Tuesday, 09 August, 2005: Today’s Bible readings.

Acts 27:21-32

²¹ Since they had been without food for a long time, Paul stood up among them and said, “Men, you should have listened to me and not have set sail from Crete and incurred this injury and loss. ²² Yet now I urge you to take heart, for there will be no loss of life among you, but only of the ship. ²³ For this very night there stood before me an angel of the God to whom I belong and whom I worship, ²⁴ and he said, ‘Do not be afraid, Paul; you must stand before Caesar. And behold, God has granted you all those who sail with you.’ ²⁵ So take heart, men, for I have faith in God that it will be exactly as I have been told. ²⁶ But we must run aground on some island.”

²⁷ When the fourteenth night had come, as we were being driven across the Adriatic Sea, about midnight the sailors suspected that they were nearing land. ²⁸ So they took a sounding and found twenty fathoms. A little farther on they took a sounding again and found fifteen fathoms. ²⁹ And fearing that we might run on the rocks, they let down four anchors from the stern and prayed for day to come. ³⁰ And as the sailors were seeking to escape from the ship, and had lowered the ship’s boat into the sea under pretense of laying out anchors from the bow, ³¹ Paul said to the centurion and the soldiers, “Unless these men stay in the ship, you cannot be saved.” ³² Then the soldiers cut away the ropes of the ship’s boat and let it go.

Paul is being transported by ship to Rome to face trial. The ship is caught in a terrible storm and is about to be shipwrecked. But God grants Paul a great comfort: He promises through an angel that no one will die in the coming shipwreck.

Paul is completely assured that God will do as He has promised. Yet when he sees the sailors attempting to abandon the ship, Paul gets the soldiers to intervene to keep them on board, telling the soldiers, “Unless these men stay in the ship, you cannot be saved.”

What do we learn from this?

Paul knows that God is in control, and that He has promised to act to protect everyone on board. But this doesn’t cause Paul to sit back and wait for God to do everything. Paul also knows that God works through means, and in this case, the physical salvation of the people on board depended on the means of the sailors. Therefore, Paul acts to keep the sailors on board the ship.

Paul doesn’t see a conflict between God’s providence and his own personal responsibility. God acts through means, and when He ordains the ends, He also ordains the means.

Understanding this can help us in many areas of our Christian walk. Why pray when God has already ordained what will come to be? Because He has commanded us to pray, and He has ordained that He will work through means of the prayers of His people to bring about His desired end. Why do we share the Gospel with people when God has chosen to save the elect? Again, it is because God has commanded us to evangelize, and He has ordained to bring people to salvation through the means of people sharing the Gospel.

Where is Christ in this passage?

Acts 23:11 tells us that Paul had previously been told by the Lord [Jesus Christ] that He would “testify the facts about me … in Rome.”

In this passage, the same message is given Him through an angel.

Paul has had a number of revelations from the risen Christ, and he believes what he is told.

We aren’t given these direct revelations like Paul, but we have the completed word of God presented to us in the Scriptures. And in them we are challenged to believe what God is telling us, and to act in accordance with it, trusting God to do what He has promised.