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would also mention for what it is worth that the finding of the "Numeric Version"
favours the A.V. in its translation of the title.
Believing, then, that the original text read "church of God", we meet a very
extraordinary statement.
"The church of God, which He (i.e. God) hath purchased with His (i.e. God) own blood."
This has not been allowed to pass unmodified. There is no manuscript evidence for
adding the word hiou, "son", after Tou idiou, "His own", but Dr. Hort was an adept, to
use his own language, "in the art of conjectural emendation". Speaking of this
mischievous practice, Dean Burgon commenting on Acts 20: 28, says:
"We charitably presume that it is in order to make amends for having conjecturally
thrust out To pascha (the Passover) from S. John 6: 4, that Dr. Hort is for conjecturally
thrusting into Acts 20: 28, Hiou (after Tou idiou), an imagination to which he devotes a
column and a half, but for which he is not able to produce a particle of evidence. It
would result in our reading, `to feed the Church of God, which He purchased'--(not
`with His Own blood', but)--`with the blood of His OWN SON": which has evidently
been suggested by nothing so much as by the supposed necessity of getting rid of a text
which unequivocally asserts that CHRIST is GOD."
The unusual expression haima Theou (blood of God) met with in Ignatius, who wrote
to the Ephesians, and its equivalent in the Latin of Tertullian Sanguine Dei (blood of
God) seem to demand Acts 20: 28, as its warrant. The word "purchase", peripoieomai,
was to be used in writing to this same assembly (see Eph. 1: 14) where peripoiesis is used
for "the purchased possession". Such a church, purchased at such a price, demanded the
utmost care on the part of its overseers, and the very strangeness of the Apostle's wording
but strengthens his appeal. Wolves were to take advantage of the Apostle's absence, and
enter in, and "out from" their own selves, self-seeking and ambitious men would rend the
church.
Paul had experienced the power of "perverse things", for we meet with the word
diastrepho in Acts 13:, where Elymas seeks "to turn away" the deputy from the faith,
and where Paul charges him with "perverting" the right ways of the Lord. He uses the
word also in Phil. 2: 15, where he speaks of a "perverse" nation.
For the space of three years the Apostle had not ceased to warn every one night and
day with tears, but that witness now drew to its close. What could he do more? However
faithful a testimony may be, it is marked with mortality, and by the transient nature of all
flesh. But if Paul must cease, God abides, and so the Apostle points them away to the
one and only source of all grace and ground of all hope, God and His Word.
"And now, brethren, I commend you to God and to the word of His grace, which is
able to build you up and to give you an inheritance among all them which are sanctified"
(Acts 20: 32).
Paul's influence upon Luke is evident in the record of Acts 14: 3, where we read: