Acts 20:23Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Why does he say this? In order to teach them to be ready for dangers, both manifest and hidden, and to obey the Spirit in all things. He also explains that something great awaits him.

“Only the Holy Spirit testifies in every city, saying.” To show that he departs voluntarily, and so that you may not think of bonds or necessity, he says, “in every city.”

Then he adds, “But I regard nothing, nor do I count my life precious, if only I may finish my course with joy and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus.”

Do you see that these are not the words of one weeping, but of one reasoning humbly, teaching others, and sympathizing with what has happened? He did not say, “We are grieving, but we must endure.” He said, “I do not even think of it.”

By these words he again does not exalt himself. Rather, as before he taught them humility, so now he teaches courage and boldness.

The Holy Spirit left him in uncertainty so that, fearing the weakness of the flesh, he would pray to God for deliverance from temptations. “Bonds and afflictions await me.” I know that temptations await me, but I do not know what temptations they are, for this was harder.

For I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole will of God” (Acts 20:22-27).

May God grant that every Christian, when departing from the world and taking leave of his neighbors, may look upon his lot in the life beyond the grave with such calm and such joy.

Here, in the heavy moment of separation, the holy apostle clearly foretold future quarrels and schisms in the Christian Church generally, and in the Church of Ephesus in particular. Therefore he exhorted the Ephesian presbyters with special force to be attentive, vigilant, and strict with themselves beforehand. Otherwise, while preaching attentiveness and strictness of morals to others, they might provoke in others inattention and contempt toward themselves.

For the Lord revealed everything to him, but hid only this from him: what would happen to him after the bonds and affliction. This was so that, being exalted and learning that everything would happen in just this way, he would not fall through arrogance. Rather, the Spirit hid this from him so that, frightened by the weakness of the flesh, he would ask God to deliver him from temptations.

Even then, because of these fears, he had to alter in part the plan of his journey to Jerusalem. Instead of sailing directly from Corinth to Syria, he had to go into Macedonia (Acts 20:3).

The movements of the Corinthian Jews were apparently connected with the displeasure toward him felt especially by the Jews of Jerusalem. Paul already expected that bonds and afflictions would meet him there (23).

A new sorrow for Paul's heart was the uncertainty over how he would be received by the Christians themselves in Jerusalem. The freedom with which he regarded the Mosaic Law was well known.

If this did not please many Christians from the Hellenistic Jews, it could please still less the Christians from the native Jews of Jerusalem. Outwardly, the Jews could so little distinguish them from themselves that the Jerusalem Church grew by thousands without arousing indignation among the zealots of Judaism (Acts 21:20, 23).

Paul strove by every means to preserve the unity of the Church. The rich alms which he carried with him to Jerusalem from the Christians of the Gentiles were one means for maintaining this unity.

But he was not certain that this measure would achieve the desired goal. Therefore, when asking the Roman Church to pray for his deliverance from the malice of the unbelieving Jews, he also asked it to pray that “his service for Jerusalem may be acceptable to the saints” (Rom. 15:31).

So many dark expectations and so much uncertainty were joined for Paul with the thought of Jerusalem. Yet his heart felt no less grief when he looked upon the churches he was leaving behind.

By the eye of the spirit he foresaw that a multitude of false teachers would soon appear there. Some would arise from among those very Christians who were still faithful to the truth.

These were no longer the false teachers against whom he had fought until then. They were not Paul's Judaizing opponents, who could not do great harm to churches formed mostly from Gentiles.

It could scarcely have been expected that such men would arise from among the leaders of the Church themselves. These were false teachers to whom the prevailing direction of the spirit of those lands opened access.

Their successes there could therefore be all the stronger. Troubled by such thoughts, Paul nevertheless felt no less powerfully the calling to go to Jerusalem.

In the cities through which he passed, where he visited the churches founded there, prophets appeared from among the brethren. They foretold that bonds and afflictions awaited him there.

This completely closed off for him the path to Rome, for which he was in fact undertaking the present journey to Jerusalem. Yet Paul was ready to offer himself as a sacrifice of the ministry he had received from the Lord Jesus, and he did not waver.

Yet this could not frighten the apostle, who served the Lord with complete self-sacrifice. He says, in effect, “I regard nothing, and I do not count even my life precious, if I must sacrifice it to the glory of God. I ask only to complete the ministry of preaching the gospel with joy until the end of my life.”

This is the joy of knowing that he fulfilled his calling precisely to the end of his life. He did not retreat before obstacles. He did not lose heart before the difficulty of struggles. He did not grow weak in zeal.

It is the joy of knowing that, to the end of life, no obstacle held back or bound the word of God, the preaching of the gospel of God’s grace. “And now, behold, I know that all you believers in Asia, among whom I went preaching the Kingdom of God, will see my face no more.”

The Holy Spirit testified through the prophets generally concerning bonds and afflictions. In particular, however, Paul did not know what would happen to him there. How exactly these prophecies were fulfilled! What did Paul not endure at that time in Jerusalem?

Blessed Theophylact adds, “It is remarkable that the prophets do not know everything, but only what the Holy Spirit inspires in them. Thus Paul, having foretold as a prophet everything that was to happen to him, said that he did not know one thing: what the end of all this would be.”

“The Holy Spirit left him in uncertainty so that, fearing the weakness of the flesh, he would pray to God for deliverance from temptations.”

“The Holy Spirit testified through the prophets generally concerning bonds and afflictions. In particular, however, the apostle did not know what would happen to him there. How exactly these prophecies were fulfilled! What did Paul not suffer at that time in Jerusalem?”

“By the impulse of the Spirit, one should not understand only an inward self-awareness telling the apostle that he had to go to Jerusalem. No, this was a direct command of the Holy Spirit. The apostle commonly received His special revelations in his preaching and journeys (see Gal 2:2; Acts 19:21). This command of the Spirit was compelling, and the apostle expresses this by the word bound. Of course, in Jerusalem the apostle could expect every kind of affliction. But what these trials would be, whether beating, bonds, or death, he did not know.”

Let us read the words that he spoke on this journey to the presbyters of Ephesus, as he took leave of them. “And now, behold, I go bound in the Spirit to Jerusalem, not knowing what will befall me there, except that the Holy Spirit testifies in every city, saying that bonds and afflictions await me. But I take no account of anything, nor do I count my life dear to myself, if only I may finish my course with joy, and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the Gospel of the grace of God” (Acts 20:22-24).

Wondrous Paul! If you already know that bonds and afflictions await you in Jerusalem, who is driving you there while you are still free? True, you do not know from whom they will come or for what cause, since you are guilty before no one in anything.

Yet you know this not by guesses and conclusions. These may be drawn from circumstances, but may prove false because circumstances change or because they are not precisely known.

You know it by the witness of the Holy Spirit, spoken by His prophets. You cannot doubt its infallibility. Who, then, drives you to Jerusalem while you are still free?

No one, he says, except that I am bound by the Spirit. “Bound in the Spirit, I go to Jerusalem.”

What does “bound in the Spirit” mean? Does the Spirit truly draw him to Jerusalem for suffering, as a prisoner is drawn to prison? No.

For we see that when men devoted to him tearfully “begged” him “not to go up to Jerusalem,” he did not answer that he was doing this by necessity or compulsion. He affirmed that he was doing what he desired and what he was ready to do by good will.

“Then Paul answered and said, What are you doing, weeping and breaking my heart? For I am ready not only to be bound, but also to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus” (Acts 21:12-13).

How, then, was this man, I do not know what to call him, perhaps a free captive, “bound” in the Spirit? He went to Jerusalem for suffering like a lamb to sacrifice. Yet he was as content in this state as a lamb in rich pasture.

Paul was bound and led by the Spirit, just as “Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness” after His baptism (Mt. 4:1). Saint Paul came under this full and sovereign guidance and governance of the Spirit.

He did so by actively following the same contemplation and the same rules that he taught to others when he said to Christians: “The Spirit of God dwells in you” (1 Cor. 3:16). Therefore, “Do not quench the Spirit” (1 Thess. 5:19).

“If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit” (Gal. 5:25). “Walk by the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lusts of the flesh” (Gal. 5:16). In like manner, Saint Peter taught that souls are purified “in obedience to the truth through the Spirit” (1 Pet. 1:22).

To the measure that satisfaction is denied to the lusts of the flesh, the flesh dies to sin and the spirit comes alive to righteousness, or virtue. The more willingly and faithfully men follow the good impulses of the reviving spirit, the more the sacred fire of the spirit is kindled.

Or, in the words of Saint Peter, the more they “purify their souls in obedience to the truth through the Spirit [...]” (1 Pet. 1:22), the more its light shines forth. It goes from strength to strength.

Sometimes, in moments of rapture, it binds not only all fleshly lusts, but every desire of man's own will. It leaves them inactive, as if captive or in bonds.

Then it guides and carries the man who scarcely touches the earth, so to speak, only by pure spiritual understanding, only by divine love, and only by surrender to God's will.

It carries him wherever God and the laws of His Kingdom call, even if he must go through fire and water, through suffering and death.

O blessed captivity! O sweet bonds! O boundless and free compulsion! O servitude of supreme mastery! For what is the captivity of the spirit if not the all-conquering conviction of truth?

What are the bonds of the spirit, if not love that firmly embraces all things? The voluntary compulsion of self-renunciation is the perfect will of God.

The deepest enslavement to the law of the spirit is the lofty right of citizenship in the Kingdom of God. Its final purpose is not to enslave the free, but to make slaves free, and even kings and priests to our God.

Therefore the captive and prisoner of the spirit will not wish to break his bonds or step out of his captivity. He will not do so for any freedom of the flesh, any dominion in the world, or any human impulse, however plausible it may seem.