Acts 20

1. AND after the uproar was ceased, Paul called unto him the disciples, and embraced them, 2 and departed for to go into Macedonia. And when he had gone over those parts, and had 3 given them much exhortation, he came into Greece, and there abode three months. And when the Jews laid wait for him, as he was about to sail into Syria, he purposed to return 4 through Macedonia. And there accompanied him into Asia Sopater of Berea; and of the Thessalonians, Aristarchus and Secundus; and Gaius of Derbe, and Timotheus; and of Asia, 5 Tychicus and Trophimus. These going before tarried for us at Troas. And we sailed away 6 from Philippi after the days of unleavened bread, and came unto them to Troas in five days; where we abode seven days. 7 And upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached unto them, ready to depart on the morrow; and continued his speech until 8 midnight. And there were many lights in the upper chamber, where they were gathered 9 together. And there sat in a window a certain young man named Eutychus, being fallen into a deep sleep: and as Paul was long preaching, he sunk down with sleep, and fell down 10 from the third loft, and was taken up dead. And Paul went down, and fell on him, and 11 embracing him said, Trouble not yourselves; for his life is in him. When he therefore was come up again, and had broken bread, and eaten, and talked a long while, even till break of 12 day, so he departed. And they brought the young man alive, and were not a little com- forted. 13 And we went before to ship, and sailed unto Assos, there intending to take in Paul: for 14 so had he appointed, minding himself to go afoot. And when he met with us at Assos, we 15 took him in, and came to Mitylene. And we sailed thence, and came the next day over against Chios; and the next day we arrived at Samos, and tarried at Trogylium; and the 16 next day we came to Miletus. For Paul had determined to sail by Ephesus, because he would not spend the time in Asia: for he hastened, if it were possible for him, to be at Jeru- salem the day of Pentecost.

THREE years of faithful labor had been given to Ephesus and the accessible regions of the interior country. Many churches had been planted, including some or all of the seven addressed in the Apocalypse. The First Epistle to the Corinthian Church had been written. Timothy had been sent into Macedonia, and Titus to Corinth: both to superintend the great work of gathering contributions from the Gentile churches for the Christian poor of Judea. Titus had also been charged with a report to Paul of the reception given to his First Epistle by the Church of Corinth.

1-6. In these six verses is compressed the story of ten months’ journeying and tarry: from Ephesus to Macedonia and Greece, and back to Troas. Three Epistles—the Second to the Corinthians, and those to the Galatians and the Romans—largely supplement Luke’s brief record here. They detail many incidents, and fully disclose Paul’s state of mind; the causes of his anxiety, the special objects and aims of his toil, and the sources of his comfort. They further show that, intellectually, this was the most active period of his career.

From 2 Cor. 2 : 12 we learn that, after leaving

Ephesus, he first tarried at Troas, preaching for some weeks to welcome ears the glad tidings, while anxiously waiting the return of Titus from Corinth. Titus failing to come, Paul sailed for Macedonia, landing as before at Neapolis, and crossing the mountains to Philippi. Here he was rejoined by Timothy; and very soon after was comforted by the news brought by Titus from the Church at Corinth. Under mingled emotions awakened by this intelligence, in conjunction with Timothy, he then wrote

THE SECOND EPISTLE TO THE CHURCHES OF CORINTH and of the province of Achaia, and sent it by the hands of Titus, who was charged with completing the collection successfully begun. This time and place of writing are intimated by the following facts: B.—It was written after the troubles that had befallen the apostle in Asia; after his preaching and disappointment at Troas, his arrival in Macedonia, and the consolation received there by his meeting with Titus; while he was engaged in making the collection for the poor at Jerusalem; and in anticipation of a renewed visit to Corinth. This Epistle reveals to us what manner of man Paul was when the fountains of his heart were stirred to their inmost depths. Every reader may perceive that, on passing from the First Epistle to the Second, the scene is almost entirely changed. In the First, the faults and difficulties of the Corinthian Church are before us. The apostle writes of these, with spirit indeed and emotion, as he always does, but without passion or disturbance. He calmly asserts his own authority over the Church, and threatens to deal severely with offenders. In the Second, he writes as one whose personal relations with those whom he addresses have undergone a most painful shock. The acute pain given by former tidings—the comfort yielded by the account which Titus brought—the vexation of a sensitive mind at the necessity of self-assertion—contend together for utterance. The highly wrought personal sensitiveness, the ebb and flow of emotion, so peculiarly characteristic of the Epistle, are as intelligible as they are noble and beautiful. We see what sustained him in his self-assertion; he knew that he did not preach himself, but Christ Jesus the Lord. S.

From Philippi the apostle went upon a preaching tour westward “as far as Illyricum,” on the Adriatic (Rom. 15 : 19), thus “completing (at least in outline) the evangelization of the Eastern division of the empire, preparatory to a movement upon Rome itself.” Referring to this extended circuit, Luke says: “When he had gone through these parts, he came into Greece, and there abode three months.”

The three winter months (of A. D. 57-58) at Corinth are those here alluded to. Occupied with the settlement of disturbing questions and disorders in that church, with an oversight of other churches in the province, and with “the care of all the churches” that he had founded, the apostle yet found time for the composition of two kindred Epistles: one to the Galatians, the other to the Romans. Of these the former, which was first written, is a sort of ground-plan to the latter.

THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS was written in the early part of this winter at Corinth. Some think that it was prepared and sent before leaving Ephesus. It was aimed at the grand hindrance everywhere encountered in these earliest churches: the Judaizing doctrine that sapped the very life of the Christian system, by taking out of it all that was spiritual and essential, and leaving an outward, heartless, lifeless ceremonial framework. Abrupt, severe, and self-asserting against the men attempting insidiously to inculcate this destructive teaching, and seeking by falsehoods to supplant Paul in the attachment of the disciples; sometimes ironical even toward those easily deceived disciples; yet his tone of sadness and intense affection shows Paul’s heart firmly set upon rescuing and saving them.

THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS, the master-work of Paul, which has ever since formed the chief foundation of Christian theology, was certainly written at Corinth. Paul writes as the guest of Gaius, one of the most conspicuous members of the Corinthian Church. He sends salutations from Erastus, the chamberlain of the city, from Timotheus his fellow-laborer, and from Sosipater, whom we presently find accompanying him on his voyage from Greece to Asia (Rom. 16 : 23). He mentions the completion, not only in Macedonia, but also in Achaia, of the collection, which he was then on the point of carrying to the poor saints at Jerusalem. B.

This sacred mission of charity was now the only remaining hindrance to the gratification of a desire which he had cherished for many years, but which his labors in the East had hitherto postponed, to visit the Church of Rome, and even to extend his western mission as far as Spain. His great work of breaking up new ground, of planting the churches, which his successors, like Apollos, were to water, was now

Troas, from Tenedos.

done in the Greek division of the Roman world. “But now having no more place in those regions,” is a striking description of a completed work (Rom. 15 : 20-28). It is very striking that, ardent and long-cherished as was his desire to see his Christian brethren at Rome, he speaks of its approaching fulfillment as but a passing visit, on his way to break

7-12. Thus we have the interesting story of the evening meeting at Troas, with its showing of the manner of primitive gatherings for worship; and its illustrative argument for the first-day Sabbath, for the observance of the Lord’s Supper, and for the sermon (not the after “speech until midnight”), as parts of an orderly Christian service. B.

Interior of Oriental House.

The place was an upper room, with a balcony projecting over the court. While Paul was continuing in earnest discourse, an occurrence suddenly took place which filled the assembly with alarm, though it was afterward converted into an occasion of joy and thanksgiving. A young listener, whose name was Eutychus, was overcome by heat and weariness, and sank into a deep slumber. He was seated or leaning in the balcony; and, falling down in his sleep, was dashed upon the pavement below and was taken up dead. Confusion and terror followed, with loud lamentation. But Paul up virgin soil for the good seed in Spain. Yet the very errand of mercy to Jerusalem, which he regards as but a temporary delay of his inroad upon the West, was the cause of his being sent as a prisoner to the capital, where his two years’ enforced residence provided for the work he had to do both among Jews and Gentiles. S.

3,4. To disconcert a Jewish plot against his life, Paul returned toward Syria by way of Macedonia. The seven persons named as companions of the journey—possibly bearers of the collection, and in some sort representatives from the Gentile Churches to the mother Jewish Church at Jerusalem—sailed over to Troas in advance of Paul and Luke. For this no reason is given.

6. At Philippi, where we left Luke (16:17), he rejoins Paul, and continues with him to Rome. At once we note more specific statements of time and place, and particulars of incident and address.

was enabled to imitate the power of that Master whose doctrine he was proclaiming. He went down and

Ruins of Assos.

[Assos was a seaport of the Roman province of Asia, in the district anciently called Mysia. It was situated on the north shore of the gulf of Adramyttium, about seven miles from the opposite coast of Lesbos. A good Roman road, connecting the central parts of the province with Alexandria Troas (TROAS), passed through Assos, which was about twenty miles from Troas. These geographical points illustrate Paul’s rapid passage through the town. He took the much shorter journey by land, and thus was able to join the ship without difficulty, and in sufficient time for her to anchor off Mitylene at the close of the day on which Troas had been left. 8.] fell upon the body, and said to the bystanders: “Do not lament; for his life is in him.” With minds solemnized and filled with thankfulness by this won-

13-16. To gain further time at Troas, and perhaps to get special strength from solitary communion with Christ by the way, Paul walks the twenty miles between Troas and Assos, while the ship with his companions doubled the promontory of Lectum. From Assos their course lay by the islands of Lesbos (of which Mitylene was the capital), Chios, and Samos, to Miletus. B.

17. And from Miletus he sent to Ephesus, and called the elders of the church. And when 18 they were come to him, he said unto them, Ye know, from the first day that I came 19 into Asia, after what manner I have been with you at all seasons, serving the Lord with 20 all humility of mind, and with many tears, and temptations, which befel me by the 21 lying in wait of the Jews: and how I kept back nothing that was profitable unto you, but 22 have shewed you, and have taught you publicly, and from house to house, testifying both 23 to the Jews, and also to the Greeks, repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord 24 Jesus Christ. And now, behold, I go bound in the spirit unto Jerusalem, not knowing the 25 things that shall befel me there: save that the Holy Ghost witnesseth in every city, say- 26 ing that bonds and afflictions abide me. But none of these things move me, neither count 27 I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry, 28 which I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the grace of God. And 29 now, behold, I know that ye all, among whom I have gone preaching the kingdom of God, 30 shall see my face no more. Wherefore I take you to record this day, that I am pure from 31 the blood of all men. For I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God. 32 Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost 33 hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his 34 own blood. For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among 35 you, not sparing the flock. Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse 36 things, to draw away disciples after them. Therefore watch, and remember, that by the 37 space of three years I ceased not to warn every one night and day with tears. And now, 38 brethren, I commend you to God, and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you 39 up, and to give you an inheritance among all them which are sanctified. I have coveted no 40 man’s silver, or gold, or apparel. Yea, ye yourselves know, that these hands have minis- 41 tered unto my necessities, and to them that were with me. I have shewed you all things, 42 how that so labouring ye ought to support the weak, and to remember the words of the 43 Lord Jesus, how he said, It is more blessed to give than to receive. 44 And when he had thus spoken, he kneeled down, and prayed with them all. And they 45 all wept sore, and fell on Paul’s neck, and kissed him, sorrowing most of all for the words 46 which he spake, that they should see his face no more. And they accompanied him unto 47 the ship.

“It is more blessed to give than to receive”; that is, it is more Divine, more Godlike. God who receives so little gives all. He fills his eternal year with an incessant bounty. The very law of his life is self-impartation, self-sacrifice. Dwelling in the perfect ineffable delights of his single yet manifold being, he had no need of us or of anything that we can do—no need except the need of infinite love. To surround himself with creatures to whom he could give of his own life, whom he could train through sun and shadow, sorrow and joy, to enter into his rest; by labors and sacrifices which transcend our thought to make them partakers of his divine nature and eternal peace; to give, and give, and always give; to crowd earth and time, heaven and eternity, with his good gifts; and, all gifts in one, to bestow himself upon us—this has been the work of God, this his commentary on the words, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” Cox.

This “word of the Lord Jesus” found no place in the evangelic histories: it lay silent in loving hearts, or flowed in whispers from loving lips when the disciples met after their Master had departed, until, spoken by Paul on the seashore to the weeping elders of Ephesus, it was recorded by Luke, his companion, for the use of the Church in all coming time. When the Lord intimated that the blessedness of giving is the greater, he did not intimate that the blessedness of receiving was small. He proclaims in one sentence the twofold truth, that the joy of his people in obtaining salvation is great, and his own in bestowing it is greater. Arnot.

17. Finding that the vessel might tarry long enough, Paul sends to Ephesus (thirty-seven miles distant) a request that the elders of the Church would meet with him at Miletus. (See map, p. 94.) As he was hastening, with limited time, to Jerusalem, and must abide by his present opportunity, this was the only safe course to secure the interview he sought. At once responding to his call, the elders from the one or more congregations of the Church at Ephesus received from the apostle the touching and instructive farewell address recorded in verses 18–35. As a representative discourse, it ranks with the Epistles. Especially in the memories of Christian work to which it appeals, and in the truth it imparts respecting the personal relations and duties of the eldership, it resembles many of Paul’s Epistles. B.—What Paul said to the elders of Ephesus on this occasion, he said through them to the other presbyters, not only of that province, but of the whole Church, not only then, but ever since and through all ages; for which end it has been left on record. J. A. A.

18–21. What his Spirit and Ministry among them had been.—They had been daily witnesses (he said) of his manner of life; of his humility and helpfulness in Christ’s service; of his true, deep sympathy with human sorrows; of his tearful urgency with perishing men (2 Cor. 2 : 4 ; Phil. 3 : 18);

Ruins of Miletus.

and of his own trials through Jewish malevolent plotting. They knew that in his preaching he had been utterly unaffected by thought of personal danger or popularity; that he had withheld nothing of needed truth; that he had not, with one-sided partiality, dwelt upon peculiar or novel aspects of truth, but had urged only and all that which was profitable “to the use of edifying,” or building up: the whole counsel of God in its purity and fullness! And this faithful “showing,” this fervid “teaching” of the Christian truth had been his practice, not only in the school of Tyrannus and in other gathering places of disciples, but in every accessible household. From house to house, and from soul to soul, day by day had he borne the glad tidings with Christlike desire and yearning. To all classes and races, to the hostile Jew and the sneering Greek, his one theme—that which, fully expounded, includes all other essential saving truths—was repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.

Repentance is the inward change of the spirit and the life; a reversal of the current of the controlling thoughts, desires, aims, and affections; a turning and a supreme setting of these upon God, in place of self. It is wrought by “godly sorrow,” or sorrow toward God for the penitent’s sin (2 Cor. 7 : 10). B.—Faith is personal trust in this personal Redeemer, as the Saviour from the guilt and pollution of the sin we repent of, and as the atoning Mediator through whom alone we can approach God when we have repentance toward God. The two increase together in the life of a Christian. Riddle.—He who preaches the repentance and the faith here spoken of, in all their fullness and variety, will need to seek no other topics, and may humbly boast of having kept back nothing that was profitable to his hearers. J. A. A.

22-24. Paul’s Feeling in View of the Unknown Future.**—He refers to a constraint of spirit inwrought by a sense of duty, impelling him into the midst of peril. What else is to transpire besides already familiar bonds and trials he knows and cares not. For the same Holy Ghost who is to him “a prophet of afflictions is also a comforter in afflictions.” So that he can bravely declare himself fearless and unshaken in prospect of any evil. Nay more (using his favorite figure of the race), he holds life itself of less account and worth than the successful completion of his ministry for Christ and for souls. Live he gladly would, and triumph he will if only he can finish his supreme work of testifying the gospel of the grace of God! (Compare 2 Tim. 4 : 7 and 1 Cor. 9 : 24.) B.

Finish my course with joy. Of such joy, it would be difficult to find a more striking example than that afforded by the late Dr. Payson. “To adopt the figurative language of Bunyan, I might date this letter from the land of Beulah, of which I have been for some weeks a happy inhabitant. The celestial city is full in my view. Its glories beam upon me, its breezes fan me, its odors are wafted to me, its sounds strike upon my ears, and its spirit is breathed into my heart. The sun of righteousness has been gradually drawing nearer and nearer, appearing larger and brighter as he approached, and now he fills the whole hemisphere, pouring forth a flood of glory, in which I seem to float like an insect in the beams of the sun; exulting, yet almost trembling, while I gaze on this excessive brightness, and wondering, with unutterable wonder, why God should deign thus to shine upon a sinful worm. A single heart, and a single tongue, seem altogether inadequate to my wants. I want a whole heart for every separate emotion, and a whole tongue to express that emotion.” J. W. A.

25-27. Paul’s Solemn Final Appeal and Asservation touching his Fidelity as a Preacher of the Gospel.**—With full consciousness of the dignity of this high office, alluding to himself as the herald of a Divine King and Kingdom, he solemnly invokes their testimony to his faithfulness in “teaching every man and warning every man,” so that his soul is freed from all blood-guiltiness in the destruction of any. B.—The form of expression is striking and memorable. It is borrowed from the crime of murder, and the method by which guilt is ordinarily brought home to the criminal. In many cases conviction depends on blood being found on the clothes of the murderer. Hence in almost all cases of violence we hear of desperate efforts being made by the terrified evil-doer to efface the stain. This is the conception that leaps into the apostle’s mind. He can not hope that all who have heard the gospel from his lips in the city are now in Christ. If they die in their sins, how unspeakable the loss—the loss of a soul! He shudders at the thought: and in order to quicken their diligence when they should return to their labor, he endeavors to impart some of his own anxiety to the elders. He in effect invites them to look to their hands and garments to make sure that there is no blood on them. Arnot.

28-32. His Impressive Injunction to Fidelity, and his Loving Commendation to God and his Grace.**—The English version has hardly dealt fairly in this case with the sacred text in rendering the original word (v. 28) overseers; whereas it ought here, as in all other places, to have been “bishops,” that the fact of elders having been originally and apostolically synonymous might be apparent to the ordinary English reader, which now it is not. A.—It is scarcely necessary to remark that in the New Testament the words episcopos (bishop) and presbuteros (elder) are convertible. H.—In the sending forth of Saul and Barnabas we learned the truth which Paul here declares: that in every genuine appointment of bishops (or elders) it is the Holy Ghost who selects, calls, and appoints to the office and the work. No valid ministry is exclusively man-made. In Paul’s case we further learned that God puts upon some body of spiritual men the outward countersigning and sealing of his calls and appointments to spiritual office.

The work of these divinely called bishops or elders is “to shepherd the Church of God”; to nourish with truth, to lead into the way of Christ, to watch over and guard against the entrance of evil, and to administer such rule and discipline as is divinely delegated. The term “flock” is applied by the prophets to the Old Testament Church; and it is Christ’s favorite figure. The supreme motive to fidelity, Paul here indirectly states: Christ’s purchase of his Church with his own blood! B.—“Ye were redeemed with the precious blood of Christ.” But Paul says more. By one of those bold figures which man could never have dared to think of, had not God first taught him to use them, he raises yet higher the amount of this ransom. As though determined that none should be ignorant of its amazing worth, he says, when speaking of the Church, “God hath purchased it with his own blood.” C. B.—This is here called the blood of God as being the blood of that man who is also God with us—God manifest in the flesh. D.—His possession, purchased with his blood—a double argument, the mightiest and most sublime!

Preceding the charge to take heed to the flock, to do intelligently and faithfully this shepherd-work, is

an intensely momentous personal charge. Take heed to yourselves! Applied here to office-bearers in the Church, equally just, appropriate, and relatively important is its application to Christian parents, teachers, and lay workers in every sphere. The measure of each one’s ability and responsibility for good is that of each one’s accessible and attainable grace. What grace is promised is to be realized by one’s own seeking, receiving, appropriating, and using. The taking heed to one’s self is this seeking and using. A really helpful, comforting, quickening influence in a man comes alone from a heart first divinely helped, comforted, and quickened. The stream can not rise higher than the fountain, nor distribute a larger volume than it receives. Close and unbroken communion with God is the sole condition and means of receiving the knowledge, the guidance, and the help which it is the Christian worker’s privilege and duty to impart. There is an imitative way and a mechanical spirit in doing what may be counted Christian labor. A thoughtful writer justly hints that a great deal of work for and in the Church may be the same in kind and in its actuating spirit as that done in a bank, a manufactory, or in the conduct of a government. Therefore, that his soul may be actuated by the higher, positively divine, and spiritual constraint of the love of Christ, and so that he may press that love effectually upon others, every Christian worker needs this warning to take heed to himself. From the point of human frailty too, the warning presses urgently. No one, however strong or pure, unselfish, humble, or faithful, in past life and service, but needs this counsel. Not only take heed lest ye fall, but that ye may be “stodfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord.”

sure of heroism was it that induced such fixed resistance to the counter-entreaties of such and so many loving friends. But the terms in which he declares his persistency of self-devotion are very touching. As expressing the purest, sublimest affection to Christ and to Christlike human friends, this answer has no human parallel: What do ye, weeping and breaking my heart? For I am ready not to be bound only, but to die for the name of the Lord Jesus! This tender, lofty utterance furnishes a fitting counterpart to the many strong assertions of consecration and self-sacrifice with which his Epistles so richly abound. And the instant carrying out of this loving and unselfish protest with an unflinching heroism, fixes in our minds an immovable conviction of the apostle’s absolute truthfulness in all his high professions of devotion to his Lord.

awed by the imminent peril, so unruffled in spirit by the rude handling of the mob and the soldiers, the only calm, self-possessed man in the vast, excited, surging throng; noting, too, the self-respect and native dignity in his reference to his own birth-city, and the proper respect to Roman authority evinced in the form of his request, the Roman commander yields to the unconscious mastery of so brave and courteous a spirit, and grants Paul the only liberty he asks, the liberty of speech. And this very liberty he seeks, not for his own sake, but for theirs. He would speak to the people, God’s people and his. He would use this his grand opportunity as Christ’s herald to proclaim his Messiahship to this vast multitude of his “fallen” Israel. Though many strange places were occupied as a pulpit by this matchless

pioneer preacher of the Cross, none was so striking as this, the stairway between the Roman quarters and the venerated area of Jewish pride and worship. And the vast auditorium became strangely still. For even the mad, murderous mob was awed into a temporary quiet, as this unresisting yet undaunted, strong-hearted man, standing chained to two mailed men, stretched forth his manacled right hand to summon their attention.