Acts 20:35 - Exposition

In all things I gave you an example for I have showed you all things, A.V.; help for support, A.V.; he himself for he, A.V. In all things ( πάντα , for κατὰ πάντα , 1.q. πάντως ); altogether, in all respects. Gave you an example . The common use of ὑποδείκνυμι is, as rendered in the A.V., "to show," "to teach," as in Acts 9:16 ; Luke 6:47 ; and repeatedly in the LXX . But perhaps its force here is equivalent to the phrase in John 13:15 , ὑπόδειγμα ἒδωκα ὑμῖν , "I have given you an example that ye should do as I have done to you," as the R.V. takes it. So laboring ; viz. as ye have seen me do. To help the weak . Meyer, following Bengel and others, understands this to mean the weak in faith," like ἀσθενής in 1 Corinthians 9:22 . They say that St. Paul's self-denial in refusing the help he had a right to claim as an apostle, and supporting himself by his labor, was a great argument to convince the weak in faith of his disinterestedness and of the truth of his gospel, and so he recommends the elders of the Church to follow his example. But the word here is ἀσθενούντων , and ἀσθενεῖν and ἀσθενεία rather suggest the idea of bodily weakness ( Matthew 25:36 ; Matthew 10:8 , etc.; Luke 5:15 , etc.), and the words of the Lord Jesus which follow suggest almsgiving to the needy. So that it is better to understand the word of the weakly and poor, those unable to work for themselves. Doubtless St. Paul, out of his scanty earnings, found something to give to the sick and needy. The sentiment in our text is thus exactly analogous to the precept in Ephesians 4:28 . The very word there used, χερσίν , recalls the αἱ χεῖρες αὕται of verse 34. To remember the words of the Lord Jesus . This is a solitary instance era saying of our Lord's, not recorded in the Gospels, being referred to in Scripture. There are many alleged sayings of Christ recorded in apocryphal Gospels or in the writings of Fathers as Papias and others (Routh, 'Reliq. Sac.,' 1.9, 10, 12), some of which may be authentic; but this alone is warranted by Scripture. How it came to St Paul's knowledge, and that of the Ephesian elders to whom he seems to have taken for granted that it was familiar, it is impossible to say. But it seems likely that, in those very early days, some of the Lord's unwritten words may have floated in the memory of men, and been preserved by word of mouth. Clement (1 Corinthians it.) seems to refer to the saying when he writes in praise of the former character of the Corinthians, that they were then ἥδιον διδόντες ἢ λομβάνοντες . But he probably had it from the Acts of the Apostles, as had the author of the 'Apostol. Constitut.' (4. 3, 1). Similar apophthegms are quoted from heathen writers, as those cited by Kuinoel: δωρεῖσθαι καὶ διδόναι κρεῖττον ἢ λαμβάνειν (Artemidor., 'Onirocr.,' 4, 3); ΄ᾶλλόν ἐστὶ τοῦ ἐλευθέρου τὸ διδόναι οἳς δεῖ ἠ λαμβάνειν ὕθεν δεῖ (Arist., 'Nieom.,' 4, 1), "It is more becoming to a free man to give to whom he ought to give, than to receive from whom he ought to receive."