Many people meet one verse and stop there. Paul tells the elders to “feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood” (Acts 20:28). So, they say, God has blood, Jesus shed blood, and Jesus must be God. But the words “his own” can be read another way, and the Bible itself shows us how.

In Greek, the word behind “his own” is idios. It means “one’s own.” Very often in the New Testament it stands alone and means “his own people” or “his own one.” Then Acts 20:28 can be read: the church of God, which He bought with the blood of His Own, that is, His own Son.

John 1:11

“He came unto his own, and his own received him not.”

John 1:11

In this one verse, “his own” is used twice and stands alone both times. The first time it means His own home, His own land. The second time it means His own people. No other word is needed. The reader knows who is meant.

John 13:1, 8:44, 10:4, 15:19

“having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end.”

John 13:1

John writes this way again and again. Jesus loved “his own,” and they are His disciples, real people. The devil “speaketh of his own” (John 8:44). The shepherd “putteth forth his own sheep” (John 10:4), and in Greek the word “sheep” is not there: it was said one verse before, and the reader fills it in. “The world would love his own” (John 15:19). This is ordinary speech, not something rare.

Acts 4:23

“And being let go, they went to their own company, and reported all that the chief priests and elders had said unto them.”

Acts 4:23

This is the most important step. Luke wrote the book of Acts, and Acts 20:28 is his sentence. Here, in the same book, Luke uses “their own” alone, for people. “Company” is added in English to make it read well. So reading “his Own” as a person in Acts 20:28 is not borrowed from someone else. It is how Luke himself writes.

1 Timothy 5:8

“But if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel.”

1 Timothy 5:8

Paul uses the word the same way. “His own” are a man’s family, his nearest ones. People at that time wrote like this in everyday letters too. It needed no explaining.

Genesis 22:2, 16

“Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest”

Genesis 22:2

God asked Abraham to give up his son. Abraham did not hold him back (Genesis 22:16). The Bible calls Isaac by several names that mean the same thing: “only son,” “whom thou lovest,” and in the Greek Bible of that time, “beloved son.”

Hebrews 11:17

“By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac: and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten son,”

Hebrews 11:17

Abraham had other sons, yet Isaac is called his “only begotten.” And in Greek the word “son” is left out here as well. “The only begotten” stands alone. This family of words does that.

John 3:16

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

John 3:16

Now the story of Abraham becomes the story of God. God is the giver. The Son is the one given.

Romans 8:32

“He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?”

Romans 8:32

Paul is thinking of Abraham and Isaac. In the Greek Bible, Genesis 22:16 says Abraham did not spare his beloved son. Paul uses the same word “spared,” and where Genesis had “beloved,” Paul writes “his own.” So the Bible itself shows that “his own” can stand for the beloved, only Son.

Hebrews 9:12

“Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us.”

Hebrews 9:12

Here Christ is the one who gives His blood, and the Greek puts “own” before “blood,” the usual way to say “his own blood.” Acts 20:28 puts it after, in its own place, where a word for a person would stand. This alone does not settle it, because Greek word order can bend. But it shows that Acts 20:28 is not simply the plain way to say “his own blood.”

Acts 20:28

“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

Everywhere else, God gives, and the Son pays. If this verse meant that God paid with His own blood, it would be the only verse where the giver and the one given become the same. Read as “the blood of His Own,” it says what John 3:16 and Romans 8:32 say.

To be honest: in two other places the same shape does mean “his own” something, “his own place” (Acts 1:25) and “his own brother” (John 1:41). So this chain does not prove that the other reading is impossible. It shows that the plain reading is fully possible. And a verse that can honestly be read two ways cannot be the proof of a teaching.

What this means

God is a Spirit (John 4:24). He has no blood. The blood was the blood of a man, “of the seed of David according to the flesh” (Romans 1:3). Yet it is still God’s in the way a son belongs to his father. God did not spare His own. He let His beloved Son go, the way Abraham walked up the mountain with Isaac.

I belong to the church He bought with that blood. I did not pay for myself. The Father gave His Own, and the Son gave His blood.

Connected chains

• Before Abraham Was, I Am
• The One God Is the Father
• My Lord and My God