Read Acts 20 at Bible Gateway.
Acts 20:1-38 chiastic structure:
1a) Act 20:1-2a, Paul called the disciples to himself/ departed to Macedonia + encouraged them with many words;
1b) Act 20:2a-6, Travels in Macedonia, Greece and Asia/ the Days of Unleavened Bread;
1c) Act 20:7-9, Paul’s message until midnight/ Eutychus fell asleep, fell down from the third story + taken up dead;
central axis) Act 20:10-11, But Paul went down, fell on him, and embracing him said, “Do not trouble yourselves, for his life is in him.” Now when he had come up, had broken bread and eaten, and talked a long while, even till daybreak, he departed;
2c) Act 20:12, And they brought the young man in alive, and they were not a little comforted;
2b) Act 20:13-16, Travels to Miletus/ plan to be in Jerusalem for the Day of Pentecost;
2a) Act 20:17-38, Paul sent to Ephesus, called for the elders of the church + encouraged them/ departed;
1a.1) Act 20:17-20a, Paul’s manner of life among them, serving the Lord/ he kept back nothing that was helpful;
1a.2) Act 20:20b-24, Paul proclaimed the word of His grace to both Jews + Greeks;
1a) Act 20:20b-21, But proclaimed it to you/ testifying to Jews + Greeks repentance + faith toward Jesus;
1b) Act 20:22a, And see, now I go bound in the spirit to Jerusalem;
central axis) Act 20:22b, Not knowing the things that will happen to me there;
2b) Act 20:23, Except that the Holy Spirit testifies in every city, saying that chains + tribulations await me;
2a) Act 20:24, The ministry received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God;
1a.3) Act 20:25, You all, among whom I have gone preaching the kingdom of God, will see my face no more;
1b) Act 20:26-27, I am innocent of blood, for I have not shunned to declare the whole counsel of God;
1c) Act 20:28, Take heed to yourselves + the flock, for you are to shepherd the church of God;
central axis) Act 20:29-30, “For I know this, that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. Also from among yourselves men will rise up, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after themselves;”
2c) Act 20:31a, Therefore watch;
2b) Act 20:31b, And remember that for three years I did not cease to warn everyone night and day with tears;
2a.2) Act 20:32, I commend you to God + the word of His grace, which is able to give you an inheritance among the saints;
2a.1) Act 20:33-35, I have coveted nothing but provided for myself/ it is more blessed to give than to receive;
2a.3) Act 20:36-38, He prayed with them/ their sorrow that they would see his face no more + accompanied him to the ship.
This chapter is full of detail detail detail of the journey Paul took on his way back to Jerusalem. Why does the Lord include things like this in the Scripture? First of all, passages like this provide internal evidence that this letter was written by someone who journeyed with Paul at the time the journey was taken. It is a chapter that reads as if it was written from the pages of a diary, all the minutia included. No one writing 100 or 200 years later, as the liberal theologians like to claim the New Testament Scriptures were written, would think to include stuff like this. There is no idle word in Scripture! All of it serves a purpose, even if that purpose is to refute the pin headed theories the theologians would bring against its authenticity and authority millennia later!
For further study:
does acts 20:7 provide scriptural authority for sunday rather than sabbath worship?
digging deeper into acts 20:7
mia ton sabbaton in acts 20:7
Leave a Reply