Acts 20:25

Acts 20:25. And now, behold, I know that ye all, among whom I have gone preaching the kingdom of God, shall see my face no more. Here Paul expresses his own conviction that he will no more look in life on the faces of his Ephesian brothers in the faith. But it is almost certain that after his liberation from the Roman imprisonment spoken of in Acts 28, the apostle did revisit the Asian churches (see the notices and greetings and directions in 2 Timothy 4 and in Titus 1:5, especially the words, ‘Trophimus have I left at Miletum sick,' 2 Timothy 4:20). We must, however, by no means suppose that even an apostle was gifted at all times with Divine and unerring knowledge. Here it is almost certain he was mistaken in his foreboding.

To give another instance of this partial ignorance on the part of men of apostolic dignity, there is no doubt but that Paul and others of the same sacred company looked for the coming of the Lord in their own lifetime. We can even trace the gradual fading away of these fond hopes of the Christians of the first day, who only came gradually to see that the return of the Master in judgment was no event of the immediate future, but that the time of His coming was hid in the dim far future.