Bible Commentaries
Acts 28

Verses 1-8

34 It is practically impossible to prepare meals in such a storm as they had encountered and the constant toil and apprehension would take away all desire for food. But now that land was near they doubtless remembered Paul's predictions and were more than willing to listen to him as he cheered and encouraged them. We hear no more of the navigator and the owner of the cargo, and even the centurion obeys Paul, who acknowledges his thankfulness to God before all and gives them an example of faith by taking his fill of food.

38 The lighter they could make the ship the better chance they had of beaching her near the shore. To do this it was necessary also to control her course, so they hoisted a sail to the wind and unlashed the rudders, which had probably been securely fastened, as steering was impossible. Unlike modern vessels, the ships of that day had two rudders, which they would now use to steer the ship for the beach.

41 It would seem that some current carried them into a channel, or the place "where two seas met," and hindered them from reaching the beach they were headed for. They ran aground in the channel itself.

41 Every detail of this description fits perfectly with the environs of what is now called St. Paul's bay on the northern coast of Malta. The depth of the sea, a channel made by the island of Salmonetta, and the evidences of a beach at the mouth or the Westara creek, all identify this as the probable location.

42 As a Roman guard was ordinarily responsible for his prisoners with his own life, we can better understand the inhuman suggestion of the centurion's soldiers. Once again Paul becomes the saviour of the prisoners even as he had been used but a few hours before to prevent the sailors' desertion and thus saved the lives of the very soldiers who now wished to despatch him. The centurion was too just to kill the one to whom he and the rest owed their very lives.

1 There was an island in the Adriatic called Melida or Melita, which some suppose was the scene of the shipwreck. It is in the gulf of Venice. The ancient Adria, however, included more than the present Adriatic, and was applied to all of the Mediterranean between Sicily and Greece. The modern condition of Malta is no index of what it was in those days. "Barbarians" (for which we have no English equivalent) was applied by the Greeks to any who did not speak Greek, and their conduct makes it clear that they were far from being barbarous or savage, There are no vipers in Malta today, but venomous reptiles always disappear with the increase of population. The Venetian Melita could not possibly be reached with the wind blowing so as to drive them toward the Syrtis quicksand and there is no reason to think that it changed. They would pass innumerable islands on the way as if by a miracle. And their subsequent journey would have been overland or by a different route from Melita.

1 Just as Matthew, who gives us the rejection of the kingdom as proclaimed by our Lord Himself, closes with a millennial foreview when He told them, in anticipation of that day, "all authority in heaven and on earth is given unto Me," so here, where we have the rejection of the kingdom as proclaimed by His apostles, we are regaled with a millennial scene to remind us that the kingdom is merely delayed, and wl1l come in its proper time. First the serpent is destroyed, corresponding to the binding of Satan at the beginning of the thousand years, then blessing flows out to the nations. Paul, as a herald of that day, is able to pick up serpents without any harm coming to him, but lays hands on those who are ailing, and they have ideal health ( Mar_16:18 ).

7 By healing the father of the chief man in the island, his fame and message would be immediately spread. Thus the very place or the shipwreck was chosen to suit his purpose.

Verses 9-28

9 Three months busy with blessing thus came out of the catastrophe. Had the ship wintered in Cnidus, as they had wished, or at Ideal Harbors, as Paul proposed, the ship and cargo might indeed have been saved, but a much greater loss would have been sustained by the islanders. Thus God always gets a greater good out of a lesser evil.

11 The Latin equivalent of Dioscuri would be "Castor and Pollux." But this gives the impression that it was a Roman vessel, whereas most of the commerce with Rome was carried in foreign bottoms, and this was probably a Greek ship, having a Greek name.

12 There is a local tradition that Paul himself founded the first ecclesia in Syracuse. The account reads as though the centurion allowed him the utmost liberty.

15 As Paul had written an epistle to Rome there must have been a considerable company of believers there. They showed something of their regard for him by coming out to welcome him on the way. One company came as far as Appii Forum. Another delegation met him at

Three Taverns, about ten miles nearer the city. No wonder Paul thanked God and took courage. He was now near the goal that he had set before him several years before, and though a prisoner of Rome, he had almost all the freedom he could wish. Indeed, from this time he preferred to call himself a "prisoner of the Lord," as he recognized that it was the Lord's will.

17 It is eminently fitting that the final and decisive rejection of the kingdom should follow its proclamation in Rome, the seat of the world's greatest empire at the time. It had been proclaimed in Jerusalem and rejected by the rulers of the Jews in the land, now it has been fully heralded among the Jews of the dispersion, and they, too, have rejected it wherever Paul has gone. The most signal sign of their apostasy is his imprisonment. It reveals the height of their obstinacy. Rome would free him. But his own nation loads with chains the one who would free them from the Roman yoke.

23 Paul must have had many precious meetings with his believing brethren. He must have made known to them those transcendent truths which he teaches in his Perfection Epistles. If the Acts were giving an account of his career or of his evangel, it stops short at the most important point. As a "history of the commencement of the Christian church" it is the most disappointing of all books, for the truths which distinguish the present economy, found in Ephesians, Philippians, and Colossians, were not made known until its close and are never referred to, much less taught. Those events in Paul's career which are of the utmost importance for present truth, from his sojourn in Arabia to the dispatch of Tychicus with the Perfection Epistles, are quite overlooked in this account. Paul's sojourn in Rome marks the beginning of that vast work of the Spirit of God which has continued down to the present time. Yet all we are told here is the disappointing meeting with the Jews! Instead of closing with a song of victory and sending the church on its triumphant way, he quotes Isaiah's doleful prophecy concerning the apostate nation, showing the failure of the kingdom proclamation and the reason why it should no longer be heralded. What stronger evidence is needed to show that the Acts is not concerned with the so-called "church"? It is no mere history of the apostolic times. It is concerned only with those events which chronicle the fortunes of the earthly kingdom. It deals with a transitional period when the church was still dependent on the favored nation and had a subordinate place in the reign of Messiah over the earth, as promised by the Hebrew prophets.

26 This marvelous prophecy has had a threefold fulfillment in Israel: when they rejected Jehovah ( Isa_6:9-10 ), when they rejected the Lord ( Mat_13:14-15 ), and, in this present instance, when they reject the testimony of the spirit, through His apostles. Israel, in part, has become calloused, until the fulness of the nations may be entering ( Rom_11:25 ).

Verses 29-31

29 Verse 29 is not in the three manuscripts on which this version is based.

31 This proclamation of the kingdom would include its present abeyance and future manifestation. "That which concerns our Lord Jesus Christ" is purposely vague, and is the only hint in the whole book of the greatest of all Paul's ministries, those mysteries or secrets which could not be revealed until the kingdom had been finally rejected. Paul's prison epistles were written during this period.

PAUL'S EPISTLES

Paul’s Epistles are for the present. All the rest of Scripture finds its interpretation and application either before or after the present secret administration. Paul alone gives the truth for the ecclesia which is the body of Christ. This is found nowhere outside of his writings.

Israel and the nations occupy all other parts of divine revelation. What is true of them in other eras and eons must not be mixed with the present truth or it will lead to confusion and error.

All Scripture is profitable, as a revelation of God's ways, but it must not be applied outside its proper place.

The main subject of the Greek Scriptures is the kingdom of Israel. It is refused in the four accounts of our Lord's ministry, it is again rejected In the treatise called Acts, It is reaffirmed in Hebrews, James, Peter, John, and Jude, and it is realized in the Unveiling. In Paul's epistles it is in abeyance.

It is God's purpose to bless the nations through Israel. But when Israel, the channel of blessing, fails, this becomes impossible. In Paul's epistles the nations are blessed during

Israel's defection . The sphere of blessing is changed from earth to heaven. Repentance and pardon are replaced by justification and reconciliation. Grace replaces mercy.

The scope of Paul's epistles, both in time and In space, far transcends all the rest of revelation. He is not confined to the earth, but includes the whole universe in God's grand climax of reconciliation ( Col_1:20 ). He is not confined to the eons, or ages, but reveals a purpose formed before they began, and not concluded until after their consummation. His range reaches from a time long anterior to the first of Genesis to a period long past the final vision of the Unveiling.

Paul's writings naturally fall into two divisions, his epistles to the ecclesias, and his personal letters to Timothy, Titus and Philemon. Paul wrote nine epistles to seven ecclesias.

They arrange themselves into three groups. The epistles in each group are very closely related,

the first epistle in each, Romans, Ephesians and 1 Thessalonians, setting forth the truth didactically, while the other epistles of the same group are explanatory and corrective. The best commentaries on Romans are Corinthians and Galatians; on Ephesians, Philippians and

Colossians; and Second Thessalonians supplements the first epistle.

The Thessalonian group we have called the Promise Epistles, because they deal with the expectation of our Lord's return. The Romans group we have named the Preparatory Epistles because they deal with the transitional era which prepared the saints for the final revelation found in the Ephesian group, which we therefore style the Perfection Epistles.

Each group is characterized by one of the abiding trinity of graces, faith, expectation and love ( 1Co_13:13 ). The following outline will serve to show the groups and the relation each epistle sustains to the others in its group.

PAUL’S EPISTLES

THE PREPARATORY EPISTLES

FAITH

ROMANS Justification

Conciliation

Deportment

I CORINTHIANS Deportment

II CORINTHIANS Conciliation

GALATIANS Justification

THE PERFECTION EPISTLES

LOVE

EPHESIANS Doctrine

PHILIPPIANS Deportment

COLOSSIANS Doctrine

THE PROMISSORY EPISTLES

EXPECTATION

I THESSALONIANS

II THESSALONIANS

THE PERSONAL LETTERS

I TIMOTHY

II TIMOTHY

TITUS

PHILEMON