Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he has purchased with his own blood.
Read Chapter 20
George Leo Haydock
AD 1849
Take heed to yourselves, and to all the flock. The ministers of the gospel must in the first place take care of the salvation of their own souls: and in the next place of the salvation of their flock, of the souls committed to their care, and to the Church; especially such ministers of God as are bishops, placed, by divine institution, to govern the Church, or the churches under them. The word bishops, by its derivation, signifies overseers, or superintendants; but the signification is to be taken and expressed by the custom and ecclesiastical use of words. (Witham)
Do you mark? He enjoins them two things. Neither success in bringing others right of itself is any gain— for, I fear, he says, lest by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a cast-away 1 Corinthians 9:27; nor the being diligent for one's self alone. For such an one is selfish, and seeks his own good only, and is like to him who buried his talent. Take heed to yourselves: this he says, not because our own salvation is more precious than that of the flock, but because, when we take heed to ourselves, then the flock also is a gainer. In which the Holy Ghost has made you overseers, to feed the Church of God. See, it is from the Spirit you have your ordination. This is one constraint: then he says, To feed the Church of the Lord. Lo! Another obligation: the Church is the Lord's. And a third: which He has purchased with His own blood. It shows how precious the concern is; that the peril is about no small matters, seeing that even His own blood He spared not. He indeed...
Let the bishop pray for the people, and say: "Save Thy people, O Lord, and bless Thine inheritance, which Thou hast obtained with the precious blood of Thy Christ, and hast called a royal priesthood, and an holy nation.".
of God, esteem those laws more honourable than the necessities of this life, and pay a greater respect to them, and run together to the Church of the Lord, "which He has purchased with the blood of Christ, the beloved, the first-born of every creature."
