I’ve always loved Acts 20, which includes a long address by Paul to the Ephesian elders including clear instruction on the importance of the Word:

For I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God. Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood…Therefore be alert, remembering that for three years I did not cease night or day to admonish everyone with tears. And now I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified. (Acts 20, 27, 28, 31, 32, ESV, emphasis mine)

But this time, I also saw a number of things about the way Paul did ministry. Let’s take a look:

• Paul traveled with a team, who would have acted as his assistants while Paul was training them. (See 2 Timothy 2.2)

Sopater the Berean, son of Pyrrhus, accompanied him; and of the Thessalonians, Aristarchus and Secundus; and Gaius of Derbe, and Timothy; and the Asians, Tychicus and Trophimus. (Acts 20.4, ESV)

• Paul continued to operate in the power of the Holy Spirit to perform miracles. And this one seems to be for no other purpose than to serve the believers. (That is, we can’t say that miracles were only to validate the message for unbelievers.)

There were many lamps in the upper room where we were gathered. And a young man named Eutychus, sitting at the window, sank into a deep sleep as Paul talked still longer. And being overcome by sleep, he fell down from the third story and was taken up dead. But Paul went down and bent over him, and taking him in his arms, said, “Do not be alarmed, for his life is in him.” And when Paul had gone up and had broken bread and eaten, he conversed with them a long while, until daybreak, and so departed. And they took the youth away alive, and were not a little comforted. (Acts 20.8 – 12, ESV)

• Paul served with humility and cared for those he ministered to:

And when [the Ephesians elders] came to him, he said to them: “You yourselves know how I lived among you the whole time from the first day that I set foot in Asia, serving the Lord with all humility and with tears… (Acts 20.18, 19, ESV)

There is more, and why don’t we save them for tomorrow?

But we were gentle among you, just as a nursing mother cherishes her own children. So, affectionately longing for you, we were well pleased to impart to you not only the gospel of God, but also our own lives, because you had become dear to us. (1 Thessalonians 2.7, 8, NKJV)