The Trash Heap of Ephesus

This too is Ephesus. Just outside the gate leading to the Temple of Magnesia is the city dump standing in sharp contrast to the bustling opulence and marble clad glitter of the city of Ephesus is this quiet, very sad place. Sad...sad because here among these littered relics of the past was the place where citizens of Ephesus would come and discard their unwanted babies on the top of the trash heap. The Roman law death by exposure permitted the citizens of the Empire to throw their unwanted babies away in places like this and then the exposure to the heat, the dehydrating infants would soon pass out of this life and it was into the sad stench of a dump like this that Christians grabbed an opportunity. History tells us that early Christians came out here and harvested these babies. Took them back into their homes and reared them. I'm wondering if you had discarded one of your babies perhaps walking down the street in Ephesus you would see a follower of Jesus with three or four little children around them and if you would wonder if one of them was yours. Needless to say this behavior of the early church caught the attention of the Roman Empire and made people think. These people are really different in a very compelling way. Under the cover of the Roman Rule of death by exposure, Soranus of Ephesus, a world famous gynecologist, wrote a manual for midwives and in that manual he described how they should measure the limbs and the bodies and the proportions of newborn babies to see if whether or not this baby was worth rearing. If the baby didn't past the muster, then the family would bring the baby here to this dump. Perhaps the baby was deformed. Perhaps the baby was a girl or perhaps the baby was inconvenient whatever the case death by exposure gave them the permission to unload their children to the steaming sun of these hillsides. Why would anybody want to do this? It's really hard to imagine isn't it? But given a reality that the Temple of Artemis was full of hundreds of temple prostitutes, unwanted births were a daily event. So often these prostitutes would bring their babies out here and leave them to die. There was another reason. That was because the equestrian class, the highest level of privileged citizens in Ephesus who wore purple in the streets, who had all the best seats in the theater and at the games, in order to maintain your status in that upper level class you had to have a certain amount of money in your portfolio. That was measured periodically. If you lost some money, you would be eliminated from the privileged part of society. Too many children would often drain your resources so in order to maintain your place in the equestrian class to be a person of purple, you might want not to have too many children and death by exposure permitted you to maintain your status. The interesting and important question is why would Christians come out here to rescue these little babies off the town dump? Well the answer is found in the fact that according to the book of Acts that Christians in Ephesus were called people of the way. They were followers of Jesus, the One who came and said "I am the way." I'm the way to live and in the life of Jesus they had learned early on the value of children and the value of life. In a world that distained children and pushed them away, it was Jesus who said, "Permit the little children to come unto me." And He also warned that if you abuse even one of these little ones, it would be better that a millstone were hung around your neck and the value of life He said that He Himself was life and had come to give us life. So the early Christians seeing this brutal waste of infants were compelled by Jesus. They were followers of Him. They would be like Him in their world and that is why they came to take these babies into their homes and it was that difference in their lives that caught the attention of a watching world that in essence became the neighborhood chatter about these Christians do these things and is what opened the door of people's hearts for others to hear about Jesus who was truly the way.