Acts of the Holy Spirit (Acts 20: 16 – 38) Christ Church Bible Study

Most of Acts chapter 20 recounts events during the return stage of Paul’s third missionary journey. A relatively large group of church representatives and co-workers were travelling with Paul, carrying with them a collection for the poor of the church at Jerusalem. Paul and Luke spent Passover at Philippi and then joined the main group at Troas where they spent a week. They continued by ship southwards down the coast of Asia (Western Turkey) but sailed past Ephesus and stopped at the next port city, Miletus, presumably to avoid getting drawn in to the busyness at Ephesus. It’s somewhat unexpected that Paul could decide which ports the ship stopped at and for how long; the simplest explanation is that the ship was relatively small and their party of nine made up the majority of the passengers.

Miletus is 30 miles south of Ephesus, i.e. two days’ walk, so it would have taken perhaps four days to get the message to the elders and have them arrive at Miletus. Paul’s address to the Ephesian elders is the only one in Acts that is given explicitly to Christians, so the themes are more similar to his letters than his other recorded speeches. Also, it is the first one where we can be sure that Luke was present and used his skills to note down and summarise the essential content of the message (which he does with great skill).

Paul is sometimes thought of as a dominating and powerful presence, but this speech shows his tender and emotional side – twice in this address he mentions his tears (verses 19 and 31). He said he served “the Lord with all humility”, but humility wasn’t considered a virtue in Greco-Roman society, in fact it was often regarded as a sign of weakness, however, Paul has learned his servant leadership from Jesus.

He talks about his efforts in both public teaching and in a more private setting from house to house. We know he used the hall of Tyrannus for his public teaching (ch. 19:9), and the “Western” text of Acts adds the detail that he hired it from 11am to 4pm. Taking that into account, it’s probable that most of his “house to house” ministry was in the evening so that left the morning for him to earn money through his work as a tent maker.

Paul reveals to the elders the difficult circumstances he knows he will encounter on the remainder of his journey to Jerusalem and beyond. He describes himself as being compelled or, more literally, “bound” in his spirit (v 22), and specifically, the Holy Spirit has revealed that imprisonment and afflictions await him. Paul may have received this by direct revelation as well as through prophets; the next chapter (21) gives two examples of this happening in Tyre and Caesarea. Despite these revelations Paul is unbowed and undaunted because his focus not on himself but on Jesus; his overriding aim is to remain faithful to him and to complete the course and the ministry he has received from Jesus. In this Paul sets a truly inspiring example of Christian leadership.

Then Paul reveals that he will not see them again. This was the news that had the greatest impact on his hearers, in effect this was his farewell address to them. He declares that he is “innocent of the blood” of all of them. This is an allusion to the Lord’s warning to Ezekiel (Ezek. 33:1–7) to act as a watchman for the people of Israel. Paul is able to say this because he has taught and declared to them the whole counsel of God. It’s unusual for an individual leader to have both the breadth of understanding and the ability to convey it; a more realistic approach for a church/fellowship these days is to use the gifts of a number of teachers and preachers, and even then it’s still a major challenge to undertake.

In his exhortation to the elders to fulfil their ministry in caring for the flock, Paul again alludes to Ezekiel, this time chapter 34 which is God’s indictment on the leaders, i.e. the “shepherds”, of Israel. Ezek. 34:4, though expressed in the negative sense, reveals that the role of a shepherd is to: feed the sheep, strengthen the weak, heal the sick, bind up the injured, gather the strays and seek the lost. Paul extends this analogy to warn that false teachers will arise from within them like fierce wolves not sparing the flock. (Jesus uses the same imagery in Mt. 7:15.) Paul was proved correct in that both Timothy (1 Tim. 4:1–3) and John (1 Jn. 2:19; 4:2) in the years to come had to deal with the effects of false teaching in the church at Ephesus.

There were no doubt wealthy people in the church (1 Tim. 6:17–19), but as ever, Paul leads by example in not coveting their wealth but instead working hard so he can help support the “weak”. This kind of generosity was counter-cultural. It’s interesting to note that Luke records Jesus teaching (Lk. 6:32–36) about going far beyond the gentile (= “sinners”) norm of mere reciprocal generosity, which was little more than returning favours.