Acts 20:28

“Take heed to yourselves, and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you bishops (overseers), to feed the church of the Lord which he purchased with his own blood.”

He makes clear to them their prime future responsibility:

o He warns them first to watch for themselves. Only by careful attention to the word of God, and a watchful care for each other, will they be able to steer a sure course, and be faithful undersheperds. The undershepherds must first ensure their own soundness in the faith.

o Then he tells them that as faithful undershepherds they must carefully watch over all the flock, not just the nice ones, but the awkward and weak ones as well. They have a responsibility before God for every single one of them, and must give account for them all.

o He reminds them of their privilege. The Holy Spirit Himself has appointed them as overseers/guardians (‘bishops') of the flock. Their responsibility is from God Himself, so that they too might be humble, following Paul's (Acts 20:19) and Christ's (Matthew 11:29; Mark 10:45) example. Note the plurality of bishops in each city, and that the elders and bishops are synonymous. The church was not monarchic, but oligarchic. They ruled by common agreement as guided by the Holy Spirit, as servants of God's people, not as their masters.

The Holy Spirit may have appointed them through prophecy, or as a result of general acceptance by the church because of their gifts, or more probably both. This plural oversight is in the end essential in the church, otherwise it becomes a dictatorship and response to ideas can become stilted, or alternately too much emphasis is laid on the minister with the result that he can become like a god, and when he goes many drop away.

o And the reason that they have been made overseers and guardians is so that they might feed ‘the church of the Lord', not be fed by it. They are to remember that it is the Lord's church, purchased with His own blood, and that they must therefore as faithful undershepherds be responsible to the Chief Shepherd (1 Peter 5:4) for ensuring that it is properly fed and watched over. Jesus had said to Peter three times, ‘feed/tend my sheep' (John 21:15). This was now the responsibility of all the elders of the churches.

o ‘Which he purchased with his own blood.' Or ‘with the blood of One Who is His own'. Either way this is a statement of the full deity of Christ, and of the doctrine of redemption through His blood sacrifice, through the sacrifice of Christ (1 Corinthians 5:7). He paid a price in death that we might live. See Romans 3:24; 1 Corinthians 6:20; 1 Corinthians 7:23; Ephesians 1:7; Ephesians 5:25; Hebrews 9:11; Heb 10:10-14; 1 Peter 1:18. The emphasis is on the price paid, not on to whom it is paid, although in the end it is paid to the justice of God. Man had to be bought from under the legal consequences of his own sin, by the payment of the necessary price, and had to be set free from the bondage of Satan. There had to be ‘satisfaction'. In the Old Testament, the idea of redemption often includes the idea of the exertion of power in deliverance. That too lies behind these words. But we cannot get away from an emphasis on the cost.