Acts 20:17

20:17 From Miletus ¹  he sent a message ²  to Ephesus, telling the elders of the church to come to him. ³ 

Acts 20:20

20:20 You know that I did not hold back from proclaiming ⁴  to you anything that would be helpful, ⁵  and from teaching you publicly ⁶  and from house to house,

Acts 20:25

20:25 “And now ⁷  I know that none ⁸  of you among whom I went around proclaiming the kingdom ⁹  will see me ¹⁰  again.

Acts 20:28

20:28 Watch out for ¹¹  yourselves and for all the flock of which ¹²  the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, ¹³  to shepherd the church of God ¹⁴  that he obtained ¹⁵  with the blood of his own Son. ¹⁶ 

¹ sn Miletus was a seaport on the western coast of Asia Minor about 45 mi (72 km) south of Ephesus.

² tn The words “a message” are not in the Greek text, but are implied. Direct objects were often omitted in Greek when clear from the context, but must be supplied for the modern English reader.

³ tn The words “to him” are not in the Greek text but are implied. L&N 33.311 has for the verb μετακαλέομαι (metakaleomai) “to summon someone, with considerable insistence and authority – ‘to summon, to tell to come.’”

⁴ tn Or “declaring.”

⁵ tn Or “profitable.” BDAG 960 s.v. συμφέρω 2.b.α has “τὰ συμφέροντα what advances your best interests or what is good for you Ac 20:20,” but the broader meaning (s.v. 2, “to be advantageous, help, confer a benefit, be profitable/useful”) is equally possible in this context.

⁶ tn Or “openly.”

⁷ tn Grk “And now, behold.” Here ἰδού (idou) has not been translated.

⁸ tn Grk “all of you…will not see.” Greek handles its negation somewhat differently from English, and the translation follows English grammatical conventions.

⁹ sn Note how Paul’s usage of the expression proclaiming the kingdom is associated with (and intertwined with) his testifying to the good news of God’s grace in v. 24. For Paul the two concepts were interrelated.

¹⁰ tn Grk “will see my face” (an idiom for seeing someone in person).

¹⁰ tn Or “Be on your guard for” (cf. v. 29). Paul completed his responsibility to the Ephesians with this warning.

¹¹ tn Grk “in which.”

¹² tn Or “guardians.” BDAG 379-80 s.v. ἐπίσκοπος 2 states, “The term was taken over in Christian communities in ref. to one who served as overseer or supervisor, with special interest in guarding the apostolic tradition…Ac 20:28.” This functional term describes the role of the elders (see v. 17). They were to guard and shepherd the congregation.

¹³ tc The reading “of God” (τοῦ θεοῦ, tou qeou) is found in א B 614 1175 1505 al vg sy; other witnesses have “of the Lord” (τοῦ κυρίου, tou kuriou) here (so Ì⁷⁴ A C* D E Ψ 33 1739 al co), while the majority of the later minuscule mss conflate these two into “of the Lord and God” (τοῦ κυρίου καὶ [τοῦ] θεοῦ, tou kuriou kai [tou] qeou). Although the evidence is evenly balanced between the first two readings, τοῦ θεοῦ is decidedly superior on internal grounds. The final prepositional phrase of this verse, διὰ τοῦ αἵματος τοῦ ἰδίου (dia tou {aimato" tou idiou), could be rendered “through his own blood” or “through the blood of his own.” In the latter translation, the object that “own” modifies must be supplied (see tn below for discussion). But this would not be entirely clear to scribes; those who supposed that ἰδίου modified αἵματος would be prone to alter “God” to “Lord” to avoid the inference that God had blood. In a similar way, later scribes would be prone to conflate the two titles, thereby affirming the deity (with the construction τοῦ κυρίου καὶ θεοῦ following the Granville Sharp rule and referring to a single person [see ExSyn 272, 276-77, 290]) and substitutionary atonement of Christ. For these reasons, τοῦ θεοῦ best explains the rise of the other readings and should be considered authentic.

¹⁴ tn Or “acquired.”

¹⁵ tn Or “with his own blood”; Grk “with the blood of his own.” The genitive construction could be taken in two ways: (1) as an attributive genitive (second attributive position) meaning “his own blood”; or (2) as a possessive genitive, “with the blood of his own.” In this case the referent is the Son, and the referent has been specified in the translation for clarity. See further C. F. DeVine, “The Blood of God,” CBQ 9 (1947): 381-408.