to minister (to God) · verb — present active indicative, 1st person singular
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Acts 23:11 And the night following the Lord stood by him, and said, Be of good cheer, Paul: for as thou hast testified of me in Jerusalem, so must thou…
Acts 5:19 But the angel of the Lord by night opened the prison doors, and brought them forth, and said,
Romans 1:9 For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his Son, that without ceasing I make mention of you always in my prayers…
2 Timothy 4:17 Notwithstanding the Lord stood with me, and strengthened me; that by me the preaching might be fully known, and that all the Gentiles might…
Hebrews 1:14 Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation?
Isaiah 44:21 Remember these, O Jacob and Israel; for thou art my servant: I have formed thee; thou art my servant: O Israel, thou shalt not be forgotten…
Acts 12:8-11 And the angel said unto him, Gird thyself, and bind on thy sandals. And so he did. And he saith unto him, Cast thy garment about thee, and f…
Acts 18:9 Then spake the Lord to Paul in the night by a vision, Be not afraid, but speak, and hold not thy peace:
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Acts 27:21–end
We have here the issue of the distress of Paul and his fellow-travellers; they escaped with their lives and that was all, and that was for Paul's sake. We are here told (Act 27:37) what number there were on board - mariners, merchants, soldiers, prisoners, and other passengers, in all two hundred and seventy-six souls; this is taken notice of to make us the more concerned for them in reading the story, that they were such a considerable number, whose lives were now in the utmost jeopardy, and one Paul among them worth more than all the rest. We left them in despair, giving up themselves for gone. Whether they called every man on his God, as Jonah's mariners did, we are not told; it is well i…
there stood by me this night the angel of God--as in Act 16:9; Act 23:11.
whose I am-- (Co1 6:19-20).
and whom I serve--in the sense of worship or religious consecration (see on Act 13:2).
Adam Clarke on Acts 27:23
The - God, whose I am, and whom I serve - This Divine communication was intended to give credit to the apostle and to his doctrine; and, in such perilous circumstances, to speak so confidently, when every appearance was against him, argued the fullest persuasion of the truth of what he spoke; and the fulfillment, so exactly coinciding with the prediction, must have shown these heathens that the God whom Paul served must be widely different from theirs.
John Gill on Acts 27:23
For there stood by me this night the angel of God,.... One of the ministering, spirits that stand before God, and who was sent by him to the apostle; and appeared to him, either in a vision by a dream, or rather when he was awake, and stood by him, as he was praying for deliverance from the storm; for it is most likely that the apostle should be engaged at such a time as this:
whose I am, and whom I:serve: meaning not the angel, but God, whose the angel was; and his the apostle was, by electing, redeeming, and calling grace; God the Father had chosen him in his Son unto salvation; and Christ had redeemed him by his blood; and the Holy Spirit had called him by his grace; and he was not only…
The Church Fathers
For an angel of God stood by me this night. He was not boasting of himself by saying this but was provoking them to faith. For the sea was allowed to be stormy so that by what was heard and by what was not heard, the spiritual grace in Paul might be revealed.
That both good angels are present to men and adverse ones; that it was surely not by chance and without judgment that that angel was allotted to be the guardian of that soul, for example of Peter, and another of Paul, or another of one infant of the Church, concerning whose angels the Lord says that they "always behold the face of their Father who is in heaven." Concerning whom there is surely no room to doubt that, by the judgment of God—who clearly perceives both their worthiness and the quality of our soul—they are allotted the guardianship of each one of us by a certain mystical lot directed by the dispensation of Christ.
"For there stood by me this night the angel of God, whose I am, and whom I serve, saying, Fear not, Paul; thou must be brought before Caesar: and, lo God hath given thee all them that sail with thee." So that righteous men, though they may be in a tempest, or on the sea, or in the deep, suffer nothing dreadful, but even save others together with themselves. If here was a ship in danger and suffering wreck, and prisoners were saved for Paul's sake, consider what a thing it is to have a holy man in a house: for many are the tempests which assail us also, tempests far more grievous than these natural ones, but He can also give us to be delivered, if only we obey holy men as those in the ship did, if we do what they enjoin. For they are not simply saved, but themselves also contributed to other men's believing. Though the holy man be in bonds, he does greater works than those who are free.
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Angel — A word signifying, both in the Hebrew and Greek, a “messenger,” and hence employed to denote any agent God sends forth to execute his purposes. It is used of an ordinary messenger (Job 1:14: 1 Sam.…
Crete — Now called Candia, one of the largest islands in the Meditterranean, about 140 miles long and 35 broad. It was at one time a very prosperous and populous island, having a “hundred cities.” The…
Haven — A harbour (Ps. 107:30; Acts 27: 12). The most famous on the coast of Palestine was that of Tyre (Ezek. 27:3). That of Crete, called “Fair Havens,” is mentioned Acts 27:8.
Ship — No one writer in the whole range of Greek and Roman literature has supplied us with so much information concerning the merchant-ships of the ancients as St. Luke in the narrative of St. Paul’s voyage…
Ships — Early used in foreign commerce by the Phoenicians (Gen. 49:13). Moses (Deut. 28:68) and Job (9:26) make reference to them, and Balaam speaks of the “ships of Chittim” (Num. 24:24). Solomon…
Angels · Are ministering Spirits — Are ministering Spirits
Mariners (Sailors) · Perils of — Perils of
Trouble · .The people in the shipwreck — .The people in the shipwreck
Visions · Mentioned in scripture: To Paul — Mentioned in scripture: To Paul
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
Acts 27:21-32
21. But after long abstinence Paul stood in the midst and said, Sirs, ye should have hearkened to me, and not have loosed from Candia, neither have brought upon us this injury and loss. 22. And now I exhort you that ye be of good courage: for there shall be no loss of any man's life, but only of the ship. 23. For there stood by me this night the angel of God, whose I am, and whom I worship. 24. And he said to me, Fear not, Paul; thou must be brought before Caesar: and, behold, God hath given thee all those which sail with thee. 25. Wherefore be of good courage, sirs: for I believe God that it shall be so, as it hath been told me. 26. But we must fall into a certain island. 27.…
Paul addressed the crew, first scolding them for not listening to him (27:10-12) and then encouraging them with the angel’s assurance of survival for all of them.
