Trinity 8 – Acts 20:27-38
“For I have not shunned to declare to you the whole counsel of God.”
With these words, St. Paul the apostle summarizes his previous ministry with the presbyters or pastors of the church at Ephesus, with whom he was meeting in today’s text from the Book of Acts. The full meaning of what Paul says here can perhaps be brought into sharper focus for us if we look at a few other translations of this verse.
“For I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God.”
“For I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole purpose of God.”
“For I have not hesitated to proclaim to you the whole will of God.”
Paul might have hesitated to tell these up-and-coming Christian leaders absolutely everything about God, about Jesus, and about God’s claim on them through Jesus, that is included in the totality of Christian doctrine.
Maybe they would be frightened away from the Christian religion, if they knew everything that God would require of them, and if they were told right away what all the consequences of their Christian faith might be for their life and relationships in this world.
So, Paul might have been tempted to hide from these men some of the harder-to-understand and harder-to-accept aspects of the Christian faith, when he was initially training them for Christian leadership.
He might have had a passing thought that he could wait until they were more firmly rooted in their acceptance of the simpler and less threatening parts of Christian teaching, before he let them in on the potentially controversial things.
The Greco-Roman society in which these men lived, and the attitudes and beliefs that were commonly held by people in that society, contradicted the Christian worldview on many points.
If these men became Christians, and especially if they became Christian leaders, the time would likely come when they would be mocked, ridiculed, ostracized, and persecuted: for not thinking and speaking in the way that everyone else thought and spoke; and for seeming to be criticizing the values, the morals, and the religious opinions of everyone with whom they disagreed.
The polytheism of the Romans was not exclusive.
They were very tolerant of the various deities that were worshiped by the other national groups that were a part of the empire: as long as those national groups were tolerant of, and respectful toward, the gods who were worshiped by the Romans; and as long as they offered worship to the genius of the emperor – as a gesture of political loyalty – together with whatever other worship they might offer to whatever other gods they might have.
But the religion of Jesus was and is a very exclusive religion – even as it is, in its own way, universally inclusive of everyone. In St. John’s Gospel, Jesus said:
“I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.”
But Paul himself also said, in his First Epistle to Timothy, that
“God our Savior…desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a ransom for all.”
Believing this, and confessing this, could get you in trouble with your neighbors, and with the government.
Others will not like it, and will probably become hostile toward you, when they find out that you now believe that only Jesus is Lord; and that you now think that the idols they worship are figments of their imagination at best, or demons at worse.
As a Christian you will no longer be able to participate in civic events that involve idolatrous worship. You will no longer be able to participate in the religious sacrifices that mark so many of the social activities of the various professions and crafts.
At a more personal level, if you are single, you will now be obligated to be chaste and celibate. If you are married, you will now be obligated to be faithful and monogamous.
So maybe Paul would hesitate to tell them all this, at least right away. Maybe out of fear of losing them before he even had them, he would shrink back from explaining, from the beginning, that as Christians, they will no longer fit in with the world in which they live, and they will no longer be able to conduct themselves as they once did, in many noticeable ways.
This human fear – this human lack of faith – always has been, and still is, a temptation for Christian teachers and preachers, especially when they are evangelizing or catechizing people with no background in the Christian faith or in the teachings of the Bible.
As our society is less and less friendly toward the Christian worldview, and as it is becoming more and more like the society of ancient Rome – with all of its immorality and violence – Christian teachers today might be afraid to point out that following Christ may indeed involve taking up a cross, and following him even to literal death.
The religious ideas held to by many in our time are not exactly like the polytheism of the Romans. But these modern ideas are frequently just as incompatible with the genuine Christian faith.
For many – who often tell us that they are spiritual but not religious – the only unquestioned dogma is the dogma of tolerance for everything – everything, that is, except Biblically-based convictions about objective truth and error, good and evil, right and wrong.
So, as we seek to bear witness to our faith in such an environment, and to invite people to become a part of our worshiping community in such a cultural setting, we would not want those to whom we speak of these things, to be frightened by the strangeness of them. We can be tempted, therefore, to try to make the Christian religion seem not to be so strange, and not to be so demanding, so as to draw potential converts in, and not chase them away.
And we are tempted to hide or minimize those aspects of what we believe – especially our beliefs about how God created us as men and women, and about how God wants us to live as ethical creatures who are accountable to our Maker – that may trigger some to get angry at us, to accuse us of being hateful, and to cancel us from their lives.
But if Paul was at all tempted in this way, he did not succumb to that temptation. He did not hold back.
He did not shrink from teaching everything, and from explaining everything, to the Ephesian elders. Perhaps he was encouraged and fortified in his vocation to teach the whole counsel of God to them, by these words from the Prophet Isaiah:
“Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees. Say to those who are fearful-hearted, ‘Be strong, do not fear!’”
Or perhaps he took courage from what Psalm 18 says:
“As for God, His way is perfect; the word of the Lord is proven; He is a shield to all who trust in Him.”
St. Paul did trust in God. So, what he himself had heard from the Lord and learned from the Scriptures, that he spoke to these men. He spoke all of it to all of them, believing that God’s Word is able to change hearts, to enlighten minds, and to transform wills.
When the revelation of Christ contradicts what someone has always believed – about God, about himself, or about the world in which he lives – that revelation has the divine power gently to correct those errant beliefs. It’s not Paul, or any human minister, who has this power.
This power resides in the truth that is proclaimed. And so, as the Book of Acts elsewhere reports, this is why Paul “spoke boldly in the name of the Lord Jesus,” when he did speak. He spoke without fear or crafty calculation, but with courage and forthrightness.
And he spoke the whole counsel of God – not only in his ministry with the Ephesians, but always and with everyone whom he taught. Paul, as a called apostle, unfolded for these elders and for others, the mysteries of God’s Triune existence, and of God’s creation.
He unfolded the mysteries of humanity’s fall into sin, and of Christ’s redemption and justification of sinners by his death and resurrection. He unfolded the mysteries of the preached Word, of the sacraments that Jesus instituted by the power of his Word, and of the faith that receives the forgiveness and salvation offered in Word and Sacrament.
He unfolded the mysteries of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, and of the new life of service to God and man that the Spirit inspires in those who have become children of their heavenly Father.
And he unfolded the mysteries of love: of God’s abiding love for his people and for all people; and of the love that God’s Spirit works in us, directed toward friends and enemies alike; toward those who hate us and accuse us of hating them, and toward those who are hurting and crying out for help and comfort – who are often the same confused people.
The whole counsel of God is the whole purpose of God, and the whole will of God. It is not just a list of abstract doctrines that God wants us to accept as factually correct, but it is a comprehensive presentation of God’s comprehensive saving truth, to heart, soul, and mind.
It is what Jesus was also talking about, when he told his disciples:
“Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you.”
God’s counsel impacts us and all with whom it comes into contact, with the warnings of the law, which drive us to daily repentance; and with the promises of the gospel, which daily lift us up into Christ’s embrace. God’s counsel reshapes personal values, restores personal morals, and recalibrates personal priorities.
And God’s counsel takes away fear – including the fear we may have to share that counsel with others, because of how threatening it is to sinful human pride, and how strange it sounds to sinful human ears.
As Christians, we want to be in a place – in a place that we share with firm believers and with those who may have doubts – where the whole counsel of God in Holy Scripture, is preached and taught, is sacramentally enacted and devoutly prayed.
We want to be in a place – in a congregation and in a church – where we hear it all, where we are challenged by it all, and where God’s Spirit helps us to learn all of it, to accept all of it, and to be made ready to pass all of it on to others – as God’s vocation inserts us into the lives of others, and as God’s providence inserts others into our lives.
Energized by the strength that comes from God, we will not shrink from declaring to them the whole counsel of God. Emboldened by the courage that comes from God, we will not shrink from declaring to them the whole purpose of God.
Enlightened by the wisdom that comes from God, we will not hesitate to proclaim to them the whole will of God.
And as God opens our hearts, minds, and souls to believe in the wonder of our creation, in the grace of our redemption in Jesus, and in the hope of everlasting life that the Spirit of Jesus instills in us, we rejoice that the apostles in Holy Scripture, and the faithful ministers we know today, have not shunned to declare to us the whole counsel of God. Amen.