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Acts 20:28–30
“Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood” (v. 28).
When Paul was saying goodbye to the Ephesian elders, he made sure to prepare them for his absence. His instruction to them, we read in today’s passage, was based in part on the dangers that he knew the church would face.
Acts 20:28 notes what the Ephesian elders were to do, and verses 29–30 give the reason for those actions. Let us look first at verses 29–30. Paul warned the elders that after his departure, fierce wolves would arise from their own number, teaching twisted things, not sparing the flock, and drawing away disciples after them. The greatest danger to the church once the Apostles were gone, Paul said, would be false teachers’ taking seats in church leadership and devouring the flock with error. The Christian faith is centered on the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the truth Himself (John 14:6). Therefore, the greatest threat to the church comes not from the outside but from the inside, from people who gain a position of teaching and use it to lead people away from Jesus by telling falsehoods about Him.
What are church elders to do? They must pay attention to themselves and to all the flock of God to care for it (Acts 20:28). The most important thing that church leaders can do to prevent error from taking hold in their hearts and teaching is to pay attention to themselves, to make sure they are ever growing in their knowledge of God’s Word and the doctrine it teaches. In turn, this enables them to pass on the truth so that the flock is protected from error. John Chrysostom comments, “When we attend to ourselves, the flock also benefits.”
Note also that Paul says that God purchased the church with “his own blood” (Acts 20:28). This seems odd, since we know that God is spirit, and thus the divine essence does not have blood (see John 4:24). It is appropriate, however, to refer to the blood of God in light of the hypostatic union, the perfect union of the divine nature and a human nature in the one divine person of the Son of God. Because the person of Jesus is the divine Son of God and because His human nature has blood, He, the Son of God, has had blood ever since He took on flesh in the incarnation. This does not mean that His divine nature has blood, for the divine and human natures are united without each nature’s taking on the properties of the other. Instead, the one person possesses all the attributes of each nature. John Calvin writes, “Paul doth attribute blood to God; because the man Jesus Christ, who shed his blood for us, was also God.”
Coram Deo Living before the face of God
Paul’s words in today’s passage are directed mainly at elders, but we cannot forget that all Christians have a responsibility to grow in their knowledge of the truth so that they can recognize and resist false teaching. Let us not become complacent but rather seek ever to grow in our understanding of God’s Word and the doctrine that it teaches.
For further study
- Matthew 10:16
- 2 Peter 2:1–3
The bible in a year
- Proverbs 11–12
- 1 Corinthians 15:35–58
- Proverbs 13–16
- 1 Cor. 16–2 Cor. 1