Jottings

by J. Miller | Category: Jottings | Nov 1958

Acts 20 is a chapter of great importance for several reasons. First, it describes the journey of Paul from Ephesus to Greece after the fearful uproar in the city of Ephesus following the rioting by the silversmiths who were led by Demetrius and his fellows. Paul refers to this in 1 Corinthians 15.82 as a time when, after the manner of men, he fought with beasts at Ephesus, and he again alludes to it in 2 Corinthians 1.8. On his way to Greece he took the road through Macedonia, which was well known to him. On his return journey he intended to sail from Greece to Syria, embarking possibly at Cenchree or Athens, but because of a Jewish plot he altered his plans and went back again by the route through Macedonla. On the journey a band of notable and faithful men accompanied him as far as the Roman province of Asia. Here we read of Sopater of Beroea, where they examined the Scriptures daily (Acts 17.11), Aristarchus and Secundus of Thessalonica, Gaius of Derbe and Timothy, and of Asia, Tychicus and Trophimus, the latter was an Ephesian (Acts 21.29), who, presumably, went all the way to Jerusalem with Paul. Of these seven valiant men who accompanied Paul, the best known to us is Timothy. They sailed, we are told, from Philippi after the days of unleavened bread and reached Troas in five days. In these days of quick travel it seems a long time to take to cover the journey of about a hundred and fifty miles, but of course we do not know if the winds were contrary or if the travellers were becalmed, or again, if they called at an island on the way. Why does the Spirit tell us that they left Philippi after the days of unleavened bread and took five days to reach Troas? The Scriptures not only teach the doctrine of truth, but within their pages is the corrective to Satanic lies. There are those who believe in a yearly breaking of the bread, which they hold should take place at the time of the year in which the Lord instituted the Remembrance. We do not know whether they keep it on the Thursday evening or on the Lord's day. But if they keep it on the Lord's day on what is called Easter Sunday, why should they keep it on Easter Sunday and not on the Thursday evening prior to Easter Sunday when the Lord instituted the breaking of the bread?

Let us note carefully what we are told here, that it was after the days of unleavened bread when Paul and his companions left Philippi. Now the institution of the breaking of the bread and the Lord's death were on the day of the Passover, after which were the seven days of unleavened bread. Following this they were five days on the voyage. Then they were seven days in Troas, and at the end of these seven days was the first day of the week, without seeking to be exact as to a day, or attempting to define what hour or time the day began, whether at about six in the evening, as with the Jews in the Old Testament. (The Babylonians reckoned the day from sunrise to sunrise, the Umbrians from noon to noon, the Romans from midnight to midnight, like ourselves today, the Athenians from sunset to sunset, like the Jews.) We have a total of nineteen days, seven days of unleavened bread, the five days on the voyage, and the seven days of Paul's residence in Troas, from the day of the Passover on which the Lord died. Thus, Paul and his friends did not keep the breaking of the bread in Troas on Easter Sunday or any day of Easter week. This fact should be clear enough to all.

Then, verse 7 is of very great importance to us, as showing the day on which the breaking of the bread is to take place, as well as the habit of the Lord's disciples to break the bread on that day. They were gathered together with the Lord's disciples in the church of God in Troas to break the bread.

We have here also a custom of the disciples at the gathering for the breaking of the bread on the first day of the week and that then there was the ministry of the word of God. The fact is, that the announcement to us that the breaking of the bread took place on the first day of the week is incidental to the account that Paul discoursed at that gathering and that his speech was so long that it continued until midnight, and that during his speech an accident took place in that Eutychus fell asleep and fell from the third story and was killed, but that Paul fell upon him and restored him to life. The accident and the miracle were exceptional events at such a gathering, but the breaking of the bread and the ministry were the normal practices of the disciples on the first day of the week.

After the breaking of the bread, and after the ministry of the word by Paul on that occasion at Troas and the miracle which he performed upon Eutychus, whom he restored to life, Paul decided to walk from Troas to Assos, a distance of twenty or more miles, whilst the others who had gone before to the ship sailed round the promontory between the two places. Whatever made Paul walk that distance, whether to call upon certain of the Lord's people or for some other reason we know not, but one thing it does reveal, and that is, the untiring energy and zeal of the apostle. After a night of an extended speech and general conversation in which he had no sleep (Eutychus slept but Paul did not), he set out on the long walk across country to the ship's next port of call.

Paul's hope was to reach Jerusalem by Pentecost, which was just over thirty days ahead, so he sailed past Ephesus, so as not to be delayed in Ephesus and the Asian churches. He reached Miletus and from there he sent to Ephesus and called to him the elders of that church. When they came to him at Miletus he delivered to them one of his most remarkable addresses which Luke has recorded for us. He recounted to them his labours among them from the first day he set foot in Asia. Chapter 19 gives us Luke's account of that work. The events are tightly pressed together by Luke's pen in which we see the word of God streaming forth in mighty volume from Paul's lips, disciples were separated and divinely gathered, diseases cured, evil spirits fled before the triumphant Name of the Lord Jesus. The seven evil sons of evil Sceva, a Jewish chief priest, fled naked and wounded from the house where they were set upon by the man possessed by the evil spirit, and last of all we see the bonfire of the books of curious arts of the devil made by those who having heard God's voice in the Scriptures had no more need for the devil's arts. All these things march past before the mind as we pursue the reading of chapter 19, the events summed up as they are by Luke with the words, " So mightily grew the word of the Lord and prevailed" (verse 20).

The devil could not allow all this to go on to a peaceful end. He kicked out violently in the rioting of Demetrius and his idolatrous fellow-silversmiths. So Paul left Ephesus.

Now in chapter 20 he reviews his labours, his service to the Lord, with lowliness of mind and tears, his trials, and all the while the Jews plotted his ruin and that of the work. Yet he shrank not from his task of preaching the gospel, of testifying to both Jews and Greeks, repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. He, like his Master, found that his course was set for him toward Jerusalem, guilty, unbelieving Jerusalem. Thither the Lord had gone and had been delivered by the Jews to the Gentiles to be mocked, and shamefully entreated, spit upon, scourged and killed, and thither too went Paul to imprisonment and later on, through the antagonism and persecution of the Jews, to death at the hands of the Romans, as his Master had experienced before him. The principles are alike, but the surrounding circumstances are different. The going of Paul to Jerusalem was according to the Lord's will though many sought to dissuade him from it, knowing that bonds and imprisonment awaited him there.

The ministry of Paul, according to his own words, was threefold, (1) the gospel of the grace of God to men in general, (2) the kingdom of God to God's people, and (3) the whole counsel of God by declaring which, he said, that he was free from the blood of all men.

His warning to the Ephesian elders contains an admonition for us all. He said, "Take heed unto yourselves, and to all the flock, in the which the Holy Spirit hath made you bishops (the A.V. is better here, which conveys the correct thought "overseers "), to feed (or shepherd) the church of God (not ' the Lord " as in R.V. marg.), which He purchased (acquired, R.V. marg.) with His own blood" (or more correctly with the blood of His own" - meaning His Son). If the elders failed in their conduct to take heed to themselves, they would be ill suited to care for the flock in which the Holy Spirit has set or constituted them as overseers. Paul warned them of the apostasy of some of them, and of the grievous wolves who would enter in among them, men who would not spare the flock. In the light of what was coming he commended them to God and to the word of His grace, the only means by which they could be built up and the inheritance among the sanctified ones secured.

J. Miller | Nov 1958
Jottings