Acts 20 Bible study: The whole counsel of God

At Troas, "On the first day of the week, when the disciples were gathered together to break bread, Paul talked with them, intending to depart on the next day; and continued his speech until midnight." (20:7). "There were many lights in the upper room where we were gathered together." (20:8). Then "A certain young man named Eutychus sat in the window, weighed down with deep sleep. As Paul spoke still longer, being weighed down by his sleep, he fell down from the third floor and was taken up dead." (20:9). "Paul went down and fell upon him, and embracing him said, “Don’t be troubled, for his life is in him.”" (20:10) (tap life). "When he had gone up, had broken bread and eaten, and had talked with them a long while, even until break of day, he departed." (20:11). "They brought the boy in alive, and were greatly comforted." (20:12). Here is what almost everyone misses: in the Greek, the life Paul says is in Eutychus (20:10) is the noun he uses of his own life later in this chapter, to the elders of Ephesus: "nor do I hold my life dear to myself, so that I may finish my race with joy" (20:24). These notes tell the scene in the chapter's own words. They don't say what the breaking of bread in 20:7 and 20:11 was, and they set no other chapter beside what happened to Eutychus.

Psalms 112:9→leads toActs 20:35

Paul, speaking to "the elders of the assembly" from Ephesus (Acts 20:17), told them they "ought to help the weak, and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus, that he himself said" (Acts 20:35): "It is more blessed to give than to receive" (Acts 20:35). Psalm 112 describes the man it calls blessed (Psalm 112:1), and giving is part of the picture: "It is well with the man who deals graciously and lends" (Psalm 112:5), and "He has dispersed, he has given to the poor" (Psalm 112:9). Acts doesn't cite the psalm, and no link between the Hebrew and Greek words for blessed is claimed, so setting them together is a reading. It rests on a shared subject, giving to those in need. One reading hears Jesus's saying and the psalm's picture agreeing: the one who gives is blessed. Another notes that the psalm's blessing rests on fearing the LORD (Psalm 112:1), with giving one of the things it describes, while Jesus's saying sets giving beside receiving, which the psalm doesn't do; on this reading the two are neighbours, not one saying.

διαμαρτύρομαιdiamartyromaisay dee-am-ar-TOO-rom-ahee

Strong's: "to attest or protest earnestly". Thayer lists 20:21, 20:23 and 20:24 under "to attest, testify to, solemnly affirm". Paul speaks of "testifying both to Jews and to Greeks repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus" (20:21); he says that "the Holy Spirit testifies in every city" (20:23); and the ministry he received from the Lord Jesus is "to fully testify to the Good News of the grace of God" (20:24): the same verb three times. Favor's Acts 18 studies the verb, where Paul was "testifying to the Jews that Jesus was the Christ" (18:5), and counts it in Acts. The testify of 20:26 is another verb.