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"ALL THE COUNSEL OF GOD" I recently saw a post where someone was claiming that we usually read Acts 20:27 the wrong way. This is where Pauls says, "For I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God." Most of us take the statement to mean that Paul is saying that he had been faithful in declaring ALL THE COUSEL OF GOD, yet the claim was made that he wasn't saying that at all. Instead, he was supposedly saying that he had declared to YOU ALL the counsel of God, using "you all" in the same manner as he did in I Thessalonians 1:2: "We give thanks to God always for you all, making mention of you in our prayers." It is reasoned by some that Paul would not have claimed to be making "all the counsel of God" known, since that is supposedly impossible for any man to do. I disagree. If that were true, then God would not have led Solomon to give us Proverbs 1:25: "But ye have set at nought all my counsel, and would none of my reproof." How could anyone set at nought ALL OF GOD'S COUNSEL, if no one had ever declared it all to them? Both cases obviously refer to the use of the word "all" without distinction, not "all" without exception. "All" without exception would be everything about God, which would be impossible, but "all" without distinction would be "all" in a certain context, such as we see in Acts 20:35: "I have shewed you all things . . ." Well, he surely didn't show them the 2020 election results or the number of hairs on Caesar's head, so the "all" is an "all" without distinction, not one without exception. That is, Paul wasn't being distinct with his use of the word "all." He was using the word in the context of preaching and teaching the necessary things that the Ephesian elders needed to hear. That is, he didn't leave out anything that God wanted him to say. The word "all" in the context is a general "all" that applies only to the immediate context, just as the "all" in verse 26 ("pure from the blood of all men") applies only to the people that Paul preached to, not to the Han Dynasty of first century China or to Herod's relatives in Idumaea. So, Paul DID cleanse his hands by declaring "all the counsel of God" in the sense that he declared all that God wanted him to declare.