NOTES for Act 20:17-38

Few people, looking at their lives, can say that they missed none of what God gave them. That every small thing carefully placed at our disposal was used. But Paul can say this. Because he "did not shrink from declaring to you the whole will of God."

This kind of not missing a chance, this use of it in every situation, is one of the hardest spiritual exercises. The farther one goes, the harder it is to forgive the same thing a hundred times. The farther one goes, the more repugnant it becomes to repent of the same thing. Attempts to fight evil appear more and more useless. Conversations with people look like casting pearls before swine. The farther one goes, the more this grows.

But the Lord, through the example of forgiving "seventy times seven" (Matt. 18:21-22), teaches us that this is our main work. However hopeless the task looks, we must pass through the same thing with hope hundreds and thousands of times. We must be ready to bear witness, with everything we have, to His Death and Resurrection. And we even have support on this path. We know that such a thing is possible for a human being because Paul was a human being, just like us, and he lived this way.

Paul's words that he is "innocent of the blood of all" because throughout his ministry he proclaimed God's will to everyone recall words spoken by God to one of Israel's great prophets, Ezekiel, whose meaning came down to this: the prophet's task is to bear witness to what God has revealed to him.

The reaction of those to whom he testifies to what they have heard is not his concern. If a person does not listen to the witness's words, that will be his sin and his responsibility, and the witness, having done his work, will not bear responsibility for the one who did not listen to his words.

But if the witness keeps silent, hides his testimony, and the one whom he should have rebuked sins while the prophet is silent, then the prophet will be responsible for the sinner's sin to the same extent as the one who sinned. The principle, as we can see, is simple: a silent witness who refuses to testify becomes an accomplice in another's sin.

Paul evidently holds the same position: he always remained a faithful witness of Christ and the Kingdom, never hid his testimony from anyone, and now the one who did not consider it necessary to listen to his words will answer himself for the consequences of his choice. But in Paul's case, of course, the matter is further complicated by a new measure of responsibility both for the testimony and for its rejection.

Of course, the ancient prophets too testified about things spiritually vital. If, for example, they rebuked individual people or whole nations for violating the commandments, the matter often really concerned life and death, the path of righteousness leading to life and the path of sin leading to death.

But here the matter was still a choice within the present, untransformed order of things. Paul, however, testifies about Christ and the Kingdom, placing the hearer in a situation of absolute choice, a choice between final salvation and final destruction.

Without question, the responsibility of the witness in such a situation is immeasurably higher. But the hearer's responsibility for the choice he has made is also much more serious. And, understanding this, the apostle sums up his ministry: he pushed no one away, hid nothing from anyone, and did everything he could. The rest depends only on the listeners themselves.

Paul bids farewell to the elders of the church in Ephesus, which he himself founded and where he spent three years (see Acts 20:31). With all the selfless “immodesty” characteristic of him, he lists the deeds by which he served God. He warns the elders against following false teachers and dividing the Church (see Acts 20:29-31). Before the Cross, Christ asked the Father to preserve the Church in unity. Paul speaks of happiness and blessedness. Christ called His disciples to perfect joy. This is how the Lord summed up His life. And the example of the Apostle Paul shows that we can do the same.

Setting out for Jerusalem, Paul understands that his earthly path is drawing to a close. And that is what will happen: from Jerusalem he will go to Rome no longer as a free man, but as a prisoner sent for trial before the emperor, which Paul will demand as a Roman citizen. And now the apostle sums up his ministry. This summary includes two sides. One is connected with faithfulness to what he has constantly instructed and taught all those whom God sent across his path. Paul says about himself that he has never betrayed the truth revealed to him and has always borne witness to it in all the fullness available to him. The second side is connected with his own life.

The apostle says that those present have nothing for which to reproach him: he has never violated the Torah in anything, no matter which of the people he met was involved. In this sense, according to Paul's own words, he is clean, and judging by the fact that no objections followed, that is how it really was. Of course, the connection between a person's preaching and his life has always been recognized: by definition, a teacher had to correspond to what he teaches.

"They say and do not do" is, in this sense, a completely devastating characterization: it can describe only a false teacher. But when the issue concerns a Christian, this connection becomes a necessary condition for a person's remaining in the Kingdom. Knowledge alone is not enough here, nor is even understanding what one has learned and thought through. For life in the Kingdom, awareness of oneself and of one's understanding is necessary, the awareness that makes it possible not only to understand everything, but also to change one's life in accordance with what one has understood and learned.

As long as knowledge, and even understanding of what one has learned, does not change the quality of a person's spiritual life, it is still too early to speak of awareness, and therefore too early to speak of spiritual wholeness. The Kingdom requires exactly this wholeness; otherwise one cannot live in it. And Paul shows such wholeness. He speaks of himself not only as a witness, but also as an inhabitant of the Kingdom, calling as witnesses those who saw his apostolic ministry. And they agree with the apostle, because they truly heard Paul with their own ears and saw his life with their own eyes.

Taking leave of the Ephesian elders and not expecting to see them again, the apostle Paul gives them his final instruction, almost a testament. And, holding himself up as an example, he tells them some rather unexpected things. We are used to connecting the Christian life first of all with spiritual labors, while material activity, secular work, feels to us like a burdensome necessity. That is, we agree to put up with it as something secondary, something that lets us survive but limits the possibilities of our "spiritual" ministry.

Paul, however, proposes that we see this work as real service, and work in such a way as not only to feed ourselves and our families, but also to help others, support the weak, and be able to give. The leading position of Christians in the world commanded by Christ ("the light of the world," "the salt of the earth") also consists in being the best workers, not for our own glory, but for the transformation of this world.

Charity was from the beginning one of the main services of church. It should be noted that for the antique world such position directed to support the weak, was at least, unusual. The ancient world was quite tough, and indulgence to the weak, or especially to help them was not at all a hallmark of the societies of the antiquity. Of course, there were always some exceptions, but they only confirmed the rule. It is particularly the Church at the end could change the consciousness of the society as regards to mercy, charity and support for the weak. But it wasn’t for the Church an end in itself? For, it was created not at all as an organization of charity, but as a community of people living in the Kingdom. And charity was only the external demonstration of this life of the Kingdom. It was the model of the relations in the Kingdom, applied to the non transformed world.

The apostle describes it in three words: more blessed to give, than to receive. And it is not at all a question here that the Kingdom is made up of altruists only: because altruism, in fact, is nothing else than the reverse of egoism. The fact is that the Kingdom is given to each free of charge, completely without merit. And all the efforts, which are required to man, the purpose of these efforts is not to receive the Kingdom, but to hold it.

Man receives the Kingdom free of charge, and it cannot happen differently. And mostly he obtains it thanks to the testimony of the one who received it earlier. Testimony is in fact a donation, the donation of this Kingdom, which he also received formerly as a gift. Such is the mechanism of the spread of the Kingdom in the world - through testimonies, from heart to heart. Indeed, when the Savior says that it is necessary to seek for the Kingdom, He adds: "and all these things shall be added unto you", meaning by "all these things" what man needs for life in the non transformed world.

And the Church in its life recreated this model, testifying not only of the Kingdom as the reality of the transformed world, but also the Kingdom as what defines the life of the Church here and now: the initiation into the Kingdom and into the Church gave to man all the necessity not to starve, and the one who had not this necessity, received it as help, from the Church that testified to him about the Kingdom. It is not of course about charity in itself, which could have turn to an end in itself, but about that the man who found the Kingdom would not die of hunger on its doorstep.

This conversation of the apostle Paul with the Ephesian presbyters is one of the most dramatic passages in the book of Acts. Paul knows that he is going to meet trials, and that he will no longer see most of his brothers and coworkers. Therefore his words to them are a kind of spiritual testament, the most important thing he can say to the disciples of Christ.

Thus he reminds them that he did not preach a new teaching, a new law, or a new religion to them; he simply became a servant and witness of the beginning of their own direct relationship with God. He does not call them to cling to external authorities, but to pay attention to themselves and to the flock in which the Spirit dwells, the flock that Christ the Savior acquired for Himself. Now God will guide His Church, and the presbyters are only His servants. And finally, let them remember the words of Jesus, words that Paul himself fulfilled to the end: "It is more blessed to give than to receive." Paul proved that these words are not so much about money as about everything a person has: soul, time, strength, his whole life.