Acts 20: A Word in Season to Ephesian Elders; A Word in Season to Us
We should always be ready in season or out of season to encourage, to reprove, or to build up. To bring rain on parched soil, to bring first and latter rains on good soil. In everything be ready to extend a hand in this way to a brother. See 2 Timothy 4:2.
Luke instructs us in the way through Paul’s speech to Ephesian elders in Acts, Chapter 20.. He gives us a key that will unlock the door of hearts to be ready. Here is Paul’s counsel, admonition and instruction:
You yourselves know how I lived among you the whole time from the first day that I set foot in Asia, serving the Lord with all humility and with tears and with trials that happened to me through the plots of the Jews; how I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable, and teaching you in public and from house to house, testifying both to Jews and to Greeks of repentance toward God and of faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. And now, behold, I am going to Jerusalem, constrained by the Spirit, not knowing what will happen to me there, except that the Holy Spirit testifies to me in every city that imprisonment and afflictions await me. But I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God. And now, behold, I know that none of you among whom I have gone about proclaiming the kingdom will see my face again. Therefore I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all, for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God. 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. I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things, to draw away the disciples after them. Therefore be alert, remembering that for three years I did not cease night or day to admonish every one with tears. And now I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified. I coveted no one's silver or gold or apparel. You yourselves know that these hands ministered to my necessities and to those who were with me. In all things I have shown you that by working hard in this way we must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’
Wise counsel, warnings, and tenderness like a father with his children! (see e.g., 1 Thessalonians 2:11) But those words were not stitched together on the fly. Let’s look.
Paul traveled five days from Philppi to Troas, and then remained in Troas for seven days. Paul next walked by himself from Troas to Assos. ( And then he sailed from Assos to Mytilene, and then to Chios, and then to Samos, and then to Miletus. Once in Miletus, verse 17 tells us that he sent for the Ephesian elders. Now Ephesus was about 50 miles away from Miletus.
The modes of travel, by sea and by foot, and the geography that necessitated one over the other both time. necessitated time, and lots of it. Compared to our present era, everything was slowed way down with time to think, time to pray, and time to gather the thoughts necessary to encourage and to warn and to love the Ephesian elders for the last time (he would not see them again).
