Complete textual-variant dossier
Sections distinguish readings, edition history, evidence, theological consequences, and the Research Center's evaluation. CBGM is an analytical tool; editorial committees—not the software—make textual decisions.
1Passage and issue
Passage
Issue
Scrivener and NA28 agree on ‘church of God’; Tregelles reads ‘church of the Lord,’ while the reconstructed Byzantine form reads ‘of the Lord and God.’ Word order also creates the possible critical rendering ‘the blood of his own [Son],’ though ‘his own blood’ remains grammatically defensible.
Variant class
Transposition
2Textus Receptus
Greek reading
feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood
Authorized Version
“Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood.” — Acts 20:28
Edition note
The Research Center uses the received Greek text underlying the Authorized Version as its baseline; edition-specific differences are recorded when the variation unit requires them.
3NA28 baseline and critical-text rationale
NA28 baseline reading
shepherd the church of God, which he obtained with the blood of his own
Translation or explanation
shepherd the church of God, which he obtained with the blood of his own
Metzger’s report of the UBS committee
Metzger reports the UBS4 committee's treatment of 2 variation units within this record's range. The notes ground the relevant decisions in the weight and distribution of external attestation, a proposed mechanism of accidental omission, the comparative difficulty of the readings, authorial usage, grammar, or immediate context; the printed confidence ratings represented here are {C}, {B}. This is a controlled synopsis rather than a quotation.
Locator: Bruce M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, 2nd ed., notes on Acts 20:28, 20:28
ECM / CBGM evidence and editors
No passage-specific ECM/CBGM editorial explanation is attached to this record. Official method sources describe the CBGM as a set of coherence procedures, not a decision-maker: editors define variation units and local stemmata and evaluate pre-genealogical, genealogical, and stemmatic coherence together with transcriptional, intrinsic, and other philological evidence.
4UBS6 and intended NA29 revision
No UBS6 / intended NA29 main-text change is recorded for this passage in the controlled 169-change ledger.
No change row is attached to this passage.
UBS6 is published, and the German Bible Society identifies its Greek main text as identical to the intended NA29 main text. The complete NA29 volume and its apparatus remain forthcoming. Project-ledger rows retain their source and verification statements until they are checked against the published UBS6 text and, when available, the NA29 apparatus.
5Doctrinal and four-point analysis
Effect class
Weakening of explicit biblical testimony
Exact proposition affected
The saving and atoning work of Jesus Christ.
Doctrinal analysis
Passage: Acts 20:28 Received reading: feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood Principal competing reading: shepherd the church of God, which he obtained with the blood of his own Issue class: Major Christological Variant Editorial status: Preliminary record accepted for staging; independent review remains pending.
Bahnsen four-point examination
Arbitrariness
At Acts 20:28, the critical choice avoids arbitrariness only to the extent that it states public manuscript, transcriptional, and intrinsic grounds. Passage: Acts 20:28 Received reading: feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood Principal competing reading: shepherd the church of God, which he obtained with the blood of his own Issue class: Major Christological Variant Editorial status: Preliminary record accepted for staging; independent review remains pending. Word order also creates the possible critical rendering ‘the blood of his own [Son],’ though ‘his own blood’ remains grammatically defensible.
Inconsistency
The criteria used at Acts 20:28 must be applied to comparable readings as well. A principle such as age, difficulty, brevity, or coherence cannot be decisive here and quietly reversed elsewhere merely to escape a historical, grammatical, or theological difficulty.
Consequences
Weakening of explicit biblical testimony: Passage: Acts 20:28 Received reading: feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood Principal competing reading: shepherd the church of God, which he obtained with the blood of his own Issue class: Major Christological Variant Editorial status: Preliminary record accepted for staging; independent review remains pending.
Preconditions of intelligibility
The argument presupposes stable authorship, meaningful language, objective logical norms, transmissible evidence, and a coherent account of how Scripture can be received and identified by the church. The analysis tests whether the method can make those conditions intelligible without reducing the text to an indefinitely revisable editorial construct.
This framework examines an argument and its conditions; it does not claim to read an editor's private motives.
6Argument for the received reading
External and historical evidence
Sources and further reading The Holy Bible, Authorized Version, Acts 20:28. Scrivener, The New Testament in the Original Greek according to the Text Followed in the Authorised Version (1894), Acts 20:28.
Internal and transcriptional evidence
A source-level internal and transcriptional synopsis remains open; consult the full essay.
Reception and ecclesiastical use
Passage: Acts 20:28 Received reading: feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood Principal competing reading: shepherd the church of God, which he obtained with the blood of his own Issue class: Major Christological Variant Editorial status: Preliminary record accepted for staging; independent review remains pending. “Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood.” Scrivener and NA28 agree on ‘church of God’; Tregelles reads ‘church of the Lord,’ while the reconstructed Byzantine form reads ‘of the Lord and God.’
Providential-preservation analysis
Providential preservation is not used as a substitute for evidence at Acts 20:28. It supplies the confessional context in which manuscript transmission, broad reception, and the church's actual possession of Scripture are evaluated together.
Canonical coherence with the rest of Scripture
Canonical coherence remains an explicit test: a proposed reading must make grammatical and theological sense within the immediate context and the rest of Scripture. No conflict is asserted merely because two editions differ; the claimed incoherence must be demonstrated at this passage.
Canonical-coherence verdict
The Authorized Version is retained where its representation of the TR forms a coherent reading within the immediate context and the rest of Scripture. Any competing form must demonstrate an equal or better canonical fit rather than merely invoke an edition or method label.
Response to the principal critical argument
Passage: Acts 20:28 Received reading: feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood Principal competing reading: shepherd the church of God, which he obtained with the blood of his own Issue class: Major Christological Variant Editorial status: Preliminary record accepted for staging; independent review remains pending. Word order also creates the possible critical rendering ‘the blood of his own [Son],’ though ‘his own blood’ remains grammatically defensible.
Conclusion
Read in place, Acts 20:28 stands beside stable narrative statements: Acts 20:27 says, “For I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God.” Acts 20:29 says, “For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock.”
Keep the received text and rendering: the subject is God, the purchase is his, and the blood is called his own.
Read the full research essay and its sources
Passage: Acts 20:28
Received reading: feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood
Principal competing reading: shepherd the church of God, which he obtained with the blood of his own
Issue class: Major Christological Variant
Editorial status: Preliminary record accepted for staging; independent review remains pending.
“Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the
which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God,
which he hath purchased with his own blood.” — Acts 20:28
Acts 20:28 is best examined by separating the shared narrative from
the focal reading.
Scrivener and NA28 agree on ‘church of God’; Tregelles reads ‘church
of the Lord,’ while the reconstructed Byzantine form reads ‘of the Lord
and God.’ Word order also creates the possible critical rendering ‘the
blood of his own [Son],’ though ‘his own blood’ remains grammatically
defensible.
The comparison is concrete: the received reading gives “feed the
church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood”; the
alternative gives “shepherd the church of God, which he obtained with
the blood of his own.”
The variation at Acts 20:28 changes emphasis or explicitness within
an otherwise recognizable account; shared words should be acknowledged
before the distinct reading is defended, and the difference should not
be enlarged beyond the clause that carries it.
Read in place, Acts 20:28 stands beside stable narrative statements:
Acts 20:27 says, “For I have not shunned to declare unto you all the
counsel of God.” Acts 20:29 says, “For I know this, that after my
departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the
flock.”
Keep the received text and rendering: the subject is God, the
purchase is his, and the blood is called his own.
Sources and further reading
- The Holy Bible, Authorized Version, Acts 20:28.
- F. H. A. Scrivener, The New Testament in the Original Greek
according to the Text Followed in the Authorised Version (1894),
Acts 20:28. - Michael W. Holmes, ed., The Greek New Testament: SBL
Edition, Acts 20:28 and apparatus. - Bruce M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New
Testament, discussion at Acts 20:28.
7Related materials
Open a group to follow connected articles, books, biographies, media, research notes, variants, or downloads. Research Center relationships use permanent record IDs; external items retain their actual link.
- Record
- VAR-2283
- Status
- Preliminary
- Version
- 1.1-dossier
- Review
- Level B — Editorial synthesis
- Editor
- Chris Thomas
- Reviewer
- Independent reviewer pending assignment
- First date
- 1st century · Date Range
- Last revised
- 2026-07-22
Evidence and editorial controls
- Verification
- Passage, received reading, principal SBLGNT reading, and reported NA28 alignment checked against Scrivener’s received Greek text and the official SBLGNT text and comparison apparatus; exhaustive manuscript collation remains open. Metzger commentary entries were matched by exact passage where present; ECM/CBGM rationale is passage-specific only when an official editorial explanation is cited. Ledger rows are identified as UBS6 / intended NA29 data but retain their row-level verification caveats pending direct collation.
- Rights and access
- Original editorial synthesis. Authorized Version Scripture is public domain in the United States; cited editions and digital witnesses retain their stated rights and access conditions.
- Known limitations
- This staging record summarizes the defined variation unit and representative edition evidence. It is not a fresh collation of every extant manuscript, version, lectionary, patristic citation, or ECM coherence relation.
Links from this record
No public outgoing links are recorded.
Records that cite or connect here
No public backlinks are recorded.
Corrections and evidence submissions
No correction submission is presently attached to this record. Submit evidence or read the correction policy.
Chris Thomas, “Acts 20:28 — The Church of God or of the Lord? Purchased with His Own Blood,” VAR-2283, Confessional Bibliology Research Center, version 1.0-staging, last revised 2026-07-22.
Revision history
- — Chris Thomas