What is "The Whole Counsel of God"?

Acts 20: 26, 27 “Therefore I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all of you, for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God.” Pastors and “would-be” Pastors, take a long, hard look at these verses and evaluate, and then re-evaluate where you are at.

I came across these verses in our church Bible study the other night and was struck by the warning and the clarity. Paul is innocent of their blood because he declared the whole counsel of God to them. That word “whole” in the Greek is pas. It means “everything, the emphasis of the total picture is on one piece at a time”. Paul declared to them, one piece at a time, ALL the counsel of God. This includes, much to the chagrin of the every-day pew warmer, the really hard stuff. The kind of stuff that makes today's Pastors cringe and shy away. The kind of stuff that makes the culturally aware church-goer recoil in horror...like Dracula drawing up his cape to protect himself from garlic. You know the kind of stuff I'm talking about: Sin and judgement and hell. The role of women in the church. Homosexuality. The kind of stuff that is not popular in today's culture and sadly, not popular in the church either. Paul, rather than shrink from telling them the truth, declared it all to them. If he didn't tell them the whole counsel of God, he would be guilty of their blood. He wasn't concerned with what was popular, or what was accepted, or people's feelings on these things. He was concerned for those in his charge and with the truth. I think the phrase “Fear of the Lord” meant something to him.

After reading these, I wondered what the condition of the church would be today if those who are Pastors would have these verses before them? I would hazard a guess and say the church would be small but strong. It would be small because sin would not be tolerated but confronted. It would be small because the Gospel would be proclaimed and the Gospel confronts sinners and brings to light their condition before God. People don't want to be judged. They want to be told that God loves them just the way they are and they can go on being just the way they are. Sin and Hell and Judgement are not popular, but those doctrines are a big part of the “whole counsel of God”. Those topics don't attract people or make them feel good. Paul didn't shrink from telling them about these.

If Pastors today would have these verses before them, there would be fewer church buildings, but these would be full of people who actually know what the whole counsel of God is – the church would be strong! Full of people who know sound doctrine - those essentials that make up the Christian faith. Full of people who could, in turn, teach others sound doctrine. Full of people who hunger after the true teaching instead of some show with a little “devotional” ditty or a short talk with an out-of-context Bible verse in it designed to make people feel good about themselves. The church would have people who hate having their ears tickled and who want to be fed, even with the coarse, hard stuff because they know THIS stuff will give them life and freedom and rest. This is the stuff that God has for them!

If Pastors had these verses before them, they would spend their time studying the Word, feeding on it, being broken by it, and in turn, being grown by God. They would feed their sheep, their flock, the flock that God has given them to care for and protect. The Pastor would tell his flock the whole counsel of God because he actually knows the whole counsel of God. He would do this because he knows the seriousness and feels the great weight of responsibility that God has placed upon him to do this. Knowing the truth and the many warnings in Scripture, he could differentiate between the false gospels in the world and those that have invaded the church. Being able to differentiate, he would feed his lambs the True food so that they would not be defenceless and could grow.

Because many Pastors don't have this word before them they instead allow into the fold this worldly pap which is lapped up by sheep who have no way of discerning truth from error because they are never taught it. The majority of sheep today are entertained, potlucked, programmed and psychologized, and they can't even articulate a core doctrine of the Christian faith to themselves, let alone to someone else. This is the tragedy of the time I live in. Bible schools and colleges and seminaries are unleashing men - and women - into ministry who are not qualified at all to be there. And the church, unbeknownst to those within its walls, becomes one more social gathering of people trying to make the world a better place while totally ignoring the Gospel of its Lord.

Ezekiel 3: 16-21 “At the end of seven days the word of the Lord came to me: “Son of man, I have made you a watchman for the people of Israel; so hear the word I speak and give them warning from me. When I say to a wicked person, ‘You will surely die,’ and you do not warn them or speak out to dissuade them from their evil ways in order to save their life, that wicked person will die for their sin, and I will hold you accountable for their blood. But if you do warn the wicked person and they do not turn from their wickedness or from their evil ways, they will die for their sin; but you will have saved yourself. Again, when a righteous person turns from their righteousness and does evil, and I put a stumbling block before them, they will die. Since you did not warn them, they will die for their sin. The righteous things that person did will not be remembered, and I will hold you accountable for their blood. But if you do warn the righteous person not to sin and they do not sin, they will surely live because they took warning, and you will have saved yourself.”

Ezekiel 33: 1-6 "The word of the Lord came to me: “Son of man, speak to your people and say to them: ‘When I bring the sword against a land, and the people of the land choose one of their men and make him their watchman, and he sees the sword coming against the land and blows the trumpet to warn the people, then if anyone hears the trumpet but does not heed the warning and the sword comes and takes their life, their blood will be on their own head. Since they heard the sound of the trumpet but did not heed the warning, their blood will be on their own head. If they had heeded the warning, they would have saved themselves. But if the watchman sees the sword coming and does not blow the trumpet to warn the people and the sword comes and takes someone’s life, that person’s life will be taken because of their sin, but I will hold the watchman accountable for their blood.”

Hebrews 13: 17 “Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you.”

James 3: 1 “Let not many of you become teachers, my brethren, knowing that as such we will incur a stricter judgment.”

Titus 1: 9 – 16, 2: 1 An Elder...”must hold firmly to the trustworthy message as it has been taught, so that he can encourage others by sound doctrine and refute those who oppose it. For there are many rebellious people, full of meaningless talk and deception, especially those of the circumcision group. They must be silenced, because they are disrupting whole households by teaching things they ought not to teach—and that for the sake of dishonest gain. One of Crete’s own prophets has said it: “Cretans are always liars, evil brutes, lazy gluttons.”This saying is true. Therefore rebuke them sharply, so that they will be sound in the faith and will pay no attention to Jewish myths or to the merely human commands of those who reject the truth. To the pure, all things are pure, but to those who are corrupted and do not believe, nothing is pure. In fact, both their minds and consciences are corrupted. They claim to know God, but by their actions they deny him. They are detestable, disobedient and unfit for doing anything good. You, however, must teach what is appropriate to sound doctrine.”

Acts 20: 17 – 32 “Now from Miletus he sent to Ephesus and called the elders of the church to come to him. And when they 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 and with trials that happened to me through the plots of the Jews; how I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable, and teaching you in public and from house to house, testifying both to Jews and to Greeks of repentance toward God and of faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. And now, behold, I am going to Jerusalem, constrained by the Spirit, not knowing what will happen to me there, except that the Holy Spirit testifies to me in every city that imprisonment and afflictions await me. But I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God. And now, behold, I know that none of you among whom I have gone about proclaiming the kingdom will see my face again. Therefore I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all of you, 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. I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things, to draw away the disciples after them. 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.”