{"id":16318,"date":"2023-11-14T11:44:21","date_gmt":"2023-11-14T10:44:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/byheart.org\/?post_type=recitation-videos&#038;p=16318"},"modified":"2023-11-14T11:44:21","modified_gmt":"2023-11-14T10:44:21","slug":"be-on-your-guard","status":"publish","type":"recitation-videos","link":"https:\/\/byheart.org\/?recitation-videos=be-on-your-guard","title":{"rendered":"Be on your guard!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Paul insisted that the elders must keep watch over their own spiritual condition. But they were also elders, so Paul told them to properly shepherd the flock \u201cof which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers\u201d (20:28). Paul was not speaking of a particular office, but rather of the elders\u2019 function as \u201cshepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood\u201d (20:28).<\/p>\n<p>The last part of the phrase\u2014\u201cbought with his own blood\u201d\u2014is awkwardly translated by the NIV. The New Testament doesn\u2019t speak of God shedding his own blood. An alternative reading would have the phrase read \u201cthe blood of his Own One,\u201d with \u201cOwn\u201d referring to Jesus.<\/p>\n<p>David Williams writes, \u201cThe nature of their [the elders\u2019] task is drawn out by a pastoral metaphor. The church is the\u00a0<em>flock<\/em>\u00a0(verse 28), a familiar figure for the people of God in both the Old Testament and the New; the elders are the\u00a0<em>shepherds<\/em>\u00a0(verse 28); and the danger threatening the flock is\u00a0<em>savage wolves<\/em>, which will not spare them\u201d (<em>Acts,<\/em>\u00a0355).<\/p>\n<p>The \u201cflock\u201d is a familiar Old Testament metaphor for God\u2019s people. Jesus capitalized on it, applying it to his disciples. The \u201cshepherds\u201d are the\u00a0<em>watchmen<\/em>\u00a0who keep a vigil over the flock. The \u201cwolves\u201d were the other element of Paul\u2019s pastoral analogy. The wolves were the ones who threatened the herd, the church. As Paul looked toward the future, he painted a somewhat dismal prospect for the Ephesian church. He told the elders: \u201cI know that after I leave, savage wolves will come in among you and will not spare the flock. Even from your own number men will arise and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples after them\u201d (20:29-30).<\/p>\n<p>In fact,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/biblia.com\/bible\/niv\/2%20Tim%201.5\">2 Timothy 1:5<\/a>\u00a0referred to a wholesale revolt of the churches throughout the entire province of Asia. The apostasy in the Asian churches must have begun when Luke wrote Acts. No doubt his reference to Paul\u2019s prophecy about a future insurrection was meant to comfort his readers who knew about it. The message was: the problems in the church should not surprise us, for these are the things that happen among human beings, and Paul even warned us about \u201cwolves\u201d before they tore apart the flock.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWolves\u201d is a much-used metaphor for false teachers and apostates in the Bible. Jesus described false prophets as wolves in sheep\u2019s clothing (<a href=\"https:\/\/biblia.com\/bible\/niv\/Matt%207.15\">Matthew 7:15<\/a>). He told his disciples they would be like sheep among wolves (<a href=\"https:\/\/biblia.com\/bible\/niv\/Luke%2010.3\">Luke 10:3<\/a>). Now, Paul was telling the elders that he had warned them for three years\u2014the entire time he was with them\u2014about the danger of apostasy (20:31). But he would no longer be able to guide them, and they were on their own to deal with any future problems as best as they could.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Paul insisted that the elders must keep watch over their own spiritual condition. But they were also elders, so Paul told them to properly shepherd the flock \u201cof which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers\u201d (20:28). Paul was not speaking of a particular office, but rather of the elders\u2019 function as \u201cshepherds of the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":16319,"parent":0,"template":"","books-of-the-bible":[508],"type-of-passage":[464],"topic":[374,385,383],"passage-topics":[],"language":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v22.4 (Yoast SEO v22.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Be on your guard! - By Heart<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Videos of people like you and I speaking Bible passages from memory with natural expression and clear understanding of the intent of the message - By Heart\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/byheart.org\/?recitation-videos=be-on-your-guard\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Be on your guard!\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Videos of people like you and I speaking Bible passages from memory with natural expression and clear understanding of the intent of the message - By Heart\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/byheart.org\/?recitation-videos=be-on-your-guard\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"By Heart\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/byHeartRecitation\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/byheart.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/Acts-20_27-32_Jason-Runyan_thumbnail_EN.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1916\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1078\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/byheart.org\/?recitation-videos=be-on-your-guard\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/byheart.org\/?recitation-videos=be-on-your-guard\",\"name\":\"Be on your guard! 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