[MSTed] The Church of Ephesus
Brian N. Pacula
MSTed by Brian N. Pacula
<Theme song. That's blotto!>
<Whirr, shoomp, click, etc.>
<The SOL. Mike and Tom are working at a computer keyboard, which is connected
to a computer monitor, which is connected, via many wires and tubes, to Crow.>
MIKE: Hi, folks, welcome to the Satellite of Love. I'm Mike Nelson and these
are my robot friends, Tom and Crow.
TOM: The hard drive on our PC crashed so we've been running things off of Unix.
MIKE: In other words, Crow.
CROW: You have no idea how humiliating this is.
TOM: Say Crow, I'm about to reach immortal-level on that MUD I've been playing
for the last couple months, do you think you could be a dear and Telnet me to
mud.lab.pasty-geeks.usdt.edu?
CROW: Do you think you could be a dear and bite me?
MIKE: Hey, none of that now. Besides, Tom, I need Crow to access alt.stranded.
in.space so I can check out that thread I started yesterday.
MAGIC VOICE: Commercial sign in ten seconds.
MIKE: Hop-to, Crow.
CROW: <Under his breath(?)> Dickweed.
GYPSY: <Offscreen> When you guys are done I have to update the Richard Basehart
fan club mailing list.
TOM: Oh, hey, we can get Listserv to run on Crow?
MAGIC VOICE: Commercial sign in five, four, three, two...Commercial sign now.
MIKE: No, Majordomo. <Slaps button>
<Commercials! Think flowers.>
<Back on the SOL, Crow is alone but still hooked up as before. He is shaking
and grunting slightly>
MIKE: <Entering from SL> Hey, you almost done downloading the new Beta version
of Netscape?
CROW: <Straining> Almost... <Pause...groans in relief> There.
<Mad light blinks>
MIKE: Whoopsie, the evil overlords are calling.
<Way down in Deep 13>
PEARL: Oh, Art, what have they done to you?
<The SOL>
CROW: I don't want to talk about it.
<Deep 13>
PEARL: Oh, you poor, poor little man...
CLAYTON: <Entering from SR> Oh, is poor little Crow running Unix for the big
bad human? You'll wish you could stay tied up like that when you see the little
chunk of USENET backwash I've found for you today. From the mixed up files of
one Scott Wolfe, who you may remember from such classics as 'Why Liberalism is
Inherently Dishonest,' I give you, 'The Church of Ephesus: Your Lamp is Running
Out of Oil.' <Laughs evilly>
PEARL: Are you done?
CLAYTON: Ehh..yes. <Presses button>
<The SOL>
CROW: AAAuuuuggghhhh! USENET siiiiign!!!
<Click, shoomp, whirr, etc.>
>Path: news.hooked.net!news1.best.com!news.exodus.net!imci4!
>newsfeed.internetmci.com!in2.uu.net!news.htp.net!usenet
>From: Scott Wolfe <wand...@fia.net>
ALL: Nooo!!!
TOM: No...
>Newsgroups: alt.tortfree.religion.discussion,
>alt.christnet.second-coming.real-soon-now,alt.religion.calvaru-chapel,
>alt.religion.christian-life,alt.fan.jesus-christ,alt.apocalypse,
<All hum 'Ride of the Valkyries'>
>alt.bible.prophecy
>Subject: THE CHURCH OF EPHESUS: "Your Lamp is Running out of Oil"
CROW: I'll grab the torch off the wall!
TOM: I check for secret doors with my ten foot pole.
>Date: 26 Mar 1996 04:43:56 GMT
>Organization: Wanderlust Travel
TOM: <Sings> A wand'ring minstrel, I...
>Lines: 163
MIKE: You're gonna burn for this one, Forrester!
>Message-ID: <4j7smc$i...@news.htp.net>
>NNTP-Posting-Host: ts4p1.fia.net
CROW: F-F-F-Fia Net!
MIKE: The internet provider that grows?
>Mime-Version: 1.0
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
>Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
>X-Mailer: Mozilla 1.1N (Macintosh; I; 68K)
>X-URL: news:alt.religion.christian
>Xref: news.hooked.net alt.christnet.second-coming.real-soon-now:18643
>alt.fan.jesus-christ:12555 alt.apocalypse:1001 alt.bible.prophecy:23781
TOM: <Sighs> Headers are always fun to read...
>
>THE CHRUCH OF EPHESUS
>"Your Lamp is Running out of Oil"
>
> "To the angel of the chruch of Ephesus write: 'These things says
>He who holds the seven stars in His right hand,
MIKE: Will burn his right hand.
> who walks in the midst of
>the seven golden lampstands: "I know your works, your labor, your patience,
>and that you cannot bear those who are evil.
TOM: <Dumb> Man, evil people suck.
> And you have tested those
>who say they are apostles and are not, and have found them liars; and
>you have persevered for My name's sake, and have not become weary.
MIKE: Boy, God can create one hum-dinger of a universe, but He really
needs to sharpen his prose.
>Nevertheless, I have this against you, that you have left your first
>love. Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent and do the
>first works,
CROW: Every time I see you falling I get down on my knees and pray.
> or elst I will come to you quickly and remove your
>lampstand from its place - unless you repent.
MIKE: God's getting pissed, taking names, kicking ass and...confiscating
lampstands?
> But this you have, that
>you hate the deeds of the Nicolatans, which I also hate.
CROW: So, God loves everybody except for the Nicolaitanes?
<Author would like to point out that that is the correct spelling of the
word, according to the KJV>
> He who has an
>ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who
>overcomes, I will give to eat from the tree of life, which was in the
>midst of the paradise of God.'" (Revelation 2:1-7).
TOM: So...what the hell was that all about?
> Whoa, that's quite a shock that the Ephesian church should be so
>indicted.
MIKE: Um...yeah.
> But then again, that church in Ephesus (meaning desirable),
>was a mighty foe against the powers of darkness. So, in that light,
>such an indictment seems proper.
> The city of Ephesus was located in the ancient Greek district of
Ionia,
>which is today Turkey. Near the city was the shrine of the goddess
>Diana of the Italians,
TOM: <Italian> Hey Tony, wha' for you no gotoda Church anna worship Diana, ah?
Whassamattafayou?
> which was to become one of the seven wonders of
>the world. Under Ceasar Augustus, Ephesus became the capital of the
>province of Asia, where the apostle John lived.
> In the book of Acts chapters 18 and 19, Ephesus was and had long
>been a center of commerce, politics and idol manufacture by silversmiths,
MIKE: Hot fresh False Idols here! Get 'em while they're blasphemous! Buy two
Baphomets, get a Ba'al free!
>which drew many tourists.
CROW: <Minnesotan Lady> Ooh, let's bring this Canaanite fetish home for Julie
and the kids.
> The city was a seaport, at a great location where
>east met west.
TOM: East, West; West, East. I think North and South are still at the buffet
table.
> The Gospel first arrived in the person of Apollos, who
>taught Christianity to the people, which, as far as anyone knes, only
>involved the bapticm of John.
CROW: Well, I see Scott still hasn't invested in a spell-checker.
> Aquilla and Priscilla, who preceeded Paul
>on his third journey, arrived at Ephesus and took Apollos aside and
>explained to him that there was more to Christianity than John's
>baptism, such as salvation by grace.
MIKE: And those crispity, crunchity communion wafers!
> When Paul arrived on the scene,
TOM: All hell broke loose.
>the Ephesians heard about the Holy Spirit for the first time, and were
>Baptized in Him. Paul boldly preeched in the synagogues that Jesus is
>the Christ, and was used of God to perform miracles and cast out demons.
CROW: Okay, I've let you demons horse around long enough, time to get out of
the pool.
>Many of the Ephesians witnessed these events and were convinced, and the
>Word was magnified to such a degree that many who practiced magic
>publically burned thier magic books,
MIKE: <Sighs> Yep, this is Scott Wolfe alright...
> which were worth a great fortune.
>They exchanged those blasphemous books for THE Book! Imagine that a
>similar thing would happen today to a hotbed of hedonism like MTV!
TOM: <Stupid Kid> Hey Crow, you wanna trade your 'Beavis & Butthead
En-suck-lopedia' for this King James Bible?
CROW: <same> No way, dickweed.
CROW & TOM: <Laugh moronically>
> This backlash soon spread to the idolmakers, who made little statues
>of Diana.
MIKE: <Minnesotan Lady> Oh, those are so dingdang cute.
> Thier businesses had suffered drastically, seemingly
>proportionally with the spread of Christianity around town. Those idol
>makers apealed to the civic pride of the Ephesians, stirring them up as
>politicians love to do, against the apostles, to label them as
>troublemakers. (What else is new today?) After all that had been said
>and done, the Holy Spirit prevailed!
TOM: You know, I really hope he's not drawing to some kind of *point.*
> The epistle to the Ephesians has come to be known as the jewel of the
>epistles, and why not, with every verse being a blessing and
>exhortation!
CROW: Boy, there's a catchphrase waiting to happen!
> More than any other book, Ephesians is the blueprint for
>Christians' relations with the Holy Spirit, our breatheren and
>ourselves.
TOM: The sequel to 'Our Bodies, Ourselves'?
> In Revelation 2, Jesus in vv. 2 and 3 acknowledged all of the
>Ephesians' many attributes, very likely recalling thier conversian in
>Acts and thier continued service in Ephesians, rightly commending them.
MIKE: Revelation 2: Pray Harder.
CROW: Starring Bruce Willis.
> However, in vv.4 and 5, Jesus properly rebuked them for "leaving thier
>first love".
TOM: The stage!!!
> How could that have happened? The Ephesian Christians
>continued to be used of the Lord from the days of thier conversian, to
>be great discerners,
CROW: Man, those Ephesians. They can really discern.
MIKE: They ascertain pretty well too.
> and to be involved in whatever ministry they were
>needed. So, what happened that the left thier first love? Probably
>what happened was that, having been used mightily to spread the Gospel
>and to send the idol makers packing, and thereby change the image of
>Ephesus, they subconsoiusly got smug and thier mighty works became thier
>"first love", and the Holy Spirit - the true first love - was quenched.
TOM: Well, that ought to be enough to reduce an English major to tears.
>They hadn't gotten weary, but Jesus hinted that they would be
>eventually, and He would remove thier lampstand because it was running
>out of oil.
CROW: Jesus, the repo man.
> What good is a lamp with no oil? The flame had gotten dim
>so gradually, no one noticed.
> In v. 6, Jesus further commended the Ephesians for hating "the deeds
>of the Nicolatans, which I also hate".
MIKE: Frown, Jesus hates you.
> Who were they? According to
>tradition, they were followers of Nicolas, who was also an apostle in
>Acts. His cult involved free sex and orgies to suppliment the Gospel.
CROW: Saayyy...
TOM: Who said Christianity was boring?
>The Ephesians knew right from wrong, a testimony thay they had the right
>doctrine, with no more and no less.
> Finally, in v.7, Jesus says, "he who has an ear, let him hear what the
>Spirit says to the churches. (Could that mean listen?)
TOM: <Goliath> What do you think, Davey?
> To him who
>overcomes, I will give to eat from the tree of life..." The people were
>feeding off of thier own egos!
MIKE: Hey, leggo my ego.
> There's a very fine line separating a Spirit-filled Christian from
>an Ephesian Christian. How does one end up in Ephesus?
CROW: You need to turn left at Albuquerque.
> One way is to be
>in an active role in the church, utilizing the gifts of the Spirit ,
>from ministering to the poor, to such simple things as making coffee,
MIKE: Mr. Coffee: doing our part to bring you closer to God.
> or
>anything in between. Repeated succes in any ministry can give a very
>satisfying feeling that we're "doing our part" to keep the church going.
>After so many victories for the Lord, and feeling only enthusiasm for
>the ministry, a Christian can so easily, one day, forget to pray and
>seek the Lord first, but have the attitude "let's get 'em!", and that
>very day can be the start of the oil in the lamp running out.
TOM: I think the oil in Scott Wolfe's lamp is running out.
MIKE: He's one Ace short of a Royal Flush.
CROW: Two steps too slow for a waltz.
TOM: Doesn't quite have enough pesos to buy the burro.
MIKE: Yep.
CROW: Sad, really.
> The ego
>can be a very dangerous thing, when "first things first" should be the
>top priority. When that fine line is crossed, seeking the Lord shifts
>to seeking the ministry, a form of idolitry.
MIKE: God's pretty touchy that way.
> Another way to be in Ephesus is to be a person with a type-A
>personality, who, at some point, gets bored with routines and rituals
>other than his own. For a long while,
TOM: Mike, I don't feel so good...
MIKE: C'mon, you can't let Scott Wolfe get you down again.
CROW: We're almost done, Tom! You can make it!
> they may be very much into such
>things as opening prayer, worship, prophesies and more, but eventually,
>they lose thier apeal, and all they want is to hear the sermon; they
>want to "get to the heart of the matter", that which "gets the
>headlines": preliminaries bore them.
CROW: Come on, I came here for kicks! Now let's get to the sermon, old man!
MIKE: Yeah! Ser-mon! Ser-mon!
ALL: <Chanting> Ser-mon! Ser-mon! Ser-mon!
TOM: Woooo!
> Those in fitness, for example, know all too well how important
>streatching and warming up is before the actual activity starts, dull as
>it is at times. If those preliminaries are skipped, injuries can
>result.
TOM: Yes, if you don't worship the Lord adequately, you Achilles' tendon will
snap like a dried out rubber band!
MIKE: That's the spirit!
> Relationships are very telling. A hypothetical example is a husband
>who comes home from work every night at the same time, and wouldn't
>think of looking at another woman, but eventually gets bored with his
>wife's greeting him with a kiss.
CROW: He starts to want it rough.
> Very gradually, he stops cherishing
>his wife, and she becomes just a convienience.
TOM: Sex and dinner, while-u-wait.
> The romance is gone, the
>the spontaneity with it!
MIKE: The The?
TOM: <Sings> I saw the light....
> "Remember where you have fallen" is more of an encouragement than a
>command. When the spontaneity vanishes from any relationship, the
>exitement goes with it.
CROW: So, what's the point? Should we greet Jesus at the door wearing nothing
but saran wrap?
> What good is waiting on the Spirit if you only
>want your intellect to be fed? An Ephesian falls from a lofty place of
>waiting on the Spirit for specific messages for the particular
>ministry, to a considerably lower place of operaing in the ministry by
>the methods that worked so well in the past, when they did seek the Lord
>first.
MIKE: Yeah, whatever.
> An Ephesian Christian is more intellectual than emotional or
spiritual,
>so there are more male than female members in the ranks. Intellect and
>spirit must, of course, be kept separate, but one must never be
>sacrificed for the other.
> Perhaps the easiest way to fall into Ephesus is to push aside our
>adopted heritage: we're all completed Jews!
CROW: I have a bad feeling about this...
> There's a goldmine of
>benefits to be gleaned from reading the books of Moses and learning
>about Jewish law and thier custums. All of that can teach us, for
>example, how Jewish law originated and progressed, and was eventually
>replaced by grace.
TOM: ...Under Fire, the wacky new ABC sitcom.
> Ephesians tend to have the attitude that, since
>we're saved by grace, the law and anything related to it are obsolete.
>How tragic! Remember earlier, when we talked about how traditions and
>rituals can bore Ephesians?
MIKE: Actually, you talked and we listened.
TOM: Actually, you ranted incoherently and we made snide remarks.
> Judaism is steeped in them, and none of
>thier traditions change. That's by design, to remind themselves where
>thier faith has come from, and where its been since ("Where you've
>fallen"!) Christianity, complemented by Judaism, is the complete
>package:
CROW: Included with every new Aptiva computer.
> keep the old traditions and custums, while remembering the law
>and being saved by grace. Even the Sabbath is just Sunday, when, after
>church, fun activities are planned.
MIKE: <Dorky> Hey, gang! We're gonna go and try to indoctrinate people on the
internet with our beliefs! Wanna come?
> We must experience the fullest
>benefits of our salvation!
> Now, being an Ephesian Christian isn't a really big deal: there are
>many more plusses than minuses. Ephesians stick to the straight and
>narrow path and aren't about to turn left or right.
TOM: They conform well, and aren't likely to hold opinions of any sort.
> They're great
>discerners and aren't likely to be found at a center of sin, as it were.
MIKE: <Spinster Aunt> Ephesian Christians stay the hell out of San Francisco.
>However, if they keep on the way they've kept on, the flame on thier
>lamp will be too dim to see the compass. When the original Ephesians
>met the Holy Spirit, they also met spontaneity, and learned how to wait
>on Him.
TOM: <Snotty French Waiter> Would monsieur God care to see the dessert menu?
> Therefore, this church needed to be used as an illustration as
>to how not to leave our first love. Take heed!
CROW: Bite me!
>
>#1
>
>
>
>ATTENTION!!! Check out my web page at http://www.fia.net/elite/ Join
>the Elite Traveller and pay only $30 if you mention this newsgroup!
TOM: Oh, I think we'll be keeping our money to ourselves, thank you.
>
>Agape, Scott
>
MIKE: Well, we're pretty agape too, Scott.
<Whirr, shoomp, click, etc.>
CROW: So, guys! I think I've found a way to run our computer without using me.
TOM: Yeah, how's that?
CROW: Take a look!
<Crow motions to the left. Cambot pans left to reveal Timmy the Dark Spectre
hooked up the the computer equipment as Crow was before.>
MIKE: Daah! The hell is *that*!?
TOM: Crow, Joel told you not to *ever* let a dark spectre on the Satellite
ever again, remember?
<Timmy slowly turns his head to glare at Tom>
<Tom screams and hides behind Mike.>
MIKE: Crow, I don't think this is going to work out. Your little unholy
doppelganger here is going to have to leave. He's scaring Tom.
CROW: But I don't wanna run your dumb old computer!
TOM: Crow, if Timmy's a evil spectral manifestation he probably isn't running
Unix anyway. <Pause> At least, not the same version you do.
CROW: <Dejected> I guess.
MIKE: Well, I guess we'll be busy for awhile exorcising the Satellite. What
do you think, sir?
<Deep 13>
CLAYTON: Unix? You people just don't appreciate the subtlety and elegance of...
MS-DOS.
PEARL: Me, I stick with Windows 3.1.
<The SOL. Mike and Tom are chasing Timmy around the Satellite with a crucifix
and a bottle with a big label marked "holy water.">
CROW: Oh, Pearl, you really ought to try Windows '95.
<Deep 13>
CLAYTON: Oh, please. Windows '95 is just the Macintosh operating system flipped
upside down and turned sideways.
PEARL: To each his own.
CLAYTON: Yes, whatever. <Pushes the button>
\ | /
\ | /
-- o -- Fwoooshh!
/ | \
/ | \
<Credits>
MST3K, and all characters, situations, names, and related whatnot are the
property of Best Brains, Inc. No challenge to any trademark, copyright, or
anything is intended in any way. No personal attack on Scott Wolfe is
intended nor should be inferred.
>They exchanged those blasphemous books for THE Book! Imagine that a
>similar thing would happen today to a hotbed of hedonism like MTV!
-- Brian N. Pacula +++ http://users.aol.com/gb8b/ +++