SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 7/5/2018
9:46 AM
My Worship Time Focus: Intro to
Acts 20:17-24
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Acts
20:17-24
Message of the
verses: “17 From Miletus he sent to
Ephesus and called to him the elders of the church. 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. 22 "And now, behold, bound in 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.”
John MacArthur entitles this 16th chapter in
his second half commentary on the book of Acts “Paul’s View of the Ministry.” We will begin to look at the introduction to
these verses in this SD.
One of the things that churches do is to try and figure
out what is the best way to increase their numbers that come to their
particular church. Sometimes they even
hire experts to try and accomplish this, but if one looks at the Apostle Paul
and tries to follow how he was so successful from taking a “new religion” that
began in Judah and was able to spread it throughout the entire Roman Empire. The question is how was he able to do
this? I suppose that there are several
things that we can look at to find the answers to this question, and one of
them is that when Paul first became a believer in Jesus Christ and was still
blind from his experience, as God blinded him when he saw the Light of the Lord
Jesus Christ in all of His glory, that the Lord then told Ananias to go and
open the eyes of Paul there was something else he told him that day “"Go,
for he is a chosen instrument of Mine, to bear My name before the Gentiles and
kings and the sons of Israel; 16 for I
will show him how much he must suffer for My name’s sake."” We know as we have been studying the book of
Acts that Paul did go and he did suffer for the cause of Christ, perhaps more
than any other man has, but there is still more to the answer to this question
and our verses we will be looking at give us more insight into answering this
question about Paul’s success in spreading the gospel to the ends of the known
world in his day.
John MacArthur writes “This passage in Acts 20 gives
insights into Paul’s view of the ministry.
It does not focus on technique but on the godly attitudes he
molded. Paul saw his ministry related to
four dimensions: toward God, the church,
the lost and himself. Having the proper
perspective in those four areas is foundational to a successful ministry.”
Let me add another few sentences from MacArthur’s
commentary which will also help us understand how Paul was so successful in his
ministry: “The apostles successful
ministry flowed from his devotion to truth, spiritual character, commitment to
serving God, and the resultant powerful example his life set for others. There was no credibility gap
between the truth he proclaimed and the way he lived.”
Now as I think about this last highlighted sentence I
have to say that it does step on my toes a bit, and I suppose that no one wants
to have his toes stepped on, however when walking in the Christian life that is
one of the ways that the Lord corrects that walk, but stepping on ones
toes. Ever since I became a believer in
Jesus Christ almost 45 years ago there is one subject that has always come up,
and that subject is what I am to be doing, and how does all of what I am doing
for the cause of Christ, including my walk with Him depend upon the Spirit of
God. I know that when the Spirit of God
leads me that I am to do that, but understanding my responsibility and what the
Spirit of God does in my life to accomplish His will has been a lifelong struggle
for me to understand.
Now back to our verses and we find that it was Paul’s
desire to get to Jerusalem in time for the feast of Pentecost, and so he was in
a hurry, which caused him not to want to go to Ephesus to the church where he
spent three years building and ministering to, to the point where they now had
many people who were able to teach them, such as their elders and probably also
deacons. Because of his time concern
Paul decided to call the elders and leaders of Ephesus to come and meet with
him and we will get into that in our next section. What we will be looking at in this section of
verses is the successfulness of Paul’s ministry.
Spiritual meaning
for my life today: As a believer who
continues to study His Word and also read many books and commentaries to help
me understand His Word better I have learned to understand the things that God
desires me to work on and one of them is to do a better job of living out my
Christian walk with the Lord.
My Steps of Faith for Today: I trust that the Lord will guide me into
walking with Him in a better way by living out my walk with Him, that is by
doing the things that He teaches me in His Word.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
question: “A blue fringe” (Numbers
15:38-40).
Today’s Bible question: “Who shall judge the world?”
Answer in our next SD. (The answer may surprise you.)
7/5/2018 10:26 AM
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