Acts 20:1-38 - Corps Notes - December 7, 1976
Acts 20:1-38 December 7, 1976 Again here in the twentieth chapter of Acts, there’s no man living who can set the greatness of this thing like the Word sets it. Again my ability to set this is far below par, which I recognize, and yet some of the great salient truths in here are just absolutely fantastic. After the great opportunity at Ephesus, we open with the twentieth chapter: Acts 20:1 “and” - now “for” - delete Acts 20:2 “Greece” – he came back to Corinth Acts 20:3 “when the Jews laid wait for him” - had organized a plot “he purposed” - by divine revelation instead of going to Syria, God told him to return and go by way of the road instead of sailing to Macedonia. These first three verses are just loaded with information. Yet, Luke passes over these three verses in an unbelievably fast way. There must have been at least nine months involved or more in the first three verses. Of all the other great things Luke hits, he by-passes all of this work in Macedonia and other places and just hits it in these three verses and tells us he spent three months in Greece, back in Corinth. I don’t know why the Word of God doesn’t give us more information. I really don’t know. So I guess there’s no use to guess. That must have been really phenomenal as he revisited all those churches and spent two or three days, or a month, or part of a month with the believers. I’ve often thought how tremendous that must have been: to sit in a believers meeting with the Apostle Paul teaching. I get tears in my eyes. Just to be there with Paul would have been something. There it is; three verses and tells us very little. He must have been through ten or twelve of the cities or more. Acts 20:4 “into” - as far as “Sopater” - this is sort of a shortened form of Sōsipater, who by the way is called the son of Purrhus in one of the early church writers. He was from Berea. The believers in Berea were more noble than those in Thessalonica because they studied the Word, searched the Word. “of” – from Act
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deliverance and the Word. Acts 20:13 Notice the “we” section. “to ship” - in other words - by ship “to take in” - to meet “go afoot” – this was about twenty miles Acts 20:14 “we took him in” - we all got together Acts 20:15 “thence” - from there Again, what happened at all these places, I just don’t know. “next” - There are three different words for the word “next” in this verse - epeimi is the first one. The second is heteros. The third next is echomai. I didn’t have time or I would have worked it out for you today. Seeing that they are all different electrifies my mind because every cause has an effect and every effect has a cause. There’s a reason for it, and I don’t know the answer to it. If I’d had time, I would have dug it to find out; there’s got to be a reason. Acts 20:16 “determined” - willed “sail by” - miss “hasted” - was in a hurry I wish you would take the time and work the