ACTS 20
Read Acts 20:1-38
Paul’s journeys continued in this chapter we pick him up at Troas, which we know better as Troy. In Verse 7 we get a glimpse of a worship service there. The first thing that is mentioned is that on Sunday (the first day of the week) they ‘came together to break bread’ (v7). This is shorthand for the celebrating Holy Communion or the Lord’s Supper and is a response to Jesus’ instructions that we find in the gospel accounts and that Paul reminds us of in 1 Corinthians 11:23-26 saying, “whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.” We then learn that Paul spoke . . . a lot! We have seen throughout Acts how central God’s word is. Both Peter and Paul anchored everything that they said in scripture and how scripture speaks of the coming of Jesus and of his sacrifice for us. Paul spoke a lot because he only had a short time with the people in Troy before he had to move on and his talking late at night led to an unfortunate incident. A young man named Eutychus perched on a window-sill to listen to Paul. As he listened to Paul he dropped off to sleep and fell out of the window and died. Thankfully, the Lord honoured Paul’s faithfulness by bringing Eutychus back to life.
As Paul continued his journey towards Jerusalem, he arranged to meet up with the elders of the church that he had planted in Ephesus. His itinerary did not take him to Ephesus so the elders had to meet Paul at Miletus, a journey of some 30 miles for them. Paul spoke to them about his time with them and gave some hints as to his future plans, which did not involve a return to Ephesus, and that caused some sadness amongst them (v38). He then gave them some encouragement to take care of the flock. They have been appointed as overseers, as shepherds, of the Ephesian Christians by the Holy Spirit and so they must take responsibility and look after them. But the encouragement came with a warning; ‘After I leave, savage wolves will come among you and will not spare the flock. Even from your own number men will arrive and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples after them’ (v30). The new church will face some hard challenges. There will be opposition and even opposition from within the church, as people seek to impose their will on others rather than conform to God’s will.
This would be a challenge to the early church and it is still a challenge for us today. Like the early church we today are outnumbered in society by non-believers. Most just ignore the church but there are a significant number who go out of their way to oppose the church; the New Atheist movement; Richard Dawkins and the like. But Jesus warned us to expect persecution so we should not be surprised by this. What is more difficult is when those within the church ‘distort the truth’ as Paul says. There are many who call themselves Christian, even within our own denomination, who distort or even ignore God’s word and would rather compromise with today’s secular standards. These are truly wolves in sheep’s clothing, looking to disrupt the Lord’s flock. As Paul says, ‘be on your guard’ (v31).