Acts 20:25

Act_20:25-27

And now … ye … shall see my face no more.

Wherefore I take you to record this day that I am pure from the blood of all men.

Ministerial responsibility

I. As deeply felt. Paul always felt it, but never more so than now, in addressing his audience for the last time. Every Sunday there are ministers who preach their last sermons, but they do not know it. If they knew it, how overwhelmed they would be with the sense of their responsibility. They would feel--It is the last time, therefore--

1. We must correct any wrong impressions that we may have made.

2. We must bring forward every vital truth that may have been too much overlooked.

3. We must use every argument in our power to effect the conversion of souls. It must be now or never. Ought we not ever to preach as dying men to dying men?

II. As terribly solemn (verse26). Two facts will throw light on this wonderful utterance.

1. That preaching may involve the contraction of enormous guilt, either on the part of the preacher, the hearer, or both. The preacher who makes an unfaithful representation of the gospel contracts guilt in every discourse; and the hearer who rejects the overtures of mercy increases his condemnation. Son of man, I have made thee a watchman unto the house of Israel, etc.

2. That the preacher who rightly discharges his mission dears himself of any participation in the guilt that may have been contracted. I am pure (clear), says Paul, from the blood of all. Why (Act_20:27)? He kept nothing back that was profitable. In ministering the truth he did not study what was popular, but what was essential to their salvation. If there was blood, therefore, anywhere, it was not on him. He was clean.

III. As consciously discharged. The apostle had the sublime consciousness that he had faithfully discharged his duty amongst them. He looks them in the eye, and he appeals to them. Wherefore I take you to record--I summon you as witnesses this day--an expression very strong in the original, meaning this very day. (D. Thomas, D. D.)

For I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God.--

Declaring all the counsel of God

I. What are we to understand here by the counsel of God and when may it be said that a minister of Christ declares all that counsel.

1. Matters of doctrine, which must be known, believed, and laid to heart. These are the foundation and source of all religion and morality, and are, therefore, first necessary to be declared. They comprehend the truths which concern the existence, perfections, creation, providence, and government of God; what man was and what he has become through sin; the person and offices of the Redeemer; the nature of the Holy Spirit and His saving operations; the future judgment, the resurrection, the blessedness of heaven.

2. Matters of grace and privilege. There are divers things which it is not sufficient to know in theory, but we must know them in experience: our sinfulness, repentance, faith and its fruits; adoption (Gal_4:4), regeneration; a lively hope of eternal life (1Pe_1:3); direction and help in all trials (Rom_8:14; Pro_3:16; Isa_41:10); all the graces of Gods Spirit (Gal_5:22-23); communion with the Father and the Son by the Holy Spirit (2Co_6:16; Joh_14:22; 1Jn_1:3; Rev_3:20); and hereby an earnest of heaven.

3. Matters of duty and practice to be performed and done. This branch of the counsel of God includes the whole of piety and virtue, our duty to God, our neighbour, and ourselves. The decisions of the great day will turn on these evidences being produced or not (Rom_2:6-16). How sadly defective is their preaching who insist on doctrinal, or experimental, while they neglect practical religion!

II. How does it appear that it is of importance to declare this counsel at all. The counsel of God--

1. Is the chief subject of all the revelations made to the ancient patriarchs and prophets, and communicated by them to mankind (1Pe_1:10-12).

2. The sole subject of the ministry of the apostles and evangelists (1Pe_1:12). And to testify these things they were to sacrifice all things (Act_20:22-24).

3. Engrosses the thoughts and engages the ministry of angels (1Pe_1:12; Heb_1:14).

4. Was the object for which the Son of God became incarnate (Php_2:6-9), lived, suffered, died, rose, ascended.

4. God hath borne witness to the importance of these things (Heb_2:4), from the beginning under every dispensation: in Egypt, Canaan, Babylon, from Sinai, and Sion.

5. For the sake of these things, the Church, nay, the world, was built, and is supported. And whatever individual, or family, or town, or country, rejects, or even neglects these things, shall be destroyed, here or hereafter (Act_3:23; Heb_12:25; Heb_2:1-3; Heb_10:26-31; Isa_55:12).

III. What is the duty of those to whom this counsel of God is declared.

1. They must take heed unto themselves that they neither reject nor neglect what is thus delivered to them, but--that they consider, understand, and believe these matters of doctrine--that they experience and enjoy these matters of grace and privilege--that they comply with, and perform, these matters of duty and practice.

2. They must be awake to a sense of the danger, lest their minds should be diverted from this counsel of God, by the temptations of the devil, the allurements of the world, the lusts of the flesh, the deceitfulness of sin, or by the wolves that shall enter in among them (Act_20:29), or the men that shall arise speaking perverse things (Act_20:30), and against this they must watch.

3. They must always remember (Act_20:31) the vast importance of these things, as manifested by what patriarchs, prophets, apostles, evangelists, pastors, teachers, saints, and martyrs, and especially what Jesus Christ Himself has done and suffered on account of them; all of whom made these things the great business of their lives.

4. They must be sensible of their own weakness, and must apply to God, by whose guidance, protection, and blessing, they can alone be preserved, and to the word of His grace, in the diligent and faithful use of which Divine grace is increased, and built up in true religion, and finally receive an inheritance among them that are sanctified (Act_20:32). (J. Benson.)

The whole counsel of God

Here is one of those passages in the New Testament which make a forcible appeal to the conscience of every man who has undertaken or is undertaking to serve God in Holy Orders. The words are such as escape men at the turning points of life, at entering upon or taking leave of great responsibilities--compressed, fervid utterances of the deepest thought and of the strongest currents of feeling--of thought and feeling which for the moment will not, be pent up and restrained within the barriers of ordinary habit, or of studied reserve. St. Paul says that he had declared the whole mind--that is, the whole revealed mind--of God. Observe, of God. His language excludes that conception of religious truth which makes it merely the product of the truest, purest, deepest thoughts of the highest and largest minds among the sons of men. The whole counsel of God! It was Gods Word, not mans; it was neither the result of a thoughtful speculation, nor yet an approximate guess, nor yet a cunningly devised fable. Being Gods Word, it was as a whole worthy of the best thought and love that His creature could give it. When St. Paul asserts that he has not shunned to declare it, the word must remind us that there are many motives and hindrances calculated to keep a man back from doing that which must be done, if he fears his God, if he cares for his own soul, if he has any true love for the souls of those to whom of his own free will he undertakes to minister.

1. Now one cause of failure in this primary duty would seem to lie in a lack of religious knowledge. It is much more easy to be deficient in essential knowledge of religious truth than we are apt to assume. May we not lapse into a habit of thinking and speaking of the doctrines of the gospel as if they were like soldiers in a regiment, so many units, each adding something no doubt to the collective bulk and area of doctrine, while yet in no way essential to its organic completeness, and therefore each capable of being withdrawn, without inflicting any more serious injury upon the entire truth than that of diminished size? Do we not hear persons talk of the articles of the Creed in this way, as if each article was a perfectly separate and new truth, as if each was, I might almost say, a new and gratuitous infliction upon the reluctant intellect of man, as if each was round and perfect in itself, and had no relations whatever to any truth beyond it? They fail to perceive the connection, the interdependence, the organic unity of all truth that rests on the authority of God. Their view is too superficial to enable them to do justice to that marvellous adjustment of truth to truth, of faculty to object, of result to cause, which is a direct and obvious perception to souls who gaze prayerfully and steadily at the complete revelation of Christ. The faith is, if I may say so with reverence, so marvellously compacted, so instinct with a pervading life, as to resemble a natural organism, I had almost said a living creature. No one truth can be misrepresented, strained, dislocated, much less withdrawn, without a certain, and frequently an ascertainable injury resulting to other truths which are supposed to be still unquestioned and intact. For there are nerves and arteries which link the very extremities of revealed doctrine to its brain and heart; and the wound which a strain or an amputation may inflict, must in its effects extend far beyond the particular doctrine which is the immediate seat and scene of the injury.

2. A second hindrance is lack of courage. To represent God as He is--as just no less than merciful, as punishing sin no less certainly than rewarding faith and holiness--this, to be done well and honestly, requires courage. Of old they understood this well, who went forth uplifting the Cross, while yet baring their breasts to death. They knew that the patient to whom they were carrying the medicine that would cure him would often refuse the draught, and would punish the physician who dared to offer it. But they loved man, and they loved and feared their God too sincerely and too well, to infuse new ingredients, or to withdraw any of the bitter but needful elements of cure. They accepted civil and social prescription; they endured moral and physical agony; they embraced, one after another, with cheerful hearts, the very warrants and instruments of their death, because they had counted the cost, and had measured too well the greatness of their task, and the glories of their anticipated eternity, to shrink sensitively back at the first symptoms of opposition, or of difficulty. St. Paul might have foreseen the conduct of Demetrius, and the tumult in the amphitheatre; but this was no serious reason for considering the worship of Diana as a sort of modified or imperfect revelation, or as anything short of a hateful lie. He did not shrink from declaring the whole counsel of God.

3. The want of spirituality of heart and soul is a third cause of defective representation of doctrine. To speak for God to the souls of men, a man must himself, in his inmost soul, have consciously stood face to face with that truth of which he speaks. He must speak of God as one who has known at once His dread awfulness and His tender love; of sin, as that which he feels to be the one master evil, and with which as such he has struggled in good truth within his secret self; of Christ, His Person, His propitiatory and atoning death, His life-giving sacraments, as of the Person and acts of a dear Friend, loved with the hearts warmest and best affection, which yet adored with the deepest homage and by the chiefest powers of his prostrate spirit; of eternity as of that for which he is himself making daily solemn preparation; of prayer and the care of conscience and the culture of purity and truth within, as of things of which he knows something by trial and exercise, perhaps even something more by failure. Himself a redeemed sinner speaking to sinners who need or who have found their Redeemer, he will speak in earnest.

4. Once more; here, as in the whole field of ministerial labour, let a man work and pray for the grace of an unselfish spirit. How often are not we, the representatives of Christ, constrained to rebuke ourselves, humble ourselves, condemn ourselves, by the words which we speak from the chair of truth! Or take another illustration of the need of an unselfish spirit. It is possible, nay, probable, that we may have what are called favourite doctrines, sections or sides of truth through which God has in a special sense spoken to us, moved us, sanctified us (as we trust), saved us. Of these, no doubt, we can speak with more power, because with more intimate perception of their bearing on the secret springs of life and death. But we also speak of such points with less of moral and intellectual effort than of others; and this greater facility is likely to be the real cause of our giving them an undue prominence in our cycle of teaching, while we endeavour to whisper to our consciences, and to persuade our friends that these points are the essentials of the gospel, and that all the rest is comparatively unnecessary. Thus men teach the Atonement, and ignore the sacraments; or they teach the need of faith, and ignore the need of love and holiness; or they teach the beauty of our Lords character, and forget His propitiatory and sacrificial death; or conversely, they insist upon the outward duties of religion, and do scant justice to the spiritual and internal forces of the soul. We must teach all that God has revealed, because He has revealed it, leaving it to Him to touch one soul by this, and another soul by that portion of His revelation. Nothing, however, but a spirit of genuine self-sacrifice, nothing but a true love of the souls of men, can enable a man so to forego his own predilections, so to throw himself into the state of mind, and points of view, and peculiar difficulties, and narrower or broader horizons of his hearers, as to lose himself, and the little history of his own spirit, in the mighty work of proclaiming in its perfectness the truth of God. We know how the great apostle combined this perfect consideration for others, with an unflinching, chivalrous loyalty to the claims of truth (1Co_9:19-22). (Cannon Liddon.)

Paul at Miletus

I. All the counsel of God. A subject so vast and yet so simple! One which angels desire to look into. Yet the gospel can be uttered in a single breath, and one short sentence which a child might speak would express the Divine counsel.

II. Not shunned to declare. How declared?

1. By the unreserved, full, faithful exposition of it in the public preaching of Gods Word. No trimming--no suppression of any portion of it.

2. By seeking personal contact, and speaking to individual men and women from house to house.

3. By setting it forth with the pen. What multitudes Paul has reached in this way! So did Luther and Calvin.

4. By showing it forth in the life. I have good faith in this method; sometimes it is the sole one at our command.

III. Pure from the blood of all men. The apostle had in mind, perhaps, that thirty-third chapter of Ezekiel, and those words so terrible which seem almost to chill the very marrow as we read them, or hear them read: So thou, O son of man, I have set thee a watchman unto the house of Israel; therefore thou shall hear the word at My mouth, and warn them from Me … if thou dost not speak to warn the wicked from his way, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at thine hand. (F. Goodall, B. A.)

Declaring the counsel of God

We gather--

I. That the gospel contains matters uncongenial to the human mind. The whole counsel of God is--

1. Humiliating. It proclaims sin and the fall, natural depravity.

2. Self-abnegating. It teaches that man can do nothing of himself.

3. Fear-inspiring. It tells us that, although God is love, He is above all things just. All these things the sinful man hates. They reveal him in an unpleasant condition and an undesirable state, and hold him up in the eyes of himself and of the world as lost, ruined, and worthless.

II. That those who preach the gospel are not to refrain from proclaiming these disagreeable truths. Many would do so--

1. From fear of wounding their hearers susceptibilities. It is not pleasant to cause pain.

2. From fear of depicting the Almighty as harsh and unkind. But God is very well able to maintain His own character.

3. From cowardice. They are either afraid or else do not desire to make themselves enemies of others. But, notwithstanding, the duty lies plain. The preacher is not a man pleaser. He has stern solemn duties to perform. And if these duties are not performed faithfully, the eternal life or death of souls will rest upon him--a burden greater than he can bear. (Preachers Analyst.)

Declaring the counsel of God

I. The subject of His attention--the counsel of God. Counsel now signifies advice, but when the Bible was translated it more commonly signified scheme, purpose. His counsels of old are faithfulness and truth: My counsel shall stand, I will do all My pleasure: He worketh all things after the counsel of His own will. Here it is to be taken in the latter sense. To bring sin into the world was an easy thing, to take it away was a work to which only God was equal. We have imperfect views of sin, and also of the holiness of God; and therefore we are not sufficiently struck with the difficulties in the way of our salvation: but God knows them perfectly, and His scheme for removing them and restoring us to Himself is contained in the gospel. This is what the apostle means by the counsel of God: and this the apostle declared, not human science, though he was a man of genius, not politics; he left human governments where he found them; not the petty interests of mortality; he looked not at the things which were seen, etc.

II. The manner in which he Announced it. It is clearly implied--

1. That there is in this subject a fulness of affluence and richness. Though it be a whole, yet it has a thousand parts.

2. That this subject may be abridged, contracted, and partially concealed. And this may be the case where it is not expressly denied, where it is not entirely rejected, and where the parts admitted and noticed are not mangled.

3. That it requires firmness and moral heroism to withstand and resist the temptations to this curtailment and separation. Sometimes there are temptations arising--

(1) From the preachers themselves. They should be clean, for they are the vessels of the Lord. But supposing they are not, what then does their arguing prove? Their example will paralyse all their endeavours.

(2) From the hearers. They often inspire the preacher with fear of giving offence; and the fear of man bringeth a snare. The man may shun to declare all the counsel of God--

(a) On the side of doctrine, from fear of a charge of antinomianism. This charge has always been brought against the doctrine of justification by faith.

(b) On the side of experience, afraid of the charge of enthusiasm.

(c) On the side of practice, afraid of the charge of legality.

4. Two things are essential to declare all the counsel of God.

(1) A consciousness of inability to do justice to the whole of the counsel of God. After all we have done we must exclaim, O the depth of the riches, etc. And what a proof is this of the Divinity of the Bible itself! What other book could bear, from age to age, to have thousands of persons of ability and learning to be always discussing it, and yet always finding something fresh, and nothing entirely exhausted!

(2) Enlarging more on some topics than on others. Everything equally true is not equally important: there are essential truths, and there are circumstantial truths. The railing is ornamental and useful, and therefore not to be dispensed with: still this is not to be compared with the foundation and the keystone; these are essential to the edifice. The omission or the concealment of certain doctrines always leads to spiritual death. On the other hand, where the leading truths of the gospel are preached, God gives testimony to the word of His grace, sinners are saved, and believers built up in their most holy faith.

III. The apostles consciousness of this. As to cloth, said Lord Bacon, a small pattern may enable us to judge fairly and safely of the whole piece: but the Bible is like a fine arras or tapestry, which though a remnant may assure us of the colours and the richness of the stuff, yet the hangings never appear to their true advantage but when displayed in their full dimensions, and seen together. Let every minister remember this. Conclusion: Here is--

1. The rule to guide and justify ministers. Considering the mixture there is always in every congregation, it is probable that the preacher who declares all the counsel of God will give some offence. But must he on this account decline it? Is be to do anything by partiality? If I seek to please men, says the apostle, I should not be the servant of Christ. It is a poor sermon, says George Whitefield , that gives no offence--that neither makes the hearer displeased with himself nor with the preacher. It was a noble eulogium that Louis XIV passed on one of his preachers, Massillon: I dont know how it is: when I hear my other chaplains I admire them; but when I hear Massillon I always go away dissatisfied with myself.

2. The duty of hearers. For if we are not to shun to declare all the counsel of God, you are bound to hear and to welcome all. However mysterious to your reason, however mortifying to your pride, however it may reprove you, you are not to deem the minister your enemy because he tells you the truth. (W. Jay.)

The whole counsel of God

Let us consider--

I. The fidelity of a minister, as consisting in a full and complete declaration of the counsel of God.

1. Without any exceptions.

2. In their full and just proportion.

3. In their proper order and connection.

4. In their proper season. The season may vary, and the propriety and necessity of insisting upon some truths, may arise from--

(1) The state of religion among a people.

(2) The aspect of Providence towards them.

5. Honestly and boldly, without respect of persons.

II. The difficulties which may lie in a ministers way, and tempt him to shun any part of his work.

1. Sloth or worldliness, in ministers themselves.

2. The prejudices of their people.

3. The opposition of their enemies, which may tempt them--

(1) To conceal or pervert the truth to avoid contempt and derision.

(2) To sinful and cowardly silence for their own quiet.

(3) To sink out of their weak-mindedness under opposition.

(4) To give way to imprudence and passion. (J. Witherspoon.)

Faithful ministers

1. Trace the gospel to its original source and fountain head.

2. Preach the gospel in its full latitude and extent.

3. Preach the gospel in all its full and final effects.

4. Never lose sight of the gospel.

5. Dwell largely upon some particular doctrines which others silently pass over, or but rarely mention in their public instructions.

6. Are much more apt than others to irritate and displease men in their preaching.

7. Are weighty and powerful preachers.

8. Make the gospel appear as it really is, one great, comprehensive, and perfectly connected scheme, and so--

(1) Preach much more consistently.

(2) Distinguish themselves from false teachers, who corrupt the gospel, and destroy the souls of men.

(3) Convey the largest portion of knowledge to their hearers. (N. Emmons, D. D.)

Ministers must be faithful

When I go down to the village where I used to preach, and as I look upon the houses, I am apt to question myself--Was I as earnest with the people as I used to be? I can say I hope I never flinched from telling them all the truth, though sometimes it had to be very rudely and roughly spoken; but yet God knoweth I do sometimes smite myself to think I did not weep over them mere, and did not entreat them more to be won to Christ. And you, too, that sit in these pews so often, many of you are joyful converts to Christ, but numbers of you are still unsaved. What if any of you should be able to say at the last, We trusted our minister; we hung upon his lips; we were never absent; we loved the Sabbath day, but oh, he did not tell us of our sin; he did not plead with us to be saved; he left us to ourselves; he was cold when his heart should have been hot; he was a man without tears, and had a heart without sympathy for us! Oh! sirs, God grant ye may never be able to say that of me. God save you, for my soul longeth for you. He is my witness how earnestly I long for you all in the bowels of my Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ! Come unto Him! Come unto Him! Let not your blood cry out against me! Oh, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and trust Him; trust Him now, that you may be saved, and that at last I may be able to say, Here am I and the children whom Thou hast given me; Thou hast kept them through Thy power, and they are preserved even to the end; unto Thee be glory forever and ever! (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Ministerial faithfulness

The Rev. John Howe, having preached before Cromwell, so pleased the Protector that he was appointed his domestic chaplain. To some of Cromwells peculiar notions Mr. Howe could not assent, and in one instance had the boldness to preach against them in his presence, believing that they might lead to practical ill consequences. The friends of the preacher were alarmed, and predicted that he would find it difficult to regain the Protectors favour. I have, said Mr. Howe, discharged my conscience, and the event must be left to God. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Ministerial faithfulness

The Pope requests a Dominican bishop to repair to Florence and answer the abbots (Savonarolas) sermons. Holy Father, I will obey; but I must be supplied with arms. What arms? This monk, replied the bishop, says we ought not to keep concubines, commit simony, or be guilty of licentiousness. If in this he speaks truly, what shall I reply? What shalt we do? said the Pope. Reward him, give him a red hat, make a Cardinal and a friend of him at once. Savonarola kindly receives the papal messenger, and for three days listens to his arguments, but is unconvinced. The tempting bribe is then offered. Come to my sermon tomorrow morning, and you shall hear my answer. How great was the emissarys surprise at hearing more daring denunciations than ever from Savonarola, who exclaimed, No other red hat will I have than that of martyrdom, coloured with my own blood. (Newman Hall, D. D.)

The preacher must be honest

A farmer who is too tender-hearted to tear up and harrow the land will never see a harvest. Here is the failing of certain divines, they are afraid of hurting anyones feelings, and so they keep clear of all the truths which are likely to excite fear or grief. They have not a sharp ploughshare on their premises, and are never likely to have a stack in their rickyard. They angle without hooks for fear of hurting the fish, and fire without bullets out of respect to the feelings of the birds. This kind of love is real cruelty to mens souls. It is much the same as if a surgeon should permit a patient to die because he would not pain him with the lancet, or by the necessary removal of a limb. It is a terrible tenderness which leaves men to sink into hell rather than distress their minds. It is a diabolical love which denies the eternal danger which assuredly exists and argues the soul into presumption, because it thinks it a pity to excite terror, and so much more pleasant to prophesy smooth things. Is this the spirit of Christ? Did He conceal the sinners peril? Did He cast doubts upon the unquenchable fire and the undying worm? Did He lull souls into slumber by dulcet notes of flattery? Nay, but with honest love and anxious concern He warned men of the wrath to come, and bade them repent or perish.

The whole counsel of God

Christ did not commit to the care of His Church any one class of truths and duties, or any number of classes of doctrines and obligations, but all of them. Christians are, therefore, to teach all the doctrines, and inculcate all the duties found in the Scriptures. There is no sectarianism in inspiration. The Holy Spirit is the spirit of truth, and of the entire body of truth as it is in Jesus. Sectarianism divides the doctrine of the Spirit into its various hues, and sects and parties are formed by good men attaching themselves to one class of colours, whereas the true light is made up of all colours. We would never live in an atmosphere of rainbows; it might appear more beautiful than clear daylight, but it would not be so useful for the world. In a lens, no one class of rays gathered into a focus will burn an object; this is done only by a concentration of all the rays. It was by exhibiting the whole counsel of God that Paul produced in his converts the kindlings of repentance towards God, and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. If the Churches think it proper to put forth the vivid hues of beauty and splendour, in their respective creeds and theological systems, let them also exhibit them with all the blendings and softenings, the harmony and the symmetry of the bow in the cloud, the sign of peace and goodwill to the whole earth. (T. W. Jenkyn.)

All the gospel to be taken

Faith is a Divine faculty which grasps that which is revealed, on the authority of God, without criticising the substance of such revelation. To take one part of the revelation of God, and turn out another, is, in fact, to reject it all, because you are rejecting just what you dislike or misunderstand, and retaining just what you choose; and to accept Gods revelation rightly, is to bow, in disciplined obedience, on all points to Gods authority; in fact, to exercise faith, as a soldier. The whole counsel of God,--to accept it in its entirety, however difficult, mysterious, or opposed to our natural wishes--that is the exercise of the dominant faculty of faith. (Knox Little.)

Ministerial trifling

Carlyle in narrating an instance of the preservation of etiquette at the court of Louis XVI, while the mob were demanding entrance into his private apartments, and the empire was going to pieces, compares it to the house cricket still chirping amid the pealing of the trump of doom. When trivial subjects are descanted upon from the pulpit, while souls are perishing for lack of knowledge, the same comparison may be used; as for instance, when a congregation is collected, and the preacher talks about the drying up of the Euphrates, or ventilates his pet theory for reconciling Moses and geology. Why cannot these things be kept for other assemblies? What can the man be at? Nero fiddling over burning Rome is nothing to it! Even the women knitting in front of the guillotine were not more coolly cruel. We tolerate the cricket for his incongruous chirp; but go to, thou silly trifler at the sacred desk, we cannot frame excuse for thee, or have patience with thee. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Act 20:25-27. I know that ye all — Though you may have letters from me; shall see my face no more — He wisely observes this, that what follows might make the deeper impression. It is probable the apostle had received some particular revelation, that if he should ever return to these parts of Asia again, (as from Philem. Act 20:22 it seems likely he might,) yet that he should not have an opportunity of calling at Ephesus, or of seeing the elders whom he now addressed. Wherefore — Seeing my ministry is at an end with you, it concerns both you and me to reflect on our past conduct respecting it; and I take you to record — Greek, μαρτυρομαι υμιν, I testify to you, and affirm, and I dare appeal to yourselves concerning it; that I am pure from the blood of all men — From the guilt of destroying men’s souls; if any of you, or of me people under your care, perish, it will not be through my default, having faithfully showed you and them the way of life, and earnestly persuaded you all to walk in it. See notes on Eze 3:19-21. For I have not shunned — Declined, or omitted; to declare unto you all the counsel of God — Respecting your salvation; God’s purpose finally to save all that believe in Christ with their hearts unto righteousness; or, the whole doctrine of Christianity, relating to our redemption and salvation by Christ, and the way to eternal happiness through him; and this I have done in the most plain and faithful manner, whatever censure, contempt, or opposition I might incur by so doing.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Act 20:25. Οὐκέτι ὄψεσθε, shall see no more) Paul wisely inserts this now in this place. For so the other things which he has to say the more impressively affect the minds of his hearers.—ὑμεῖς, ye) The explanation of this word follows, viz. all, etc. The apostle returned from Rome to Asia several years after: but in the interim almost all these persons died or removed elsewhere. At all events the sense is this: I know that such things are about to befall me as, without a peculiar Divine guidance, and that a miraculous one, must cut off from you the power (opportunity) of seeing me. A Metalepsis (as in ch. Act 21:4). [A double trope. Ex. gr. here, there is a double METONYMY of the Consequent for the Antecedent: 1) Such things are about to befall me, as that I am hardly, and not even hardly (scarcely is there in the case the possibility expressed by “hardly”), likely to return: 2) If even I were ever so sure of returning, yet you yourselves, after so long an interval of time, will almost all be either dead or removed elsewhere. Instead of these two Antecedents the Consequent is put: Ye shall not see my face.—Append.]

Bengel's Gnomon of the New Testament — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1860) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

points back to Act_20:22, now representing the separation there announced, for which Act_20:23-24 have prepared them, as one of perpetuity for the life in time

Act_20:25 points back to Act_20:22, now representing the separation there announced, for which Act_20:23-24 have prepared them, as one of perpetuity for the life in time.

ἐγώ] emphatic, as in Act_20:22, and with deep emotion.

The οἶδα, ὅτι οὐκέτι κ.τ.λ.,[112] rests, according to Act_20:23, on the conviction which he has now (νῦν) obtained by the communications of the Holy Spirit received from city to city concerning the fate impending over him at Jerusalem, that the imprisonment and affliction there awaiting him would terminate only with his death. And he has not deceived himself! For the assumption that he was liberated from Rome and returned to the earlier sphere of his labours, is unhistorical; see on Rom. Introd. § 1. But precisely in connection with the unfolding of his destination to death here expressed by him with such certainty, there passed into fulfilment his saying pointing to Rome (Act_19:21), however little he himself might be able at this time to discern this connection; and therefore, probably, the thought of Rome was again thrown temporarily into the background in his mind. The fact, that he at a later period in his imprisonment expected liberation and return to the scene of his earlier labours (Phm_1:22; Php_2:24), cannot testify against the historical character of our speech (Baur, Zeller), since he does not refer his οἶδα in our passage to a divinely-imparted certainty, and therefore the expression of his individual conviction at this time, spoken, moreover, in the excited emotion of a deeply agitated moment, is only misused in support of critical prejudgments. With this certainty of his at this time,which, moreover, he does not express as a sad foreboding or the like, but so undoubtingly as in Act_20:29,quite agrees the fact, that he hands over the church so entirely to the presbyters as he does in Act_20:26 ff.; nor do we properly estimate the situation of the moment, if we only assume, with de Wette, that Luke has probably thus composed the speech from his later standpoint after the death of the apostle. According to Baumgarten, II. p. 85 ff., who compares the example of King Hezekiah, the οἶδα κ.τ.λ. was actually founded on objective certainty: God had actually resolved to let the apostle die in Jerusalem, but had then graciously listened to the praying and weeping of the Gentile churches. But in such passages as Phm_1:22, there is implied no alteration of the divine resolution; this is a pure fancy.

ὙΜΕῖς ΠΆΝΤΕς, ἘΝ ΟἿς ΔΙῆΛΘΟΝ] all ye, among whom I passed through. In his deep emotion he extends his view; with this address he embraces not merely those assembled around him, nor merely the Ephesians in general, but, at the same time, all Christians, among whom hitherto he had been the itinerant herald of the kingdom. In Act_20:26 the address again limits itself solely to those present.

[112] He does not say: that I shall not see you, but he says: that you shall not see me. He has not his own interest in view, but theirs.

Meyer — Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament — English translation by Peter Christie, edited by Frederick Crombie (T&T Clark, 1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Act 20:25 . καὶ νῦν , see on Act 20:22 . οἶδα : no infallible presentiment or prophetic inspiration, but a personal conviction based on human probabilities, which was overruled by subsequent events. The word cannot fairly be taken to mean more than this, for in the same context the Apostle himself had distinctly disclaimed a full knowledge of the future, Act 20:23 . And if οἶδα is to be pressed here into a claim of infallible knowledge, it is difficult to see why it should not be also so pressed in Phi 1:25 , where the Apostle expresses his sure conviction πεποιθώς οἶδα of a release from his Roman imprisonment, cf. Act 26:27 where Paul uses the same verb in expressing his firm persuasion of Agrippa’s belief, but surely not any infallible knowledge of Agrippa’s heart. For a full discussion of the word see amongst recent writers Steinmetz, Die zweite römische Gefangenschaft des Apostels Paulus , p. 14 ff. (1897); Zahn, Einleitung , i., p. 436. οὐκέτι ὄψεσθε : “shall no longer see,” see Rendall, whereas A. and R.V. rendering “no more,” οὐκέτι , give the impression that St. Paul definitely affirms that he would never return. Rendall compares Rom 15:23 , but on the other hand Act 8:39 seems to justify the usual rendering. The Apostle’s increasing anxiety is quite natural when we remember how even in Corinth he had thought of his journey to Jerusalem with apprehension, Rom 15:30 , Paley, Horæ Paulinæ , ii., 5. On the inference drawn by Blass from this passage as to the early date of Acts, see his remarks in loco , and Proleg. , p. 3, and to the same effect, Salmon, Introd. , p. 407, fifth edition. διῆλθον : the word taken in the sense of a missionary tour, see Act 13:6 , indicates that representatives not only of Ephesus but of other Churches were present, hence ὑμεῖς πάντες , διῆλθον κηρύσσων , coalescing into a single idea; the Apostle could not say διῆλθον ὑμᾶς , and so we have ἐν ὑμῖν substituted. If the word is Lucan it is also Pauline, and that too in this particular sense, cf. 1Co 16:5 . κηρ . τὴν βασ .: if Lucan, also Pauline cf. Col 4:11 . As our Lord had sent His first disciples to preach ( κηρύσσειν ) the kingdom of God, and as He Himself had done the same, Luk 8:1 ; Luk 9:2 , we cannot doubt that St. Paul would lay claim to the same duty and privilege; in his first Epistle, 1Th 2:12 , as in his latest, 2Ti 4:18 , the kingdom of God, its present and its future realisation, is present to his thoughts; in his first journey, Act 14:22 , no less than in his third it finds a place in his teaching and exhortation; in his first Epistle, 1Th 2:9 , as in his latest, 2Ti 1:11 ; 2Ti 4:17 , he does the work of a herald, κῆρυξ . No less than five times in 1 Corinthians, one of the Epistles written during his stay at Ephesus, the phrase βασιλεία Θεοῦ occurs (it is not found at all in 2 Corinthians).

The Expositor's Greek Testament, edited by W. Robertson Nicoll (1897–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

I know that ye all . . . shall see my face no more--not an inspired prediction of what was certainly to be, but what the apostle, in his peculiar circumstances, fully expected. Whether, therefore, he ever did see them again, is a question to be decided purely on its own evidence.

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 25. Ye all - shall see my face no more.] This probably refers simply to the persons who were now present; concerning whom he might have had a Divine intimation, that they should not be found in life when he should come that way again. Or it may refer only to Ephesus and Miletus. From the dangers to which he was exposed, it was, humanly speaking, unlikely that he should ever return; and this may be all that is implied: but that he did revisit those parts, though probably not Miletus or Ephesus, appears likely from Phi 1:25-27; Phi 2:24; Phm 1:22; He 13:19-23. But in all these places he speaks with a measure of uncertainty: he had not an absolute evidence that he should not return; but, in his own mind, it was a matter of uncertainty. The Holy Spirit did not think proper to give him a direct revelation on this point.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

25. And, behold, now I know. He doth now utter that plainly which he had insinuated covertly. And we said that he did put them out of hope of his return, to the end he might more deeply imprint in their minds his exhortations. For we know what great force the words and speeches of men have which are uttered at their departure or death. Also, he would have them beware by this forewarning, that they do not depend upon his presence, and so their faith should faint through wearisomeness. The doctrine of the gospel is called the kingdom of God now again, which doth begin the kingdom of God in this world, by renewing men after the image of God, until it be made perfect at length in the last resurrection,

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

(25) I know that ye all . . . shall see my face no more.—It is clear from these words, as well as from Rom_15:23-24, that at this time St. Paul did not contemplate any further work in the Roman province of Asia, or in Greece. It is as clear, if we accept the Pastoral Epistles as genuine, that he did revisit Asia (2Ti_1:15), and that that visit included Troas (2Ti_4:13), Miletus (2Ti_4:20), and, in all probability, Ephesus also (1Ti_1:3). We need not be startled at this seeming discrepancy. The Apostle expressly disclaims foresight of his own future, and when he says, “I know,” he speaks after the manner of men who take the fulfilment of their purpose for granted. In one sense, perhaps, his words were true. When he returned to Asia, and all were turned away from him (2Ti_1:15), how many of that company was he likely to have met again?

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

25. And … ye all] We cannot be sure that the Apostle never again came to Ephesus. For we learn from Phm_1:22 that, toward the close of his imprisonment at Rome, he had hopes and the intention of visiting Philemon, who was at Colossæ, and we can hardly think that if he went to Colossæ he would fail on the way to stay at Ephesus. Some have therefore been inclined to lay a great stress on the word “all” in this clause, as though the Apostle only meant that they were sure some of them to be dead before he paid their city another visit. It seems better to take the words as the conviction of the Apostle’s mind at the moment. He was impressed with the belief that he would never come back. We have seen, however, just above that the Spirit did not give him definite knowledge of what would befall him in every place. And the sense that he was to be seized and imprisoned might make him sufficiently alive to the chances of his martyrdom for Christ to warrant the words which he here uses.

among whom I have gone preaching the kingdom of God] The oldest MSS. omit “of God.” The verb is more fully rendered by the Rev. Ver. “I went about.” Though speaking to the Ephesians only the memory of the Apostle recalls those missionary visits throughout Proconsular Asia which we may feel sure that he made during his “three years’ residence at Ephesus.” For the use of “kingdom” alone = kingdom of God, cp. Mat_4:23; Mat_9:35, &c.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

For I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God. By which is meant, not the purposes and decrees of God, latent in his own breast, these the apostle could not declare; but his revealed will in the Gospel, concerning the salvation of men by Jesus Christ, even the whole of the Gospel, every truth and doctrine of it, necessary to salvation, and to the peace, joy, and comfort of the saints; together with all the ordinances of it, and everything that had any tendency to promote the glory of God, and the good of souls; see Luk 7:30 none of these things did the apostle withhold from the knowledge of the church at Ephesus, but freely imparted and communicated them to them; See Gill on Act 20:20.

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Acts 20:28

act 20:28

act 20:28

act 20:28Take heed therefore unto yourselves,.... Since the blood of men may be required of those, who are negligent or partial in their office, and shun to declare the whole counsel of God: this exhortation is given them not merely as men, to take care of their bodily health, the outward concerns of life, and provide for themselves and families; nor merely as Christians, but as ministers of the Gospel; that they would take heed to their gifts, to use and improve them, and not neglect them; to their time, that they spend it aright, and not squander it away; and to their spirit, temper, and passions, that they are not governed by them; and to their lives and conversations, that they be exemplary to those who are under their care; and to their doctrine, that it be according to the Scriptures; that it be the doctrine of Christ, and the same with the apostles; that it be according to godliness, and that it tends to edification; that it be sound and incorrupt, pure and unmixed, and all of a piece and consistent with itself; and that they be not infected and carried away with errors and heresies:

and to all the flock; the church and all the members of it, which are compared to a flock of sheep, which are to be looked after and watched over by the ministers of the word, who are as shepherds to them, lest they should be infected, or any damage done them. The people of God are compared to sheep on many accounts; before conversion, for their going astray, when they are as lost sheep; after conversion, for their meek and inoffensive carriage and behaviour, and for their patience in bearing sufferings, to which they are exposed: and a church of Christ is compared to a flock of them, being in Gospel order, folded together and feeding in the same pasture, attending the word and ordinances, under the care of shepherds appointed by Christ the chief shepherd; whose business it is to take heed unto them, and care of them, to learn to know their state and condition, to watch over them, and to feed them with knowledge and with understanding, for which they are qualified by Christ; and they are to take heed unto everyone in the flock, the poor of the flock as well as others, the lambs as well as the sheep, and the sick and the diseased, the torn, and straying, and driven away, as well as the fat and the strong: and this flock, though a little flock, is a holy and beautiful one, a flock of men, and of the souls of men dear to God, to Christ and the blessed Spirit; and a special regard should be had unto them, and that for reasons following:

over which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers; or "bishops"; this is said to the elders of the church, Act 20:17 which shows that the office of an elder and a bishop is one and the same office; and this contains in it more than one argument why they should take heed to the flock; as because they are the overseers of it, who have the care and oversight of the flock, that is under their inspection, and is their proper province, and office; and this they were put into by the Holy Ghost, who gave them gifts to qualify them for it, and called, and inclined them to undertake it, as well as moved the people to make choice of them for this purpose; and since, therefore, this was an affair in which the Holy Ghost was so much concerned, it became them very diligently to attend it:

to feed the church of God; with knowledge and understanding; and discharge the whole office of faithful shepherds to the flock, by feeding the flock and not themselves, strengthening the diseased, healing the sick, binding up the broken, bringing again that which was driven away, and seeking up that which was lost: and here is another argument suggested, to stir up to a diligent performance of this work; and that is, that this flock is the church of God, a set of men whom God has chosen for himself, and called by his grace out of the world, and separated for his own use and glory, and among whom he dwells; and therefore to be fed with the faithful word, with the finest of the wheat, and not with the chaff of human schemes, and with the wind of false doctrine, nor with anything that is vain, trifling, and deceitful; but with the solid doctrines of the Gospel, with the words of faith and good doctrine, with the wholesome words of Christ Jesus, which have in them milk for babes and meat for strong men, and with and by the ordinances of the Gospel, which are the green pastures they are to be guided into, and abide in; and in all they are to be directed to Christ, the sum of the word and ordinances, who is the bread of life, and food of faith; and that the church should be thus fed, is the will of Christ, who has appointed and ordered his ministers to feed his lambs and sheep, and has furnished them with what is necessary for this work; this is the design of the ministry of the Gospel, and the administration of ordinances; and the churches of Christ are placed where food may be had, where the word is faithfully preached, and the ordinances truly administered: some copies read, "the church of the Lord"; and others, and so the Complutensian edition, "the church of the Lord and God":

which he hath purchased with his own blood; which being the blood not only of a pure and innocent man, but of one that is truly and properly God as well as man, was a sufficient ransom price to redeem the church and people of God from sin, the law, its curse and condemnation: so that this is no inconsiderable proof of the true and proper deity of Christ; and contains a fresh argument, or reason, why the flock of God and "church of Christ", as the Syriac version reads; or "the church of the Lord and God", as in five of Beza's exemplars: or "of the Lord God", as the Arabic version, should be taken heed unto and fed; because it must needs be dear to God and Christ, and precious to them, since so great a price has been paid for it. The purchaser is God, Christ who is God over all, blessed for ever, not a creature; that could never have made such a purchase, it could not have purchased a single sheep or lamb in this flock, no man can redeem his brother, or give to God a ransom for him, much less the whole flock; but Christ being God, was able to make such a purchase, and he has actually made it, and given a sufficient price for it; not to Satan, with whom these sheep were a prey, and from whom they are taken in virtue of the ransom given; but to God, from whom they strayed, against whom they sinned, and whose law they broke; and this price was not silver and gold, nor men, nor people: but Christ himself, his life and blood; and which were his "own", the human nature, the blood of which was shed, and its life given being in union with his divine person, and was in such sense his own, the property of the Son of God, as the life and blood of no mere man are theirs: and this purchase now being made in this way, and by such means, is a very proper one; it is not made without price, but with an invaluable one; and it is a legal purchase, a valuable consideration being given for it, perfectly equivalent to it; and therefore is a complete one, there is nothing wanting to make it more firm, it is a finished purchase; and it is a very peculiar one, it is a peculiar people that are purchased, called the purchased possession, Eph 1:14 and a peculiar price which is paid for it; there is no other of the same kind, nor any thing like it, and it is made by a peculiar person, one that is God and man in one person.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

25 And now, behold, I know that ye all, among whom I have gone preaching the kingdom of God, shall see my face no more.

Ver. 25. Shall see my face no more] viz. In the flesh, and upon earth. But in heaven we shall see and say, ιδου ο Παυλος και ο Πετρος (as Chrysostom thinks) Lo, that is Paul, and the other is Peter. In the transfiguration, Peter knew Moses and Elias, as if he had been long acquainted with them. And yet that was but a glimpse of heaven.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

I know that ye all - Perhaps this means simply, “I have no expectation of seeing you again; I have every reason to suppose that this is my final interview with you.” He expected to visit Ephesus no more. The journey to Jerusalem was dangerous. Trials and persecutions he knew awaited him. Besides, it is evident that he designed to turn his attention to other countries, and to visit Rome; and probably he had already formed the purpose of going into Spain. See Act 19:21; compare Rom 15:23-28. From all these considerations it is evident that he had no expectation of being again at Ephesus. It is probable, however, that he did again return to that city. See the notes on Act 28:31.

Among whom I have gone preaching - Among whom I have preached. The parting of a minister and people is among the most tender and affecting of the separations that occur on earth.

The kingdom of God - Making known the nature of the reign of God on earth by the Messiah. See the notes on Mat 3:2.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

I know, &c. It appears sufficiently evident, from many parts of St. Paul’s epistles, that he not only designed, but likewise, according to the opinion of most able critics, actually did revisit the churches of Asia. Of this occasion, then, he only expresses his belief, his conviction, that he should see them no more, judging it impossible for him to escape the dangers that were prepared for him. (Calmet) --- All you. Although St. Paul might return again to the same place, he might truly say of so great an assembly, that all of them should not see him again. (Witham)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

This is thought to have been spoken by St. Paul, as his present purpose and resolution only, as Rom 15:24.

The kingdom of God; the gospel, by which his kingdom is set up in the minds and hearts of men.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

25. I know—The anticipation that he would never revisit Ephesus, a large body of critics hold to have been mistaken. They maintain that Paul at his first arraignment before Cesar’s tribunal was acquitted; that an interval of years intervened before a second arrest, arraignment, and execution. In this interval he wrote the epistles to Timothy and Titus, and performed labours and travels indicated in those epistles, including a return to Ephesus. That return, therefore, depends upon the question whether Paul had a first acquittal and a second arrest. The discussion of this question we postpone to the Introduction to the above-named epistles.

Those who affirm a revisitation maintain that this I know was simply the expression of one of his uninspired expectations, like the not knowing of Act_20:22, or the strong confidence of Act_26:27. Baumgarten’s deep suggestion is, that, owing to the prayers of Christians in Paul’s behalf, (like the prayer of Hezekiah in his own behalf,) the divine order was changed, and the period of Paul’s ministry on earth extended. And thus it was that Paul’s I know was subjectively true at the time; and yet the Roman tribunal was so withheld from execution that a sacred appendix was added to his life. (See notes on Act_1:7; Act_2:1.)

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Went about for have gone, A.V.; kingdom for kingdom of God, A.V. and T.R. I know that ye all, etc. It is a very perplexing question whether St. Paul in this statement spake with prophetic, and therefore infallible, foreknowledge, or whether he merely expressed the strong present conviction of his own mind, that he should never return to Asia again. The question is an important one, as the authenticity of the pastoral Epistles is in a great measure bound up with it. For, in the apparent failure of all hypotheses to bring the writing of them within the time of St. Luke"s narrative, prior to St. Paul"s journey to Rome, we are driven to the theory which places the writing of them, and the circumstances to which they allude, to a time subsequent to St. Paul"s imprisonment at Rome. But this involves the supposition that St. Paul returned to Ephesus after his release from his Roman imprisonment (1Ti_1:3 1Ti_4:14; 2Ti_1:15, 18 4:9-14, 19; Tit_1:5) and consequently that St. Paul"s anticipation, that he was in Asia for the last lime, was not realized. The question is well discussed by Alford, in the "Prolegomena to the Pastoral Epistles," and in Paley"s "Horae Paulinae," Acts 11. But it can hardly be said to be definitively settled (see above, note to ver. 15). Bengel thinks the explanation may be that most of those present were dead or dispersed when Paul returned some years later.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Ye shall see my face no more - He wisely inserts this, that what follows might make the deeper impression.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

Acts

PARTING COUNSELS

THE FIGHT WITH WILD BEASTS AT EPHESUS

Act 19:21 - Act 19:34.

Paul’s long residence in Ephesus indicates the importance of the position. The great wealthy city was the best possible centre for evangelising all the province of Asia, and that was to a large extent effected during the Apostle’s stay there. But he had a wider scheme in his mind. His settled policy was always to fly at the head, as it were. The most populous cities were his favourite fields, and already his thoughts were travelling towards the civilised world’s capital, the centre of empire-Rome. A blow struck there would echo through the world. Paul had his plan, and God had His, and Paul’s was not realised in the fashion he had meant, but it was realised in substance. He did not expect to enter Rome as a prisoner. God shaped the ends which Paul had only rough-hewn.

The programme in Act 19:21 - Act 19:22 was modified by circumstances, as some people would say; Paul would have said, by God. The riot hastened his departure from Ephesus. He did go to Jerusalem, and he did see Rome, but the chain of events that drew him there seemed to him, at first sight, the thwarting, rather than the fulfilment, of his long-cherished hope. Well it is for us to carry all our schemes to God, and to leave them in His hands.

The account of the riot is singularly vivid and lifelike. It reveals a new phase of antagonism to the Gospel, a kind of trades-union demonstration, quite unlike anything that has met us in the Acts. It gives a glimpse into the civic life of a great city, and shows demagogues and mob to be the same in Ephesus as in England. It has many points of interest for the commentator or scholar, and lessons for all. Luke tells the story with a certain dash of covert irony.

We have, first, the protest of the shrine-makers’ guild or trades-union, got up by the skilful manipulation of Demetrius. He was evidently an important man in the trade, probably well-to-do. As his speech shows, he knew exactly how to hit the average mind. The small shrines which he and his fellow-craftsmen made were of various materials, from humble pottery to silver, and were intended for ‘votaries to dedicate in the temple,’ and represented the goddess Artemis sitting in a niche with her lions beside her. Making these was a flourishing industry, and must have employed a large number of men and much capital. Trade was beginning to be slack, and sales were falling off. No doubt there is exaggeration in Demetrius’s rhetoric, but the meeting of the craft would not have been held unless a perceptible effect had been produced by Paul’s preaching. Probably Demetrius and the rest were more frightened than hurt; but men are very quick to take alarm when their pockets are threatened.

The speech is a perfect example of how self-interest masquerades in the garb of pure concern for lofty objects, and yet betrays itself. The danger to ‘our craft’ comes first, and the danger to the ‘magnificence’ of the goddess second; but the precedence given to the trade is salved over by a ‘not only,’ which tries to make the religious motive the chief. No doubt Demetrius was a devout worshipper of Artemis, and thought himself influenced by high motives in stirring up the craft. It is natural to be devout or moral or patriotic when it pays to be so. One would not expect a shrine-maker to be easily accessible to the conviction that ‘they be no gods which are made with hands.’

Such admixture of zeal for some great cause, with a shrewd eye to profit, is very common, and may deceive us if we are not always watchful. Jehu bragged about his ‘zeal for the Lord’ when it urged him to secure himself on the throne by murder; and he may have been quite honest in thinking that the impulse was pure, when it was really mingled. How many foremost men in public life everywhere pose as pure patriots, consumed with zeal for national progress, righteousness, etc., when all the while they are chiefly concerned about some private bit of log-rolling of their own! How often in churches there are men professing to be eager for the glory of God, who are, perhaps half-unconsciously, using it as a stalking-horse, behind which they may shoot game for their own larder! A drop of quicksilver oxidises and dims as soon as exposed to the air. The purest motives get a scum on them quickly unless we constantly keep them clear by communion with God.

Demetrius may teach us another lesson. His opposition to Paul was based on the plain fact that, if Paul’s teaching prevailed, no more shrines would be wanted. That was a new ground of opposition to the Gospel, resembled only by the motive for the action of the owners of the slave girl at Philippi; but it is a perennial source of antagonism to it. In our cities especially there are many trades which would be wiped out if Christ’s laws of life were universally adopted. So all the purveyors of commodities and pleasures which the Gospel forbids a Christian man to use are arrayed against it. We have to make up our minds to face and fight them. A liquor-seller, for instance, is not likely to look complacently on a religion which would bring his ‘trade into disrepute’; and there are other occupations which would be gone if Christ were King, and which therefore, by the instinct of self-preservation, are set against the Gospel, unless, so to speak, its teeth are drawn.

According to one reading, the shouts of the craftsmen which told that Demetrius had touched them in the tenderest part, their pockets, was an invocation, ‘Great Diana!’ not a profession of faith; and we have a more lively picture of an excited crowd if we adopt the alteration. It is easy to get a mob to yell out a watchword, whether religious or political; and the less they understand it, the louder are they likely to roar. In Athanasius’ days the rabble of Constantinople made the city ring with cries, degrading the subtlest questions as to the Trinity, and examples of the same sort have not been wanting nearer home. It is criminal to bring such incompetent judges into religious or political or social questions, it is cowardly to be influenced by them. ‘The voice of the people’ is not always ‘the voice of God.’ It is better to ‘be in the right with two or three’ than to swell the howl of Diana’s worshippers,

II. A various reading of Act 19:28 gives an additional particular, which is of course implied in the received text, but makes the narrative more complete and vivid if inserted.

It adds that the craftsmen rushed ‘into the street,’ and there raised their wild cry, which naturally ‘filled’ the city with confusion. So the howling mob, growing larger and more excited every minute, swept through Ephesus, and made for the theatre, the common place of assembly.

On their road they seem to have come across two of Paul’s companions, whom they dragged with them. What they meant to do with the two they had probably not asked themselves. A mob has no plans, and its most savage acts are unpremeditated. Passion let loose is almost sure to end in bloodshed, and the lives of Gaius and Aristarchus hung by a thread. A gust of fury storming over the mob, and a hundred hands might have torn them to atoms, and no man have thought himself their murderer.

What a noble contrast to the raging crowd the silent submission, no doubt accompanied by trustful looks to Heaven and unspoken prayers, presents! And how grandly Paul comes out! He had not been found, probably had not been sought for, by the rioters, whose rage was too blind to search for him, but his brave soul could not bear to leave his friends in peril and not plant himself by their sides. So he ‘was minded to enter in unto the people,’ well knowing that there he had to face more ferocious ‘wild beasts’ than if a cageful of lions had been loosed on him. Faith in God and fellowship with Christ lift a soul above fear of death. The noblest kind of courage is not that born of flesh or temperament, or of the madness of battle, but that which springs from calm trust in and absolute surrender to Christ.

Not only did the disciples restrain Paul as feeling that if the shepherd were smitten the sheep would be scattered, but interested friends started up in an unlikely quarter. The ‘chief of Asia’ or Asiarchs, who sent to dissuade him, ‘were the heads of the imperial political-religious organisation of the province, in the worship of “Rome and the emperors”; and their friendly attitude is a proof both that the spirit of the imperial policy was not as yet hostile to the new teaching, and that the educated classes did not share the hostility of the superstitious vulgar’ {Ramsay, St. Paul the Traveller, p. 281}. It is probable that, in that time of crumbling faith and religious unrest, the people who knew most about the inside of the established worship believed in it least, and in their hearts agreed with Paul that ‘they be no gods which are made with hands.’

So we have in these verses the central picture of calm Christian faith and patient courage, contrasted on the one hand with the ferocity and excitement of heathen fanatical devotees, and on the other with the prudent regard to their own safety of the Asiarchs, who had no such faith in Diana as to lead them to joining the rioters, nor such faith in Paul’s message as to lead them to oppose the tumult, or to stand by his side, but contented themselves with sending to warn him. Who can doubt that the courage of the Christians is infinitely nobler than the fury of the mob or the cowardice of the Asiarchs, kindly as they were? If they were his friends, why did they not do something to shield him? ‘A plague on such backing!’

III. The scene in the theatre, to which Luke returns in Act 19:32, is described with a touch of scorn for the crowd, who mostly knew not what had brought them together.

One section of it kept characteristically cool and sharp-eyed for their own advantage. A number of Jews had mingled in it, probably intending to fan the flame against the Christians, if they could do it safely. As in so many other cases in Acts, common hatred brought Jew and Gentile together, each pocketing for the time his disgust with the other. The Jews saw their opportunity. Half a dozen cool heads, who know what they want, can often sway a mob as they will. Alexander, whom they ‘put forward,’ was no doubt going to make a speech disclaiming for the Jews settled in Ephesus any connection with the obnoxious Paul. We may be very sure that his ‘defence’ was of the former, not of the latter.

But the rioters were in no mood to listen to fine distinctions among the members of a race which they hated so heartily. Paul was a Jew, and this man was a Jew; that was enough. So the roar went up again to Great Diana, and for two long hours the crowd surged and shouted themselves hoarse, Gaius and Aristarchus standing silent all the while and expecting every moment to be their last. The scene reminds one of Baal’s priests shrieking to him on Carmel. It is but too true a representation of the wild orgies which stand for worship in all heathen religions. It is but too lively an example of what must always happen when excited crowds are ignorantly stirred by appeals to prejudice or self-interest.

The more democratic the form of government under which we live, the more needful is it to distinguish the voice of the people from the voice of the mob, and to beware of exciting, or being governed by, clamour however loud and long.

Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

25. “And now behold I know that you shall all see my face no more, among whom I came preaching the kingdom.” This was A. D. 58. I believe with the critics that he had a second imprisonment at Rome before his martyrdom, being acquitted the first time for the want of criminal charges against him, and afterward returning to Greece and Asia and revisiting Ephesus about A. D. 64, and, after writing the pastoral epistles, arrested a second time on charge of burning Rome, not that he was personally charged with it, because he was absent in Greece when it occurred, but as it was imputed to the Christians, they sent away to Neapolis in Macedonia, arresting him and bringing him to Rome, where, upon a second trial before Nero, he was condemned to death, with many other Christians, on charge of burning Rome, A. D. 68. This return to Ephesus, after six to eight years, did not preclude the fact that he would see the faces of some of them no more, as in that time many of them had passed away.

William B. Godbey, Commentary on the New Testament (1896–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

See notes on verse 22

J. W. McGarvey (with Philip Y. Pendleton), Commentaries on the New Testament (The Fourfold Gospel, 1914; Acts; and the epistles) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Connecting Statement:

Paul continues to talk to the Ephesian elders. (See: Acts 20:17)

Now look, I know

"Now, pay careful attention, because I know"

I know that you all

"I know that all of you"

among whom I went about proclaiming the kingdom

Here "kingdom" stands for God's rule as king. AT: "to whom I preached the message about God's reign as king" or "to whom I preached about how God will show himself as king" (See: Metonymy)

will see my face no more

The word "face" here represents Paul's physical body. AT: "will not see me anymore on this earth" (See: Synecdoche)

I am innocent of the blood of any man

Here "blood" stands for a person's death, which, in this case, is not physical death but spiritual death when God declares a person guilty of sin. Paul had told them God's truth. AT: "I am not responsible for anyone whom God judges guilty of sin because they did not trust in Jesus" (See: Metonymy)

any man

Here this means any person whether male or female. AT: "any person" (See: When Masculine Words Include Women)

For I did not hold back from declaring to you

"For I did not keep silent and not tell you." This can be stated in positive form. AT: "For I certainly declared to you" (See: Litotes)

translationWords

preach

kingdom

face

testimony

innocent

blood

will of God

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

25. τοῦ θεοῦ omitted with אABC. Vulg. has ‘Dei.’

25. οὐκέτι ὄψεσθε κ.τ.λ., ye all shall no more see. We cannot be sure that the Apostle never again came to Ephesus. For we learn from Phm 1:22 that, toward the close of his imprisonment at Rome, he had hopes and the intention of visiting Philemon, who was at Colossæ, and we can hardly think that if he went to Colossæ he would fail on the way to stay at Ephesus. Some have therefore been inclined to lay a great stress on the word πάντες in this clause, as though the Apostle only meant that they were sure some of them to be dead before he paid their city another visit. It seems better to take the words as the conviction of the Apostle’s mind at the moment. He was impressed with the belief that he would never come back. We have seen, however, just above that the Spirit did not give him definite knowledge of what would befall him in every place. And the sense that he was to be seized and imprisoned might make him sufficiently alive to the chances of his martyrdom for Christ to warrant the words which he here uses.

ἐν οἶς διῆλθον κηρύσσων τὴν βασιλείαν, among whom I went about preaching the kingdom. Though speaking to the Ephesians only, the memory of the Apostle recalls those missionary visits throughout Proconsular Asia which we may feel sure that he made during his ‘three years’ residence at Ephesus.’

For the use of βασιλεία alone as equivalent to ἡ βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ, cf. Mat 4:23; Mat 9:35, &c.

Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge University Press, 1896; 21 vols, various authors incl. Carr, Maclear, Plummer, Farrar, Lumby, Moule, M. R. James, Simcox) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

25.] It has been argued from ἐν οἷς διῆλθον, that the elders of other churches besides that of Ephesus must have been present. But it might just as well have been argued, that every one to whom Paul had there preached must have been present, on account of the word πάντες. If he could regard the elders as the representatives of the various churches, of which there can be no doubt, why may not he similarly have regarded the Ephesian elders as representatives of the churches of proconsular Asia, and have addressed all in addressing them? Or may not these words have even a wider application, viz., to all who had been the subjects of his former personal ministry, in Asia and Europe, now addressed through the Ephesian elders? See the question, whether Paul ever did see the Asiatic churches again, discussed in the Prolegg. to the Pastoral Epistles, § ii. 18 ff. I may remark here, that the word οἶδα, in the mouth of Paul, does not necessarily imply that he spoke from divine and unerring knowledge, but expresses his own conviction of the certainty of what he is saying: see ch. 26:27, which is much to our point, as expressing his firm persuasion that king Agrippa was a believer in the prophets: but certainly no infallible knowledge of his heart:—Rom 15:29, where also a firm persuasion is expressed:—Php 1:19, Php 1:20, where οἶδα, ver. 19, is explained to rest on ἀποκαραδοκία καὶ ἐλπίς in ver. 20. So that he may here ground his expectation of never seeing them again, on the plan of making a journey into the west after seeing Rome, which he mentions Rom 15:24, Rom 15:28, and from which, with bonds and imprisonment and other dangers awaiting him, he might well expect never to return. So that what he here says need not fetter our judgment on the above question.

Henry Alford, The Greek Testament (1849–1861) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

I know. The I is emphatic : I know through these special revelations to myself (ver. 23).

Marvin R. Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament (1887–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.