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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comRobertson Word Pictures - Acts 20:28 - 20:28
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Take heed unto yourselves (prosechete heautois). The full phrase had ton noun, hold your mind on yourselves (or other object in the dative), as often in old writers and in Job 7:17. But the ancients often used the idiom with noun understood, but not expressed as here and Act 5:35; Luk 12:1; Luk 17:3; Luk 21:34; 1Ti 1:4; 1Ti 3:8; 1Ti 4:13. Epeche is so used in 1Ti 4:16.
To all the flock (panti tōi poimniōi). Contracted form of poimenion ̂ poimnē (Joh 10:16) already in Luk 12:32 and also in Act 20:29; 1Pe 5:2, 1Pe 5:3. Common in old Greek.
Hath made (etheto). Did make, second aorist middle indicative of tithēmi, did appoint. Paul evidently believed that the Holy Spirit calls and appoints ministers.
Bishops (episkopous). The same men termed elders in Act 20:17which see.
To shepherd (poimainein). Present active infinitive of purpose of poimainō, old verb to feed or tend the flock (poimnē, poimnion), to act as shepherd (poimēn). These ministers are thus in Paul’s speech called elders (Act 20:17), bishops (Act 20:28), and shepherds (Act 20:28). Jesus had used this very word to Peter (Joh 21:16, twice boske, feed, Act 21:15, Act 21:17) and Peter will use it in addressing fellow-elders (1Pe 5:2) with memories, no doubt of the words of Jesus to him. The “elders” were to watch over as “bishops” and “tend and feed as shepherds” the flock. Jesus is termed “the shepherd and bishop of your souls” in 1Pe 2:25 and “the great Shepherd of the sheep” in Heb 13:20. Jesus called himself “the good Shepherd” in Joh 10:11.
The church of God (tēn ekklēsian tou theou). The correct text, not “the church of the Lord” or “the church of the Lord and God” (Robertson, Introduction to Textual Criticism of the N.T., p. 189).
He purchased (periepoiēsato). First aorist middle of peripoieō, old verb to reserve, to preserve (for or by oneself, in the middle). In the N.T. only in Luke Luk 17:33; Act 20:28; 1Ti 3:13. The substantive peripoiēsin (preservation, possession) occurs in 1Pe 2:9 (“a peculiar people” = a people for a possession) and in Eph 1:14.
With his own blood (dia tou haimatos tou idiou). Through the agency of (dia) his own blood. Whose blood? If tou theou (Aleph B Vulg.) is correct, as it is, then Jesus is here called “God” who shed his own blood for the flock. It will not do to say that Paul did not call Jesus God, for we have Rom 9:5; Col 2:9; Tit 2:13 where he does that very thing, besides Col 1:15-20; Phi 2:5-11.