. I hope I'm making sense. Like the church started well and very quickly their children | |
| lost what God had had given to their fathers the good things that the fathers embraced because you know um it's almost like the father was Jesus himself and his children became alexander's who opposed him very quickly I hope this is making sense that's what I get here like you're like the children immediately betrayed | |
| What was in the father? Yeah, and that's the story of the church Of the church under the spirit of solomon that's what God is saying here in In these appearances of the word alexander as we can see here one two three four five, five verses that have alexander in in them and In the first three clearly all very negative the | |
| The second one here, Acts 4, 6, negative in a subtle sense, but tying Alexander to the priestly system, to the priestly system of the temple, the temple of Solomon. And then spiritually speaking, yeah, some might say, oh, it was the temple of Herod. What are you talking about? But if you've been listening to this whole series, you know what we're talking about. Spiritually, it was the temple of Solomon. It was just a rebirth. | |
| an effort by men to rebuild the Temple of Solomon that God destroyed through the Babylonians hundreds of years earlier. The thing is that, yeah, and then the one time that Alexander's not referenced in a negative light here, Mark 15, 21, it's as if foreboding, saying, hey, they started well. Simon the Cyrenian was doing well. | |
| But his child immediately fell out of the faith. And it's interesting that it's Mark that mentions this. Mark is the gospel written from the man face, from the pastor-teacher perspective. And it's like God saying, because of the pastors and teachers, the church immediately fell after the Lord Jesus ascended. That's what God is saying here in the appearances of Alexander. | |
| Okay, so now let's go back to Acts, and now let's go to Acts 20. Let's see, sorry. Let me click here to go to Acts 20, and here we go. So Paul in Macedonia and Greece, it says here in the title. Acts 20, verse 1, it says, And after the uproar was seized, | |
| Paul called unto him the disciples and embraced them and departed for to go into Macedonia. OK, so he's going to leave Ephesus and he's going to go back up to Macedonia. So if we see the map here, Ephesus is right here. If you can see where the number four is in the map. So he's here right now and he's now going back up to Macedonia. And you can see the number five here. | |
| he's going back to Macedonia and Greece but you could say well Macedonia isn't Macedonia part of Greece uh yes nowadays it is but not in the old days uh when you use the word Greece you were referring to this part here um where you see the number six here so Paul is in emphasis number four and he goes up to Macedonia five and then he goes down to Greece uh six and um Greece uh | |
| I was wondering, you know, why does it say Greece when the whole thing is Greece? And let me just go here, if I can find it. I did a search on that. If I could find it. Oh, here we go. I typed in Bing, what is the Greece referred to in Acts 22, 20 verse 2. So it says, in Acts 20 verse 2, Greece says, | |
| refers to the Roman province of Achaia, particularly the region, including Corinth, where Paul ministered to the churches. So apparently Greece was another name for the province, the Roman province of Achaia. And Achaia is the province where Corinth was, the city of Corinth. Corinth was a city in the province, the Roman province of Achaia, which apparently was also another name for Greece. | |
| I'm not sure why and why does God refer to, because he uses the word Achaia in other verses that we've read before. So it's kind of a mystery to me. Why does it say, why does God choose to say, where were you here? Why does he refer to the place as Greece instead of Achaia? Okay. | |
| And I'm trying to discern in my heart right now, but I'm not sure. Maybe I believe the Lord is emphasizing the Greekness, the Greeks, in other words, the Gentiles. Macedonia was the first place where Paul went to preach to the Gentiles in a truly Gentile city. | |
| As you may recall, you know, he went from Troas to Macedonia to the city of Philippi, which was in Macedonia and then Greece and it's as if God was saying once I put Paul in Macedonia in Philippi in my intent was for him to focus on all of Greece and the Greeks and the Gentiles. That's what I'm getting like in a very, very subtle sense. | |
| by God using the word Greece here instead of Achaia. If he hadn't used the word Achaia, it would have read more like an itinerary of locations in the old Roman Empire, if that makes sense, if he had used Achaia. But he didn't. He used Greece as if to say, I'm talking about something broader. I'm not just showing train stops in Paul's journey. I'm referring to what I wanted to do with him. | |
| So, okay, so let's read verse 1 again of Acts 20. And after the uproar was seized, Paul called unto him the disciples and embraced them and departed for to go into Macedonia. And then Acts 20 verse 2. And when he had gone over those parts and had given them much exhortation, he came into Greece. Not Achaia, but Greece. And then verse 3, Acts 20 verse 3. And there abode three months. | |
| And when the Jews laid wait for him as he was about to sail into Syria, he purposed to return through Macedonia. So he stayed there for three months. And then what happened in Achaia, in Corinth. And Corinth is the place, as you may recall, in Acts 18, where Paul, when he arrived in Corinth, first thing he did, as always, he went to the synagogue. And I think he preached there for three months. Let me just confirm that. Or three Sabbaths. | |
| three straight Sabbaths. And Acts 18 here, as you can see here, he was, okay, so he remained, he reasoned in the synagogue every Sabbath. Let's see if we see the number three anywhere. I don't see the, I was convinced that the number three was here, but, | |
| Apparently not. Let me just look it up. Three. Nope, no reference to three. Okay. It was just my imagination. Okay. So, and because he was, okay, so he reasoned in the synagogue every Sabbath and persuaded the Jews and the Greeks. And then he had the argument with them. And then they opposed him and they blasphemed. And then he shook his himation, I think, his raiment or cloak. | |
| think I say Mation and then said unto them your blood be upon your head so that's when he made the declaration from henceforth I will go unto the Gentiles so it's like God he's there for three months and after three months the very Jews that he went after and tried to convince these Jews rose up again the very | |
| Jews that he has said I will not preach to you ever again but remember when he went to Ephesus after this incident in Acts 19 the first thing he does is go he goes oh that's where I saw the three months when he went to Ephesus yeah he went to Ephesus and after having said in Acts 18 I'm no longer preaching to you Jews I'm going to the Gentiles first thing he does in Ephesus after arriving from Corinth is go to the synagogue uh | |
| And it says here. And he went into the synagogue. Acts 19 verse 8. And he went into the synagogue and spake boldly for the space of three months. Notice the three months. Disputing and persuading the things concerning the kingdom of God. It's almost like God is trying to have us tie these words. These things together. He's like saying. There are consequences to Paul's actions. Paul kept. | |
| He reneged on his promise to God to preach to the Gentiles. And to stay away from the Jews. And that's what led to this trouble. And when the Jews laid wait for him. As he was about to sail into Syria. He purposed to return through Macedonia. So it's the same. So for three months he abode in Corinth. For three months he spoke to the Gentiles. | |
| to the Jews in Ephesus. And after three months, the Jews in Macedonia turned on him. I'm still not clear how to tie everything together, but it's like God just pointing all these connections. So see, again, the Jews that he was so enamoured with were just causing him trouble. And then, | |
| And then he had to leave. He was going to go into Syria, but they stopped him. So he decided to return through Macedonia. So he wanted to go back. So see, he wanted to go back to Syria. He wanted to go back towards Jerusalem. But because the Jews got in his way, he was forced to go down to continue in Greece. | |
| so return through Macedonia so and then verse 4 and there accompanied him into Asia Sopater of Berea and of the Thessalonians Aristarchus and Secundus and Gaius of Derbe and Timotheus and of Asia Tychicus and Trophimus so he wanted to go back into Asia and go back towards the Middle East but | |
| So he returned through Macedonia. Yeah, sorry, I'm getting confused here. What happened was he was in Ephesus. He went to Macedonia. From Macedonia, he went down to Greece. And here in Greece, he wanted to sail towards Syria. As you can see on the map here, he was ready to sail into Syria, but the Jews stopped him. So he was forced to go back up through Macedonia. | |
| and sail from Macedonia into Syria, if that makes sense. Because he wanted to go back to Jerusalem. He had determined to go back to Jerusalem. And that's when we want to get to what was going on with him wanting to go back to Jerusalem. And it's part of that obsession that he had with the spirit of Solomon and Jewishness. But okay, so the Jews got in his way. | |
| So he had to return through Macedonia. And it's like God doing a figure of saying, see, you want to go back to the Jewishness, but you can't. So that's why God forced him to go back up through Greece, what we now call the country of Greece, through Greek or Gentile territory. So he had to minister to the Gentiles even more. That's exactly what God was saying. | |
| You can't go back to the Jews because they will kill you. I'm forcing you to go to the Gentiles, but just wouldn't get it. Okay. So then God mentioned seven people here. So they accompanied him into Asia. And Asia obviously refers going back to Asia's here, the modern-day Turkey. So the idea was for him to go through to Syria and towards Jerusalem. | |
| But he would have to go through Asia because obviously back in the day, you couldn't take a direct flight from the Philippi International Airport and go directly to Palestine. He had to sail on ship by ship and they would stop by Asian ports on their way to Syria. So that's why here in verse four, suddenly there's a mention of Asia. | |
| So and they're accompanied him to Asia these seven men and then I was asking the Lord Lord, what does these men represent? and it was a little bit difficult because there was a There was a switch here and we'll see and that switch threw me off But the God switched flipped two names to prove to establish a point and | |
| And so, okay, so the first person is Sopater of Berea. And Berea, as you may recall, is famous for being the place where the believers there were always like when Paul was preaching to them, they would try to verify it in the, in the Hebrew scriptures. As if to say, okay, we, we, you know, trust, but verify kind of thing. | |
| And that points to a very apostolic mindset, apostolic wisdom and judgments. So it's not just accepting things, you know, it's judging them and seeing are they true or not. So there's this apostolic spirit being reflected just by the name Berea. And then the name Sopater, yeah, Sopatros or Sopatros in Greek. | |
| in Greek um means um so the saw part excuse me uh comes from the Greek word sozo which means to um to save uh like salvation like the word for salvation that's that comes from sozo uh I mean the word that is translated as uh to convey the concept of salvation what we understand is salvation | |
| is translated from the word sozo usually in scripture and then the pater part I'm pretty sure some of you already know what that means pater you know that's a paternal um and um so it literally means father um pater or pay-ter as some people say in English pater or pater, pater means father so it literally means saviour | |
| of his father saviour of the father and as I was asking the Lord about this I said Lord um okay if Sopater of Berea is connected to the apostolic because of Berea why does it why are you saying saviour of his father um and that's when it hit me uh | |
| And I pray this is of the spirit and I pray that if it is that it will be clear because I don't know how to convey it. But when a group of people decay, you know, they fall into some sort of falsehood. They can go on that falsehood for centuries, you know, for generations and generations. And then it takes someone with an apostolic spirit of wisdom and judgments. | |
| To begin to question everything that has been accepted for so long. You know, just like the Bereans wouldn't just accept anything Paul was saying. It would go to the Hebrew scriptures and say, okay, is it there? Is it not there? Is it consistent? So it takes someone with an apostolic spirit to start questioning things that have been accepted for ages and ages. And to then rescue that people from that falsehood. | |
| It takes that apostolic spirit. So, and how do people fall into these things? Because they get taught by their fathers and their father's fathers that this is the way we do things. So this, an apostle suddenly becomes the saviour of his father. I hope that makes sense. All these things that we're living under that are false because people have been accepting them. There are things that come from their fathers. It's like in America. | |
| You know we have the so-called founding fathers who established a lot of a few good things and then a lot of horrible horrible things in the foundation of our of the country and God wanted to change all these things to establish the foundation in the spirit and people with an opposition | |
| anointing came along and started questioning the things that the founding fathers had taught us that we had accepted as wisdom and that's why they always say the founding fathers in their wisdom that stupid phrase so we had accepted the apostolic and I say this in quote wisdom of the founding fathers and it takes an apostle to say this wisdom is poppycock | |
| This wisdom is nonsense. Uh, this wisdom does not stand up to the truth of the spirit. When you judge it by scripture, when you judge it by, by the things that God is declaring in the spirit, then everything falls apart. Um, and, um, so, and then that's how an apostle saves his father. What his father was trying to uphold that was that. That he missed out on, like, for example, um, | |
| If America had listened to the apostolic voice that was coming out of the remnant questioning what the founding fathers had done, we would have rescued America and we would have rescued what the good things that the founding fathers wanted when, when they, when America was born, we would have saved America. The America of the founding fathers would have been saved. I hope that that's making sense. An apostle many times acts. | |
| When you act apostolically, you are the saviour of your father. It's like you're saving something that your fathers established that had flaws in it. And you're finding the flaws and you're fixing the flaws in the apostolic wisdom and judgments of God. | |
| So the thing is that this name Sopater of Berea reveals something about the nature of the apostolic ministry. And I had never seen it like that before until the Lord showed this verse and forced us to kind of think about it. So the apostolic ministry is a saviour of fathers. | |
| It says it questions the father's wisdom in order to save it's like. Yeah, it's like. Imagine a son who. His father taught him certain things and his father acts a certain way. And that behaviour is driving the father to destruction, the father and the whole family. And one of the sons rises up and says, hey, | |
| Uh, this is, uh, this is wrong, dad. This is the, the way we're doing things here is wrong. We need to fix it, fix the boat here, uh, straighten the boat. Uh, and so that son is a saviour to the father and to the rest of the family, because he's pointing something out that everybody else is just accepting at face value because the father said it. I hope that makes sense. Uh, okay. | |
| So then the second person mentioned in this list of seven is, and of the Thessalonians, Aristarchus. And isn't it interesting that Sopater of Berea, so the man is named first and the place is second. But then with Aristarchus, the place is first and his name is second. The man is second. | |
| And that's kind of peculiar. And it's like God hinting there's a switch here. There's a swap that just happened if you're paying attention. And that's all I can get from that switch that God flips. Instead of saying Aristarchus of Thessalonica, he says of the Thessalonians, Aristarchus. And just to confirm, just to make sure it's not a translation thing. Let's see. | |
| okay so yeah basically yeah I don't know if you can see it here but this this is thessalon this is the theta epsilon sigma sigma these are s's alpha | |
| This is the L. So Thessalonica. So Thessalonica is mentioned first, and then Aristarchus. I hope you can see Aristarchus more or less here. So yeah, so it was not a translation thing. And with Sopater, you can see Sopatros. This is the Sigma. It's like capital S in Greek. This is Omega. This is the O, you could say. | |
| So Sopatros, and this is Pi, which is the P. So Sopatros, and then Beraios. And so Berea is mentioned second. But Thessalonica is mentioned first. God switches the order. And this is a preamble to the switch that he's going to do next. I know there's more to why this switch happened, I believe, but I don't know it right now. | |
| So the second name is Aristarchus. And Aristarchus is kind of an interesting name because it means here Aristarchus. Aristarchus means the best ruler. And Arcus comes from Arche, which means top or first or principality. And we've shared in several recordings that whenever you see Arche, | |
| it's connected to Kings or Amorites to someone who is in a position of kingly power, um, uh, kingly authority, I mean, and, or, uh, or in a negative sense, an Amorite. So by that alone, you can see that this is connected to kingship. And if it's connected to kingship, then it's connected to, um, um, to the evangelistic ministry. So Aristarchus is, | |
| representative of the evangelistic ministry. And I think, oh, thank you, Mark. I think I see now why the Thessalonians are mentioned first. All these names in this passage, in this verse that we're looking at, Acts 24, 20 verse four, the names are trying, it's God embedding something about, something new about each of the ministries. | |
| Each of the seven spirits of God that would not be obvious otherwise. So with the name Sopater, he's starting to show that apostles question their fathers in order to save them, to correct the mistake the founding fathers, the previous fathers keep making. That's something the apostolic does through its judgment, through its questioning, not trusting everything literally. | |
| And then the quality that God is showing here about the best ruler, the best kings, are that they put the people first. And that's why the Thessalonians are mentioned first. I hope that makes sense. And that's what makes for the best rulers, the ones who put the people first, who care about others, who are not trying to be kings just because they want to be number one. | |
| It's because they put others first. They want the best for them. And that's what makes them the best rulers or the best kings. The best arches. The arista part means best. Okay, so now we see something about the evangelist. A righteous king cares about other people. | |
| cares about the people that he's ruling over. Um, and then, uh, and then Secundus is the third one. And I'll be very frank when I, when I read this, um, the first time I said Secundus, that sounds like second. Um, oh, but he's mentioned third. So only a fool would think that Secundus actually means second. Cause obviously why would God put a guy whose name means second? | |
| In third place. And then I was found. To be the full. Because Acts 20 verse 4. So you can see here. Secundus. The word in Greek is Secundus. And Secundus. Literally means. Oh it says fortunate. I'm sorry. This is when I said oh yeah. A naive person would think that Secundus means fortunate. It means second. But it actually means fortunate. | |
| But then, but it's like God kept saying, no, no, no, Secundus means second. But I said, but Lord, it's saying fortunate here. And then I looked down and it says Secundus of Latin origin, second. So the name means second. So the question becomes, why did they put fortunate here? And to be very frank, I don't know. | |
| I don't know. I think I did. | |
| see it somewhere but um I mean did I um no I don't think it's here uh oh here meaning name Secundus the name Secundus derived from the Latin word Secundus which literally means second and is related to the verb seco meaning to follow in roman culture it was calm common to name children according to their birth order with names like primus first tertius | |
| Primus, first, Tertius, third, and Quartus, fourth. Secundus was typically given to the second-born child or the second member of a family sharing the same name. Beyond its numerical meaning, Secundus carried a positive connotation, sometimes implying favour, prosperity, or beneficial outcomes such as the favourable ocean current. The name was used in Roman society as a practical yet meaningful identifier reflecting both | |
| family structure and cultural values. So apparently has a connotation of applying favour, prosperity or beneficial or a beneficial outcome. Why I don't know, but according to Abarim publications here is clicking here. Let's see if I can find more explanation on that. | |
| says here that it was sometimes used to refer to agreeability or an ocean current that was considerable considered favourable to one's destination um okay um but for some reason it had a connotation of being um something favourable like good luck or a good fortune and I think that's where they get the | |
| the translation of fortunate here. So as I was thinking about all these things, I started thinking, Lord, what is this? What is this? And that's when it kind of hit me in my heart. Secundus here can be taken to mean fortunate, even though it literally means second. But fortunate, | |
| Fortunate makes you think of someone who has grace or favour. And what is the ministry that has the most spiritual grace? The prophetic ministry. The evangelistic has natural grace. But this is not natural grace because it's a name that's also tied to second. So if it had natural grace, it would be first. If it makes sense, like it's second in the natural with your natural eyes, you see that it's second. | |
| but it's favoured you say well but if it's second it's not favoured because if it was favoured it would be first so it's something that defies your natural understanding so that's very prophetic the prophetic defies natural understanding I hope you see what we're saying so you can see all these qualities of the prophetic ministry it's something that that | |
| that on the surface does not look like it has grace. But if you look further, look deeper, it does have a lot of grace, a lot of fortune in it. And the other thing that I get is that why does it have a lot of fortune or grace from God? Because it's second. In other words, | |
| It's the prophet is willing to lose visible recognition in order to have grace with God. So if you want to grow in the prophetic, if you're constantly focused on external things like titles and recognition and validation and all that, | |
| and you want people to know who you are by your title and you're always saying doctor so-and-so and pastor so-and-so then the prophetic anointing kind of just is like you're it's like a scarecrow to the prophetic anointing it scares it scares the anointing away the prophetic anointing comes on you stronger when you don't care about human titles you don't care about human recognition and that's when God begins to give you an extraordinary prophetic grace | |
| I hope that makes sense. So if you want to draw the prophetic anointing on you, be the one who doesn't care if you're second. If you're a Secundus. And that will make you very gracious, very fortunate in God's eyes. I hope that's making sense. And that's why God swapped Secundus with Aristarchus. Because you would think that if you're Luke, you're writing this out, you know, you think of... | |
| There's seven people, you know, just seven people. You're listing seven people. Wouldn't it feel more fitting that the guy who is second is Secundus? You know, if you're if you're writing this, it makes more sense. But no, God told Luke to put Secundus third. In other words, he was he had his rightful place a second. But he was willing to give it up to someone else called Aristarchus, who had the name of a king. | |
| uh in order um you know to fulfil his calling I hope that's making sense so second who should be second is third so he yielded the place that he deserved to someone else because he didn't care about it I don't care if I'm third I know I'm second I'm I know I'm literally second Secundus but I'm willing to be third if as long as I do God's will um | |
| who's not looking, it's a person who's not looking for human recognition. The Girgashite is always looking for human recognition, human titles. I want to be, you know, vice president and I want to be CEO. You know, they love the titles. And the prophet is the very opposite of the Girgashite, as we've shared often on the website. So these three things, these three names so far are showing qualities about the ministries that are not obvious. | |
| The apostle questions the fathers in order to save them. The evangelist, if he's right with God, he will put other people first. And the prophet, if he's right with God, the prophet will not care about human titles, about getting what he deserves or this or that or the other. He's willing to give all of that up. | |
| to get something spiritual from God that is irreplaceable, something intangible. He's willing to give up the literal mantle. That's what this is connected to when the Lord said to the disciples, sell your mantle, your himation and buy a sword. The cloak or himation was a sign of regal, like give you standing in society based on your cloak. | |
| And if you give up the cloak, it's like saying you give up your position and recognition in society. And that's how you get the sword of the spirit. Because the disciples said, we have two swords. That's the sword of the material resources and the sword of the emotional resources, the body and the soul. But we want the sword of the spirit, not the sword of the body, not the sword of the soul. And the sword of the spirit has to be bought by you selling your human recognition. And that's what a prophet does all the time. | |
| And then the next day is Gaios of Derbe. But I think we've run out of time. So we only got to mention the first three male ministries. So each of the seven is connected to the spirit of God. And five of the spirits of God, as we say over and over again, scripture shows are connected to the five ministries. So we've seen the apostle, the evangelist, and the prophet. Three male ministries, three spirits of God. | |
| and we're seeing qualities about people who have those spirits. And then we'll see the same thing with the others. The others also are connected to spirits of God. The next two are also connected to ministries. And we see some qualities about the ministries in those ministries as well. We meditate on those names. And we'll also see why God is mentioning qualities about the seven spirits in the context of Paul, | |
| and his final travels, his final missionary journey, and why on his way to Jerusalem, God is mentioning all of this. And we'll continue seeing how the spirit of Solomon kept affecting Paul's life. We'll do that, Lord willing, in the next recording. I pray in the name of the Lord Jesus that this word that we've shared | |
| will be released into the atmosphere to expose the nature of the pastoral ministry of the ekklesias, the unlawful ekklesias that the spirit of Solomon has put together all across the world. Judgment be upon you, may you be exposed as unlawful ekklesia, and we demand in the spirit that you be dismissed. Amen and amen. |
This teaching continues a meditation on the "spirit of Solomon," a spirit described in Song of Songs 3:6–11, specifically examining its negative influence within the early church. A primary focus is placed on how this spirit began to contaminate even the Apostle Paul, who was among the most resistant to it. By examining the Book of Acts, specifically chapter 19, we can see how the embracing of this spirit created unnecessary burdens and damage to Paul’s ministry.
The narrative in Acts 19:33 introduces a man named Alexander, who is brought forward by the Jews during a pro-Artemis rally in Ephesus. There is a significant spiritual ambiguity in how the Jews interact with the crowd. Rather than defending the faith, they attempt to distance themselves from the Christians to appease the idolaters.
This reflects the spirit of Solomon: when one operates in this spirit, there is little difference between a true believer and a Jew opposing the Kingdom of God.
The Jews' attempt to claim they have nothing to do with the attack on Artemis is offensive to God. They prioritize social acceptance and religious elitism over the second commandment.
This reveals a lack of true zeal for righteousness; they are more concerned with their status as the "chosen people" than with the reality of idolatry.
The name "Alexander" carries a deep spiritual connotation. While it can be positive, in this context, it is negative. Derived from alexandros, it relates to being a "defender of man."
However, in a corrupted sense, this becomes a "pastoral" role that seeks to protect people from God’s judgment rather than leading them to repentance. This "defender" acts like a shield that prevents the sheep from facing the necessary consequences of their actions.
The text states the Jews "drew" Alexander out, using the Greek word probibazo, which implies using force or violence.
This mirrors the operation of the Canaanite spirit, which functions through peer pressure and communal agitation. In a Canaanite environment, morality is not based on an objective, independent law, but on a popularity contest driven by social pressure.
The Jews in this passage represent the "Temple of Solomon" spirit—a spirit of elitism that requires a visible, structured priesthood and a physical temple to exercise power.
This spirit aligns the religious elite with the worldly idolaters because both are tied to the same soulish interests.
The crowd "throws" (proballo) Alexander forward, illustrating how the Jebusite spirit uses external social pressure to enforce order within a Canaanite environment.
When Alexander beckons with his hands (kataseio), he is shaking them to gain attention.
In Scripture, the hands are connected to service. This represents a corrupted pastoral ministry where the "server" uses their position to demand attention and control.
Rather than practicing the anonymous, humble service seen in the shepherds at Christ's birth, these leaders advertise their service to demand loyalty, operating on a "quid pro quo" basis.
When the crowd discovers Alexander is a Jew, they cry out for Artemis for two hours.
The spirit of Solomon is a spirit of "vulcanization"—it divides people into clans based on soulish interests and ethnic identities.
This creates conflict driven by personal interest rather than spiritual truth.
The fact that the crowd shouted for "two hours" is a subtle indicator of the female-dominated ministries (pastor and teacher) that were dominating the era.
The town clerk addresses the crowd as "men" (aner), emphasizing maleness, yet they are behaving in an effeminate, soulish manner by praising a goddess.
The mention of an image that "fell from Jupiter (Zeus)" serves as a spiritual indictment. Just as the image fell, humanity has fallen from its original "maleness" and divine calling.
Staying under the pastoral system keeps the church in a fallen state, separated from the true, masculine spirit of God.
The town clerk appeals to the men of Ephesus to be quiet. He notes that the Christians are not "robbers of churches" (hierosilos).
Interestingly, the word used is not ekklesia (church) but hierosilos, which refers to robbing a temple.
This suggests that the "Temple Spirit" views the true remnant as "temple robbers" because the remnant seeks to take holiness out of the controlled, institutionalized temple system and into the world.
There is a striking parallel to Paul’s own words in 2 Corinthians 11:8, where he says he "robbed" other ekklesias to serve the Corinthians. Spiritually, this indicates that Paul was taking the resources provided by the Gentiles to invest in the ungrateful Jews—essentially "robbing" the supporters to serve those who would only persecute him.
As Paul begins his journey in Acts 20, a list of seven companions is provided. These names are not random; they reveal the qualities of the seven spirits of God and the various ministries.
The Apostle (Sopater of Berea):
Sopater means "saviour of his father." The apostolic ministry acts as a saviour to its "fathers" by using wisdom and judgment to question and correct long-held, false traditions.
The Evangelist (Aristarchus of the Thessalonians):
Aristarchus means "the best ruler." By placing the location (Thessalonians) before the name, God shows that the true evangelistic king is one who puts the people first.
The Prophet (Secundus):
Though his name means "second," he is placed third. This represents the prophetic ministry, which is willing to forego human titles, recognition, and "first place" in order to carry extraordinary spiritual grace and fortune.
The dismissal of the assembly by the town clerk serves as a prophetic decree. God is declaring that He will disassemble the current church system—the Temple of Solomon system—which lacks legitimacy.
Through the spirit of Apollos, the old structures are being loosened and dismissed. The teaching concludes with a call for the remnant to stand firm against the false accusations of the pastoral matriarchy and to move forward in the true spirit of God.