Acts
20:29-32 … 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.
This was a prophetic statement. The doctrinal attacks did
come against the church in Ephesus. Men spoke twisted things and they spoke
them with passion. To be alert to a danger or error you must be able to
identify dangers and errors. What can make it hard is that you must be able to
be alert when someone makes a passionate defense of error. In other words, you
must have an accurate understanding of the Gospel to defend the Gospel.
Passion for Christ and a thorough knowledge of Scripture must
go together. In our age we seem to have trouble keeping them together. Knowledge
of Scripture apart from a living passion for Christ will make a Pharisee out of
a man and end in cold legalism. A passion for Christ without knowledge ends in
idolatry as we form Jesus to fit our minds idea of Jesus. Eventually the
passion we have is for our own conception of what we want in Christ and not
what Scripture tells us about Christ. We can have an effeminate or macho or
outlaw Jesus idol. Paul combined that passion in admonishing with tears with
grounding the Ephesians in the word of His grace.
In John 5:39 & 40, Jesus said, “You search the
Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they
that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have
life.” When he said that, first of all, he was talking to Pharisees. Even in
the context of the Pharisees, Jesus isn’t telling them to stop searching the
Scriptures but He is saying to hear what Scripture says and to see Christ in
the Scriptures from Genesis to Malachi.
For Christians, a pure passion for Christ comes from
Scripture via the Holy Spirit. True knowledge of the person and work of Christ
comes from Scripture and not by personal reflection or even by spiritual
experience. Paul didn’t lack either passion or knowledge in Christ and he said,
“But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary
to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so
now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you
received, let him be accursed.” We have many folks preaching “other gospels”
that we know are not really gospels at all.
Acts
20:33-35 … 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.’ ”
This is another part of the charge for the elders. They
are supposed to work hard. Paul was a tent maker. He worked in a team both as a
tent maker and as a minister. He spent many hours in ministry working hard. There
is currently excitement in Russia over a picture of the Russian Orthodox
Patriarch named Kirill. In the photo on the website of the Russian Orthodox
Church they posted a picture of Kirill meeting with the Justice Minister and
the Patriarch seems to be wearing a $30,000 watch. After some Russians noticed
the watch the watch disappeared from the photo … however, the reflection of the
watch in the shiny table top remained. At this point they are claiming the edit
was unauthorized and that it was an inexpensive Russian watch, or a gift, or a
hoax. I’m sure they’ll settle on one explanation soon. It may have been a copy.
But when we talk about living simply and even – as the Russian Orthodox Church
has recently – austerely then we need to exercise our conscience before God and
allow the Holy Spirit to lead.
This is what we, as Southern Baptists, have stated in our
Faith and Message about stewardship:
God is the source of all
blessings, temporal and spiritual; all that we have and are we owe to Him.
Christians have a spiritual debtorship to the whole world, a holy trusteeship
in the gospel, and a binding stewardship in their possessions. They are
therefore under obligation to serve Him with their time, talents, and material
possessions; and should recognize all these as entrusted to them to use for the
glory of God and for helping others. According to the Scriptures, Christians
should contribute of their means cheerfully, regularly, systematically,
proportionately, and liberally for the advancement of the Redeemer's cause on
earth (Baptist Faith and Message 2000).
Paul didn’t just cover one aspect of their life as he
planted a church in Ephesus. He didn’t even just cover one topic in this brief
time of encouragement to these brothers. He encouraged both a righteous
doctrine and a righteous lifestyle.
Acts
20:36-38 … And when he had said these things, he knelt down and prayed with
them all. And there was much weeping on the part of all; they embraced Paul and
kissed him, being sorrowful most of all because of the word he had spoken, that
they would not see his face again. And they accompanied him to the ship.
What God had revealed was prison. God hadn’t revealed
that Paul would definitely never come back. However, it was a reasonable
assumption given what God had revealed. Paul was a great teacher in public and
in private. He was through and careful to teach all that God had reveal to him
and he was faithful to check and see that it was communicated. Catechizing is
out of style right now but you can do it for yourself. Spurgeon has a
tremendous Baptist Catechism and it is available on line: http://www.spurgeon.org/catechis.htm#Q1
In 1659 Richard Baxter wrote The Reformed Pastor as an
exposition of how to be like Paul and especially how to fulfill the charge of
Acts 20:28. Catechism was an important part of Baxter’s work.
However, Baxter also copied Paul in his deep connection
with those churches that he planted. Paul was not pretending to care deeply
about these folks. He really did consider them his joy and crown. They knew it
and had a deep love for Paul too. Paul’s tears were real because he really
loved the Ephesian church. Francis Schaeffer knew how important it was to separate
from unbelievers. However, he also said that, If we separate, it must be with
tears. And if we speak truth that hurts, it must be with tears.” He was getting
at how important it was to actually have relationship and not to stand aloof
from those you fellowship with. If God calls you to leave a church fellowship
it should be with tears. If God calls you to speak hard biblical truth to
someone – regardless of their accepting it or rejecting it – it should be with
tears.
We are so consumer oriented that for many of us choosing
a church fellowship is like choosing a grocery store and leaving Publix for
Kroger isn’t the same thing as leaving a church fellowship. Biblical truth is
more than information. It is vital and life changing and to see someone teaching
false doctrine should weigh heavy and bring us tears. Cool consumerism is not
the attitude to bring through a church door but it is the most common attitude
brought into worship in our culture.
The wolves did come in after Paul left but it looks like
Paul also had additional opportunities for contact after some time in a Roman
Prison.
When writing 1st Corinthians, Paul says in
Chapter 15 verse 32 “What do I gain if, humanly speaking, I fought with
beasts at Ephesus? If the dead are not raised, ‘Let us eat and drink, for
tomorrow we die.’”
As a result of what was likely another missionary journey
(perhaps more than one) after Paul’s imprisonment in Rome and before his
re-imprisonment and martyrdom under Nero, Paul writes to Timothy and says:
1Timothy
1:3-7 … As I urged you when I was going to Macedonia, remain at Ephesus so that
you may charge certain persons not to teach any different doctrine, nor to
devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies, which promote speculations
rather than the stewardship from God that is by faith. The aim of our charge is
love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.
Certain persons, by swerving from these, have wandered away into vain
discussion, desiring to be teachers of the law, without understanding either
what they are saying or the things about which they make confident assertions.
They were tempted to seek something other than the grace
in which we stand. Just in this verse we see that Timothy had to defend the
church in Ephesus against; 1) myths which would be a natural residue of Artemis
worship in the formerly gentile population, 2) genealogies which may have been
related to the formerly Jewish population and, 3) legalism which likely came
from both Gentile and Jewish camps.
Paul’s letter to the Ephesians would also place a
barricade against these errors. Even a brief portion of the epistle tells the
Ephesians that:
Ephesians
1:13-23 … In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your
salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who
is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the
praise of his glory. For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the
Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, I do not cease to give thanks
for you, remembering you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ,
the Father of glory, may give you the
Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of
your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has
called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and
what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according
to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him
from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far
above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that
is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. And he put all
things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which
is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.
This also stands against mythology and against genealogy
as being relevant to the salvation of the saints. Of course the problem of
legalism in Ephesians is rebuked directly for our teaching, reproof,
correction, and for instruction in righteousness. Paul says to the
Ephesians:
Ephesians
2:1-7 … And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked,
following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the
air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we
all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the
body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of
mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he
loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with
Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us
with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he
might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ
Jesus.
You were spiritually dead and not just critically ill.
You were a sinner who was sinning because you wanted to sin and you were by
nature an enemy of God. However, those wonderful words for any day but
especially for Easter Sunday are “But God” and they are so good to hear. He was
rich in mercy, He loved us with a great love, when we were spiritually dead
then He made us alive. It is by unmerited favor and undeserved blessing that we
are saved. We brought nothing to the table and apart from His grace we wouldn’t
have gone to the table.
What is the chief end of man? To glorify God and enjoy
Him forever. Amen! He is risen and we are raised up with Him.
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