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It is comparatively easy to warn a company concerning the evil character of those who
are without, or of those who differ from them, but this the Apostle did not do. He bade
them take heed unto themselves, and said further in verse 30: "Also of your own selves
shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them."
Evidently it was a customary thing for Paul, when addressing those who held any
office of responsibility in the church, to use the word prosecho, "take heed", for it is
found only twice outside the pastoral epistles. To Timothy and to Titus he wrote:
"Neither give heed to fables" (I Tim. 1: 4).
"Not giving heed to Jewish fables" (Titus 1: 14).
and revealed that the apostacy of the last days would result from "giving heed to seducing
spirits" (I Tim. 4: 1). As a counter to this, the same section of I Timothy emphasizes
the importance of giving heed "to the reading" (I Tim. 4: 13). In the Gospels, this same
word is translated a number of times "beware", as in the exhortations "beware of false
prophets", "beware of the leaven of the Pharisees". The hand of Luke in the writing of
Acts, or, conversely, the influence of Paul on the writing of Luke is indicated by the
expression prosechete heautois, "take heed unto yourselves", for it occurs only in Luke's
writings (Luke 17: 3; 21: 34; Acts 5: 35; and 20: 28).*
[NOTE: * - We must defer full consideration of this subject until the closing article of the series,
when we hope fully to demonstrate that such an influence is not a matter of conjecture but to fact.]
The overseers of the church were "bishops", episkopoi, and we have seen that
such were practically synonymous with "pastors" or "shepherds" (see Volume XXX,
page 164-169). The church is therefore appropriately referred to here as a "flock". The
Greek words for "feed" and "flock" are from the same root. The word for "flock" is
poimne and occurs five times in the N.T. In five other places, however, the diminutive
poimnion is used:
"Fear not little flock" (Luke 12: 32).
"All the flock . . . . . not sparing the flock" (Acts 20: 28, 29).
"Feed the flock . . . . . ensamples to the flock" (I Pet. 5: 2, 3).
The word "shepherd" is poimen (Luke 2: 8), and the word translated "feed" is
poimaino. While the idea of "feeding" is prominent in this word, and Davison deduced it
from Homeric word pou, "flock" and mao, "to care", the following passages will show
that the thought of the exercise of "the rod and the staff" is not absent from the word.
"Out of thee shall come a Governor that shall rule My people Israel" (Matt. 2: 6).
"He shall rule them with a rod of iron" (Rev. 2: 27).
"Who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron" (Rev. 12: 5).
"He shall rule them with a rod of iron" (Rev. 19: 15).
These passages are quotations from O.T. Scriptures, those in the Revelation quoting
Psalm 2:, while that in Matthew quotes Micah 5: Where the A.V. of the N.T. reads
"rule" the A.V. of Psalm 2: 9 has "break", raa, which is a word indicating severe