THE KING’S BUSINESS
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counted himself as belonging to Jesus and under obligation to do His will in every thing at any cost, no matter how hard the things might be that such service required of him. Of how many of us do those who know us best know this to be true? They knew also that this service had been done “with all lowliness of mind.” There was nothing that humility demanded that he had not done. He had been ready to take the humblest place; he had never sought to exalt himself; there had been but ond- person whom he had sought to exalt, and that person was the Lord Jesus,' and even among the brethren he had counted others as having superior interests to his own (cf. Phil. 2:3). Paul had so acted that he had no doubt that they knew this to be true, about himself. He had also served, “with tears.” His tears-had been over their imperfections (cf. v. 31).* He seems rather to have wept than to have been irritated over their shortcomings. Many of us get impatient far more easily than we weep over the slowness and impenitince and hardness of those whom we are seeking to lead into the truth, but it is the one who “goeth forth and weep- eth” who is most likely to “come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him” (Ps- 126 :6). But not only had there been lowliness of mind and tears, there had been “trials” too. These trials had come from the plots of the Jews who never tired in their attempts to drive Paul out and even kill him, if possible. We learn from chapter 19:23-41 that there were also fierce jtrials through Gentile opposition. How Paul’s history puts to shame our worrying over the small trials and hardships that come to us in the path of truth and loyalty to Christ. Friday, March 23 . Acts 20 : 20 , 21 . No amount of opposition, even though it was murderous in its bitterness and vio lence, kept Paul from declaring the whole truth. “Not one thing” that it was profit able for the Ephesians to know had he kept back in order to please man and to
Jerusalem. It was on that day that the Holy Spirit was originally* given (Acts 2:1-4) and the church began. So Paul decided if by any possibility he could reach Jerusalem by Pentecost he was determined to be there, and he was even willing to pay the price of not seeing the beloved friends in Ephesus. Thursday, March 22 . Acts 20 : 17 - 19 . Though Paul felt he could not take time to1go to Ephesus, he also felt that he must see the representatives of the church, and he sent to them to meet him at Miletus, twenty or thirty miles away. At the present day it would have been easily pos sible fof Paul himself to have made the trip to Ephesus by land in a short time, but in Paul’s day Ephesus could only be reached from Miletus by making a long detour around the head of the gulf, and to go directly from one of these cities to the other he would have been compelled to go across the gulf by boat and then, 'continue by land. This explains why Paul did not go to Ephesus, and shows how accurately the narrative in the Acts fits into the geographical facts as they were at that time, but are not now, and it is one of the many indications
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