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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comRobertson Word Pictures - Acts 20:20 - 20:20
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
How that I shrank not (hōs ouden hupesteilamen). Still indirect discourse (question) after epistasthe (ye know) with hōs like pōs in Act 20:18. First aorist middle of hupostellō, old verb to draw under or back. It was so used of drawing back or down sails on a ship and, as Paul had so recently been on the sea, that may be the metaphor here. But it is not necessarily so as the direct middle here makes good sense and is frequent, to withdraw oneself, to cower, to shrink, to conceal, to dissemble as in Hab 2:4 (Heb 10:38). Demosthenes so used it to shrink from declaring out of fear for others. This open candour of Paul is supported by his Epistles (1Th 2:4, 1Th 2:11; 2Co 4:2; Gal 1:10).
From declaring unto you (tou mē anaggeilai humin). Ablative case of the articular first aorist active infinitive of anaggellō with the redundant negative after verbs of hindering, etc. (Robertson, Grammar, p. 1094).
Anything that was profitable (tōn sumpherontōn). Partitive genitive after ouden of the articular present active participle of sumpherō, to bear together, be profitable.
Publicly (dēmosiāi, adverb) and from house to house (kai kat' oikous). By (according to) houses. It is worth noting that this greatest of preachers preached from house to house and did not make his visits merely social calls. He was doing kingdom business all the while as in the house of Aquila and Priscilla (1Co 16:19).