The soldiers’ counsel was to kill the prisoners, so that none of them would swim out and escape. But the centurion, desiring to save Paul, stopped them from their purpose, and commanded that those who could swim should throw themselves overboard first to go toward the land; and the rest should follow, some on planks, and some on other things from the ship. So it happened that they all escaped safely to the land.
Clearly there is a time when good leadership should not go with the majority decision. Here the centurion went against “the soldier’s counsel” in order to save Paul and instead, relaxed security and allowed the prisoners to swim to shore. As bad as the prisoners probably were, the centurion went with God and His commands. Perhaps, like the time earlier in Acts when the prisoners didn’t run away after the earthquake broke open the jail, these prisoners were not to escape either.
It is not unusual in this world for people to fail to trust God for the outcome and choose to trust in the majority opinion instead. It is good to listen to a majority but only if that majority is listening to their Creator first. If the majority refuses to recognize the rights given by the Creator to all men, then they will probably not do well when handed a democracy.
Just as God had promised, all of the men were saved and the prisoners were accounted for.
While the day was coming on, Paul begged them all to take some food, saying, “This day is the fourteenth day that you wait and continue fasting, having taken nothing. Therefore I beg you to take some food, for this is for your safety; for not a hair will perish from any of your heads.” When he had said this, and had taken bread, he gave thanks to God in the presence of all, and he broke it, and began to eat. Then they all cheered up, and they also took food. In all, we were two hundred seventy-six souls on the ship. When they had eaten enough, they lightened the ship, throwing out the wheat into the sea. When it was day, they didn’t recognize the land, but they noticed a certain bay with a beach, and they decided to try to drive the ship onto it. Casting off the anchors, they left them in the sea, at the same time untying the rudder ropes. Hoisting up the foresail to the wind, they made for the beach. But coming to a place where two seas met, they ran the vessel aground. The bow struck and remained immovable, but the stern began to break up by the violence of the waves.
Paul appears to have been made aware that the time of their crash was close and that they should eat for strength. Notice that they didn’t just say, God promised, so let’s not eat out of faith in God. Instead, the natural world worked in concert with the spiritual to achieve God’s goals. After all, God is the maker of the natural world and He does expect us to use our minds and bodies.
There were 176 people on the ship but that didn’t keep Paul from praying before the meal! I don’t believe that praying before eating is to be a legal ritual that Christians must do, but we should not feel ashamed to pray in a restaurant. We don’t see that Paul prayed publicly before every meal with unbelievers but we see here that he didn’t shy away when he wanted to do it. Chances are that many others are relieved when we pray in public and pray along. There are many places in the world where Christian prayer is not legal and these brave Christians take great risks just to meet together. Those of us who have the freedom should take advantage of it.
But when the fourteenth night had come, as we were driven back and forth in the Adriatic Sea, about midnight the sailors surmised that they were drawing near to some land. They took soundings, and found twenty fathoms. After a little while, they took soundings again, and found fifteen fathoms. Fearing that we would run aground on rocky ground, they let go four anchors from the stern, and wished for daylight. As the sailors were trying to flee out of the ship, and had lowered the boat into the sea, pretending that they would lay out anchors from the bow, Paul said to the centurion and to the soldiers, “Unless these stay in the ship, you can’t be saved.” Then the soldiers cut away the ropes of the boat, and let it fall off.
By this time the men on the ship were hungry, tired and terrified. I think most all of us get to this point at some time during our lives and these times can be important times of testing. Paul caught the sailors trying to save themselves and told them that, by attempting to save themselves, they would be losing their lives.
This is an amazing real-life example of how faith works. God wants us to believe Him so much that he often puts us in this kind of situation. Notice that at this point, simply saying they believed was not enough. They had to demonstrate their faith by which boat they chose to sit in.
Fortunately, these men were willing to pay attention to Paul and chose to do what they believed God wanted even though it may not have not what they thought was best for themselves.
God has not provided mankind a way to save themselves either. He has only provided a way for us to be saved by Him and Him only. This is the remarkable thing about Christianity. It is not a way to reach God or become a god. It is a story about God and His choosing to reach mankind all by Himself. We can accept His love if we choose to, but to do so, we will have to believe what He says and give up our attempts to save ourselves.
When they had been long without food, Paul stood up in the middle of them, and said, “Sirs, you should have listened to me, and not have set sail from Crete, and have gotten this injury and loss. Now I exhort you to cheer up, for there will be no loss of life among you, but only of the ship. For there stood by me this night an angel, belonging to the God whose I am and whom I serve, saying, ‘Don’t be afraid, Paul. You must stand before Caesar. Behold, God has granted you all those who sail with you.’ Therefore, sirs, cheer up! For I believe God, that it will be just as it has been spoken to me. But we must run aground on a certain island.”
Here we read that Paul does say: “I told you so” but we also see the mercy of God given to everyone in the ship. God, through Paul, gives them all another chance to have faith in the His word.
Notice the prophesy that God gives to them, that Paul is the one who must stand before Caesar and that every single one of the starving, tired people on the ship would be granted their lives as well.
God didn’t have to do that. It wouldn’t be surprising if God had only allowed Paul and his companions to survive, but God chose to save them all just because that’s the way He is. That’s the same way that we are saved from our eternal destruction. God just decided to do it. It wasn’t because we were so good. It was only because He wanted to do it for us.
I believe that every single person on that ship never forgot what Paul said that day. I believe that God was continuing to use Paul to spread the good news about Jesus to the whole world through this storm.
When the south wind blew softly, supposing that they had obtained their purpose, they weighed anchor and sailed along Crete, close to shore. But before long, a stormy wind beat down from shore, which is called Euroclydon. When the ship was caught, and couldn’t face the wind, we gave way to it, and were driven along. Running under the lee of a small island called Clauda, we were able, with difficulty, to secure the boat. After they had hoisted it up, they used cables to help reinforce the ship. Fearing that they would run aground on the Syrtis sand bars, they lowered the sea anchor, and so were driven along. As we labored exceedingly with the storm, the next day they began to throw things overboard. On the third day, they threw out the ship’s tackle with their own hands. When neither sun nor stars shone on us for many days, and no small storm pressed on us, all hope that we would be saved was now taken away.
Here Luke records the nasty details of the storm that threatened their lives. Although Paul had warned them that they were going to face a life-threatening storm, those in charge chose to go with the majority vote and the desires of the leadership instead of doing what God thought was best. Neither the democracy, nor the central leadership knew the correct path to take. God was the only one who could tell them how to save themselves from the storm to come.
In spite of the majority and in spite of the government, God’s word says that a day is coming when we will have to face Him. He will judge us according to our deeds on earth. If we have no provision for how we acted here then we will be punished and the storm these men faced is nothing compared to what we will face that day.
God’s word has given us the warning and told us how to avoid the storm, by putting our faith in Jesus, who already went through the storm for us. If we know what is good for us, we will heed the warning and take protection. Notice that those who failed to listen to the warning found themselves in a position in which: “all hope that we would be saved was now taken away.” We aren’t in that position yet. Anyone who is still alive still has hope because there is still time for them to put their faith in Jesus.
When much time had passed and the voyage was now dangerous, because the Fast had now already gone by, Paul admonished them, and said to them, “Sirs, I perceive that the voyage will be with injury and much loss, not only of the cargo and the ship, but also of our lives.” But the centurion gave more heed to the master and to the owner of the ship than to those things which were spoken by Paul. Because the haven was not suitable to winter in, the majority advised going to sea from there, if by any means they could reach Phoenix, and winter there, which is a port of Crete, looking northeast and southeast.
One of the problems with democracy is that it assumes that the people who vote know what is best for themselves. In many cases, this is not true because the people lack knowledge of the truth. It also happens that, by fooling those who vote into believing a lie, a democracy can be used by the most wicked men to move a society into an even darker place. Democracy itself is not the answer, but God can use a democracy to do good by giving the people a high level of freedom to choose when they choose well. In fact, it appears that in practice, only a democracy who’s majority believes in laws of the God of the Jews appears to work well. I believe that God-believing majority is far more important to a democracy than anything else.
On this trip, Paul was a minority. Not only was he a prisoner and with few rights, he was one of the few people on board who had the presence of God Almighty within himself. Paul was in the place where God could cause him to know something that the others could not easily know without becoming Christians and having the Holy Spirit themselves.
The centurion did the logical thing from his worldview and listened to the “the master and to the owner of the ship” and to “the majority.” This same logic is often used as an excuse to not believe God and His people today. Notice how this passage makes it clear that the word of God is more reliable than both our leaders and the majority. God is the only one who really knows and understands everything and if we want to be successful, we should listen carefully to Him.
When it was determined that we should sail for Italy, they delivered Paul and certain other prisoners to a centurion named Julius, of the Augustan band. Embarking in a ship of Adramyttium, which was about to sail to places on the coast of Asia, we put to sea; Aristarchus, a Macedonian of Thessalonica, being with us. The next day, we touched at Sidon. Julius treated Paul kindly, and gave him permission to go to his friends and refresh himself. Putting to sea from there, we sailed under the lee of Cyprus, because the winds were contrary. When we had sailed across the sea which is off Cilicia and Pamphylia, we came to Myra, a city of Lycia. There the centurion found a ship of Alexandria sailing for Italy, and he put us on board. When we had sailed slowly many days, and had come with difficulty opposite Cnidus, the wind not allowing us further, we sailed under the lee of Crete, opposite Salmone. With difficulty sailing along it we came to a certain place called Fair Havens, near the city of Lasea.
Finally, Paul was on his way to Rome as a prisoner. Although Paul was treated well by the centurion, the ships were not treated well by the weather. It seemed that every attempt to go toward Rome was met with some kind of trouble for them.
I am sure that Paul knew that he would get to Rome no matter what it seemed like since Jesus told him in his vision. Circumstances in life often trick us into thinking that God’s word isn’t coming true. We should pay attention to what God says and ignore the circumstances.
Notice that Luke is an eye witness to these events. He must have been traveling right there with Paul and must have been one of the “friends” that were allowed to “refresh” Paul as a prisoner.