Acts 20 explained: Paul Says a Final Goodbye

Revisiting churches (vv. 1-6)

After the riot in Ephesus, Paul visits the believers in northern Greece and then spends three months in southern Greece, probably in Corinth. He changes his route after learning of a plot against him just as he is about to sail for Syria; the men listed likely represented their home churches and carried a gift of money for poor believers in Jerusalem.

A long night at Troas (vv. 7-12)

The believers met on the first day of the week to break bread, likely the shared meal remembering Jesus, and Paul talked past midnight in a room full of lamps. A young man named Eutychus fell asleep and dropped from a third-floor window, and the text says he was picked up dead before Paul embraced him and said he was alive, though some readers think he only seemed dead.

Hurrying toward Jerusalem (vv. 13-16)

Paul walked overland to Assos while his companions sailed around the coast, and then they traveled south from island to island. He skipped Ephesus because he wanted to reach Jerusalem by Pentecost, a Jewish harvest festival seven weeks after Passover.

Looking back on his work (vv. 17-21)

From the port of Miletus, Paul calls for the leaders of the Ephesus church and reminds them how he lived among them, humbly and through real opposition. He says he held nothing back, teaching Jews and Greeks alike, in public and in homes, to turn to God and trust Jesus.

Facing an uncertain future (vv. 22-27)

Paul feels pressed by God's Spirit to go to Jerusalem, though he has been warned again and again that prison and hardship wait for him there, and finishing his task matters more to him than his own safety. When he says no one's blood is on his hands, he means he has fully done his duty to teach and warn them, so he is not to blame if they go astray.

A charge and a farewell (vv. 28-38)

He urges the leaders to care for the church like shepherds, watching for harmful teachers from outside (the "wolves") and from their own ranks, and he points to how he worked with his own hands to support himself and help others. He quotes a saying of Jesus not found in the Gospels, and then they kneel, pray and weep, grieving most that they will never see him again.

Key verse: Acts 20:24

Something to think about

If you had to say goodbye to people for good, what would you most want them to remember about how you lived among them?