Dennis Tuuri

over against Chio. And the next day we arrived at Samos and carried at Tragillium. And the next day we came to Mitus. For Paul had determined to sail by Ephesus because he would not spend the time in Asia. For he hasted, if it were possible, for him, to be at Jerusalem the day of Pentecost. And from he sent to Ephesus, and called the elders of the church. And when they were come to him, he said unto them, “You know, from the first day that I came into Asia, after what manner I have been with you at all seasons, serving the Lord with all humility of mind, and with many tears and temptations, which befell me by the lying and weight of the Jews, and how I kept back nothing that was profitable unto you, but have showed you, and have taught you publicly, and from house to house, testifying both to the Jews, and also to the Greeks, repentance towards God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.

Now, behold, I go bound in the spirit unto Jerusalem, not knowing the things that shall befall me there, say that the Holy Ghost witnesseth in every city, saying, The bonds and afflictions abide me. But none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry which I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the grace of God.

Now, behold, I know that ye all among whom I have gone preaching the kingdom of God shall see my face no more. Wherefore, I take you to record this day that I am pure from the blood of all men. For I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God. Take heed therefore unto yourselves and to all the flock over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers to feed the church of God which he hath purchased with his own blood.

For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock. Also of your own selves shall men arise speaking perverse things to draw away disciples after them. Therefore, watch and remember that by the space of 3 years, I cease not to warn everyone night and day with tears. Now, brethren, I commend you to God, and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up, and to give you an inheritance among all them which are sanctified.

I have coveted no man’s silver, or gold, or apparel. Yeah, ye yourselves know that these hands have ministered unto my necessities, and to them that were with me. I have showed you all things, how that so laboring ye ought to support the weak. And to remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” And when he had thus spoken, he kneel down and prayed with them all.

And they all wept sore and fell on Paul’s neck and kissed him, sorrowing most of all for the words which he spake, that they should see his face no more. And they accompanied him onto the ship.

We thank God for his word. And let us pray now through song that he would illuminate our understanding. Not my fault. And it’s certainly not anybody’s fault here at Reformation Covenant. We do rent this facility as you all know and that means we’re occasionally inconvenienced in some ways.

And I always particularly lately I think of those inconveniences as nice reminders from God that we don’t own this facility. We rent this facility. And while that is good that we haven’t decided, I think to incur debt as a church, it’s also a prod from God to provoke us long term to trying to be in a position where we do actually own a building or at least can rent it full-time, maybe as an interim step.

So, you know, please don’t get agitated by these things. We see them in the providence of God that little spurs at this particular time of our church’s history to remind us, you know, that we want to have as one of our goals certainly a base of operations so to speak for what God is accomplishing through this church that isn’t transient as this one is. We have an incredibly diverse and excellent library both of tapes and videos and books, unusable for nearly most of the time except for a couple hours on the Lord’s day, the day of the Lord.

Well, anyway, so don’t let this distract you. I’m a little closer. That’s probably a good thing. I wanted to just review before we get into this text. And don’t be, by the way, don’t be frightened by the long outline. We’re not going to do it all this week. I may try to get over an overview of everything in the outline this week, but we’ll spend at least two or three weeks here, maybe more. There’s a lot of good material in this particular text. Well, I always say that it’s always true of every text of scripture we deal with.

This one has particular significance in many ways. Rackom and excellent commentator from days gone by said that this particular text is the pastoral manual of the New Testament. We could say as well that it gives us by implication an overview of qualifications for church office and particularly of elders. It’s a job—I remember when we were talking about one of our men, I think it was Deacon Garrett being considered as a deacon. I believe at that time he or someone else said we need a job description. Well, in terms of a job description of elders, if you wanted one text out of the scriptures as a job description, this would be a real good text to pick. And we want to spend some time talking about that.

Now these are the last words of Paul. You notice he said there that I’m not going to see your faces anymore. I know this much. And so we can see these are the last words of Paul. We’re concluding a major section of the book of Acts. That section of the missionary journeys of Paul as the gospel is taken to the uttermost parts of the earth. Now the last portion of the book of Acts is going to be the gospel being taken back through those same regions.

I just noticed this last night as I was instructing my boys from this text that you know Paul will go back and be imprisoned at Jerusalem, Caesarea, and Rome. Going back through that same pattern of Jerusalem, Samaria, Judea, the uttermost parts of the earth. And that’s the way the gospel went in terms of the preaching of the proclamation of the gospel. That’s where Paul will go in prison as well. But remember that prison in the scriptures is always a prelude to rule and reign. The way that Joseph in his prison was a prelude to his rule and reign. So we have that aspect that these are last words of the apostle Paul.

Talk a little bit about that maybe more today or next week or the week after. Very important things, last words. And Paul has some explicit hooks between what he says in these last words and a couple of other major Old Testament texts. And you’ve already, I’m sure, noticed when he talks about being free of the blood of all men. It goes back to Ezekiel and the job of the watchman. Again, that has to do with the office of elder, but it also has to do with a transition from Paul.

Now, a charge to the elders. He’s leaving their generation is going to be the one they’ll be they’ll be the men who will rule in the churches, exercise the office of elder, a shepherd of the flock at Ephesus and then into the rest of Asia as well. And so there’s a transition. Last words are words of transition. And he’s another particular place in this text. We’ll talk about it more where he has specific words that are used in terms of not coveting gold or silver or apparel that relate back to Samuel’s last words when the kingdom is renewed and transferred to Saul.

And so very important we understand those correlations between for instance Samuel’s last words to the nation of Israel and the reign of Saul. Samuel’s last words rather, and Saul’s initiation as king. Transition, covenant renewal is implied in all these words and the kingdom renewal is implied as well. And indeed Paul says in the context of all of this he gives various descriptions of what his message has been, but one of them is that he’s been preaching the kingdom of God he references the kingdom because that’s what’s going on here is the kingdom being renewed in a sense as we have this transition from Paul to the Ephesian elders.

So last words are important. We’ll talk about that a little bit too. I want to talk maybe one whole Lord’s day. I don’t know yet. One sermon that is on a warning and admonition. We have that mentioned several times here. The need to warn people and the fulfillment of the pastor’s responsibility relative to feeding the flock, but also to warn the flock. And so that word warn in Greek is nouthetic which is the foundational word for what Jay Adams refers to as nouthetic counseling.

You hear counseling today and I know I’ve got a negative reaction to it as you probably do too because of all the psycho babble and the psychological non-biblical thought systems that pervade it. But there is a biblical sense of talking to people and admonishing them from the scriptures. So we’ll try to talk about that for some time. A lot of lot of things in this particular text and I hope you’re as excited about it as I am. Or will become so as we work through it these next few weeks. This really wraps it up. I want to make correlation too. We’re singing songs today and the responsive reading I chose as well are all directly from an order of worship several years ago when I preached on Joshua’s last words to the children of Israel at the end of the book of Joshua. And he reminds them of God’s faithfulness, what God has accomplished and then he calls them, he charges them as well to be faithful to God, to cleave unto him.

Paul talk the Ephesians elders that they might have the inheritance of all of those that are sanctified. Sanctified means set apart to a particular people. Joshua warns the people at the end of the book of Joshua not to cleave to the gods of the lands that they have been and the providence of God been given victory over not to cleave to them but rather to cleave to the Lord God and his law word. And so Paul has references I think too that help us to see the correlation between Paul’s last words and Joshua’s last words.

The book of Acts is the acts of the Lord Jesus Christ through his church. The greater Joshua—same name you know Jesus Joshua—and he’s the greater Joshua of which Joshua in the Old Testament was a type and Jesus has sent his people forth not simply into Canaan but he goes through his church through his presence with his people into all the world in the book of Acts proclaiming the gospel and discipling the nations and that is effectual and people need to know when territory has been conquered for the king and you’ve been brought into a position of being victory in a victorious position—the preaching of the gospel being converted to God and having success in terms of applying that word in every area of your life.

You need to have words of charge to you not to fall back into old ways the way that Paul charged the Ephesian elders. So there’s correlations too and this as I said the songs we chose today I chose were specifically from the same order of worship. I’ll be talking about the outline from Joshua’s last words as well. And indeed today as we sing our last song I’ll be reading Joshua’s last words from Joshua the 23rd chapter prior to our last song, our song of consecration.

There’s a lot of real good material in this text, but we’re not going to start with the text yet. I wanted to review just a little bit of last week and mention a couple of things that kind of kept playing on my mind this last week from last week’s sermon. You know, we last week he said that here we have at the end of these tumultuous missionary journeys of Paul filled with difficulties as well as great successes.

The final picture we have in terms of going to a town instead of calling the elders from Ephesus to him, he goes to a town. And at Troas, we have the picture of the end of all of that being this day of rest, this day of transition from death to life, the day of resurrection, earth tell it out aloud, the Passover of gladness, the Passover of God, from death to life eternal is what this is picturing for us at this worship service where the boy the lad falls out of the window dead and Paul miraculously through the power of the Lord Jesus Christ brings him back to life.

One of only five such occurrences in the scriptures. Seven rather. Two in the Old Testament with Elijah and Elisha. Three with the Lord Jesus Christ and then two with Peter and Paul in the book of Acts. This movement and I talked about this is on the first day of the week and you know that’s the translation of the Greek and the Greek says on one of the Sabbaths or the first day of the Sabbath way to read it and first day of the week is okay but it struck me that in that text that we read from last week, there are two references to time.

The day of the week and the time of the year. Do you remember the time of the year reference? He had spent some time at another place at the feast of unleavened bread. You know, Passover and then the days of unleavened bread following that, the week after that. And again here in this text, Paul calls the elders of Ephesus to him at Mitus because he doesn’t want to take time to go to Ephesus. He’s hurrying to get to Jerusalem.

Why? For the feast of Pentecost, 50 days afterwards. And so what I’m trying to say here is their days of the week were numbered in reference to the Lord’s calendar, the weekly Sabbath. Remember I said that in the Old Testament or in the Jewish in the time of our savior even the days were you would call Saturday would be Sabbath. Sunday would be the first day after the Sabbath, Monday be the second day after the Sabbath, third day, fourth day, fifth day and then Friday be the day of preparation.

So all the days of the week had reference to the Lord’s calendar. One of the things we need to transform in our children’s children perhaps is the calendar of the modern world. I don’t like talking about Woden on Wednesday and Thor on Thursday. Be real good to reclaim a biblical terminology relative to the days of our week. And even the seasons, the seasons that Paul talked about were the seasons of the Old Testament festival system.

We’re not required to keep Passover or any of that stuff anymore. But I’m saying that it doesn’t mean that our perspective of weekly and seasonal time should be secularized. We should think of time in terms of God’s calendar and his purpose for calling us. And these texts just, you know, by way of implication, I think remind us of that. So I wanted to reemphasize that today. Put that as another goal in front of us for the years to come to think about how we refer to months and days and think in terms of a Christian calendar instead of a secular calendar.

And then I wanted to revisit this idea that I mentioned last week. And I have a somewhat of a long quote from James B. Jordan. I thought about this quote during the week as I contemplated what I mentioned last week about how they come together on the first day of the week. Why? To break bread, to have communion, to have the Eucharist. That’s why they’re there. In the context of that, there’s the preaching of the word.

And I said that, you know, in our culture particularly, there’s some elements of the Christian community tend to get think that somehow teaching is primary thing that we’re supposed to do in the Lord’s day and the Sabbath or the sacraments rather have been pushed aside. Teaching is extremely important. The support of Levitical ministers that we’ve talked about a lot the last couple of months is so that they might instruct the people of God but also so that they might lead in prayer.

Those are the two charges to Levi. Look it up. And the charge to Levi in the Old Testament is the son. They were supposed to lead the people in worship by prayer and they’re supposed to teach the people. So teaching is very important but it’s not primary. It’s kind of one of several aspects that God gives us. James B. Jordan in his discussion of this in I believe it was the Reconstruction of the Church that journal that he put out.

He taught in there that Adam was not to eat of the tree of knowledge until after he had eaten of the tree of life. An affirmation of God’s supremacy an act of worship is the precondition of all true learning. And then he cites from Psalm 111:10 the fear of the Lord is the beginning or the first part of wisdom. You get to wisdom through fearing the Lord. It’s an act of bowing the knee of God’s supremacy.

An act of worship as he said, declaring God’s worthiness that precondition is the precondition for all true learning. Now, Mr. Jordan talks about how in the Old Testament at various places and really throughout the scriptures, God speaks in terms of three different pedagogies. I want to explain this word too. I didn’t know this word was going to be in this quote I was going to read, but I put it in my outline.

You’ll notice that in the outline as we go through this text here in a couple of minutes. We read that Paul has a pedagogic assertion of faithfulness in warning in part three of your outline and in part five a pedagogic assertion of the absence of covetousness. Well, the 25 cent words. I’m not sure why I use them. I do. But pedagogic simply means that Paul makes these assertions or statements how he wasn’t covetous.

And he says that he warned people. Don’t remember, don’t forget I warned everybody, you know, day and night tears. I warned people. And he’s telling them about himself, but he’s telling them about himself to the end that they might learn something as well. So these statements, assertions are pedagogic in that they teach. Pedagogy refers to instruction or teaching. And so Paul’s, as he recites his personal actions in this long text from Acts chapter 20, it’s not because he’s hung up on himself.

He knows that God has done things through him that serve as useful instruction to the elders who are going to be ruling in the church and pastoring in the church in his place so to speak or in Christ’s place really. So pedagogic simply means teaching or instruction. These are statements that Paul makes, but they have instructional benefit.

Well, Mr. Jordan in this quote I’m going to mention talks about three different pedagogies or ways God has of teaching us. And he says there are three basically and I suppose you could relate this to the three items found in the ark of the covenant. There’s all kinds of ways you could relate it but says first of all there’s a pedagogy of boundary or rule and God says you know if you do certain things and there are punishments We can’t do everything we want to do. We’re proscribed in our action. There’s a pedagogy of boundary or rule.

And in terms of the church, one of the things that we need in the transformation reconstruction of the church in the world today is a reassertion of the pedagogy, the instruction of boundary. Church courts rule in the context of the church are important to see come back to life. And then secondly, and this is where I want to read this, he said God sets up a pedagogy of liturgy. Liturgy, you know, we always think it’s some high-falutin thing, but literally Jesus, the service of the people, that’s all it means.

The work of the people in worship specifically is where the word is used. There’s good liturgies, there’s bad liturgies, but if you’ve gone to a church, if you gone to a number of churches, you’ve always engaged in a liturgy at that church. Maybe a self-conscious liturgy, maybe not, but you’ve always worked to some degree to worship God in the context of the day of the Lord services of Christ Church.

And so we try to make it more participatory We try to make it a little more formal because we’re trying to remember that we’re not here to entertain each other. We’re here to worship God. We’ve been ushered into the heavenlies. Or you could say he’s come down to be with us and we’re performing worship for him. We’re declaring his praises and we’re calling all creation to declare his praises. Call to, you know, the call to worship is the beginning of that.

And then we move through those things. And the source of Corta, we lift up our hands. Why do we do that thing? That feels so uncomfortable. Are we charismatic? No. Charismatic churches. If you feel like it, you lift your hands. Here, we try to organize ourselves as the liturgical army of God, so to speak. So, we do things together. If you feel like singing a song that’s different than the song we’ve selected, well, okay, you can sing it in your heart, but you know, you’re supposed to with words join with the rest of us.

We’re being molded together into the army of the Lord. And one of the ways he does that is through the pedagogy, the instruction of liturgy or church worship. And so, we raise our hands because the scriptures say, that in the Old Testament when the preaching went on and the words being exposed that the people would raise their hands and praise God. That means that all the people raise their hands and praise God.

We don’t understand that, but we do it anyway because God’s word says, gee, God’s word seems to indicate to us, if we’ve understood it correctly, we’re always open to saying we might not have, but if we have, that we all should raise our hands up at some point in the worship service. And it seems good to do that at the service from Corda to remind ourselves of the ascent to heaven that’s being accomplished that we’re going into the throne room of God.

So we do that to train ourselves together and then we we then sing praise God from whom all blessings flow. Book of Revelation, the elders of the church are gathered around the throne and they’re supposed to lead creation in worship. And so Elder Mayhem is up here and he’s leading you and we’re calling creation to praise God. Praise him all creatures here below. We’re saying all the earth praise God.

Then we’re saying praise him above ye heavenly hosts. All the created order including the heavenly host and heaven. Praise God. The church leads in the praise of God. Well, anyway, to continue with this quote, God sets up a pedagogy of liturgy. The performance of ritual actions by our whole persons. See, the inclusion of hands helps us with that. By our whole persons restructures our lives. Such ritual creates a context for understanding truth when we hear it.

A minimal liturgy, a mere bare bones, provides a minimal context for understanding. In an erroneous liturgy sidetracks understanding. In other words, if we have gotten things wrong in what we do in terms of our liturgy, what we do at the Lord’s day worship services, it’s going to produce error as well. See, so we try to correlate our worship to the explicit instructions of scripture because, however, the Bible, the biblical view of man is holistic and not merely intellectualistic.

I’m using big words. We’re whole beings. We’re not just great big minds, as much as we want to be that in America sometimes, but not very intellectualistic. The performance of ritual acts to God’s glory, even without fully understanding them, is extremely important. A study of the ritual laws in Leviticus, for example, will readily demonstrate that God almost never in context explain the meaning of these rites.

You know, that’s one of the problems people have. Read the book of Leviticus, you know what they’re supposed to do, and he doesn’t say why they’re supposed to be doing it. So, we’re trying to make application to what we’re doing today. Well, He doesn’t bother to very to a large extent to make people understand these things. He tells them what they’re supposed to do. And in the doing of it, they’re being trained by God in a particular way.

Even though they may not understand intellectually why they’re doing these things, the performance of such ritual generates a psychological context for receiving teaching. Just as proper and sound teaching is the proper context of any meaningful ritual. They go together is what he’s saying. The lack of ritual and of whole person worship is one of the greatest roadblocks to understanding present in the evangelical church of today.

The discipline of liturgy in the church molds an army while mere teaching at best can produce only a group of opinionated scholars. I was talking to Deacon Garrett yesterday. He talked about I won’t be able to remember how he said it but theologians I think or something like that. That’s you know some people are just theologians and what he meant but theologians or I don’t remember how he said it. But anyway, the point he makes is you probably known people that what they like to do in life is study the Bible and theology and then sit around and talk about it all day.

And that’s as far as it goes is just talking about it. See, worship brings us out of that sin. It puts us in the context of doing things. Now, it doesn’t necessarily automatically mean that you’re going to apply the faith in the rest of the week, but it’s part of the means whereby God urges you to do that. Proper worship and we offer ourselves at the end of the sermon, we bring our whole bodies up, getting our bodies involved again to train us to involve our bodies throughout the week as an offering to God.

Okay. Third—and this so he said first of all God set up a pedagogy and instruction check of boundary then of liturgy and then he mentions instruction. Third God set up a pedagogy of instruction and the person he’s talking about has called attention to that already so he doesn’t need to say any more about it. But just in passing, if we’re not saying instruction is important, if you’ve been at RCC very long, you know instruction is very important to us.

And you know that the classes we conduct are good and profit. We think it’s very important that people understand theology, but it’s not the ultimate thing. And in terms of Lord’s day worship, the passage from last week says that the center of it is the Eucharist. Then Jordan says, “An analogy may help. The military shakes man by means of fear, threat of real punishment, drill, ceremonial acts such as marching and instruction.

The fact that the Bible repeatedly compares the church to an army only makes the analogy obvious. So if we’re an army, there should be threat of real punishment from God, including to the officers of the church if we break ranks or if we sin and don’t come to repentance for that. We should drill together as an army of God. And we should receive instruction on how we’re going to go out there proclaiming the gospel and through the two-edged sword of preaching the gospel of Christ conquer Portland, Oregon, America, etc.

And so drill is an important part of that whole process. The perspective of the organizers of this symposium, that’s this book he’s editing, is that the reconstruction of the church requires the reestablishment of all three of these pedagogies means of instruction. There must be a reestablishment of true government in the church, setting the boundaries of her field. There must be a reestablishment of true liturgical discipline around the sacrament organizing the actions of her wave and there must be a reestablishment of sound teaching communicating particles of true information.

Now he’s referring there to wave particle and field theory in terms of physics and he’s make application so don’t don’t let those words throw you but it is an interesting correlation. So he talks about those three pedagogies and says there must be a real establishment of these things. Well these things are when these things are recovered by the church Since judgment begins at the house of God, they will also be recovered by society at large.

The church is the nursery of the kingdom. There can be no reformation in state, school, or family until there is reformation in the church. Man’s problems are indeed religious. But religion is not just theology. And man’s problem is not just bad theology. Religion is also the discipline of ritual and the restraining virtue of court enforced boundaries. There must be recovery in all three areas or there’ll be or there will be recovery in none.

It is to that end the symposium is dedicated and that’s what I’m trying to I’ll just do that by way of review. I know it took a long time there but by way of review of last week and hope you understand at least my vision my understanding of how the worship of the church correlates with the instruction of the church other instruction that goes on throughout the week and then boundaries and all that works together to form an army of God that is effectual in every area of life and thought.

And I think that’s what Paul was doing and that’s what Paul is calling these Ephesian elders to perform in the context of their lives as well here. One other thing before we get into this and I guess it is sort of getting into it. We mentioned before that this immediately follows the context of Paul’s talk to the Ephesian elders. The first few verses describe the journey of Paul, Luke, these other men that are mentioned, the representatives of the congregation who are probably part of that financial accountability team to make sure the offering taken to Jerusalem by Paul, all that takes place in a good way. This journey takes place from Troas where the resurrection occurred, the movement from death to life.

And then the ship goes around and picks up Paul at this one particular place. That’s what the verses tell us. Then they sail on to Mitus and call for the Ephesian elders. Scholars have wondered, not just scholars, people that read the text wonder why it is that Paul in verse 13 is said to mind himself to go afoot. In other words, they’re going to sail around this one point. I don’t remember the name of that particular point, you know, kind of like Cape Blanco or they had to sail around this one point.

And Paul didn’t want to sail around that point. He wanted to walk across the land structure there that they were sailing around, which would take him longer. So, why is he doing that? Well, we don’t know why. But one thing that people have talked about is that and we’ll talk about this more at when we get into this next section of the book of Acts. But when Paul goes to Jerusalem, he is in a sense stepping in the steps of the Lord Jesus Christ as he went to Jerusalem for his passion for his death.

And Paul undergoes ritualistic death and the imprisonment etc. with an identification. We’ll see that literary devices that tie those things together. as we go through that section of Acts. But the point is this that just like our savior would in preparation for major events that he would go through spend time off by himself alone praying with God. We can imagine the Apostle Paul on the verge of giving his last words and then setting his faith steadfastly as his savior had done to go to Jerusalem knowing as he knew that bonds and affliction awaited him there.

We can imagine The apostle Paul takes the example of the Lord Jesus Christ and desires time by himself to pray, to meditate, to think, and to collect his thoughts. He couldn’t do on ship on board the ship. That’s a good model for us. We don’t know all the times when the great big problems in life are going to flare up in front of us. You don’t know what might happen to you tomorrow. Loved one may die. You may get fired.

You don’t know. Other things we do know, they’re going to be difficult times coming ahead for us. And when we do, it’d be good for us to follow the example of our Lord just like the Apostle Paul seems to have done. Spend some time alone praying, meditating, collecting your thoughts, resting in Christ’s finished work and looking for counsel from the Holy Spirit as he moves us. So that’s what that’s how all this discussion with the Ephesian elders begins really is with this journey and the apostle Paul then does this to I think collect his thoughts for what he’s going to be doing with the Ephesian elders and on going into Jerusalem.

Okay, let’s just do an overview and I’ll just touch on a couple of brief points from the first part of the outline, but let’s talk a little bit about a basic overview of this text in preparation for really the next few weeks. And get your outlines out if you don’t have one. I think probably still some back there. And I’ve given you an outline of this text. This certainly is not inspired by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s a I think it seems to make sense with the way the text flows.

And what I’ve done is I’ve grouped these this particular set of verses of which there are a large number into five points. Now I could if you want to do the entire text the first six or seven verses would be the introduction to all of this. The way that Paul arrived at Mitus and then at the end I conclude at verse 35. We could conclude that really with the reception of his speech by the Ephesian elders you know how he gives this talk before the talk he gets to Mitus after the talk he then bows down and praise right there with these men on his knees and they cry and they weep primarily because they’re not going to see him anymore by the way it’s interesting that their weeping there is the same word that’s used of the torment of souls in hell I mean so they weren’t just sort of sort of sad Paul was leaving him felt it greatly and they were anguished in their souls because of the departure of Paul.

One other thing by way of side comment that as we go through this and as you prepare for these next couple of talks, be good to reread the book of Revelation, the first few chapters where we read, of Ephesus of the church. One of the letters to seven churches was to Ephesus. The seven churches were raising churches and were all probably planted during this missionary journey of Paul. We don’t know that for sure, but that’s probable. Well, in any event, we see then what happens to the church at Ephesus by way of the letters to the seven churches sent by the Lord Jesus Christ probably around 68 or 69 AD several years later.

We’ll see how well they kept the charge that Paul gave them. Okay. So anyway, then we have I’ve got five elements to this particular talk of the Apostle Paul. The first is a recounting of the manner of Paul’s visitation to the Ephesian elders verses 18-21. And here I’m thinking primarily of Christian character when he begins his talk. He says when they come together with them when they were come together he said unto them ye know from the first day that I came into Asia after what manner I have been with you at all seasons.

So Paul first of all is going to remind them of the manner in which he was with them and that manner is he says I was with you serving the Lord with all humility of mind with many tears and temptations which befell me by the plotting of the Jews. So he talks first about his manner and that’s the first section we’ll talk about probably talk about a little bit before we conclude this morning. And then the second thing the apostle Paul talks about begins in verse 20 and how I kept back nothing that was profitable unto you.

And I think that section we could talk about the manifestations of Christian ministry again under recounting of Paul’s manner. Paul’s manner had to do with both Christian character and his manner also had to do with the way he conducted Christian ministry in the next couple of verses. And so We’ll talk about that as we get along here in the next week probably. But he gave them a full message he communicated that message in three particular ways.

The scriptures say showing okay I didn’t I said I didn’t I kept back nothing that was profitable. By the way he uses here a sailing analogy in verse 20. The word actually has original reference to trimming the sails of a ship. And he said that when it came to preaching the gospel to you or communicating the gospel of God I didn’t trim my sails at all. Even though it might be bad, troubling waters to talk to you about particular things relative to your life and the application of the gospel.

Paul says, “I didn’t trim the sails. I sailed right into those seas. I didn’t hold back. I gave you the full message.” Here’s what he’s saying. So, in terms of his Christian ministry, he gave a full message showing that word is somewhat analogous to preaching. and it is used in that way in several senses. We’ll talk about that in weeks to come. And then teaching, he showed them, he taught them, and he testified to them as well.

And you notice there that the teaching that he did in the context of the congregation was publicly, but it was also house to house. I said this is a manual of job description of what a pastor or what an elder should do. Notice, by the way, that we don’t find collected at Mitus pastors and elders to say he called the pastors and he called the elders. He called the elders. And we’ll talk some about those terms and how those have come down to us in a couple of weeks here.

We’ll talk about why the why I believe the scriptures assert there are only two offices in the New Testament, elders and deacons. And elders function in different ways. But here in this text, elders are called. There’s no distinction between elders and pastors. But any event, the elders’s job is to teach publicly and his job is to teach from house to house. House visitation. We’re trying to do a better I’m trying to do a better job of now.

Still need to work on it a lot. Talk about that some in the weeks to come. But the manner of Paul’s ministry, Christian ministry was a full gospel, so to speak. We’ll talk about what that is. He was showing, teaching, and testifying. And he testifies to repentance to God and faith toward the Lord Jesus Christ. And you’ll notice there that at the core of his message is repentance and faith, but both have an object.

It’s not good enough to talk about repentance. You remember Esau had a repentance, but it wasn’t what some would call an evangelical repentance. It was a worldly repentance. He was sorry that he lost out on the blessing with many tears. He was sorry. But it was not apparently an evangelical repentance. By that we mean Christian repentance, repentance toward God. See, Esau hadn’t just lost the blessing. He had sinned against God.

And he was sorry for loss of blessing, but he wasn’t sorry He wasn’t truly repentant toward God. The word repent means to turn or be converted. And it begins with a godly sorrow. And man, well, begins with God’s grace shedding his spirit in our heart to show us the vileness of our sin. And then repentance has an object that is toward God. It’s not toward the law, it’s a blessing. Same with faith. Faith is a gift of God.

And the faith that is a gift of God has as its object toward the Lord Jesus Christ. It’s not our faith that saves It is the work of our savior and God regenerates us and gives us faith. But it’s not that faith that somehow is a work of ours that brings salvation to us. It’s the object of faith, the work of the savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. That is all important. And so Paul gives him the manner of his Christian character, the manner of his Christian ministry.

At the center of that ministry is a proclamation of the gospel of Christ, which involves repentance to God, faith toward the Lord Jesus Christ.

Secondly, The thing that Paul gives him then is a statement of the gravity of the situation. He begins by reciting the manner of his being with him and then he tells them this is a big deal. There’s a graveness to this situation. I am going from here and I don’t know what’s going to happen in Jerusalem.

I do know that bonds and afflictions await me. I don’t know what the specifics and I do know one other thing. Paul says I know of a certainty. I won’t see your face anymore. It’s a big deal. And there we have the aspect of last words. These are Paul’s last words to these men. He knows that his future is imprisonment. He knows that the Ephesian elders future is no Paul anymore. And in the context of that, there’s an implied constancy to ministry.

Let’s look at that in verse 24. None of these things. Okay. 23, this is what I know. Say that the Holy Ghost witnesses in every city, saying that bonds and afflictions abide thee. And then there’s almost a parenthetical statement here. But none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy in the ministry which I have received of the Lord Jesus to testify the gospel the grace of God. Another summation of what he is testifying to the gospel the grace of God’s pure grace no works of men involved God’s sovereignty and election God’s sovereignty and salvation is the essence but the point here he’s making is that I’m going to finish my course I don’t know what’s going to happen in Jerusalem but I if it’s my death I’ll go to my death my life is not dear to me than the obligation to finish the ministry that God has called me to do.

Now, that’s an example for us. And on his deathbed, as it were here, potentially his deathbed, Paul witnesses to his conviction to continue his ministry. And so, in the context of his bringing about the gravity of the situation to bear in their minds, there is implied he called the constancy and ministry to the end.

And then third, the third section: verses 26-31, a pedagogic assertion of faithfulness in ministry teaching assertion. He asserts that he has been faithful. He is free of blood guiltiness of any man. He says, and why? Because he has indeed declared the whole counsel of God. You’re not free of the blood guiltiness of men if you don’t declare the whole counsel of God as a minister. If I were to hold back a portion of the preaching of God’s word because I thought it might offend or bring me difficulty or get me in big trouble with this group, I would then be guilty potentially of your blood guiltiness should you sin in that area.

Now, we’ll talk about that in more detail, but Ezekiel says, “If you sin, if I’m the watchman, and I fail to warn you about a particular sin in your life, publicly or personally, and you sin, and you then receive judgment from God, the judgment is yours, but I get judged, too. Your blood is upon my head.” Now, Paul said he had declared the whole counsel of God, and as a result, he had been faithful, and as a result, he had no blood guiltiness.

And secondly, he then repeats he states his desire for the elders faithfulness in ministry. He tells him to take heed and to be watchful and then he tells him to feed. He says to take heed to yourselves and to the church of God. So the taking heed and feeding being very careful and also to feed refers to themselves and also to the church of God. He said you’ve been ordained not by man. You’ve been put into office by the Holy Ghost and as a result take heed to yourself.

that your ministry not suffer. Make sure that you’re fed as well in terms of the word of God. And then he says to take heed and feed the church of God. And there the primary motivation for that is that this flock this flock has been bought with the blood of God, the precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. The motivation for them feeding the church is not so much their calling and officially the Holy Ghost.

That’s important, but the primary motivation in terms of their need to feed the congregation is the members of the congregation have been bought with the precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. How we think about each other is real important and if I think about you in certain ways I may hold back and if you think about me in certain ways you may not tell me things that I need to hear too whether they’re words of encouragement or words of admonition.

But if we all keep in the front of our heads about each other that each of us have been purchased with the precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ we are of that kind of value now covenantally in Christ then we have great motivation to encourage each other and to admonish each other from the word of God and Paul calls them here to faithfulness and warning particularly is what he’s talking about. Enemies will arise grievous wolves and the word means heavy wolves that will destroy will come into this flock. He said with a certainty this is where it’s going to be war. Wolves will break in and devour and destroy.

And not only will wolves break in from outside, perverse men, twisted men from some of you will then try to subvert the congregation here and draw disciples off to themselves. Some of you very elders, he said, are going to twist and turn in the wind, so to speak, and twist away from the proper turning of your conversion to God. And you’re going to twist men and pervert the church of Christ. Perverse teaching here has to do with teaching not that’s morally decrepit.

It has to do with teaching that is twisted and perverse and heretical. And he says that you’re going to have problems from without and problems from within. And as a result, you must warn the flock repeatedly. This is going to happen. He’s calling. What does it say to us? Do you think he had prophetic knowledge about the Ephesian congregation? There’s no indication of that. But he knows that this is the normal life cycle of a church of Jesus Christ.

And so he prepares the Ephesians for it. Don’t think it’s strange when people attack you from outside. Don’t think it’s odd when all of a sudden you get people coming from inside who want to draw off parts of the church to themselves someplace else? This isn’t strange. He says, “This is what’s going to happen.” And since you know it’s going to happen, you must be careful and constant and faithful in warning the church of Jesus Christ.

Watch and remember and you warn just as I warned you, he said.

Okay. So, we moved from an assertion of his manner to a statement of the gravity of the situation. He talks about his faithfulness in warning and calls them to faithfulness in warning. And then he commends the elders to God and to his word. Commends them. He gives them in trust, so to speak, to God and to the word. It is God and the word that is able and will indeed establish them and edify them, build them up in the faith and give them the reception of their inheritance of those that are sanctified.

And then finally, a pedagogic assertion of the absence of covetousness. And this is what’s so interesting is that this ends with this reference as I said back to Samuel where Samuel said the same thing at the end of his ministry. Paul says, “I have not been covetous. I haven’t coveted things.” So he first goes on defense. Throughout this, by the way, Paul is probably the portions of his message are probably related to the various charges that had already been laid against him by people in the context of the Ephesian church.

These are things people accused Paul of. He’s proud, they said. But he goes out his way. I’ve not been proud. You know, I have been lowly of mind. He just wants to have other people serve him. No, you know, I’ve been serving you. He just wants money. He says, “No, you know that I haven’t wanted anything you’ve had. And in fact, to go the full mile here, he says, you know that my hands ministered to my necessities.

That I even though I had the right as an apostle. I have the right to your tithe money.” He said, “I didn’t take it. I worked instead to make sure that no stumbling block was set up in front of you. So he gives the example of his positive righteousness. What he did? He worked to support himself and those that were with him. His hands ministered to their needs, not to the Ephesian hands. And then he ends by giving them the example of the Lord Jesus Christ.

He says, “You follow my example. This is the way you should treat the flock is that kind of service.” And then he quotes words of Jesus Christ. Do you know where in the gospels those words of Christ are found? They’re at the end of the text. And he says that Jesus said, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.”