Paul’s Speech to the Ephesian Elders
Intro
When they arrived he declared, “You know that from the day I set foot in the province of Asia until now I have done the Lord’s work humbly and with many tears. I have endured the trials that came to me from the plots of the Jews. I never shrank back from telling you what you needed to hear, either publicly or in your homes. I have had one message for Jews and Greeks alike—the necessity of repenting from sin and turning to God, and of having faith in our Lord Jesus.
Suffering Ahead
“And now I am bound by the Spirit to go to Jerusalem. I don’t know what awaits me, except that the Holy Spirit tells me in city after city that jail and suffering lie ahead. But my life is worth nothing to me unless I use it for finishing the work assigned me by the Lord Jesus—the work of telling others the Good News about the wonderful grace of God. “And now I know that none of you to whom I have preached the Kingdom will ever see me again. I declare today that I have been faithful. If anyone suffers eternal death, it’s not my fault, for I didn’t shrink from declaring all that God wants you to know.
Watch Out
“So guard yourselves and God’s people. Feed and shepherd God’s flock—his church, purchased with his own blood—over which the Holy Spirit has appointed you as leaders. I know that false teachers, like vicious wolves, will come in among you after I leave, not sparing the flock. Even some men from your own group will rise up and distort the truth in order to draw a following. Watch out! Remember the three years I was with you—my constant watch and care over you night and day, and my many tears for you.
Passing the Baton
“And now I entrust you to God and the message of his grace that is able to build you up and give you an inheritance with all those he has set apart for himself. I have never coveted anyone’s silver or gold or fine clothes. You know that these hands of mine have worked to supply my own needs and even the needs of those who were with me. And I have been a constant example of how you can help those in need by working hard. You should remember the words of the Lord Jesus: ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’”
When he had finished speaking, he knelt and prayed with them. (Acts 20:18-36)
We will apply Propositional Analysis to this passage above. But as I said when we tackled the single Greek sentence which makes up Ephesians 1:3-14 we will call it “Glueing the Bits Together” so none of us get scared and think we can’t do this. In Ephesians we had a complicated sentence in that Paul’s thought tumbles over itself to find expression. We had to sort out the pieces and determine which propositions (read “thoughts”) go with what. How does this verse (part of the sentence) connect with that verse (part of the sentence). To get started with a complex sentence like that we needed to pay careful attention to the seams, the boundaries between thoughts, the joints between verses.
This speech of Paul’s to the Ephesian elders is not as complicated as Ephesians 1:3-14. I managed that one without losing anyone. So I don’t think this is going to trouble you at all. Essentially when we want to put the pieces together we have to pay careful attention to the little words and the beginning and end of each sentence to see how it connects to what is before it and after it. It’s the little words, the relative pronouns like who, whose, whom that, which and the logical connectors such as because, so that, therefore, in the light of which, for whom that are important. These help us to see the relationship between what was said in one sentence, clause or phrase and how it connects to the one following.
This is important to do because words don’t exist alone, they are found in context. If you put a series of unconnected words together they would not make sense. Four unconnected words placed on a t shirt in Indonesia and made the foreigners looking at it laugh. The family of the person wearing it said, “Oh is it funny? What does it mean? The problem was that although it made us laugh it had no meaning. “Cheek puffed cat land” has no meaning whatsoever because the words are totally unrelated. Meaning only comes between sentences or paragraphs when logical thoughts are combined together. When we look at the meaning that comes when thoughts or propositions are put together we can analyse human speech to find out what is being said at a deeper level. But most of us just look at the Bible as a series of unconnected thoughts. Preachers clip verses from their context and then launch into saying whatever they want to say in total ignorance of what Paul wanted to say.
Mercifully for those of you who have just joined us, this speech before us is easier than others we have tackled in the Bible Gems. I will leave you to begin the process yourself but in the next Gems will help you put some structure to it. You need to look carefully at the meaning within each sentence and then determine the nature of the logical connection between each thought or proposition when they are all combined together. I know this may sound complicated to some of you and I have used English grammar words like sentences, clauses, phrases, relative pronouns etc. But persevere and you will move to another level of understanding the Bible. Just be patient.
Let me show you how to start this with the first segment.
This is how the words appear in your Bible:
When they arrived he declared, “You know that from the day I set foot in the province of Asia until now
I have done the Lord’s work humbly and with many tears. I have endured the trials that came to me from the plots of the Jews.
I never shrank back from telling you what you needed to hear, either publicly or in your homes.
I have had one message for Jews and Greeks alike—the necessity of repenting from sin and turning to God, and of having faith in our Lord Jesus.
Here they are in sentences:
When they arrived he declared, “You know that from the day I set foot in the province of Asia until now I have done the Lord’s work humbly and with many tears.
I have endured the trials that came to me from the plots of the Jews.
I never shrank back from telling you what you needed to hear, either publicly or in your homes.
I have had one message for Jews and Greeks alike — the necessity of repenting from sin and turning to God, and of having faith in our Lord Jesus.
What we have to do is work our way through these verses putting them together as logical progressions of thought. Considering how each thought goes together with those before and after it and with what impact. Are the thoughts of equal strength, importance or are some of them subordinate?
Let me show you with the first sentence:
When they arrived
He declared
“You know
from the day I set foot in the province of Asia
until now
I have done the Lord’s work
humbly
and with many tears.
There is the first sentence. See if you can carry on with the following sentences in this first section. I will explain more in the next Bible Gem and I will divide the rest of the speech in this way. Then I will begin to explain it.
What I believe is not what I say I believe; what I believe is what I do.
Donald Millar
The moment you start thinking someone else’s gain is your loss, you limit yourself by thinking in terms of competition and shortages!
Rick Godwin
You are not rich until you have something money can’t buy.
Corrine Browning
Look back and thank God
Look forward and trust God
Look around and serve God
Look up and seek God.
Nicky Gumbel