Why Did Paul Tell The Elders They Would See Him No More?

Tom:

This is our Understanding the Scriptures segment, we’re in the Book of Acts chapter 20, and Dave, we’re going to pick up with verse 36.“And when he had thus spoken, he kneeled down, and prayed with them all.And they all wept sore, and fell on Paul’s neck, and kissed him, Sorrowing most of all for the words which he spake, that they should see his face no more.And they accompanied him unto the ship.”Dave, he was praying with the Ephesian elders whom he called together, and as we mentioned a few weeks ago as we went through Acts 20, he didn’t have a very upbeat message for them, it was really a warning.

Dave:

Yeah, they kneeled down, so I guess we should kneel when we pray, or I guess some people stand up.In Russia they used to stand up, even when they gave thanks for the food at the table.But that’s not the important part, although it shows that we are in an attitude of supplication, you kneel before the sovereign.But Tom, so they prayed together, when we’re together it’s good to pray.Someone visits you in your home, you have them over for dinner or whatever, before they leave it’s nice to pray.Let’s have some prayer together, they are about to part.Verse 37, this must have bothered Paul, Luke is writing this, he knew and Paul knew.They wept sore, fell on Paul’s neck and kissed him, verse 38, Sorrowing most of all for the words which he spake that they should see his face no more.Now, they missed what Paul, you mentioned it, Tom, they missed what was on Paul’s heart, you said it wasn’t a pleasant message.He says, I was with you for 3 years, day and night I wept and warned you of what was going to happen.They didn’t get it!They should have been weeping, like he was, about that.

Tom:

Well that, to explain to some of our listeners, our viewers, grievous wolves were going to come from their own selves.There were going to be men within their own fellowships who were going to distort the Word of God, who were going to teach things to draw disciples after themselves.

Dave:

Right.That should have broken their hearts.It’s like the disciples at the Last Supper, Jesus said, One of you will betray me.Somehow it didn’t communicate.Well, was it I, was it I?And then they go right on.They should have locked the door, they shouldn’t have let anyone out, they should have had an inquisition, Who is this guy?Tom, somehow the importance of what is really important seems to slide right past this.And Paul, let me say it again, what I have often said, you know, we’ve been criticized, Tom, for being too negative, for being concerned about apostasy, I haven’t even begun to be concerned compared with Paul.You haven’t seen me weeping night and day, “weeping and warning with tears, night and day for 3 years” Paul did that.I would say we’ve got a long ways to go before we get as concerned as he was, and yet, it must have really grieved him.It was just a fulfillment, a confirmation of what he was saying, because they don’t get it.What are they concerned about?Well, Paul, we’re not going to see you again.

Tom:

Emotions, certainly fellowship, there was no doubt they loved him, there was affection, and so on.

Dave:

That’s legitimate, but that shouldn’t be the number one.

Tom:

No, no.

Dave:

Sorry, most of all.

Tom:

Dave, it reminds me of something that’s going on in the church today.This whole idea of small groups, and we want to get together, which is good, mostly what I am going to say is good, but then there’s a problem.So we have the small groups and the reason, the value of small group is that we can have a personal intimate relationship with other believers, and so on, and that’s good.However, what we are seeing now is that wrong ideas sometimes come into these fellowships and wrong teachings, and there’s no confrontation, there’s no saying, Wait a minute, this is not what the Word of God says, because you don’t want to affect the personal relationship.We need to be on guard about that.

Dave:

Well—“And they accompanied him unto the ship.”Now, these were not Paul’s last words, but they were his last spoken words to the Ephesians.The Epistle to the Ephesians really doesn’t have much to correct.These were his hand picked elders, he had trained them for 3 years, and yet, as you mentioned, Tom, some of them were going to twist the scriptures, speaking perverse things, it says, to draw away disciples after them.Well Tom, what do you know, I think we covered Chapter 20, do we dare move on to 21?

Tom:

Well, let’s do it.This is Acts chapter 21, and if you’ve just joined us, this is our segment of the program in which we go through the Word of God—to me, this is the best part, Dave.We have a lot of say in the other segments, but this is the most important, I believe.So, this is Acts chapter 21, picking up with verse 1.“And it came to pass, that after we were gotten from them, and had launched, we came with a straight course unto Coos, and the day following unto Rhodes, and from thence unto Patara:And finding a ship sailing over unto Phoenicia, we went aboard, and set forth.Now when we had discovered Cyprus, we left it on the left hand, and sailed into Syria, and landed at Tyre:for there the ship was to unlade her burden...”

Dave:

In other words, unload.This is a merchant ship carrying, not just passengers, if there would be, I don’t think you would have many, there wouldn’t have been any passenger ships in those days, but you tag along.Some ship with a cargo is going somewhere, well, you join them, get on, they have maybe a little space for you.So, that was what they were doing.Tom, the Bible is not fairy tales, it’s not fantasy, it’s not myths, this is actually happening.

Tom:

Or, it’s not fiction at all.

Dave:

Right, and the person who is writing this, obviously was on the ship, and I couldn’t write this.What am I going to do?I’m going to fly over there, or today we could get a map, but I’m going to fly over there, and then I’m going to see is this really the way the route would go?Yes, this is the exact route that you would take, but we have critics, skeptics, atheists say, Well, this wasn’t written until centuries later, and these are not the words of Jesus and the gospels.These men wrote this centuries later.There is so much, Tom, in the Bible you couldn’t make it up.You couldn’t make this up after the fact.Okay.Let me just give one quick example, written by the same man.Luke is writing this, the Book of Acts.Let’s go to the Book of Luke.In Acts:1:1The former treatise have I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and teach,
See All... he says, “The former treatise have I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and teach,” etc.Now this, the Book of Luke, is written to Theophilus, so we know that Acts was written by the same man, and notice what he says.I won’t be able to cover this, first, Chapter 3. “In the 15^th year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of Ituraea and of the reign of Trachonitis, and Lysanias the tetrarch of Abilene, Annas and Caiaphas being the high priests—” Now Tom, you’ve got specific details, you’ve got names, you’ve got offices, a tetrarch, a governor, Caesar.You have the location for them, and you have a date.You couldn’t have written that hundreds of years later, you can’t just make it up.

Tom:

But the critics of the Bible say, Oh, it’s just a book of platitudes, you know, it’s just things that are spiritual, and you spiritualize this or that.No, this is history.

Dave:

Absolutely.