🌙 The Resurrection of Eutychus (20:7-12)
Acts 20:7-12
"On the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul talked with them, intending to depart on the next day, and he prolonged his speech until midnight... And there was a young man named Eutychus sitting at the window, who was sinking into a deep sleep. As Paul talked still longer, he sank down, and was picked up dead. But Paul went down and bent over him, and taking him in his arms said, ‘Do not be alarmed, for his life is in him.’ And when Paul had gone up and had broken bread and eaten, he conversed with them a long while, until daybreak, and so departed. And they brought the young man alive, and were not a little comforted."
The episode of Eutychus is narrated with subtle humor: Paul preaches so long that a young man falls asleep and falls out the window. The miracle that follows echoes Elijah (1 Kings 17:21) and Elisha (2 Kings 4:34)—Paul lays on the dead young man, and he comes back to life. But the most significant detail is what happens afterward: Paul goes back up, breaks bread, eats, and continues preaching until dawn. The resurrection of Eutychus does not interrupt the worship—it is integrated into it. The Lord’s Supper (‘breaking bread’) is celebrated on the ‘first day of the week’—Sunday, the day of resurrection—establishing the pattern of Christian Sunday worship.
💔 The Miletus Discourse (20:17-38)
Acts 20:24-28
"But I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God. And now, behold, I know that none of you among whom I have gone about preaching the kingdom will see my face again. Therefore be alert, remembering that for three years I did not cease night or day to admonish everyone with tears. Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood."
The Miletus discourse is the only sermon of Paul to a Christian audience recorded in Acts—and it is one of the most moving texts in the NT. Paul bids farewell to the elders of Ephesus knowing he will not see them again. The speech is a pastoral testament: he recalls his ministry (20:18-21), announces his destiny (20:22-24), warns of future dangers (20:29-31), and commits them to God (20:32). The phrase ‘the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood’ is one of the most explicit declarations of Christ’s divinity in the NT—the blood shed on the cross is the blood of God incarnate.
Acts 20:35-38
"In all things I have shown you that by working hard in this way we must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’ And when he had said these things, he knelt down and prayed with them all. And there was great mourning among them all. And they embraced Paul and kissed him, being sorrowful most of all because of the word he had spoken, that they would not see his face again. And they accompanied him to the ship."
The final scene of the Miletus discourse is extraordinarily tender: Paul kneels and prays with the elders, they weep, embrace him, and accompany him to the ship. The quotation of Jesus—‘It is more blessed to give than to receive’—is not recorded in any of the four Gospels. It is an ‘agraphon’ (an unwritten saying of Jesus) preserved by oral tradition and cited by Paul. This reminds us that the Gospels did not record everything Jesus said (John 21:25). The farewell at Miletus is the model of pastoral relationship: deep love, transparency, faithfulness to the Gospel, and trust in God’s grace.