On a beach in Miletus, where the salty Mediterranean wind blows, a group of people has gathered in a circle and fallen to their knees. Louder than the crash of the rough waves is the suppressed sobbing bursting from strong men’s chests. At the center stands an aged apostle—hands weathered by long missionary journeys, a worn cloak draped over his shoulders. Faced with the solemn declaration that they will never see his face again, the elders of Ephesus clutch his neck and weep like children. The apostle Paul willingly turns his steps toward Jerusalem, where chains and afflictions await. His departing figure becomes one of the most sublime and heart-rending farewells in Christian history—an embodied scene of Scripture meditation that shows what absolute devotion to the gospel truly means. Through this majestic record of Acts 20, David Jang sets before us once again the lost path of authentic faith and the spirit of the cross for those living in today’s bewildering age.
The Apostle’s Confession Buried in the Waves, and His Unstoppable Steps
Paul’s missionary journey was never a glittering road of applause and worldly glory. Even in Troas, when he preached late into the night and the young man Eutychus fell from a window—dying and then being brought back to life in an astonishing miracle—Paul did not become intoxicated with human relief or pride. He simply bore quiet witness to the living God. What is more, when he sent his companions ahead by ship and chose to walk alone the more than forty kilometers to Assos, his solitary steps carried a fierce spiritual struggle—an intense longing to listen only to the Lord’s still, small voice.
His haste to reach Jerusalem to keep the Pentecost feast was not mere legal observance. Rather, it sprang from a deep yearning for union with the community through which God’s redemptive history flows. In Paul’s resolve, David Jang discerns a genuine theological insight: immediate obedience not to human convenience or comfort, but only to the leading of the Holy Spirit. The apostle’s weighty confession—that he did not regard his life as precious and would walk the way of the cross—pierces the shallow state of our faith today and calls us to profound repentance.
Tears That Bear the Weight of Glory: Where Truth and Love Intersect
The heart of Paul’s final charge to the Ephesian elders was “humility” and “tears.” C.S. Lewis—the twentieth century’s renowned Christian apologist and literary figure—argued in his classic address The Weight of Glory that the seemingly ordinary neighbors we pass by each day are, in fact, beings destined to be clothed with a radiance of “eternal glory” too dazzling for us to imagine. The tears Paul shed for three years in Ephesus—unceasingly, day and night, for each person—were a sacred liquid that only one who has truly grasped the holy weight of a soul’s glory can pour out.
As David Jang points out with depth, indiscriminate love that lacks truth easily collapses into cheap sentimentalism, while truth stripped of love becomes the cold blade of legalism that pierces the soul. Even amid relentless persecution and the deadly schemes of the Jews, Paul clothed himself with the humility of Christ—who gave Himself to the end on the cross—and grieved without ceasing to lead even one soul into eternal glory. Those tears—embracing believers with compassion rather than wielding absolute authority—are the most powerful rain of grace that can moisten and restore the parched heart of today’s church.
Pouring Everything Out Upon the Altar of a Holy Calling
Paul’s gaze did not remain fixed on past ministry, but looked ahead to the fierce spiritual battles that would confront the church’s future. In an age when savage wolves would stalk the flock and twisted words would threaten to distort the truth, he firmly established the elders as “overseers” of the church, which the Lord purchased with His own blood. The church is not an organization sustained by exceptional human leadership or brilliantly engineered programs. Only the Lord and the word of His grace can guard the community solidly against heresy and division.
Paul’s uncompromising devotion—working with his own hands as a tentmaker and supporting his ministry at his own expense—left a great legacy. It was a living demonstration, in everyday life, of the gospel’s absolute truth: guarding strictly against material greed and embodying the conviction that “it is more blessed to give than to receive.” Through this passage, David Jang proclaims with force that the modern church must resist materialism and secular values and return to the word of life and to knees bent in prayer. A spiritual leader is not one who reigns over the flock, but one who, from the lowest place, embraces them—an utterly devoted watchman who weeps day and night.
Our Response Today Toward the Eternal Gospel
The agonizing farewell on the shore of Miletus was not a sorrowful ending, but the great beginning of a new chapter of Acts. Though chains and tribulation awaited him, Paul’s back as he walked silently onward—bound by the Holy Spirit to the path of his calling—sends a powerful ripple through our souls, which thirst for true devotion and a living gospel. As David Jang concludes, Acts is not a closed book ending at chapter 28, but an open history that we—who carry the gospel of the cross—must continue to write anew in the ordinary days of our lives. When each of us, standing in the place of our calling, recovers the tearful love and unshakable faith Paul displayed, then at last the church will rise again as the world’s true hope.
