During the first century, Ephesus was the most prominent city in the Roman province of Asia. This was the western part of the peninsula, of what was later called Asia Minor. This geographical area is now part of modern-day Turkey.

Ephesus was on the mouth of the Cayster River as it flowed into the Aegean Sea. So, it became an important export centre for Asia because it was a gateway between Eastern and Western trade routes. When you arrived at the port, there was an impressive avenue, which was thirty-five feet wide, and lined with columns, which would take you into the city.
Ephesus became part of the Roman Empire in One hundred and thirty-three BC, and by the time of the early church, it had grown to a city of a quarter of a million people. This put it on a par with other major cities across the empire, like Alexandria, Carthage, and Antioch. We think that Rome may have had about one million people at its peak. Ephesus had the added advantage of being the meeting point of three important trading routes.

It was granted self-governing status by the Romans, so it had its own law courts, as well as a busy marketplace, theatre, and impressive stadium, which seated around as many as twenty-five thousand people.

Although a place where the Roman Emperors were worshiped, the main attraction was the worship of the ancient goddess Artemis (also known as Diana). Her temple was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. It was rebuilt at least once, after a fire, and covered an area about as wide, but slightly longer, than Wembley football pitch. According to the Roman writer Pliny the elder, it had a hundred and twenty-seven pillars of Persian marble, thirty-six of them overlaid with gold and jewels. So, it was a truly magnificent building.

The tourist trade this attracted, became a lifeline to the city, when extensive deforestation upstream caused the harbour to silt-up, hampering its trade. Thankfully the city could fall back on the huge marketplace, which had emerged for idols to the fertility goddess. So, when the apostle Paul preached his gospel in Ephesus, causing many to destroy their idols, this threw the livelihood of the city’s craftsmen into peril, causing the riot we that read about in the book of Acts.

The gospel of Jesus Christ probably came to Ephesus through Aquila and Priscilla in about AD52, after Paul left them there on his way to Corinth. Paul returned on his next journey and stayed in Ephesus for more than two years. Luke tells us in the book of Acts that ‘all the residents of Asia heard the word of the Lord, both Jews and Greeks’. Later he sent Timothy to minister in Ephesus, and eventually the apostle John took up residency there for many years, until his exile to the island of Patmos, where he received the Revelation.