Jesus had given Paul an area of "service" in His cause, and Paul was determined to finish the task, at all cost (Acts 9:15-17). Finish my course with joy - , My ministerial function. The consciousness of definite duties loomed larger than anything else before him. And why should they not be motives for us all? (Witham), Acts 20:24 "But I hold not my life of any account as dear unto myself, so that I may accomplish my course, and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the grace of God". No. But I hold my life of no account, nor is it so precious to me, as the finishing of my course. Now some hyper-sensitive people have thought that it was very strange that the Apostle, who was always preaching the imperfection of all human obedience and service, should, at the end of his life, indulge in such a piece of what they fancy was self-complacent retrospect as to say ‘I have kept the faith; I have fought a good fight; I have finished my course.’ But it was by no means complacent self-righteousness. Notice Paul"s sense of honor and loyalty to Jesus Christ. They may roll all the golden apples out of the garden of the Hesperides in his path, and he will not stop to pick one of them up; or Satan may block it with his fiercest flames, and the man will go into them, saying, ‘When I pass through the fires He will be with me.’, ‘That I may finish my course . See 2 Timothy 4:7, 2 Timothy 4:8. of = from. At the Price of God's Own Blood. Nov 22, 2014. Here, you can find book-by-book, chapter-by-chapter, and verse-by-verse commentary on the entire Bible (eventually). Acts 20:24. dear = precious. Easygoing lives are always contemptible lives. But what a strange thing it is that we seem to think that our Christian characters can be formed and perfected upon other conditions, and in other fashions, than those by which men make their daily bread or their worldly fortunes! Whereupon it followeth that his calling is unto every one of us a rule of good life. Acts 20:22-24. Paul could get his mind off himself and his comfort because he had already completely given his life to Jesus (Galatians 2:20; 2 Corinthians 5:14). . Paul would rather die than fail the One who has died for him. Otherwise, it would not be a gospel adapted to our needs; it would not be good news, glad tidings to us poor sinners, to us law-breakers, to us guilty criminals, to us vile transgressors, to us arraigned at the bar of infinite justice, to us condemned to die by the unswerving demands of God"s holiness. After the uproar had ceased, Paul called the disciples to himself, embraced them, and departed to go to Macedonia. Neither count I my life - I do not consider my life as so valuable as to be retained by turning away from bonds and persecutions. An Online Bible Commentary You Can Understand Welcome to BibleRef.com, the free online Bible study site. What St. Paul desired was to finish his course—whether “with joy” or not mattered little. We will never be the Christian we can be, and we will fail God, as long as we place our own personal comfort as a greater priority than doing the will of God. He had in mind to revisit northern and southern Greece (Macedonia and Achaia) and then go on to Jerusalem and Rome. There is only one pair of human lips that ever could say, in the full significance of the word, ‘It is finished! Acts 20:13-21 Paul–An Example of Faithfulness. The same words and the same thought re-occur in the Second Epistle to Timothy, only there the goal was in sight, and Paul wrote, ‘I have finished my course’ (2 Timothy 4:7). Greek. The passage is grander without them. For the joy of a good conscience is more deeply and surely laid up, than that it can be taken away by any external trouble, or any sorrow of the flesh; it triumpheth more joyfully than that it can be oppressed. Acts 8 Commentary. They are just at the same spot at which they stood five, ten, or twenty years ago; not a bit wiser, more like Christ, less like the devil and the world; having gained no more mastery over their characteristic evils; falling into precisely the same faults of temper and conduct as they used to do in the far-away past. . But it is a very different thing when, as was the case with Paul, there lie before him the certainties of affliction and bonds, and the possibilities which very soon consolidated themselves into certainties, of a bloody death and that swiftly. Acts 20 Commentary Acts chapter 20 commentary Bible study - Paul in Macedonia. When he knows a little corner of it, and also knows that there is a great stretch behind that is unknown, that is a state of things that tries his mettle. none, &c. = I make of no (Greek. Commentary on Acts 18:24-28 (Read Acts 18:24-28) Apollos taught in the gospel of Christ, as far as John's ministry would carry him, and no further. "To testify the gospel of the grace of God": The message that informs people concerning God"s grace (Titus 2:11-12). The one thing worth our making our aim in life is to accomplish our course. Consider the courageous attitude of Paul. Neither do I count my life (literally, my soul ) more precious than myself, having consecrated all my endeavours, my thoughts, my life, my whole self, body and soul, to God's service. You cannot stop an express train by stretching a rope across the line, nor stay the flow of a river with a barrier of straw. 21 Testifying both to the Jews, and also to the Greeks, repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. We note the parallelism with Luther’s famous declaration, when warned by his friends not to go to Worms, “I will go thither, though there should be devils on every house-top.”. Neither count I my life before dear unto myself; поприще мое и служение, принял от Господа Иисуса, "gospel of the grace of God" was a continuation of the good news Jesus preached but in a universal context.

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