Acts 20:17-21
Review:
Background:
MILETUS (Μίλητος, Milētos). A declining center of commerce on the western coast of Asia Minor during the New Testament period. The site of Paul’s farewell address to the Ephesian elders (Acts 20:15) and the place where Paul left Trophimus to recover from his illness (2 Tim 4:20).
Text:
17 Now from Miletus he sent to Ephesus and called the elders of the church to come to him. 18 And when they came to him, he said to them:
It is unclear why Paul would have stopped in the dying seaport of Miletus rather than Ephesus—especially since Ephesus was by this time a dominant seaport and city where Paul was well-loved. Paul may have stopped at Miletus because of the increasing urgency he felt in traveling to Jerusalem. If he had stopped in Ephesus, Paul would have received enthusiastic Hellenistic hospitality and been obligated to stay for several weeks. By stopping in Miletus instead, Paul could avoid offending the Ephesians by refusing their hospitality; yet he could still communicate to the whole of his Ephesian community via its elders (Rapske, “Acts, Travel and Shipwreck,” 17; see also Witherington, The Acts of the Apostles, 609).
You yourselves know how I lived among you the whole time from the first day that I set foot in Asia, 19 serving the Lord with all humility and with tears and with trials that happened to me through the plots of the Jews; 20 how I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable, and teaching you in public and from house to house, 21 testifying both to Jews and to Greeks of repentance toward God and of faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.
But he is not here to preach, but to say farewell. And not just farewell, but to reflect on his time with them, the longest period he had ever spent with a church, and to reflect with them on the pattern of his ministry and its significance.
in the ancient world there were many reasons why one might look back on one’s own public career like this. There were many wandering teachers, healers and others who were basically interested in making a living rather than the real best interests of their hearers and followers. Paul was anxious lest, after his departure, people might start to insinuate that he was really that kind of person—and, worse, that the pastors and teachers in the congregation might start to behave like that too. The speech is, in fact, about the Christ-shaped, generous love that the minister must not only speak about but also model at every level.
It is a love that, as Paul himself said, bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things. He had gone through a good deal in Ephesus (verse 19), but had given an enormous amount as well
testifying to both Jews and Greeks about repentance towards God and faith in Jesus the Messiah. And, looking more broadly, and thinking back to the many late nights in lighted rooms and the many long afternoons in the lecture-hall of Tyrannus, as well as to a thousand personal conversations, bent over a text of scripture with a half-made tent on the bench beside him, he speaks of having resolutely declared to them
‘God’s whole plan’. The word for ‘plan’ indicates a settled intention of a purpose to be carried out step by step. This isn’t just a matter of ‘true doctrines’, but of the entire divine intention, from the call of Abraham to the time of final ‘restoration’ (3:21), when Jesus will act as judge to sort everything out (17:31). That takes time, and application, and determination, at those points in the story where it gets complicated or awkward questions are raised; and Paul has been up for it all.
Nobody will ever be able to say that he trimmed the message to make it easier to get it across or more palatable for his hearers. This was his commission from God, and he has been faithful to it.
It seems that he does not intend to return to the eastern Mediterranean, but to make Rome his new base for operations in the west. Significantly, Antioch, his original ‘sending church’, has dropped out of the picture, though whether he was hoping to pay a quick visit there after Jerusalem we cannot say. But he knows this is a final farewell, as far as the Aegean coastline is concerned. They will never see his face again (Acts 20:25).