Acts 20:17-38 - Homilies By R.a. Redford

Last words.

The scene at Miletus representative.

I. Of the relations between the apostolic leaders and the Churches.

1. Affectionate.

2. Founded on a common faith in the gospel of the grace of God.

3. Absolutely free from all sordid and worldly entanglements.

4. While recognizing the eminence o! the leaders, still not dependent on individual men. Sorrowing separation was not overwhelming despair.

II. Of the character of primitive Christianity as exemplified in the words of the apostle and in the elders of Ephesus.

1. Simplicity of the faith.

2. Confidence in the final victory of the truth as it is in Jesus, notwithstanding the inroads of error.

3. Dependence on the Holy Spirit.

4. Brotherhood; helping the weak and ministering to the needy. The love felt towards the apostle an example of the kind of feeling prevailing at Ephesus and in the early Church, so different from the formal and conventional Church life now seen, which is content with a very superficial recognition of brotherly sympathy. The heroism of Paul a fruit of the Spirit.—R.