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Acts 20 · a question people ask

"the Holy Spirit has made you overseers" (20:28). What were these overseers?

In the text

The verse says what Paul tells them to do: "Take heed, therefore, to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the assembly of the Lord and God which he purchased with his own blood." (20:28). Paul is speaking to those he called from Ephesus, "the elders of the assembly" (20:17-18). The chapter doesn't say what an overseer did beyond these words. These notes don't say what office either word names, or whether the two words name one office or two, and apply the verse to no church today. Favor's Acts 14 asks what the elders of 14:23 were, and names 20:17 among the places Acts names elders.

The verses

“From Miletus he sent to Ephesus and called to himself the elders of the assembly. When they had come to him, he said to them, “You yourselves know, from the first day that I set foot in Asia, how I was with you all the time,”
Acts 20:17-18 · World English Bible
“Take heed, therefore, to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the assembly of the Lord and God which he purchased with his own blood.”
Acts 20:28 · World English Bible

From Favor's study of Acts 20

Acts 20: The whole counsel of God

In Paul's words to the elders of Ephesus, testify is one Greek verb three times: he testified "both to Jews and to Greeks" (20:21), "the Holy Spirit testifies in every city" (20:23), and his ministry is "to fully testify to the Good News of the grace of God" (20:24). And he tells them to remember words of the Lord Jesus that no Gospel gives: "It is more blessed to give than to receive" (20:35).

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Last reviewed October 7, 2026. Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible, which is in the public domain. Every answer cites the verses it rests on. What we believe · All Bible questions