the Third Week after Easter
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Daily Devotionals
Our Daily Homily - Volume 3
Acts 20:28—Take heed unto yourselves, and to all the flock. (R.V.)
There are many lessons in this verse.
(1) The Christian worker must not neglect his own soul. He must take heed to himself, as well as to the flock. Our temptation is to neglect our close walk with God in our eagerness to save others.
(2) The overseer, elder, or bishop, is not set over the flock, but is in it. Note the force of the Greek as given in R.V.: the flock in the which they are made bishops. So to the end of life the most eminent of God’s servants must remember that he is but a saved sinner, needing the blood and righteousness of Christ as much as the weakest of his flock; and he also must lie down in green pastures, and be led beside still waters.
(3) The office of the minister is given by the Holy Ghost. It is He who lays on him the burden of souls, and equips him for his work. He, too, is willing to direct and use. How awful and solemn the responsibility! Woe be to us if we exercise our ministry only for the eye and ear of our fellow-men!
(4) Notice that the Church is distinctly asserted to be God’s. "Feed the Church of God." We are his people and the sheep of his pasture. His by choice, by purchase, by the drawing of the Holy Ghost. We must get a right understanding of this doctrine of the Church, that she has been taken out of the world to be God’s peculiar possession and delight.
(5) The purchase money of the Church is here said to be God’s own blood. It is a remarkable expression. It stands alone in the Word of God, but brings out very distinctly the thought that the entire Godhead achieved man’s redemption in the offering of the Cross. We are dear to God, and must give Him the benefit of his great expenditure!
