Is it plausible that John and the author of Revelation (presumably John) is praising Ephesus for their rejection of Paul as a false apostle in Rev. 2:2 with regard to Acts 19:8-9 and 23, 2 Tim. 1:15, and Eph. 1:1, and again in 1 John 2:18 as described in Acts 21:18-26 from a purely historicist perspective and not pre-/a-/post-millenial?

OK, now I want to answer your second question.  I have to admit that I am curious where you heard these charges against Paul.  I am kind of assuming that you did not discover this criticism yourself.  Up to you if you want to share where you found this.  Anyway, here is my answer:

There are several reasons I have to reject the speculation that in Revelation 2:1-7 John is rebuking the theology and teaching of Paul.  First of all, if this were true, then that would mean that Paul is a false teacher and therefore that nothing he wrote is inspired by God.  If this is true, then what is the basis for believing that ANY of the New Testament is inspired.  Yet, there is a vast, wide and deep range of evidence that the Bible is inspired by God.  I will not prove this at this point.  I have hundreds of articles at the web site that proves beyond a reasonable doubt that the Bible is inspired, such as fulfilled prophecy, historical and scientific accuracy of the Bible, evidence for Jesus as a miracle worker and for the resurrection.

Second, from church history, there is simply no evidence that the apostle John repudiated Paul.  By the 80s John was an elder in Ephesus. We know more about the life of John than the other apostles, because Poycarp and Ignatius knew John or people who knew John. None of the very early church fathers suggested that John ever pubicly questioned the teaching, the life or the theology of Paul.  If your claim were correct, then it is reasonable to think that there would be some evidence from extra-biblical writers.  I would not call this proof that your proposal is wrong, but it undermines the thesis that John repudiated Paul in Revelation 2.

Most important to the question is whether the context of Revelation 2:2f supports the conclusion that it was written as a tacit rejection of what Paul taught.  In Revelation 2:2 John praises the Ephesians for examining and presumably rejecting the claims of false apostles. We know that there were some who made false claims to be apostles.  What is the evidence here that John has Paul in mind?  I claim that there is literally zero evidence that John is referring to Paul.  First of all, John mentions false apostles in the plural.  If he is rebuking Paul, he would say that they have rejected a false apostle.  Given that the early church collected the New Testament books and that they obviously considered both Revelation and the letters of Paul as inspired, then we know for a fact that those who assembled the canon of the New Testament disagreed with your contention.  There is NO evidence for your proposal and there is plenty of reason to reject it.  I say that we should do the obvious and reject this proposal.  You mention Acts 19:8-9.  I do not see how this is relevant to your question. In this passage we learn that some in Ephesus rejected Paul’s teaching.  Of course that is true!!! Most Ephesians did not become disciples of Jesus. How is this even remotely like evidence that John or the Ephesian church rejected Paul?  The same thing for Acts 19:23.  In this passage it is non-Christians who are rejecting Paul.  It certainly is not the church in Ephesus!  In 2 Timothy 1:15 Paul tells us that “everyone in the province of Asia has deserted me.”  I will admit that, on the surface (unlike the Acts passages) one could at least make some sort of argument from this that prehaps significant parts of the church in Ephesus rejected Paul.  However, I believe a more likely interpretation is that here Paul is not talking about the entire church in Asia rejected him.  There is no evidence to support this contention (see above).  It is far more likely that Paul is talking about the companions from Asia who had been following him in his travels.  By this time, he was in prison in Rome, and most of his traveling companions were no longer with him. Paul is virtually alone in prison.  He is talking, not about entire churches abandoning the faith or abandoning Paul, but he is talking about his traveling companions.  Proof that, literally not all Asia has abandoned Paul is the fact that he is writing to Timothy who is an evangelist in Ephesus at the time. Obviously Timothy has not abandoned Paul and obviously the church there has not as well as Timothy, his principle protoge is leading the church.  No, the idea that 2 Timothy 1:15 is evidence that the church in Ephesus abandoned Paul is completely repudiated by this evidence.

As for Paul, John on pre-, post- or a-millenialism, these are not a major focus of any of the New Testament writers.   What I can say is that both John and Paul appear to have believed that the second coming of Christ was near.  Neither of them actually say this, but both seem to think of the second coming as being fairly near.  The passage you chose, 1 John 2:18 is evidence that John saw the second coming as being fairly close at hand.  However, if we look at this passage, John is talking about the coming of antichrists, which he defines in 1 John 2:22 John tells us that the antichrist is the one who denies Jesus as the Christ or as the Son.  Paul certainly did not reject Jesus as the Son of God or as the Christ!!!!  I see absolutely no evidence here for either John or the Ephesians rejecting Paul.  This is all speculation which has a serious problem: it lacks any evidence to support the conclusion.  As for Acts 21:18-26, I see no reason at all to believe that either the Ephesians or John rejected Paul.  I do not need to respond to this.

In summary, no, it is not plausible that in Revelation 2:1-7 John (and therefore Jesus) is praising the Ephesians for rejecting Paul. This conclusion has literally no evidence to support it, but much reason to reject it.

John Oakes