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Sermon for Midweek of Trinity 8
Acts 20:17-38
Last week, we heard about some of the violence and persecution Paul suffered during his first missionary journey, all for the sake of the Gospel, and for the sake of the saints who believed the Gospel he proclaimed. In the lesson from Acts 20 that you heard this evening, it’s a few years later, on the tail end of Paul’s third missionary journey, and he has more violence and persecution waiting for him in Jerusalem. He knows that for a fact; the Holy Spirit has revealed it to him. But on his way to Jerusalem, he has an important stop to make. He has some final instructions for the ministers of the churches in Ephesus, instructions that apply to all ministers everywhere, and to the flocks that they serve.
Paul decides not to visit Ephesus, since he’s trying to hurry back to Jerusalem, and he knows that he’ll get sidetracked if he tries to meet with all the saints there. No, he goes to Miletus, “down the road” from Ephesus, and sends only for the “elders” of the church to come and meet with him.
Those of you who spent some time in the Lutheran synods surely grew up hearing about “elders” in your churches. They were not pastors. They were respected laymen who were put in charge of all sorts of functions within the church, both spiritual and mundane. But in the New Testament Scriptures, “elders” were not laymen. They were ordained clergymen, the ministers of the churches, as today’s reading makes clear. For that reason, I think it’s rather confusing to use the same term with a different meaning in our churches today, which is why we don’t use it here at all.
In Paul’s day the elders weren’t always “elderly,” but they were men who showed the wisdom that often comes with age, especially wisdom and maturity in spiritual things. Just as those who are older are supposed to teach and be models for those who are younger, so the elders in the Church were supposed to teach and be models for the saints entrusted to their care.
Paul says to these elders, Take heed to yourselves and to 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. And there we see references to two other titles that also apply to ministers: shepherd, that is, “pastor,” and “overseer,” or “supervisor,” from the Greek episcopus, from which we get the words “episcopal” and also “bishop.” Elders, pastors, and bishops were all terms for the men whom the Holy Spirit had appointed (through the call of the Church) over the precious flock that God purchased with His own blood. (And, yes, this is one of those passages that refers to the Lord Jesus as “God.”)
“Elder” emphasizes the wisdom, maturity, and instruction given by the minister, “pastor” emphasizes the minister’s role as a shepherd who feeds, cares for, and protects his sheep, and “bishop” emphasizes the minister’s role as the overseer or supervisor of his congregation, who looks out over it and sees to it that the Word is being preached correctly, the Sacraments are being administered rightly, and the members of the congregation are leading lives that are consistent with the Christian faith they have confessed.
Paul himself is, in many ways, a role model for all ministers. He was thoroughly committed to preaching the Gospel. He was filled with joy as he preached, and thanksgiving to God, and love for the saints. He endured hardship patiently. His heart was set on the heavenly prize he would eventually receive, on “finishing his race with joy.” He also taught extensively. As he says here, he did not hesitate to proclaim to them the whole counsel of God. In fact, the last time he was in Ephesus, he taught the people well into the evening, until a man fell asleep and fell down from the upper-story window where he had been sitting. And then, if you recall, Paul raised him from the dead, and then kept right on teaching until morning.
But here in Acts 20, Paul summarizes everything he taught: Repentance toward God and faith toward the Lord Jesus Christ. And he refers to this “repentance and faith” as “the gospel of the grace of God.” Jesus had used practically those same words when He told His apostles that “repentance and the forgiveness of sins must be preached in His name to all nations.” Throughout Paul’s writings and his preaching recorded in the book of Acts, we see the clear teaching of both repentance and faith, repentance and the forgiveness of sins, earned by the Lord Jesus through His death on the cross, and given to us through faith alone in Christ Jesus.
Over the centuries, and already at Paul’s time, those two basic teachings—repentance and faith, Law and Gospel, sin and grace—have been distorted, often by overemphasizing and distorting the one, while underemphasizing the other. During the Middle Ages, leading up to the Reformation, repentance and sin were overemphasized and distorted, while faith and grace were almost absent from the ministers’ preaching. Luther and those with him restored the balance. Today, it’s mostly the opposite. The preaching of repentance is rare, and grace has been overemphasized and distorted, with most people thinking that everyone is already forgiven, already headed for heaven, regardless of what sins they still cling to, regardless of any repentance.
And that’s just the kind of thing Paul warned the Ephesian elders about. For I know this, that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. Also from among yourselves men will rise up, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after themselves. Therefore watch! It’s just like Jesus said in Sunday’s Gospel: Watch out for false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. Jesus knew what He was talking about (of course). So did Paul. People always come along and try to distort the teaching of repentance and faith, along with the other teachings of God’s Word. So ministers, especially, need to be vigilant, and, as part of their preaching and teaching and shepherding, need to warn their flock about the wolves.
And the task is not in vain. Paul’s message to the Ephesian elders is his message to elders / pastors / bishops, and to all Christians still today: I commend you to God and to the word of His grace, which is able to build you up and give you an inheritance among all those who have been sanctified. The Ephesians didn’t need Paul to return to them in person, or any minister in particular. As long as they had God, and the word of God’s grace being preached to them, as Paul himself would later write to them the beautiful epistle to the Ephesians that we’re still reading and studying today, they had all they needed—you have all you need!—to be built up in faith, sanctified in your lives, warned against false teaching, strengthened under the cross, and comforted in every adversity, until you are given the inheritance among the saints that is already yours, as dearly loved children of God. Amen.
