Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Acts 20:27
For I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God.
27. For I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God ] The Rev. Ver. as in Act 20:20, “ For I shrank not from declaring unto you the whole, &c.” The “counsel of God” means the whole plan of salvation; what God offers and what he asks of men. This includes the “repentance and faith” as well as the “grace and mercy.”
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
For – This verse contains a reason for what had been said in the previous verse. It shows why Paul regarded himself as innocent if they should be lost.
I have not shunned – I have not kept back; I have not been deterred by fear, by the desire of popularity, by the fact that the doctrines of the gospel are unpalatable to people, from declaring them fully. The proper meaning of the word translated here, I have not shunned hupesteilamen, is to disguise any important truth; to withdraw it from public view; to decline publishing it from fear, or an apprehension of the consequences. Paul means that he had not disguised any truth; he had not withdrawn or kept it from open view, by any apprehension of the effect which it might have on their minds. Truth may be disguised or kept back:
- By avoiding the subject altogether from timidity, or from an apprehension of giving offence if it is openly proclaimed; or,
- By giving it too little prominency, so that it shall be lost in the multitude of other truths; or,
- By presenting it amidst a web of metaphysical speculations, and entangling it with other subjects; or,
- By making use of other terms than the Bible does, for the purpose of involving it in a mist, so that it cannot be understood.
People may resort to this course:
- Because the truth itself is unpalatable;
- Because they may apprehend the loss of reputation or support;
- Because they may not love the truth them selves, and choose to conceal its prominent and offensive points;
- Because they may be afraid of the rich, the great, and the frivolous, and apprehend that they shall excite their indignation; and,
- By a love of metaphysical philosophy, and a constant effort to bring everything to the test of their own reason. People often preach a philosophical explanation of a doctrine instead of the doctrine itself They deserve the credit of ingenuity, but not that of being open and bold proclaimers of the truth of God.
All the counsel – pasan ten boulen. The word counsel ( boule) denotes properly consolation, deliberation, and then will or purpose, Luk 23:51; Act 2:23. It means here the will or purpose of God, as revealed in regard to the salvation of people. Paul had made a full statement of that plan of the guilt of people, of the claims of the Law, of the need of a Saviour, of the provisions of mercy, and of the state of future rewards and punishments. Ministers ought to declare all that counsel, because God commands it; because it is needful for the salvation of people; and because the message is not theirs, but Gods, and they have no right to change, to disguise, or to withhold it. And if it is the duty of ministers to declare that counsel, it is the duty of a people to listen to it with respect and candor, and with a desire to know the truth, and to be saved by it. Declaring the counsel of God will do no good unless it is received into honest and humble hearts, and with a disposition to know what God has revealed for salvation.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 27. I have not shunned to declare] , I have not suppressed or concealed any thing, through fear or favour, that might be beneficial to your souls. This is properly the meaning of the original word. See Clarke on Ac 20:20.
All the counsel of God.] All that God has determined and revealed concerning the salvation of man-the whole doctrine of Christ crucified, with repentance towards God, and faith in Jesus as the Messiah and great atoning Priest. In Isa 9:6, Jesus Christ is called the wonderful counsellor, Pele Poets, which the Septuagint translate The messenger of the great counsel. To this the apostle may have referred, as we well know that this version was constantly under his eye. Declaring therefore to them the whole counsel of God, , the whole of that counsel or design of God, was, in effect, declaring the whole that concerned the Lord Jesus, who was the messenger of this counsel.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Gods decree, to save all that believe in Christ; or the whole doctrine of Christianity, as it directs to a holy life; whatsoever God requires of any one in order to a blessed eternity. This is that which the Pharisees rejected, Luk 7:30; and so do all wicked and ungodly men, who refuse to take Gods counsel, or to obey his command.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
27. For I have not shunned todeclare . . . all the counsel of GodGod’s way of salvation,and His kingdom of souls saved by His Son Jesus Christ. See Lu7:30.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
For I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God. By which is meant, not the purposes and decrees of God, latent in his own breast, these the apostle could not declare; but his revealed will in the Gospel, concerning the salvation of men by Jesus Christ, even the whole of the Gospel, every truth and doctrine of it, necessary to salvation, and to the peace, joy, and comfort of the saints; together with all the ordinances of it, and everything that had any tendency to promote the glory of God, and the good of souls; see Lu 7:30 none of these things did the apostle withhold from the knowledge of the church at Ephesus, but freely imparted and communicated them to them; [See comments on Ac 20:20].
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Paul here repeats the very words and idioms used in verse 20, adding “the whole counsel of God” ( ). All the counsel of God that concerned Paul’s work and nothing inconsistent with the purpose of God of redemption through Christ Jesus (Page).
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
Shunned. The same word as in verse 20 kept back.
Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament
1) “For I have not shunned,” (ou gar huoesteilamen tou me) “Because I held or kept not back,” did not forego, or withhold, Act 20:20. No church, or area of Paul’s mission field ministry was better informed of the purpose of redemption concept thru the ages, in Christ, culminating in God’s receiving glory, in the church body, throughout all the ages, than the church at Ephesus, and the Asian congregations, as set forth in the Book of Ephesians, Eph 3:1-11.
2) “To declare unto you all,” (anangeilai humin pasan) “To declare (or make known to you all),” to all of you, to disclose to you, to all of you elders, you brethren, at least some of whom, were also “overseers” or bishops over the flock of God, of their locality, Act 20:28.
3) “The counsel of God.” (tou boulen tou theou) “The counsel, mind, or disposition of God,” toward all of you. The counsel, mind, disposition or purpose of God toward these, as Gentiles, involved not only God’s inclusion of their redemption in His eternal purpose, in Jesus Christ, but also that they should constitute and perpetuate His church body (new covenant company), as His bride, the house of God, as custodian and administrator of His order of worship and Divine service, in bearing the message of redemption to the nations, in the Gentile age, and giving God “glory in the church, by Jesus Christ, throughout all ages,” or into the unceasing aeons of the aeons, Joh 3:28-29; Mat 28:18-20; Luk 22:28-30; Joh 15:16; Joh 15:26-27; 1Ti 3:15; Rev 19:5-9.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
(27) I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God.The words point to a greater degree of receptivity for Divine truth than had been found elsewhere. So in the Epistle to the Ephesians, which, even on the assumption that it was an encyclical letter, was addressed to them principally, he speaks to them as able to understand his knowledge in the mystery of Christ (Eph. 3:4), the universality of His redeeming work, the brotherhood of mankind in the common Fatherhood of God. In I have not shunned we have the same word and image as in the kept back of Act. 20:20.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
27. Counsel of God Both in the Law and in the Gospel; both as Judge and as Saviour. His counsel was, collectively to cast off impenitent Judaism and to accept penitent Gentilism, and individually to deal with every man according to his works. (See note on Rom 9:19.)
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Act 20:27. I have not shunned to declare unto you The proper import of the word , here rendered shun, in such a connection, is to disguise any important truth, or, at least, to decline the open publication of it, for fear of displeasing those to whom it ought to be declared. “I have not declined to declare unto you, with the utmost freedom and integrity, all the counsel of God; but, on the contrary, have laid before you the whole system of divine truths, relating to our redemption by Christ, and the way to eternal happiness through and with him, in the most plain and faithful manner, whatever censure, contempt or opposition, I might incur by such a declaration.”
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Chapter 79
Prayer
Almighty God, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the living God and Saviour of all men, we come to thee with psalm and prayer, with adoration and intercession, and pour out of our hearts all our desire and all our purpose. We will keep back nothing. We will tell thee the tale of our life, and will utter it only within the circle of the Cross, that, there uttering it, grace may abound over sin, and light may drive darkness away, and peace make quiet in eternal restfulness the tumult of our memory and conscience. We will speak of thy lovingkindness, and call it great; of thy tender mercies, and regard them as without number. We will make our hearts familiar with thy love, as shown in the gift of thy Son, and in all the wonders of his life and death and resurrection, before speaking of our sin, for then our hearts will utter themselves in hope, and our spirits shall be saved from the darkness of despair. We will think of the mountain clothed with light, of the throne of the heavenly grace, radiant with welcomes to sinful penitents; we will think of the cross, the light, the blood, the triumph; we will remember that there is a fountain opened in the house of David for sin and uncleanness. Then, when we come to tell thee of our guilt, we shall feel inspired and quieted by all the reality of thy grace. Thou hast loved us with an eternal love. Before the foundation of the world was the Lamb slain for the sins of men. Thou dost take no pleasure in the death of the wicked; thou dost take pleasure in life, in immortality, in the happiness of every creature of thy hand; thou wouldst that we might turn and live. We remember these gracious words and all the tender promises which accompany them; and so calling before our mind all the wonders of thy being, and all the tenderness of thy grace, and all thy readiness to pardon, we come, each crying in his own name and out of his own heart, “God be merciful to me a sinner.” Thou dost stop the prayer in its utterance with a great answer; we may not pray out in words our broken-heartedness, for whilst we are yet praying thou dost send answers by the angels, and we who began to pray are constrained to conclude with praise. What joy have they to whose hearts thou dost immediately speak! The chains fall from off their hands; the darkness is no longer a weight upon their eyes; thou dost lead them forth to liberty, and establish their feet in secure places. May we enter into the mystery of this joy. May every one acknowledge that the house of God is the gate of heaven. Thou art drawing us nearer to the end without giving us to feel the violence of the motion. Day by day we approach the brink; night by night our pulses lessen their decreed beatings. We see the place of our final lying down; we feel gathering upon us the first shades of the great night. Yet dost thou lift us above all fear of the end, by Christ Jesus, thy Son, our Saviour. Thou dost show us that the end is the beginning, that the night is the morning, and that whilst we pass from earth, clinging to him who is the resurrection and the life, we are already amongst the number of those upon whom death has no more power. Whilst we live may we live well; by our industry, may we double the hours of the day; by our passionate yearning for all the highest fellowship of souls, may we already enter into heavenly society. For all that comforts we bless thee; for the growing brightness of thy truth, shining upon our souls with added lustre every day, we thank thee. Continue thy wondrous grace and light and peace unto the end, and at the last may we say, though with failing breath, concerning all thy truth and light and comfort, “The half had not been told us.” So whilst we grow in grace we shall grow in glory. Amen.
Act 20:27-29
27. For I shrank not from declaring unto you the whole counsel of God.
28. Take heed unto yourselves, and to all the flock, in the which the Holy Ghost hath made you bishops [denotes the official function of these elders. Had the word been translated shepherds, the sequence of thought with the following verb, etc., would have been obvious to the English reader], to feed the church of God, which he purchased with his own blood [Paul’s previous thought of his own death in connection with the ministry explains the unparalleled intensity of his language].
29. I know that after my departing grievous wolves shall enter in among you, not sparing the flock.
What Paul Leaves Behind
We have just been moved with deepest emotion on hearing Paul say that we shall see his face no more. The question then arises. Since Paul is going, what will be left? When the Apostle goes, will not the whole fabric which he seemed to represent and sustain go along with him? Is Christianity the heroism of one personality? Is it a thing which belongs to the individual, like his incommunicable genius of mind, so that when he dies it will die with him? If Paul’s estimation of himself had been that of an idolater or of a superstitious person, he would have reminded the Ephesian elders that in the removal of his personality they had themselves no longer any official standing, or any claim upon public attention. We may learn something about the man’s faith that is to say, about his doctrine, his theology, his outward and heavenward look by studying his spirit in relation to the things that were round about him. By an almost infinite subtlety of thought he indicates his apostolic primacy amongst men. He could be lowly-minded, and he could put on his crown and show that no diadem was so radiant as the one which sparkled on his head. He could say that he was not meet to be called an apostle; he could also say that he was not a whit behind the very chiefest of the apostles. On this occasion he shows his greatness, yet his modesty; the almost supreme importance of his personal ministry, and yet the absolute independence of God of any man’s service. He does not talk of himself as of a little man, a small factor in a great operation; he speaks of himself as of the highest social and religious consequence in the matter of advocacy and the protection and guidance of Christ’s Church. He seems to multiply himself into many when he gives the elders of the Church of Ephesus this charge, as if each of them were to be in his degree an Apostle Paul, and the whole were to constitute in their consolidation the influence and the energy which he embodied in himself. He does not say this in words, for then he would not truly and deeply say it; he subtly and spiritually suggests the idea, and thus throws over the whole occasion the mystery of spiritual colour, and leaves us to feel rather than to see how vast was the place he occupied. When Paul goes what will be left? The Church! and the Church is greater than any member of it; the Word! and the Word is infinitely greater than all the ministers that preach it. The blood that bought the Church! and that blood is beyond all rivalry and co-partnership of influence; it is alone in its meaning, its energy, and its grace. Then everything will be left when Paul goes? Yes, verily so. That is the mystery of Providence, the miracle of Divine and redeeming love. We can take nothing away from Christ’s Church. The first-born dies, but the Church is as strong as ever; the most eloquent tongue ceases its gracious utterance, but the music of the Cross loses no tone or note of its subtle mysterious enchantment. It is even good for us that the Apostle should be taken away; it was expedient for us that Christ himself did not remain upon the earth in visible presence. Christianity is not an idolatry of a preacher; Christianity is not a customary attendance upon a particular place of worship; Christianity does not depend upon its great men or its little men; it is a spirit, a truth, a redeeming force, sanctifying reality; it abideth for ever; no part of it is laid in the tomb which holds the head of its noblest apologist; the Church, like its Lord, is the same yesterday, today, and for ever.
Paul’s charge is Paul himself: “Take heed therefore unto yourselves.” That was what Paul himself was always doing. He was a severe disciplinarian. He could not have spoken those words to other men if he had not himself first proved them. He was always undergoing the discipline of an athlete; Paul was every day under training for a great prize fight and prize race. He had no periods of intermission; he was always on the strain; he kept his body under, he struck himself in the eyes lest, having preached to others, he himself should become “a castaway.” Self-heed is the secret of public power. Preparation of yourselves is the preparation of your sermon. Take heed unto yourselves, be severe upon yourselves, and you will be gentle to other people. Regard yourself as a sinner greater than any man that lives, and then you will preach with growing eloquence, because growing in human knowledge and human sympathy. Do not spare yourselves; do not live under your official clothing as if that made you better; if it has any influence upon you at all, it makes you worse. Watch your soul; watch the heart-gate; watch it as much at midnight as at midday. Give yourself no liberty, license, holiday, or periods of rioting, but lay grappling-irons upon your life, hooks of steel upon passion, desire, and every impulse within you. You must have no liberty but the law of Christ. How could a man talk so if he did not know the mystery of self-discipline? He did know it, and, therefore, we venture to repeat the assertion that Paul’s charge is Paul himself.
And “take heed” also “to all the flock.” That is the balancing consideration. The minister is not a monk shut up in his far-away and all but inaccessible cell; he is a public man, a social man, a man with a great shepherdly heart, that can understand and love a thousand varieties of men. The true minister is the miracle of men. He has not the contemptible gift of loving only one kind or sort of men the man who thinks as he does, who occupies his standpoint and calls it heaven. He loves all burning souls, all ardent, consecrated minds; erratic, heretic, eccentric, ordinary, conventional, stupid intellectually, but morally consecrated, he takes them all within his shepherdly care, and is most a shepherd when he tarries longest for the weakest of the flock; not so much a shepherd when at the head of the flock he sings a ballad to himself, as when he waits to gather up the tired lamb and to give it a lift up the steep place, mayhap lay his great soft hand upon it in tender caress and benediction. We should be greater if we were less, mightier if we were tenderer, wiser if more “foolish” according to worldly and carnal definitions of wisdom. Paul’s conception of the ministry was regulated and inspired by Paul’s conception of the Church. What was that conception? Was the Church a club, a little gathering of men called together for superficial purposes, or for transient enjoyment? It was a flock; it was purchased; it was purchased with the blood of God. Why, then the Church makes the ministry; it is because the Church is so great that the ministry, properly understood, is so great. The ministry has no existence apart from the Church. The minister be he Paul or Apollos or Cephas is but an upper seat-holder. There is no ministry if there is no Church. We are members one of another; we must have no merely official discrimination and recognition; but One is our Master, and all the saints are the clergy of God.
Paul uses language full of intellectual suggestion and full of spiritual pathos. “The Church of God which he hath purchased with his own blood.” We have often had occasion to say that the word “blood,” in its highest spiritual connections, has been woefully misunderstood. It is the custom of men first to debase a word by vulgar usage, and then to deprecate its truest and highest references. What grander word is there than “blood”? Until we touched it, contaminated it, it stood next to “love.” There are those who want to get rid of the word now, because of what they are pleased to consider its ignoble meanings and references. I charge them with first giving the term such references, and I would rescue the sacred word and apply it to its original uses. “The blood is the life”; the life is the blood. God purchased the Church with his own life. It is life for life. Take that view of the Church, and you instantly enter into the sanctuary of a great mystery; yet whilst you are wondering as those wonder who stand under a lofty roof, and in the midst of marvellous poetic pillars, tender suggestions insinuate themselves into the heart, surprising lights break upon the eyes, and the whole house becomes sacred with presences felt though unseen. “We are not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, but with the precious blood of Christ. The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin. Unto him that loved us and hath washed us in his own blood, unto him be all the heavens of light.” This attempt to reduce the value of the word “blood,” and all that belongs to it, is part of a wicked purpose to lessen the sinfulness of sin, the abominableness of iniquity. It is the trick of the devil; but “surely in vain the net is spread in the sight of any bird.” When you understand sin you will understand blood. When you see the hell which sin deserves you will see the Cross which God built.
Why should a man care anything about the world he is going to leave? That depends upon the quality of the man. There are those who want peace in their time, who want to leave all unsettled and thorny questions to be determined by those who come after them. The Apostle Paul was anxious for the fortunes of the Church at Ephesus, though he would himself see that Church no more. Christianity is not a new way of sneaking out of responsibility; Christianity is not a cunning method of leaving posterity to take care of itself. Christian love claims all time, all ages, all lands. It is the peculiar glory, because the characteristic tenderness, of Christianity, that it has no limits to its affection, no boundaries to the propositions of its holy philosophy. Even the Apostle Peter, ardent and, often mistakenly supposed, careless, said he would make such arrangements as would enable the Christians to whom he wrote to have holy things in their remembrance after his decease. The Apostle Paul great economist, great statesman, supreme prince of the legions of Christ could not leave Ephesus saying, “I am glad I shall suffer no more there”; but he cared for Ephesus as much as if he were going to spend the remainder of his days in the endeavour to convert its citizens. Paul knew that after his departing “grievous wolves” should enter into the Church, “not sparing the flock.” There he gives you the subtle indication we spoke of concerning his own place in the Church, and his own protective power. The “wolves” could not come in so long as Paul was there. Our great souls do something for us; we must not reduce them to the humiliation of nonentity. They have their value; we ourselves feel the stronger because of their presence. We do not cultivate faith by proxy, or live in other men’s religion, yet we all feel the stronger when the strong man is there. Persons who are timid in a house by themselves are quite courageous when joined by others, and when the appointments are complete you would suppose that they had never felt a moment’s fear of any possible assault. They are then at their best; they have full control of themselves, and the full use of all their powers; the nervous strain is taken away, and in a state of equanimity they can go about their duties with satisfaction and success. It is so in the Church; yet God takes away from us our mighty men that he may train us as much by their absence as he did by their presence. Who would not long and desire, almost to the urgency of prayer, to have a whole year with John Bunyan, to know him, to have him in the house, to hear his very voice, to “pluck the good man’s gown and share his smile”? or the greater Milton, or the fiery Baxter, or the profound Howe and Owen? Yet God is training us by their withdrawal, and God’s greatest men are always the men who are still to come. The ages do not live backward; God did not show the fulness of his power, and then call the ages to behold its contraction. The way of God is “first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear,” the whitening east, the purpling dawn, the growing day, the noontide splendour. We must look for greater things, thankfully and graciously recognize them when they come, and who knows but that today we may see sights which kings and prophets desired long, but died and never saw? If our prayer be great, God’s reply will be greater still.
Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker
27 For I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God.
Ver. 27. All the counsel of God ] sc. that concerneth you to know, to your eternal salvation by Christ alone. See Luk 7:30 , See Trapp on “ Luk 7:30 “
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Act 20:27 . ., see above on Act 20:20 . . , see on Act 2:23 , and cf. especially Eph 1:11 for the phrase, and Act 3:4 for the thought. No Epistle excels that to the Ephesians in the richness of its thoughts, and in its conception of a divine purpose running through the ages; no Epistle dwells more fully upon the conception of the Church as the Body of Christ, or exhorts more touchingly to diligence in keeping the unity of the Spirit, or insists more practically upon the sanctifying power of the One Spirit, and the sense of a divine membership in every sphere of human life. The rich and full teaching of the Epistle is addressed to men who are able to understand the Apostle’s knowledge of the mystery of Christ; in other words, to those to whom he had announced more fully than to others the counsel of God. The Ephesian Epistle may have been an encyclical letter, but it was addressed principally to the Ephesians as the representatives of the leading Church of the province of Asia. See amongst recent writers Gore, Ephesians , pp. 42, 43; and Lock, “Ephesians,” Hastings’ B.D., p. 718. : emphatically at the end, W.H [339] ; this revelation had been made to the presbyters before him, and the responsibility would rest with them of communicating it to others when their spiritual father had left them.
[339] Westcott and Hort’s The New Testament in Greek: Critical Text and Notes.
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
have . . . shunned = shunned or shrunk. Greek. hupostello. Same as “kept back”, Act 20:20.
to. Literally not (Greek. me)
to. declare. Greek. anangello. See note on Act 14:27. Same as “shew”, Act 20:20.
counsel. Greek. boule. App-102. All the revealed purpose of God up to that time. The Prison Epistles, containing the final revelation of God’s counsel, were not yet written.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Act 20:27. , for) Therefore he who kept back what he ought to have announced or showed, is not pure from the blood of his hearers.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
I have: Act 20:20, Act 20:35, Act 26:22, Act 26:23, 2Co 4:2, Gal 1:7-10, Gal 4:16, 1Th 2:4
all: Act 2:23, Psa 32:11, Isa 46:10, Isa 46:11, Jer 23:22, Mat 28:20, Luk 7:30, Joh 15:15, 1Co 11:23, Eph 1:11
Reciprocal: Gen 40:19 – and the birds Exo 6:29 – speak Exo 7:2 – General Lev 10:11 – General Num 9:8 – I will Num 18:1 – shall bear Num 29:40 – General Deu 1:18 – General Deu 4:5 – General Deu 22:8 – thou bring Deu 31:30 – General Jos 8:35 – was not Jos 11:15 – he left nothing 2Sa 7:17 – General 1Ki 22:14 – what the Lord 1Ch 17:15 – According 2Ch 18:7 – me 2Ch 18:13 – even what my God Job 6:10 – have not concealed Job 26:3 – plentifully Psa 40:10 – not hid Psa 107:11 – contemned Pro 14:25 – General Isa 21:10 – that which Isa 58:1 – spare Jer 1:7 – for thou shalt Jer 1:17 – and speak Jer 6:17 – I Jer 7:27 – thou shalt speak Jer 15:19 – let them Jer 17:16 – that Jer 19:2 – and proclaim Jer 26:2 – all the words Jer 34:6 – General Jer 38:21 – this is Jer 42:4 – I will keep Jer 42:19 – know Jer 42:21 – I have Jer 43:1 – all the words Eze 2:4 – Thus Eze 3:11 – speak Eze 3:18 – but Eze 33:7 – thou shalt Eze 33:8 – that wicked Eze 40:4 – declare Mat 10:14 – shake Mar 4:22 – General Mar 6:18 – It is Act 4:11 – you Act 4:29 – that Act 18:6 – Your 1Co 2:4 – my speech 2Co 2:16 – the savour of death 2Co 2:17 – but as of sincerity Col 1:28 – warning 1Th 4:1 – ye have 1Th 5:14 – warn 1Ti 4:16 – thou shalt 2Ti 2:15 – rightly 2Ti 3:16 – and is Jam 3:1 – knowing 1Pe 5:2 – which is among you 1Jo 1:3 – declare
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
7
Act 20:27. This verse explains the statement in the preceding one. A preacher of the Gospel may not have the ability or opportunity to declare everything that pertains to the plan of salvation, and if so he will not be held accountable for such lack. But if he shuns or evades to proclaim- a single requirement of the counsel of God that he could have made known, he will be charged with the full results of such evasion of duty.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Act 20:27. For I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God. The counsel of God is His counsel of redemption and grace, and the universality of His redeeming work; and all this he had not only declared in his teaching, but also by his example and life. It has been suggested with considerable probability that the words all the counsel of God point to a greater degree of receptivity for Divine truth than had been found elsewhere; so he points out in the Epistle to the Ephesians. He speaks to them as able to understand his knowledge in the mystery of Christ, and the brotherhood of mankind in the common Fatherhood of God.
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
See notes on verse 22
Fuente: McGarvey and Pendleton Commentaries (New Testament)
20:27 {8} For I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God.
(8) The doctrine of the apostles is most perfect and absolute.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
Paul had passed on to these elders what was truly profitable to them (cf. Act 20:20). "The whole purpose of God" refers to God’s plans and purposes rather than a verse by verse exposition of the Scriptures. Their responsibility was to instruct the saints in more detail.
"As I write this, I am a retired preacher. I have made many blunders and have failed in many ways. But as I look back on my ministry, I can say truthfully that when I stood in the pulpit, I declared the Word of God as I saw it. I have the deep satisfaction of knowing that if I went back to any pulpit which I have held, I haven’t a thing to add to what I have already said. I don’t mean I couldn’t say it in a better way, but the important thing is that I declared the whole counsel of God. I have always believed that the important issue is to get out the entire Word of God." [Note: McGee, 4:604.]