Acts 20:32 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

And now, brethren Since the providence of God is calling me away, and appointing me other scenes of labour or suffering; I commend you to God To his watchful providence and grace, for guidance, protection, support, preservation, and the supply of all your wants, ghostly and bodily; and to the word of his grace That word which is the grand channel of his grace to believers as well as unbelievers. He recommends them to attend to this in their public ministrations and private conversation, and that, not only as the foundation of their hope here and hereafter, and the source of their joy, but as the rule of their doctrine and practice; I commend you to God as the master you are to serve, and to the word of his grace, as the means by which you are to know your work, and to govern your conduct; which is able to build you up To confirm and increase your faith, love, and holiness. God can thus build us up without the ministry of his word, or the instrumentality of any teachers. But he does in fact build us up by them, and we must beware of supposing that we have less need of human teachers after we know Christ, and are made partakers of his salvation, than before. As the apostle was speaking here to ministers, he must be considered as signifying that, in preaching the word of God's grace, and in all their ministerial duties, they were to have a regard to their own edification, as well as to that of those to and for whom they ministered. And to give you an inheritance Of eternal glory; among them that are sanctified And so made meet for it. A large number of these Paul, doubtless, knew and remembered before God. It seems that the words τω δυναμενω, who is able, refer to God, the last person named, and not the word by which God works, but which, without him, can affect none of the things here mentioned.