Bible 101 - Acts 27-28

Presented October 9, 2006 by Phyllis Gilbert

Review: Nothing stops Paul: riots, the Sanhedrin, false charges, imprisonment, Roman governors and Edomite kings (Herod Agrippa II). Paul tells us in Phil 4:13 that "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." And you'll recall that in Acts 9, God warned Paul about such suffering through Ananias, a Christian in Damascus. Paul had been struck down on the road to Damascus, God's call a dramatic bolt out of heaven, and Paul had been blinded by this great light. Resting for three days, he allows the Holy Spirit to teach him all the ways that Jesus became the fulfillment of the OT prophecy that Paul knew so well. Now at the end of those three intense days, Ananias is sent to Paul to tell him what God has in store for him: "This man is my [God's] chosen instrument to carry my name before the Gentiles and their kings, and before the people of Israel. I will show him how much he must suffer for my name" (Acts 9:15-16). In II Corinthians 11, we saw Paul's list of what he'd suffered in just the first 20 years of his apostleship: imprisonment, flogging, beatings with rods, stoning, three times shipwrecked, in danger from bandits, other Jews, Gentiles - and we've seen that in all of this, Paul has maintained his strong faith in Christ, has preached the gospel in prison or in court - in short, nothing stops him. After more than two years of house arrest under Roman guard in Caesarea, Paul is finally ready to be transported to Rome.

Acts 27: Luke, who's been with Paul since his second missionary journey, is again with him as they (and a number of other prisoners) are handed over to another Roman centurion for escort to Rome. Since Caesarea was a deep-water port, they found a merchant ship there and got on board. The ship was bound for various ports in Asia. The ship, much like a local bus, stopped at all the small ports between Caesarea and Antioch, and had planned to continue in this way. However, they were sailing in the fall, and their good sailing weather was about to end; late fall and winter is a particularly stormy time on the Mediterranean. Their first port of call was Sidon, and the centurion Julius allows Paul and his companions to go ashore and meet with friends there. From Sidon, they went the next day past Cyprus to anchor in Myra in Lycia. Once there, the centurion found another ship, this one bound for Italy and they transferred to it. And as it had in the first part of the voyage, the weather delays them, and Luke tells us only that they made "slow headway" and that the "wind did not allow us to hold our course." Conventional sailing on good winds was impossible. But eventually, they came to a port called Fair Havens on the southern coast of Crete, the island off the coast of Greece.

Acts 27:9: Now Luke confirms that they are late in the sailing season; in fact, it is "after the Fast," meaning Yom Kippur which is in September or October. Luke says "much time had been lost," and Paul, ever out-spoken, advises that they winter in this harbor since otherwise, their voyage will be "disastrous" and one of "great loss to ship and cargo." Now a merchant would not like to hear this; he'd want to get to all the ports as quickly as possible, unload one cargo and take on another, and go to the next destination; it was how he made money. And after all, who was Paul in the ship owner's eyes? Just a passenger; in fact, he was less than a passenger - he was a prisoner. No one listened to him (and Luke tells us later that there were 276 people aboard): centurion, pilot, ship owner - even the other passengers disregard Paul's warning. So on they go, hoping to get to another harbor they deemed more suitable for a winter lay-over, this one perhaps 50 miles from Fair Haven called Phoenix. Its exposure to wind and weather was thought less troublesome. And it might have been that Fair Haven was a dull and boring little place compared with Phoenix, and the sailors and passengers wanted a more exciting place to spend three months.

Acts 27:13: The first day of sailing from Fair Haven appears fortuitous: a south wind came up and sticking close to shore, they make some progress. But not for long. A storm of hurricane force caught the ship and they are driven before it for 14 days. Without visible sun, stars or moon, their navigational readings and attempts to steer the ship by rudder or sail are moot, and they are simply driven through the sea by the weather. All the cargo is thrown overboard; sailors even tie ropes around the ship to hold it together. Imagine the force of this storm! Our own Gulf Coast and East Coast hurricane experience shows that such winds can pick up mature trees and drive them through buildings. Think what it was like for a small sailing ship in the first century. But God appears to Paul when everyone on board had given up hope, and Paul speaks to crew, passengers and owner: "Last night, an angel of the God whose I am and whom I serve stood beside me and said 'Do not be afraid, Paul. You must stand before Caesar, and God has graciously given you the lives of all who sail with you.'" (v. 24). Paul adds that it's time to take courage and have faith. No one has eaten for two weeks, the seas being so rough. But Paul tells them to eat so that they'll have strength to survive.

Acts 27:27: In vivid details, Luke tells us that the crew takes soundings to determine the depth of the water. When the depth is shallower, some want to drop anchor, and lower boats over the side, but Paul tells Julius, the centurion who's escorting him, that all must remain on board: "Unless these men stay with the ship, you cannot be saved." Paul has gained some credibility since by now everyone on board knows how foolish it was to leave Fair Haven. And so that attempt to get to shore was abandoned. Eventually, the wind drives the ship onto a sandbar where it breaks apart. Since it's now daylight, the men jump overboard and swim for an island that's within sight. With Julius, the soldiers discussed killing the prisoners to prevent their escape (and their own deaths; a soldier who allowed a prisoner to escape was put to death; recall Acts 12). But Julius wants to spare Paul; after all, he's been the voice of reason and faith on the ship, and so all prisoners' lives are spared, and none of them run (or swim) off. And true to Paul's prophecy (the word of assurance he'd gotten from the angel of God), all made it to shore.

Acts 28: This is the last chapter of Luke's account of the "Acts of the Holy Spirit," but it's not the last chapter in the Holy Spirit's work: we today are part of the continuing spread of the gospel and the growth of the church. The ship breaks up, but the people on it manage to get safely to the island of Malta, just south of the Italian mainland. Luke describes their welcome: the natives built a fire and "showed unusual kindness." Understanding the harshness of the storm they'd come through, these islanders probably considered their having survived a miracle. They help them get dry, and to help maintain the fires, Paul gets some brush and throws it on the fire, and a snake in the brush attached itself to Paul's hand, biting him. The island people are convinved that because he's a prisoner, he's getting his just desserts: he'll die, wicked man that he must be. But Paul does not die. So the local opinion is that he's a god.

Acts 28:7: The island was under the control of Rome, and the governor there was either named Publius, or that was his title. Perhaps because of Julius, a Roman centurion, the whole group of survivors is welcomed in Publius's home and they stay three days. While there, they discover that his father is ill, probably with the flu. Paul laid hands on him and prayed, and Publius's father is healed. A long line of sick then came to the apostle and Luke, and between Luke's medical skills and Paul's prayers, cures were affected. Now the hospitality and the desire to help is even more pronounced, and for the three months the ship's crew and passengers are marooned there, they're well treated.

Acts 28:11: Finally, another ship from Egypt comes into Malta and on go Paul, Luke and the Romans guarding them. Perhaps the ship's crew also went, or waited for other ships; we do know about Paul and his party. On the new ship, in better weather, they went first to Syracuse and then to Rhegium, and finally to Puteoli (near modern day Naples), and to Paul's great delight, a Christian welcome party was there to greet them. Curiously, Paul had never been to Rome; Peter hadn't been there, either, though he does get there by the mid-60s. It's now about 60 A.D. Paul wrote to the Romans from Corinth or a nearby city in Greece in 57 A.D., and he addresses it to "all in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints." And in Romans 1:8, he writes, "I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you because your faith is being reported all over the world." Who started the church? Here are a couple of possibilities: on Pentecost (Acts 2), we're told that "visitors from Rome" were among the crowd (2:10). They may have been the first to take the gospel back to Rome. And converts to the faith from other parts of the Roman Empire could and did easily take their witness to Rome. Remember when Paul was in Ephesus (the town of the silversmiths' riot), he met hundreds of people in the two plus years he ministered there. Many were passing through on their way to other cities. It was they and others like them who spread the gospel. And in Rom. 16:3-5, Paul asks to be remembered to Priscilla and Aquila (whom he'd met in Corinth and who traveled with him to Ephesus) and "the church that meets at their house." At some time, this couple who'd fled Rome during the time of Claudius returned to their native city and carried on their work for God there. Some of their friends, or the Christians who'd heard the gospel from other converts, were there to meet Paul and Luke. After all they'd been through, they must have looked like an angel choir to them! This group escorted them to Rome, picking up friends along the way.

Acts 28:16: In Rome, Paul was permitted to rent a house and stay there under Roman guard. He was still a prisoner, but not in a prison. And in this freedom, he ministered. First he called the Jewish leaders to come to his home. He explains the reason he's in Rome and in chains. He tells them clearly that his arrest was at the instigation of the Sanhedrin and other Jewish leaders in Jerusalem opposed to his preaching Jesus as the Messiah. Paul tells them he harbors no bitterness toward them; in fact, we know that Paul welcomes the opportunity to preach the gospel wherever he is, and God has made it possible through arrest and trial for him to be in Rome.

Acts 28:21: the local Jewish leaders know nothing of plots in Jerusalem and agree to come back to Paul's house for teaching. And for a day, Paul opens the scriptures (the Hebrew scriptures or OT; the NT has only begun to be composed at this time) to them showing them how Isaiah and other prophets were pointing to Jesus coming and his death. We read that "some were convinced," while "others disagreed." (This divided response has been typical of all who've heard Paul). Paul tells them Isaiah's prophecy about the Jews having ears that cannot hear and eyes that cannot see has been fulfilled; those who refuse to believe that Jesus is the Christ are blind to the truth. Nevertheless, Paul spent two years spreading the gospel in Rome. Luke ends this second volume of his work by saying "Boldly and without hindrance he preached the Kingdom of God and taught about the Lord Jesus Christ."

Open ended: Note the lack of conclusion; we don't know when Paul went to trial, or what he did in the years between 62 A.D. and his death in 67 or 68 A.D. Perhaps he traveled to Spain since he states his desire to do so in Romans 15:23-24: "But now there is no more place for me to work in these regions (Corinth, Macedonia), and since I have been longing for many years to see you, I plan to do so when I go to Spain. I hope to visit you while passing through. . ." That he ended his life a prisoner in the Mamartine Prison in Rome is historic fact. He writes I and II Timothy from this place.

Death: Paul died, according to church tradition in 68 A.D. Nero had begun an all-out persecution of Christians in 64 A.D. (he was emperor from 54-68 A.D.). He was a viscious and ambitious man who'd murdered his way to power. Rome burned in 64 A.D. and Tacitus, a Roman historian, tells us that Nero set up the Christians as the fall guys for the fire (which some think Nero had set). The public was turned against the Christians, and they were arrested, tortured and killed by the hundreds. F.F. Bruce, who wrote a biography of Paul includes this note: "the day was to fcome when men would call their dogs Nero and their sons Paul." Paul, the great apostle, gave his life to God back on the road to Damascus and used all his energy and strength to take the gospel to the world for more than 35 years. Nero didn't stop him or the gospel. Thank God!

Next week: We'll begin a new study.

Homework for those who want to go deeper:

Let's close in prayer.