3. Paul Visits Macedonia and Greece (20:1–6)
1When the uproar was ended, Paul sent for the disciples and encouraged them; then he took his leave of them and set out on his journey into Macedonia.
2Having passed through that territory and spoken many words of encouragement to the people there, he came into Greece.
3There he spent three months. Then, when he was about to set sail for Syria, a plot was hatched against him by the Jews and he decided to return through Macedonia.1
4He was accompanied2 by Sopater, son of Pyrrhus,3 a Beroean, by Aristarchus and Secundus from Thessalonica, by Gaius from Derbe4 and Timothy, and by Tychicus5 and Trophimus from Asia.6
5These went on ahead7 and were waiting for us at Troas,
6but we set sail from Philippi after the days of unleavened bread, and came to them at Troas in five days. We stayed there seven days.
1 The riot in the Ephesian theater was one of the last—if also one of the most spectacular—of the incidents attending Paul’s ministry at Ephesus. According to 1 Cor. 16:8, written a few months before, he planned to leave Ephesus after Pentecost (probably in A.D. 55); it has been conjectured that the riot took place about the time of the Ephesian festival of the Artemisia, held annually in March/April.8 In the year 55 Pentecost fell on May 25. Paul may, of course, have had to change his plans because of the riot and other troubles which he experienced in the province of Asia.
In the light of 2 Cor. 2:12–13, W. M. Ramsay supposes that Paul took a coasting ship from Ephesus to Troas.9 At Troas he hoped to meet Titus, whom he had sent to Corinth to deal with a disquieting situation in the church there. Although there was ample opportunity for gospel witness in and around Troas, he could not settle down to take full advantage of it because of his anxiety about Corinth. When Titus did not arrive, Paul bade farewell to his friends at Troas, and continued his journey into Macedonia. He may have waited at Troas until he knew that Titus could no longer be expected to arrive by sea across the Aegean and would have to travel overland.10 So he set out in hope of meeting him at some point on the road, and did in fact meet him in Macedonia. The reassuring news which Titus brought from Corinth brought Paul great relief and joy—feelings which find eloquent expression in 2 Cor. 1–9.
2 How long Paul spent in Macedonia we are not told; it seems to have been a rather prolonged period. It was probably at this time that he went as far as Illyricum (Rom. 15:19); his earlier Macedonian journey through Philippi, Thessalonica, and Beroea (16:12–17:10) did not bring him anywhere near the Illyrian frontier. On this occasion we must understand that he traveled west along the Egnatian Way, perhaps as far as its termination at Dyrrhachium (modern Durrës) on the Adriatic, and then turned north in the direction of Illyricum. The period between his departure from Ephesus and his leaving Macedonia for “Greece” (i.e., the province of Achaia), including his stay at Troas and his missionary and pastoral activity in Macedonia, may well have covered about a year and a half—say, from the summer of A.D. 55 to the late part of 56.11
3 The three months that he spent in Greece were the winter months of A.D. 56–57. Most of this time was probably spent in Corinth, where he enjoyed the hospitality of his friend Gaius (plausibly identified with the Titius Justus of 18:7),12 and sent his letter to the Christians of Rome, preparing them for the visit which he hoped to pay them quite soon, on his way to Spain.13 Among his concerns in Macedonia and Achaia at this time must be included the completion of arrangements for delivering the collected gifts from the churches of those provinces to Jerusalem.14 Toward the end of winter the delegates from the contributing churches gathered at Corinth to be ready to sail with Paul to Judaea when navigation started again. It may have been their first intention to take a pilgrim ship from Cenchreae (cf. 18:18), which picked up at the principal ports those who wished to be in Jerusalem for the forthcoming festival. But Paul got wind of a plot to kill him, when once he was on board this ship, so he changed his plan, and decided to go back to Macedonia and sail from there.15 The delegates set sail as arranged, disembarked at Troas, and waited there until Paul should catch up with them.
4–5 Luke mentions Paul’s fellow-travelers by name, but does not say why they were accompanying him on this voyage. He is strangely reticent about the Jerusalem fund. But when Paul, shortly before leaving Corinth, sent the Roman Christians greetings from “all the churches of Christ” (Rom. 16:16), he had good reason to do so, because representatives from those churches were joining him at the time. The churches of Macedonia were represented by Sopater,16 Aristarchus,17 and Secundus; those of Asia by Tychicus18 and Trophimus;19 those of Galatia by Gaius the Derbaean.20 (Timothy also belonged originally to one of the churches of Galatia, namely Lystra, but he was in the party probably not as a church delegate but as Paul’s junior colleague and fidus Achates.)
No mention is made of a delegate from the Corinthian church. The absence of any such reference may have something to do with the strained relations between Paul and that church. But Paul had recently told the Christians of Rome that contributions were coming from Achaia (Rom. 15:26). One possibility is that the church of Corinth had entrusted its contribution to Titus (cf. 2 Cor. 8:6–23; 12:18); if so, the failure to mention Titus here is part of the problem of his absence from the whole record of Acts. Another possibility is bound up with the tradition that Luke is “the brother whose praise in the gospel is among all the churches”21 and who was appointed by the churches to travel with Paul and the others “in this gracious work which we are carrying on” (2 Cor. 8:18–19). He went to Corinth along with Titus, and may have been commissioned by the church there to convey its contribution. If that “brother” is to be identified with Luke, and Luke is the narrator here, that would explain the lack of any allusion to a delegate from Corinth. But all this lies in the realm of speculation.
6 As for Paul, he waited at Philippi until the week of the unleavened bread was completed (in A.D. 57 it lasted from April 7 to 14). Then he set sail with Luke, presumably from Neapolis (cf. 16:11). Their five days’ journey to Troas was over twice as long as the journey from Troas to Neapolis had been a few years before; the prevalent wind, which had helped them on the earlier occasion, was contrary this time. At Troas they rejoined their companions who had sailed from Cenchreae, and spent a week there with them and the local Christians.
B. The Journey to Jerusalem (20:7–21:16)
7On the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul discoursed with them. He intended to set out the next day, and kept on talking until midnight.
8There were many torches22 in the upper room where we were gathered together.
9One young man, named Eutychus, who was sitting on the window ledge, dropped into a deep sleep as Paul continued his discourse; being quite overcome by sleep he fell down from the third floor and was picked up dead.
10But Paul went down, threw himself on him,23 and put his arms around him. “Do not be alarmed,” he said; “his life is (still) in him.”
11Then he came up and broke the bread. After eating, he engaged in much further conversation until dawn. Then he took his departure.
12They24 brought the young man alive, to their very great comfort.25
7 The description of this critical journey to Jerusalem is given in considerable detail. Some have compared the detailed description given in the Gospel of Luke of Jesus’ critical journey to Jerusalem. But the kind of detail is different; the exactitude of this second “we” narrative in matters of time and place is due to the fact that the diarist was one of the party and kept a logbook. We may contrast the cursory treatment of Paul’s travels in Macedonia (vv. 1–2), on which he was not accompanied by Luke.
The reference to the meeting for the breaking of the bread on “the first day of the week” is the earliest text we have from which it may be inferred with reasonable certainty that Christians regularly came together for worship on that day.26 The breaking of the bread was probably a fellowship meal in the course of which the Eucharist was celebrated (cf. 2:42). It is plain from the narrative that members of the church at Troas (“they”) were present as well as the travelers of Paul’s company (“we”); the occasion was probably the church’s weekly meeting for worship. Paul’s ministry in Troas a year or two previously had evidently been more fruitful than he realized at the time (2 Cor. 2:12–13). This Sunday (perhaps April 24, A.D. 57) was the travelers’ last full day at Troas; they were to continue their journey the next day. The meeting was held in the evening27—a convenient time for many members of the Gentile churches, who were not their own masters and were not free in the daytime—and Paul conversed with them. Church meetings were not regulated by the clock in those days, and the opportunity of listening to Paul was not one to be cut short; what did it matter if his conversation went on until midnight?
8–10 But the air in that crowded upper room began to grow heavy with the smoke of torches which had been lit to dispel the evening darkness, and a young man named Eutychus, even though he sat at the window (where the air was freshest), found it impossible to keep awake. Perhaps he had put in a hard day’s work from dawn to sunset, and now in the stuffy atmosphere not even the words of an apostle could keep him from falling asleep. Suddenly he overbalanced, and fell through the window (a mere opening in the wall) to the ground beneath—and the room was three floors up.28 No wonder then that he was “picked up dead,” as Luke says, “implying apparently that, as a physician, he had satisfied himself on the point.”29 It is impossible to be sure whether Eutychus was clinically dead or not; Luke’s statement that he was “picked up dead” has to be weighed against Paul’s reassuring words: “his life is in him.” Luke may intend his readers to understand that the young man’s life returned to him when Paul embraced him. Paul’s treatment, similar to that given in other circumstances by Elijah and Elisha (1 Kings 17:21; 2 Kings 4:34–35), suggests artificial respiration. It may have been a few hours before Eutychus regained consciousness.
11–12 After this untoward interruption, Paul resumed his discourse. It was probably past midnight (and therefore strictly Monday morning) when at last Paul “broke the bread” and shared their fellowship meal;30 then he continued to talk to them until daybreak. At daybreak the ship on which they were to sail was due to leave, and the party went on board—all except Paul, who stayed till the last possible moment, probably to be assured of Eutychus’s complete restoration to consciousness and health, and then took a shortcut by land to join the ship at Assos.
2. From Troas to Miletus (20:13–16)
13We31 went on ahead32 to the ship and set sail for Assos. We intended to take Paul on board there, for so he had decided: he was to do that part of the journey by land.33
14So, when he met up with us at Assos, we took him on board, and came to Mitylene.
15Setting sail from there, we arrived the next day opposite Chios, the following day34 we crossed over to Samos, and35 the day after that we came to Miletus.
16Paul had decided to sail past Ephesus, so as not to spend time in Asia. He was making haste, if he could make it, to be in Jerusalem for the day of Pentecost.
13 The ship which they boarded at Troas was due to put in at some of the main ports along the coast of Asia Minor, but it was a faster vessel than some which they might have taken; for example, it sailed across the mouth of the Ephesian Gulf, instead of calling at Ephesus. In one of the harbors of southwest Asia Minor, they expected to find another ship which would take them to Syria and Judaea; and so it turned out (21:1–2).
When it left Troas, the ship had to round Cape Lectum (modern Baba-burun) to get to Assos. Paul waited a little longer, and then, taking the direct road by land to Assos (a distance of twenty miles), got there in time to join his companions on board their ship.
Assos (modern Behram-kale) was a well-fortified city standing on a volcanic cone about 750 feet high. Its harbor, on the shore below, was protected by a mole, which is still to be seen.36
14–15 From Assos, the ship brought them to Mitylene, the chief city of the island of Lesbos (at an earlier date the home of the lyric poets Alcaeus and Sappho); then, calling at a point on the mainland opposite the island of Chios (somewhere near Cape Argennum, modern Beyaz-burun) and, a day later, at the island of Samos, they put in at Miletus three days after leaving Troas. The Western text says that they spent the night before arriving at Miletus off Trogyllium. Trogyllium is a promontory jutting out from the mainland toward the southeast of Samos, forming a strait less than a mile wide. An overnight stay off Trogyllium could have been dictated by the difficulty of navigating the strait in the dark.
Miletus stood on the south shore of the Latmian Gulf. Even then the gulf was being constantly silted up by the river Maeander, which entered it from the north. Today the Latmian Gulf survives as an inland lake (Lake Bafa), which is connected with the Maeander by an outlet on the north. The island of Lade, which then stood off the coast to the west of Miletus, has for long been part of the mainland. Miletus was a city of high antiquity; it is mentioned in Hittite and Mycenaean texts. Homer knew it as a Carian city,37 before the Ionians settled there; it was in fact the most southerly of the Ionian settlements in Asia Minor. The presence of a Jewish community in the city in Roman times is attested by an inscription found in the theater, allocating a block of seats to “Jews who are also called God-fearers.”38
16 In spite of his natural desire to see Ephesus again, Paul had decided that this was out of the question if he was to be sure of reaching Jerusalem in time for Pentecost (which in A.D. 57 fell on May 29); he therefore chose a ship which was to make the straight run from Chios to Samos. But the ship was due to spend several days in harbor at Miletus; this gave him an opportunity to see some of his Ephesian friends.
3. Paul Sends for the Elders of the Ephesian Church (20:17)
17From Miletus he sent to Ephesus, and summoned the elders of the church.
17 While the ship remained in harbor at Miletus, Paul sent a message to Ephesus, which lay some thirty miles to the north, asking the elders of the church in that city to come and see him. (Probably some able-bodied member of the church of Miletus acted as messenger.) Ramsay reckons that the messenger could have shortened his journey by taking a boat across to the north side of the Latmian Gulf and continuing by land from Priene.
Paul wished to give the Ephesian leaders such encouragement as they needed. The speech which follows is not only his farewell speech to them (and to the church which they represented) but (so far as the perspective of Acts is concerned) his last will and testament to the churches which he had planted both east and west of the Aegean.
This speech is quite distinctive among all the speeches reported in Acts. It is the only Pauline speech delivered to Christians which Luke has recorded, and it is not surprising to discover how rich it is in parallels to the Pauline letters (especially, in fact, to the later ones). To explain these parallels along literary-critical lines, by supposing that Luke drew some suitable material for the composition of this speech from Paul’s letters, appears to be ruled out by the consideration that, elsewhere throughout Acts, Luke betrays no knowledge of them, even in places where they would have served him as firsthand sources had they been accessible to him. Besides, even on grounds of literary criticism, the report could not be described as a mere cento of passages from Paul’s letters. “The speech is altogether in the style of the writer of Acts,” wrote Percy Gardner, “and yet offers phenomena which seem to imply that he was guided by memory in the composition.”39 As the synagogue sermon at Pisidian Antioch (13:16–41) is intended to be a sample of Paul’s approach to Jewish audiences, and the speeches at Lystra (14:15–17) and Athens (17:22–31) samples of his approach to pagan audiences, so it might be said that this Milesian speech is a sample of his ministry to Christian audiences. But it is more than the sort of thing that Paul was accustomed to say to Christian audiences: it is a farewell speech, suited to the special occasion on which it was delivered. Since it comes in the context of a “we” section of Luke’s narrative, Luke may well have heard it; if so, he could be reproducing its gist from memory.40
The speech is mainly hortatory, but also in part apologetic. It seems to be implied here and there that Paul’s opponents in the province of Asia had tried to prejudice his converts’ minds against him in his absence; he therefore defends his teaching and general behavior by appealing to his hearers’ personal knowledge of him.41 He perceives that the opposition to his teaching which has already begun to manifest itself in the Ephesian church will increase, and that the church will be invaded by false teachers from outside. Its leaders must therefore fulfil their responsibility as shepherds, appointed by God to guard his flock.
Luke calls those men “elders,” but Paul speaks of them as “guardians” and “shepherds.” There is little or nothing of institutionalism in the part which they are seen to play here.
4. Paul Bids Farewell to the Ephesian Church (20:18–35)
a. Retrospect on His Ephesian Ministry (20:18–21)
18When they arrived, he said to them, “You know how I conducted myself all the time42 I was with you from the first day I set foot in Asia,
19serving the Lord in all humility and with tears amid the trials that befell me through the plots of the Jews.
20I kept back nothing that was to your advantage: I preached and taught you publicly and in your homes,
21proclaiming earnestly43 to Jews and Greeks alike repentance before God and faith in our Lord Jesus.44
18–21 In the introductory part of his address Paul reminds his hearers of his manner of life all the time he spent in their midst—his humble and faithful service, his sorrows, the dangers to which he was exposed by reason of Jewish hostility and conspiracy, his unceasing proclamation of the gospel to both Jews and Gentiles,45 the profitable and all-embracing Christian instruction which he gave his converts, both publicly (first in the synagogue and then in the lecture hall of Tyrannus) and in private homes. His words contain a hint of trying experiences in Ephesus of which little is said elsewhere in Acts, although further hints are given of them in Paul’s own correspondence.46 Insofar as those trying experiences arose out of the opposition of Jews in the province in Asia, they brought him face to face once again, and perhaps in a specially intensified form, with a problem with which he had recently grappled in Rom. 9–11.
b. Paul’s Prospects (20:22–24)
22“And now, as you see, I am on my way to Jerusalem, under the constraint of the Spirit.47 I do not know what will happen to me there:
23I know only this, that in one city after another the Holy Spirit assures me that imprisonment and tribulation lie in store for me.
24But I do not reckon my life of any account, as though it were precious to myself,48 if only I may complete my course49 and the ministry I have received from the Lord Jesus—to proclaim50 the good news of God’s grace.
22–24 Paul then goes on to tell them of his present enterprise and of his misgivings about its outcome. That these were real misgivings is plain from his sharing them with the Roman Christians as matters concerning which he desires their prayers (Rom. 15:30–31). They found increasing confirmation as he went from port to port on his voyage to Judaea: in city after city the Holy Spirit, speaking presumably through the lips of prophets, as later at Tyre and Caesarea (21:4, 11), showed him that imprisonment and other hardships would be his lot when he reached Jerusalem. That the misgivings were well founded is evident from Luke’s narrative of events following Paul’s arrival in Jerusalem.
But Paul was ready to surrender his liberty and, if need be, his life itself for the sake of Christ and his service.51 Self-preservation was not a motive which he esteemed highly: his main concern was to fulfil the course which Christ had marked for him to run,52 preaching in the Spirit’s power the good news of God’s free grace in Christ. Life or death was not the issue that mattered: what mattered most was, as he told another church, that Christ should be magnified in his body, “whether by life or by death” (Phil. 1:20).
c. His Charge to the Elders (20:25–31)
25“And now, I tell you, I know that you will never see my face again—none of you among whom I have gone about53 proclaiming the kingdom.54
26Therefore, I testify before you that I am free of responsibility for anyone’s blood.
27I have not refrained from setting before you the whole will and purpose of God.
28Keep watch over yourselves and over the whole flock in which the Holy Spirit has set you as guardians: feed the church of God,55 the church which he purchased with the blood of his own Son.56
29I know that after my departure57 harmful wolves will come in among you and will not spare the flock;
30and not only so, but from your own number some will rise up and pervert the truth by their words, so as to entice the disciples to follow them.
31Be watchful, therefore; remember that for three years, night and day, I never ceased to counsel each one of you, weeping as I did so.
25–27 And now he was addressing the leaders of the church of Ephesus as one who spoke to them for the last time. He was bidding farewell to the Aegean world, the area in which for seven or eight years now he had “gone about proclaiming the kingdom.”58 Henceforth, if he got safely away from Jerusalem, the western Mediterranean was to be his field of action.59 (Whether or not the Ephesians ever did see him again is not of primary relevance to the exegesis of these words, but Luke would not have reported and repeated them so emphatically if he had known that, in the event, they were falsified.) Paul had lived in Ephesus (as in other cities) and gone in and out among the people as a herald of the kingdom of God; he had planted the gospel seed and now it was the business of others to water it. His hearers could bear witness to his faithfulness in the proclamation of the divine message: he had made God’s saving plan clear to them, the whole of his will for their lives.60 Like Ezekiel’s trustworthy watchman,61 he had sounded the trumpet so that all the province of Asia had heard. If there were any who paid no heed, their blood would be on their own heads: Paul was free of responsibility for their doom.
28 On those elders, then, lay a weighty responsibility. The Holy Spirit had entrusted them with the charge of the people of God in Ephesus; they had to care for them as shepherds cared for their flock. It may be implied that their commission to take pastoral responsibility for the church had been conveyed through prophetic utterances, in which the direction of the Spirit was recognized.62 The word translated “guardians” is the word from which “bishop” is derived,63 but to use that word here might give it an official flavor which would be an anachronism. If their commission was received through prophetic utterances, they received it no doubt because they were known to be those on whom the requisite qualifications for this work had been bestowed—and bestowed by the same Spirit whose will was declared by the prophetic utterances.64 Their responsibility was the greater in that the flock which they were commissioned to tend was no other than the church of God which he had purchased for himself (an echo here of Old Testament language)65—and the purchase price was nothing less than the life-blood of his beloved Son.66
29–31 Paul now looks forward to the future, and the prospects for the Ephesian church are not wholly promising. The sheep will have to be guarded with unceasing vigilance, for ferocious wolves will try to force their way among them and ravage them. As in our Lord’s parable of the good shepherd, so here the true pastors of the flock are contrasted with false teachers, described as wolves because of the havoc they cause.67 But it is not only from intruders from outside that false teaching will proceed: from their own ranks some will arise to seduce their followers into heretical by-paths. That this development did in fact take place at Ephesus is evident from the Pastoral Epistles68 and from the letter to the Ephesian church in Revelation. In 2 Tim. 1:15 mention is made of a general revolt against Paul and his teaching throughout the province of Asia; and in the apocalyptic letter the church of Ephesus is reproached for having abandoned the love it had at first.69 (Happily, Ignatius’s letter to the same church a decade or two later shows that it paid heed to the admonition and recovered its love in full measure.70) Foreseeing these trends, then, Paul urges the elders to be vigilant71 and to follow his own example. Let them remember how he himself had shown such careful and compassionate concern for his converts, during the three years72 of his residence among them, pointing out unceasingly, night and day, the right path for them to pursue.73
d. Final Admonition (20:32–35)
32“Now then, I commend you to God and to his gracious word,74 for that is able to build you up and give you an inheritance among those who are sanctified.75
33I have coveted no one’s gold or silver or clothes.
34You yourselves know that these hands of mine made provision for my own needs and for the needs of my companions.
35In all this I showed you how we ought to work hard to help those who are less able, and to recall the words of the Lord Jesus: ‘It is a more blessed thing to give than to receive.’ ”
32 Now he was leaving them: they could no longer count on his personal presence for pastoral guidance and wise instruction. But, though Paul might go, God was with them still, and so was God’s word which they had received—the word that communicated his redeeming and sanctifying grace.76 (There is no appreciable difference between the “gracious word” here and the “good news of God’s grace” in verse 24.) To God, then, and to his word (with the grace which it proclaimed) Paul committed them. By that word, as they accepted and obeyed it, they would be built up in faith and love together with their fellow-Christians; by that word, too, they were assured of their inheritance among all the people of God, all whom he had set apart for himself.77 In due course Paul, with all the apostles, passed from earthly life; but the teaching which they left behind to be guarded by their successors as a sacred deposit, preserved not only in their memory but eventually in the New Testament scriptures, remains to this day as the word of God’s grace. And those are most truly in the apostolic succession who receive this teaching, along with the rest of Holy Writ, as their rule of faith and life.
33–35 Returning once more to the example which he had set them, Paul reminds them finally that those who take care of the people of God must do so without thought of material reward. As Samuel called all Israel to witness when he was about to lay down his judicial office (1 Sam. 12:3), so Paul calls the elders of Ephesus to witness that all the time he spent among them he coveted nothing that was not his. On the contrary, he did not even avail himself of his right to be maintained in temporal matters by those for whose spiritual welfare he cared; instead, he earned his livelihood, and that of his colleagues, by his own work (tentmaking): “these hands,” he said (inevitably with the attendant gesture), “made provision for my own needs and for those of my companions.”78 Let those to whom he was speaking likewise work hard and support not only themselves but others as well—the weak and sick in particular.79 To much the same effect is the admonition to elders in 1 Pet. 5:2–3, to “tend the flock of God …, not as compelled to do so but willingly, not for sordid gain but eagerly, not as domineering … but being examples to the flock.” Thus they would fulfil the saying of the Lord Jesus, which they ought ever to bear in mind: “It is a more blessed thing to give than to receive.” This dominical logion does not appear in any of the canonical Gospels, but its spirit is expressed in many other sayings of Jesus which they record.80
On this appropriate note Paul concludes his exhortation to the Ephesian elders.
5. An Affectionate Parting (20:36–38)
36So saying, he knelt down and prayed with them all.
37They all broke into loud weeping, and, embracing Paul, they covered him with kisses.
38What grieved them most was his saying that they would never see his face again. So they escorted him to the ship.
36–38 When Paul had finished speaking to them, and had knelt in prayer with them, they bade him an affectionate but sorrowful farewell. It was in particular his saying that they would never see him again that filled their hearts with grief and their eyes with tears. But the ship was now on the point of setting out from Miletus after its stay of several days, and they escorted Paul to the quay before returning home to Ephesus.