Kisah Para Rasul 20:17-21

20:17 From Miletus ¹  he sent a message ²  to Ephesus, telling the elders of the church to come to him. ³ 

20:18 When they arrived, he said to them, “You yourselves know how I lived ⁴  the whole time I was with you, from the first day I set foot ⁵  in the province of Asia, ⁶  20:19 serving the Lord with all humility ⁷  and with tears, and with the trials that happened to me because of the plots ⁸  of the Jews. 20:20 You know that I did not hold back from proclaiming ⁹  to you anything that would be helpful, ¹⁰  and from teaching you publicly ¹¹  and from house to house, 20:21 testifying ¹²  to both Jews and Greeks about repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus. ¹³ 

Kisah Para Rasul 20:31-38

20:31 Therefore be alert, ¹⁴  remembering that night and day for three years I did not stop warning ¹⁵  each one of you with tears. 20:32 And now I entrust ¹⁶  you to God and to the message ¹⁷  of his grace. This message ¹⁸  is able to build you up and give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified. 20:33 I have desired ¹⁹  no one’s silver or gold or clothing. 20:34 You yourselves know that these hands of mine ²⁰  provided for my needs and the needs of those who were with me. 20:35 By all these things, ²¹  I have shown you that by working in this way we must help ²²  the weak, ²³  and remember the words of the Lord Jesus that he himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’” ²⁴ 

20:36 When ²⁵  he had said these things, he knelt down ²⁶  with them all and prayed. 20:37 They all began to weep loudly, ²⁷  and hugged ²⁸  Paul and kissed him, ²⁹  20:38 especially saddened ³⁰  by what ³¹  he had said, that they were not going to see him ³²  again. Then they accompanied ³³  him to the ship.

[20:17]  ¹ sn Miletus was a seaport on the western coast of Asia Minor about 45 mi (72 km) south of Ephesus.

[20:17]  ² tn The words “a message” are not in the Greek text, but are implied. Direct objects were often omitted in Greek when clear from the context, but must be supplied for the modern English reader.

[20:17]  ³ tn The words “to him” are not in the Greek text but are implied. L&N 33.311 has for the verb μετακαλέομαι (metakaleomai) “to summon someone, with considerable insistence and authority – ‘to summon, to tell to come.’”

[20:18]  ⁴ tn Grk “You yourselves know, from the first day I set foot in Asia, how I was with you the whole time.” This could be understood to mean “how I stayed with you the whole time,” but the following verses make it clear that Paul’s lifestyle while with the Ephesians is in view here. Thus the translation “how I lived the whole time I was with you” makes this clear.

[20:18]  ⁵ tn Or “I arrived.” BDAG 367 s.v. ἐπιβαίνω 2, “set foot in…εἰς τ. ᾿Ασίαν set foot in Asia Ac 20:18.” However, L&N 15.83 removes the idiom: “you know that since the first day that I came to Asia.”

[20:18]  ⁶ tn Grk “Asia”; see the note on this word in v. 16.

[20:19]  ⁷ sn On humility see 2 Cor 10:1; 11:7; 1 Thess 2:6; Col 3:12; Eph 4:2; Phil 2:3-11.

[20:19]  ⁸ sn These plots are mentioned in Acts 9:24; 20:13.

[20:20]  ⁹ tn Or “declaring.”

[20:20]  ¹⁰ tn Or “profitable.” BDAG 960 s.v. συμφέρω 2.b.α has “τὰ συμφέροντα what advances your best interests or what is good for you Ac 20:20,” but the broader meaning (s.v. 2, “to be advantageous, help, confer a benefit, be profitable/useful”) is equally possible in this context.

[20:20]  ¹¹ tn Or “openly.”

[20:21]  ¹² tn BDAG 233 s.v. διαμαρτύρομαι 1 has “testify of, bear witness to (orig. under oath)…of repentance to Judeans and Hellenes Ac 20:21.”

[20:21]  ¹³ tc Several mss, including some of the more important ones (Ì⁷⁴ א Α C [D] E 33 36 323 945 1175 1241 1505 1739 pm and a number of versions), read Χριστόν (Criston, “Christ”) at the end of this verse. This word is lacking in B H L P Ψ 614 pm. Although the inclusion is supported by many earlier and better mss, internal evidence is on the side of the omission: In Acts, both “Lord Jesus” and “Lord Jesus Christ” occur, though between 16:31 and the end of the book “Lord Jesus Christ” appears only in 28:31, perhaps as a kind of climactic assertion. Thus, the shorter reading is to be preferred.

[20:21]  sn Repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus. Note the twofold description of the message. It is a turning to God involving faith in Jesus Christ.

[20:31]  ¹⁴ tn Or “be watchful.”

[20:31]  ¹⁵ tn Or “admonishing.”

[20:32]  ¹⁶ tn Or “commend.” BDAG 772 s.v. παρατίθημι 3.b has “τινά τινι entrust someone to the care or protection of someone…Of divine protection παρέθεντο αὐτοὺς τῷ κυρίῳ Ac 14:23; cp. 20:32.”

[20:32]  ¹⁷ tn Grk “word.”

[20:32]  ¹⁸ tn Grk “the message of his grace, which.” The phrase τῷ δυναμένῳ οἰκοδομῆσαι… (tw dunamenw oikodomhsai…) refers to τῷ λόγω (tw logw), not τῆς χάριτος (ths caritos); in English it could refer to either “the message” or “grace,” but in Greek, because of agreement in gender, the referent can only be “the message.” To make this clear, a new sentence was begun in the translation and the referent “the message” was repeated at the beginning of this new sentence.

[20:33]  ¹⁹ tn Traditionally, “coveted.” BDAG 371 s.v. ἐπιθυμέω 1 has “to have a strong desire to do or secure someth., desire, long for w. gen. of the thing desired…silver, gold, clothing Ac 20:33.” The traditional term “covet” is not in common usage and difficult for many modern English readers to understand. The statement affirms Paul’s integrity. He was not doing this for personal financial gain.

[20:34]  ²⁰ tn The words “of mine” are not in the Greek text, but are supplied to clarify whose hands Paul is referring to.

[20:35]  ²¹ sn The expression By all these things means “In everything I did.”

[20:35]  ²² tn Or “must assist.”

[20:35]  ²³ tn Or “the sick.” See Eph 4:28.

[20:35]  ²⁴ sn The saying is similar to Matt 10:8. Service and generosity should be abundant. Interestingly, these exact words are not found in the gospels. Paul must have known of this saying from some other source.

[20:36]  ²⁵ tn Grk “And when.” Because of the difference between Greek style, which often begins sentences or clauses with “and,” and English style, which generally does not, καί (kai) has not been translated here.

[20:36]  ²⁶ tn Grk “kneeling down…he prayed.” The participle θείς (qeis) has been translated as a finite verb due to requirements of contemporary English style.

[20:37]  ²⁷ tn Grk “weeping a great deal,” thus “loudly” (BDAG 472 s.v. ἱκανός and BDAG 546 s.v. κλαυθμός).

[20:37]  ²⁸ tn Grk “fell on Paul’s neck” (an idiom, see BDAG 1014 s.v. τράχηλος).

[20:37]  ²⁹ sn The Ephesians elders kissed Paul as a sign of both affection and farewell. The entire scene shows how much interrelationship Paul had in his ministry and how much he and the Ephesians meant to each other.

[20:38]  ³⁰ tn Or “pained.”

[20:38]  ³¹ tn Grk “by the word that he had said.”

[20:38]  ³² tn Grk “to see his face” (an idiom for seeing someone in person).

[20:38]  ³³ tn BDAG 873 s.v. προπέμπω 1 has “they accompanied him to the ship Ac 20:38.”