Acts 20

Acts 20:1-38

The Acts of the Apostles Chapter 20:1-38 Acts 20:1-38 The keynote to this chapter is found in the previous one, “Now after these things were ended, Paul purposed in the spirit, when he had passed through Macedonia and Achaia, to go to Jerusalem, saying, After I have been there, I must also see Rome” (Acts 19-21). Before the last journey toward Rome was commenced, the apostle evidently felt that his work in that district was accomplished. In this chapter we have a very condensed account of the final apostolic visits through this particular region. It has been said most accurately and helpfully that:

“A divine history is no mere account of things in detail; it is much more than this; it is a specially arranged extract from the whole, to prevent our losing ourselves in the many details, and to guide us to a proper estimate of the whole; it is at once a history, and a comment which the history itself furnishes.”

We have here then, a page of selections, made from the whole of the final things in the ministry of Paul in Macedonia and Achaia; and the history becomes a comment. This chapter briefly records an itinerary, and deals principally with two events in that itinerary. It gives the story of that last, strange, contradictory, and changing journey of Paul ere he left this region; and it describes two events: first the meeting of the disciples at Troas on the first day of the week, for the breaking of bread, and to listen to apostolic testimony; and secondly, that very remarkable gathering of the elders of the Ephesian Church at Miletus, when Paul delivered to them his final charge. The facts of the itinerary may be briefly dismissed. We shall then attempt to consider the comment which it makes.

After the uproar at Ephesus, the apostle took leave of the disciples, exhorted them, and departed to go into Macedonia. He moved back from Ephesus, through Macedonia, by sea to Philippi, on to Corinth and Bercea; and the only record here is a brief statement, that he gave the disciples much exhortation. Between this second visit to Macedonia and the previous one, he had written the two Thessalonian letters. The word made use of. here is suggestive and helpful, “exhortation.” It comes from the root of Paraclete. The two thoughts suggested are those of advocacy and comfort. In the cities where Paul had been much persecuted, and where much blessing had also resulted, he defended the cause of his Master, and comforted these people who, in all probability, were now suffering persecution, as he had done.

Luke then records the fact that he went into Greece, and stayed there three months. These three months were spent on the old battle ground, amid the old difficulties; but his work was principally that of building up those who had found the faith.

Again the principle of hindrance, so often manifest in the history of Paul, is seen at work. As he was about to set sail for Syria, he discovered a plot; so he went back again through Macedonia. A company of disciples, gathered from Bercea, Thessalonica, and Derbe, hastened before him, in order to accompany him into Syria, and they waited for him at Troas. He sailed from Philippi, and was five days going to Troas, Luke accompanying him. One can imagine the communion of those days. In Troas he lingered for seven days, and there took place that first day meeting for the breaking of bread, and apostolic instruction.

Then again moving away from Troas, the band of disciples went by sea to Assos, and Paul went alone on foot, twenty miles, by land. This man, with all the labours of the past on his heart, with all the turmoil and strife of the present, with all the expectation and longing of the future, walked those twenty miles in quiet meditation. At Assos he joined the little band, and they sailed again past Mitylene, Chios, and Samos, until they came to Miletus; and there he sent thirty miles for the elders of the Church at Ephesus, to come down to meet him.

What then is the comment of that page? I notice two things: the apostle’s rest; and the apostle’s restlessness. What were the secrets of the restfulness of this man? He was a man, mastered by Christ, having no motive other than that of such mastery, having cut himself completely adrift from every other tie that binds the human heart. We follow him on the sea to Philippi, and back again to Thessalonica, Bercea, down into Greece, sojourn there in imagination with him for three months; again cross Macedonia, again sail across the sea with Luke to Troas, walking those twenty miles, and the whole story may be written thus, “To me, to live is Christ.”

“Christ! I am Christ’s! and let the name suffice you, Aye, for me too He greatly hath sufficed:

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Christ is the end, for Christ was the beginning, Christ the beginning, for the end is Christ.” Consequently the man mastered by Christ,, was master of his own circumstances. All the way he pressed every circumstance, whether of adversity or prosperity, into the service which was the result of the passion of his heart. On the sea, and on the land, in the assemblies and by himself, in the midst of hostility in Greece, in the midst of loving fellowship in Troas, I hear him saying, “I know how to be abased, and I know also how to abound.” Being himself confirmed in his faith, he confirmed the faith of other people. He was a man characterized by; abounding restfulness of spirit.

And yet there was manifest a constant restlessness. Devoted to the enterprises of his Master, he was never able to tarry long. He was sensitive to the immediate need wherever he went. Every movement in the local atmosphere touched him, and he was ever eager to minister to it. Journeying over that country where he had been before, the lure of the distant places was ever in his heart. He was making steady progress, doing the immediate work thoroughly, and yet all the while the clarion cry rang in his soul, “I must also see Rome.” “Regions beyond,” was his perpetual watchword; the uttermost part of the earth, marked the limit of his endeavour.

Restful in Christ; he was yet restless in his devotion to the service of Christ. To have life’s fitful fever dismissed by the healing touch of the Master’s hand, is at the same moment to feel the thrill and the throb of His compassion driving us forevermore to new endeavour.

We now turn to consider the two events. The gathering in Troas is very suggestive. Observe its composition:-Paul, with a little company of friends, names that mean so little to us, “Sopater of Bercea, the son of Pyrrhus; and of the Thessalonians, Aristarchus and Secundus; and Gaius of Derbe, and Timothy,” the fruitful reward of the stones in Lystra; “and of Asia, Tychicus and Trophimus.” Luke was there also; and all these were assembled with the little band of disciples in Troas. The occupation of the gathering was that of the breaking of bread. They sat around the board, with the memorials of His death, the bread and the fruit of the vine. Over that board the apostolic teaching was given.

The minutes sped on, and the hours swiftly passed, until morning broke. It is wonderful how people forget time when they are really gathered about the living presence of the Lord.

Then there is the incident of Eutychus, which was a perfectly natural happening. A sleepy lad fell from the window and was killed. Then followed something which we describe as supernatural, another manifestation of power which was a perfectly natural action by the Lord of life. Like all the Lord’s raisings from the dead, It was not done for the sake of the lad, but for the sake of his friends: “They were not a little comforted.”

Look now at the gathering at Miletus. Notice its nature. It was specially convened by Paul. It was composed, not of all the members of the Church in Ephesus, but of those in oversight; and it was gathered in the interests of the Ephesian Church. This man who had been an apostle to the Gentiles, through whose ministry the Gentile churches had been formed, gathered about him the elders of one Church, in many senses a typical Church of the New Testament, and delivered his final charge to them. Paul was keenly sensitive to the perils that threatened the Church, to the resources which were at its disposal, and to the true method of its administration.

In his address he was personal, affectionate, direct. The charge needs no exposition. Its chief value for us is found in its revelation of matters concerning the Church itself.

Paul revealed the central fact concerning the Church of God; it is “The Church of God which He purchased with His own blood” (Acts 20:28). He also revealed the all-sufficient provision for that Church: “I commend you to God, and to the word of His grace 1 ’ (Acts 20:32). He further stated the true method of the administration of the Church: “The Holy Spirit hath made you bishops, to feed the Church of God.” “Take heed unto yourselves, and to all the flock” (Acts 20:28). He also revealed the perils of the Church; from without, “I know that after my departing grievous wolves shall enter in among you, not sparing the flock” (Acts 20:29); and from within, “From among your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things” (Acts 20:30).

That central declaration concerning the Church of God is a most remarkable one: “The Church of God, which He purchased with His own blood.” The Church is the ecclesia, the called-out company of people. In what does the difference or separation of its members consist? They are purchased. We must not read into the word “purchased” the quantities of a commercial transaction. Wherever a reference is made in the Bible to the purchase of a soul, or the purchase of a Church, we must turn to other figures of speech, for the correction of that figure of speech in our language, or we shall misunderstand the thought suggested. It does not mean the ransomed people are purchased by God from any one.

In the apostolic writings the word only occurs half a dozen times, and it literally means, to make around oneself. That is to us an awkward phrase, a peculiarly Greek method of expression. We may approach its significance by other words or phrases, as for instance He acquired, or He made His own. It is, however, a word which is always used of a single act, and never of a continual practice. The reference then is to some act by which God acquired the Church for Himself.

But now we come to the word of mystery. “The Church of God, which He purchased with His own blood” or, a little more literally, “with blood that was His own.” I admit at once the difficulty of the passage. Scholarly expositors have suggested that here, at some time, a word has been omitted from the text; and that what the apostle really wrote was, “The Church of God, which He purchased with the blood of His own Son.” That, however, is pure speculation. If we leave it as it is, it means “purchased with God’s own blood.” Some of the fathers did not hesitate to speak of the blood of God, in this connection. To think of this materially is to be faced with difficulty; but if we remember that which is supreme to our understanding of the mystery of redemption, that God was in Christ, and that there can be no attempt to divide or separate between those two facts in the one Being, then we may understand how at this point the apostle made use of the most daring word in all his writing; the Church, redeemed by His own blood, that is the blood of Christ, and in that sense, the very blood of God.

Yet is there not an intended contrast to an idea found in the Hebrew letter? The writer of that letter, speaking of the imperfect priesthood of the past, declared that the high priest entered into the holy place “with blood not his own,” a most remarkable expression. Here, on the contrary, is a people, redeemed by a Priest, Who has acquired them with blood which is His own. The suggestiveness of that merging of Deity and humanity in the Person of Christ is very important. We cannot consider the death of Christ as the death of an ordinary man, because the Person is so entirely different, that His very blood is spoken of here as being that of God Himself. In the history of the race God came into such relationship with humanity that it was possible for Him to bear, in the Person of His Son, all the issue of the sin and failure of a race; and so to ransom, to purchase, to acquire a people for Himself.

The Christian Church is not a company of people admiring the ideal of Jesus, or accepting the beauty of His ethical teaching; and attempting to obey it. The Christian Church is the society of those who are purchased by God, acquired by His own blood. The mystery and the marvel and the might of God being in Christ, whereby He did reconcile us unto Himself, is the foundation truth concerning the Christian Church.

The all-sufficient provision for the life of the Church is expressed in the words: “I commend you to God, and to the word of His grace.” There is no word in the New Testament that more baffles the expositor than this word “grace.” Gather up the occasions in which it is found in the New Testament, and read them in their context; and then sit down in the presence of them, and wonder, and worship! The grace of God is not the love of God only, it is not the favour of God alone; it is the love of God operating through passion, in order to the perfecting of those upon whom that love is set. “I commend you to God, and to the word of His grace.” You are His own, purchased with His own blood. There are grave and grievous perils threatening you, wolves from without, men of your own selves from within, but these are your resources: God, and the word of His grace! These are always the resources of the Christian Church.

Then we have a gleam, as to the true administration of the Church: “The Holy Spirit hath made you bishops.” That is a fundamental word. The Holy Spirit selects some who are to occupy the position of the bishop. The Holy Spirit does not treat the whole assembly as though they had equal rights and gifts and privileges. “The Holy Spirit . . . made you bishops.” What is a bishop? Here I think we have lost a little by the employment of the word “bishop.” For the purpose of the English reader, the word “overseer” is preferable. The overseer is the man who watches, oversees. The seeing of the overseer is seeing from a distance; that is seeing of the whole of things, rather than a part. The function of the bishop is also that of feeding the flock of God.

John Milton expressed the perils threatening the bishop, when he described their failure in that terrible juxtaposition of two words that seem to contradict each other:

“. . . blind mouths.” That is the tragedy that is possible to every minister of the Word; instead of seeing, he may be blind; instead of feeding, he may become merely a mouth desiring to be fed. The perils threatening the Church, according to this passage, are first “grievous wolves,” that is the peril from without; and men “speaking perverse things,” men “from among your own selves,” “to draw away the disciples,” that is the peril within. Let these two perils be pondered well, and let us remember that the corrective to all such peril is to be found in the exercise of the high office of the overseer, the bishop, whose business it is to watch and to feed.

Paul commended his example to the elders at Ephesus. He had been loyal to his Lord, and courageous in the delivery of the message, “I shrank not from declaring unto you the whole counsel of God.” There had been sacrifice in his service, “Ye yourselves know that these hands ministered unto my necessities.” There had ever been a great compassion in his heart, “I besought you and ceased not to admonish every one night and day with tears.”

Here the apostolic service in freedom ends. Immediately following the completion of this journey, we reach Jerusalem, where Paul was arrested, and finally taken as prisoner to Rome.