An overview for Sunday School teachers and Bible study leaders, of Lifeway’s Explore the Bible lesson of Acts 20:18-32, with the title “Commit,” for Sunday, Nov. 3, 2024. A video version of this overview is available on YouTube at:

INTRO: You could use one of the two following suggestions for an introduction to the lesson:

— George Washington’s farewell dinner with his officers, December 4, 1783. It’s a bit long, but it’s very touching. You might share all or part of, or summarize it for your class:
“At Fraunces Tavern the invitees milled about awaiting Washington’s direction. … With glass raised, Washington waited until all had filled their own. ‘With a heart filled with love and gratitude,’ he began in a choked voice, ‘I now take leave of you. I most devoutly wish that your later days may be as prosperous and happy as your former ones have been glorious and honorable.’ … Blinded by tears, his voice still faltering, Washington resumed, ‘I cannot come to each of you, but shall feel obliged if each of you will come and take me by the hand.’ As the senior office present, Henry Knox stepped forward silently and proffered his large cannoneer’s fist. Weeping openly, Washington embraced his burly longtime chief of artillery and kissed him…. In turn, and by rank, each officer, Van Steuben following, came forward to be clasped, ‘suffused with tears,’ and unable to utter an intelligible word.
‘Such a scene of sorrow and weeping, ‘Tallmadge recalled, ‘I had never before witnessed. … tears of deep sensibility filled every eye … The simple thought that we were about to part from the man who had conducted us through a long and bloody war, and under whose conduct the glory and independence of our country had been achieved, and that we should see his face no more in this world seemed unsupportable.’ The General’s parting band of brothers seemed like ‘grieving children.’ Each realized that they had all lived through something that would not be replicated in their lives, and that in the 1,600 mile length of the vast new nation, distance and time made it wholly impossible that they would share another such moment.
Once the most junior office had received Washington’s embrace, and men never known for tears were still dabbing at their eyes, he strode across the Long Room. With what seemed like a strenuous effort, he raised his right arm in a silent farewell and walked out the door without looking back … most officers followed, Tallmadge remembered, ‘in mournful silence.’ … No one would return for Samuel Fraunces’ carefully laid out collation of cold meats for which Washington had paid the bill in advance.” (Stanley Weintraub, General Washington’s Christmas Farewell, pp. 85-87)

— OR: Have your class members to write (or just share): “If you were going to leave your family/loved ones a last message, what would you tell them?” Write down 2-3 things, and we’ll ask for some volunteers to share in a couple of minutes.

Whichever introduction you use, then say: in our lesson this morning we’ll look at the last words the Apostle Paul shared with the leaders of the church at Ephesus when he left them for the last time.

CONTEXT
We’re continuing our study in Acts, following the Apostle Paul, who is now on the way back from his Third Missionary Journey.
He has already spent 3 years ministering in the large city of Ephesus, then went on to followup in cities he’d visited on his 2nd Journey (Philippi, Corinth, Thessalonica, etc.) as you can see from a map like this:

Paul’s now heading back towards Jerusalem, but he wants to share a final message with the elders (pastors) from his church at Ephesus. He doesn’t have time now to return to Ephesus, so from the coastal city of Miletus, where he had stopped (again you can see it on the MAP), he called for the Ephesian elders to come to meet him there, where he shared some final words with them. What he shared with them is our focus passage for today, in Acts 20:18-32.

OUTLINE
I. Past Ministry (:18-21)
II. Present Commitment (:22-25)
III. Future Warnings (:26-31)
IV. Final Blessing (:32)

TEXT:

I. Past Ministry (:18-21)
18 And when they had come to him, he said to them,
“You yourselves know, from the first day that I set foot in Asia, how I was with you the whole time, 19 serving the Lord with all humility and with tears and with trials which came upon me through the plots of the Jews; 20 how I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable, and teaching you publicly and from house to house, 21 solemnly testifying to both Jews and Greeks of repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Paul begins his message to the Ephesian elders (pastors) by reviewing his ministry among them:
— He talks about the “humility and tears and trials” he experience, especially from the Jews.
Ministry is not always “easy/victorious” — it is often very difficult; it brings us to our knees (“humility); it often crushes us emotionally (“tears”); and it can be very trying (“trials”). It was that way for Paul — and we shouldn’t be surprised if it is that way for us too.

— then he says in :20 “I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable” — in other words, he told them all that God had given him to share; he didn’t “hold back” anything.

— He says in the second part of :20 “teaching you publicly and from house to house” — so his ministry was both in “public” places like synagogues and churches — and also in their homes (and in fact many of their churches WERE in homes!) But his point was that in many different venues he shared God’s word with them.

— THEN he shares perhaps the most important thing about his ministry: a summary of the message. To me, :21 is one of the KEY VERSES in the whole New Testament, for here Paul summarizes his message in a nutshell: “solemnly testifying to both Jews and Greeks of repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Paul says HERE is the message I shared everywhere (with Jews and Greeks; the message is the same for all; it’s not one plan of salvation for one group, and a different plan for another group. It’s the same for everyone. Just like he says in Romans 10:12-13, “For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, abounding in riches for all who call on Him; 13 for “Whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
The message was the same for everyone then, and the gospel is the same for everyone today: Jews, Greeks, anyone.

SO WHAT IS THIS UNIVERSAL, UNCHANGEABLE MESSAGE? We see it in the second part of the verse: “repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.” This is Paul’s summary of his message, and as anyone can see, it is not complicated; it has two basic elements: 1) repentance towards God; and 2) faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.

1) “Repentance towards God”
We’ve talked about the importance of repentance numerous times in our studies. Repentance is often overlooked in our modern theology and practice, but it is a vital Biblical doctrine. The word “repent” (meta-noeo) literally means “after— to think”; it is a change of mind that leads to a change of practice/change of life.
Repentance is vital in salvation. Every major New Testament figure preached and taught repentance:
— John the Baptist “repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand” Matthew 3:
— Jesus preached the same message (Matthew 4:17 ) and Luke 13:3 “unless you repent you will all likewise perish,” and Luke 24:47 in His commission there.
— Paul preached repentance, as we see here.
— Peter preached repentance in Acts 2:38 “repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins.”
— John taught repentance in the Book of Revelation, in places like 2:5 “repent therefore from where you have fallen” and numerous other times in that book.

You could just share all these verses — OR ff you want a class participation exercise, you could pass out these verses on some slips of paper, or have your group members look them up, and read them to the class, and then ask: What do all these verse have in common? And of course the answer is, that they ALL mention the imperative of repentance.

Repentance is vital. Salvation is not just a matter of “believing in who Jesus is.” As James 2 says, the demons know that! But they have never repented of their rebellion against God. If we are going to be genuinely saved, we must repent of our sins — change our mind about it — admit we were wrong for rebelling against God — and turn to follow Jesus (which is the second element of salvation, putting faith in Jesus). But repentance is absolutely vital in genuine salvation. There are many people today who want to say, “Yes, I have faith in Jesus” — but they want to continue in their blatant sin against God’s word. That is not genuine salvation. Genuine salvation involves repentance, changing your mind about your sin, and then turning from it, to Jesus.

A couple of illustrations you could share here:

— Rosaria Butterfield is a former liberal lesbian college professor who was saved, and is now a pastor’s wife in North Carolina. She wrote in her book, Openness Unhindered:
“Something about seeing grace as the solution to shame didn’t make sense to me. It felt to me like a step was missing. I would later learn that the missing step was repentance, and that this could be for someone a deadly step to miss. …. You can’t bypass repentance to get to grace.” (pp. 60-61)

— (On a mission trip to Lock Haven, PA, in 1968, Jimmy Carter and a Texan, Milo Pennington, went witnessing.) “As they climbed the stairs of an apartment building one day, they heard cursing from above, ventured farther up, and arrived to find an amused madam of a small brothel and the three prostitutes she supervised. The madam invited them in and spoke with them for two hours, confessing that she had been molested by her father. But when they returned the next day, she would not agree to “sin no more.” (Jonathan Alter, His Very Best, p. 143)

If we will not repent, we cannot be saved. We must agree that our sin is sin, and with God’s help, to at least desire to sin no more. Repentance is a vital element in genuine salvation. “Unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.”

2) “Faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.”
As important as repentance is, repentance alone is not salvation. A person must turn from their sinful ways TO something else. What is that “something else”? “Faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.”

The New Testament is full of verses that explain how we are saved by faith in Jesus, and what He did for us on the cross, including:
— John 3:16 “whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life”
— Romans 3:26, “He would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus”
— I Peter 1:9-10 “though you do not see Him now but believe in Him, you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, obtaining as the outcome of your faith the salvation of your souls.”
(Again if you wanted to, you could have class members share a whole list of verses like these, emphasizing that faith in Jesus is vital for salvation.) “Faith in our Lord Jesus Christ” is what Christianity is all about.

Founder of Apple Computers Steve Jobs was dying of cancer, so he had author Walter Isaacson interview him for a biography. Among other things they talked about religion. Jobs told him that in his view: “The juice goes out of Christianity when it becomes too based on faith rather than on living like Jesus or seeing the world as Jesus saw it” (Walter Isaacson, Steve Jobs, p. 15)
Jobs was absolutely WRONG. Faith in Jesus is what Christianity IS: it is trusting Jesus and what He did for us on the cross to save us. The Bible makes it clear that faith in Jesus is the one and only way of salvation, as Jesus says Himself (John 14:6) and as we saw earlier in Acts, the disciples proclaimed in Acts 4:12, “there is no other name under heaven, given among men, by which we must be saved”!

So Paul said his gospel message included these two vital elements: “repentance towards God, and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.”

You could quote our Baptist Faith & Message statement from Article IV on Salvation which says. “repentance and faith are inseparable experiences of grace. Repentance is a genuine turning from sin toward God. Faith is the acceptance of Jesus Christ and commitment of the entire personality to Him as Lord and Savior.”

“Inseparable experiences of grace” means they go together; you can’t separate them in salvation. To use an old expression, they are like “two edges of the same sword.” In genuine salvation there is both repentance from sin, and faith in Jesus as Savior. BOTH are absolutely necessary for genuine salvation.

This is a key teaching. Acts 20:21 should be a standard memory verse for all Christians; it would be a great verse for you and your class to equip yourselves with.

II. Present Commitment (:22-25)
22 And now, behold, bound by the Spirit, I am on my way to Jerusalem, not knowing what will happen to me there, 23 except that the Holy Spirit solemnly testifies to me in every city, saying that bonds and afflictions await me. 24 But I do not consider my life of any account as dear to myself, so that I may finish my course and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify solemnly of the gospel of the grace of God.
25 “And now, behold, I know that all of you, among whom I went about preaching the kingdom, will no longer see my face.

Alan Bandy, in his Illustrated Guide to the Apostle Paul, writes about how Acts says that Paul walked overland from Troas to Assos. The rest of them took the ship, but it says he himself walked. Dr. Bandy says this was a distance of about 30 miles.
WHY would he do this? Bandy suggests that Paul was spending time alone with God, as he contemplated what lay ahead of him: suffering and death for the Gospel, and he was preparing himself spiritually for what was coming.
I think of this as a kind of “Gethsemane moment” for him. He was walking with God, spending time with Him, “steeling himself” for the trials he knew were coming.

Paul was committed, and he was committed to the end, like we see in II Timothy, the last book he wrote before his death, where he says in 4:7 “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith.” He’s committed to finishing the ministry God has given him, even at the cost of his life.

What application is there for US in these verses? Paul said in :24 that he wanted to “finish my course and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus.” That’s a good goal for ALL of us, right? Each Christian has a ministry that the Lord has given us, and each of us should seek to FINISH the course that God has given, and do all the ministry that He has assigned for us. We may retire from our full-time “occupation,” but as Christians we never plan to retire from serving Him. As long as we live, He has things for us to do — so let’s determine to “finish our course and the ministry” that Jesus has for us.

An illustration you can use from the sports world, is how many teams have adopted “FINISH” as their motto. Coach Tom Coughlin adopted for his New York Giants for the 2011 season.
This quote is from giants.com:
“The last word the Giants hear from Tom Coughlin before Super Bowl XLVI will be one the first message he delivered in training camp: finish.
”It was the first thing we hit them with,” Coughlin said, “and it’ll be the last thing they hear from us before they take the field.”
Coughlin has hammered his point home all season and he’s not going to let up now that the Giants are about to play for another championship. He was not happy with how the Giants finished games in 2009 and 2010 or the seasons as whole. From the day training camp opened in July, he has spoken of the importance of finishing strong. He talked about it again Friday in his final press conference before the Giants take on the New England Patriots on Sunday.
(In fact the Giants DID “finish” and they won Super Bowl XLVI over the New England Patriots on February 5, 2012!)

This would be a good motto for us as Christians too: let’s FINISH! Let’s determine to finish strong in our service for the Lord.
— This is a good word for many of our senior adults. Psalm 92:12-15 is a passage you might share with your group:
“The righteous man will flourish like the palm tree, He will grow like a cedar in Lebanon. (:13) Planted in the house of the Lord,
They will flourish in the courts of our God. (:14) They will still yield fruit in old age; They shall be full of sap and very green, (:15) To declare that the Lord is upright …”.
This says that God’s people will still be serving Him in their old age: in other words, they will “FINISH”!

So challenge each member in your group, young or old: What ministry has the Lord given YOU? What gifts and abilities has He given you? Are you using them for Him? Like Paul are you committed to serving Him as long as you have life and strength?
Let’s follow the example of Paul and be committed to “FINISH” strong for the Lord!

III. Future Warnings (:26-31)
26 Therefore, I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all men. 27 For I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole purpose of God. 28 Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood. 29 I know that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; 30 and from among your own selves men will arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them. 31 Therefore be on the alert, remembering that night and day for a period of three years I did not cease to admonish each one with tears.

In :26-27 Paul reiterates that he’s innocent of the blood of all men, because he shared God’s full message with them — that message of repentance and faith like we saw in :21. In a previous lesson we mentioned how the word of Ezekiel the prophet were likely in Paul’s mind regarding his ministry:
“When I say to the wicked, ‘You will surely die,’ and you do not warn him or speak out to warn the wicked from his wicked way that he may live, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but his blood I will require at your hand. 19 Yet if you have warned the wicked and he does not turn from his wickedness or from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity; but you have delivered yourself.” (Ezekiel 3:18-19)

Then he warns the church leaders about dangers they will be facing. He warns them of TWO SPECIFIC DANGERS in :29-30:
— :29 “I know that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock;”
— :30 “and from among your own selves men will arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them.”
So he says the dangers to their churches will come from two fronts:
— “savage wolves” from the outside, and
— “and from among your own selves” from the inside!

He’s not just warning about physical danger here, but against spiritual temptations to abandon the true faith, and be led into bad practices and heresy.

??? A good discussion might be: Which kind of temptation do you think might be more dangerous for a church???
(You can discuss your group’s thoughts about this, but I’d point out that sometimes the heresy/bad practice from within can be more dangerous, because it comes with a familiar face, and one whom we might be more likely to trust — so we may be less prone to see the danger, or call it out.)

So he tells these leaders twice to be on guard:
— :28 “Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock”
— :31 “Be on the alert.” This word literally means “stay awake”!
If you’re on guard duty, you have an important responsibility to stay awake, or the enemy can sneak in and attack your brothers.
In the same way Paul says here that one of the vital assignments God has given to church leaders is to guard the flock from false teaching and practice. They are to “be on guard,” “stay awake” and watch out for them. If you think your pastor is being too picky about who is teaching and what is being taught in the church, realize it is his responsibility to do that.

And we see just TO WHOM is Paul giving this admonition here:
In :28 Paul tells these men: “Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you OVERSEERS, to SHEPHERD the church of God …”.
What’s important about this verse? Well, as we mentioned in the introduction, :17 says Paul called “the elders” of the church at Ephesus to meet him at Miletus. These “elders,” he said the Spirit had made “overseers,” to “shepherd” the church. We see here three terms that people use to describe church leaders:
— “elder”
— “overseer”/bishop
— “pastor”/“shepherd”
Some contend that these are three different offices in the church. But years ago Herschel Hobbs, the Baptist statesman and theologian from the 1900s pointed out that here Paul uses these three terms of the SAME PEOPLE. In his book, The Baptist Faith & Message (a commentary on the BFM) he writes:
“The same office is variously called bishop, elder, or pastor… That these three words refer to the same office is seen in Acts 20:28. These words were spoken to the elders of the church in Ephesus (v. 17). Note “overseers” and “to feed [as a shepherd] the church of God.” Titus 1:5-7 uses “elder” and “bishop” interchangeably. And in Acts 20:28 “to feed as a shepherd” completes the picture of these words for the same office. In the New Testament, “bishop” never refers to one over a group of churches. And “elder” in the Christian sense always refers to the same office of bishop or pastor.”

In other words, these are not three different offices, but three terms used to describe the SAME ONE OFFICE: call it “pastor,” “elder,” “overseer” — it is describing the same person — what most of us probably just call “pastor” today. So our pastors especially are called to guard the church from enemies, inside and out, who would compromise our faith and practice. Let’s encourage them, and help them, in this vital duty!

IV. Final Blessing (:32)
:32 “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.”

Paul wraps up his message to the Ephesian elders/pastors in :32. With all these enemies he has just mentioned, and all the challenges the fledgling church would face, what confidence can he have that the church could tackle these challenges and survive?
He gives the answer here: he commends them to GOD, and to His WORD. Our hope and security is not found in ourselves, but in God. God, through His word, is able to build us up, and bring us to the inheritance He wants to give us. But the point is, our hope, our security for the future, is not based on US, but on HIM.
I think of II Timothy 2:13, “If we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself.” That’s one of my favorite verses in the New Testament, because it reminds us that although we are so frail and often unfaithful, yet HE always remains faithful.

— I have a number of pictures like the one I’m showing below, of one of our grandkids holding on to my shirt like his life depends upon it! But his safety and security up there did not depend on how tightly he held to me, on how tightly I held on to HIM! And that’s true of our relationship with God, too. HE holds on to US! You can share this picture as an example if you’d like to, or you may have one of your own you can use here.

— A few days ago my wife Cheryl said that as we have been going through this dark trial of her stroke and its crippling aftermath: “I have fallen in love with God’s word, more than ever before. His word is just carrying me through this time!” Verses that she has memorized, especially, have ministered to her when she couldn’t pick up a Bible to read; when she was awake in the middle of the night; God used His word, hidden in her heart, to minister to her, especially Joshua 1:9 and Isaiah 58:11. His word has brought her through. That’s what Paul’s saying here; God’s word will build us up; His word will give us the inheritance. HE is our hope and security in these times, not our faithfulness, but His.

This verse would be a good prayer for you/your members to learn to pray for people on our prayer lists: “And now I commend you to GOD …”. We often don’t know what to pray or do — commend them to GOD! HE is faithful; HE is powerful. HE will build us up; HE will give us the inheritance. Our hope for ourselves and our loved ones, is nothing about us — but about HIM! And we can be totally confident in Him! That was Paul’s conclusion for his message to the Ephesians — and that’s where we’ll leave it today too.

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— And if you write something in the Comments below, I’ll be sure to pray for your and your group by name this week. (Thank you for your continued prayers and words of encouragement for me and my wife Cheryl as she recuperates from her stroke. We are grateful that she is making more progress every day! Feel free to follow me on Facebook if you’d like to keep up.)

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— These weekly lessons are based on content from Explore the Bible Adult Resources. The presentation is my own and has not been reviewed by Lifeway.

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