The Acts of the Apostles
Chapter 27
Vs.1- 26
It came time for Paul to go to Italy, the city of Rome where King Caesar was.
They went by ship. Other prisoners were on the ship, too.
They stopped at places on the coast as they went. When they came to Sidon, the man in charge of the prisoners let Paul go on land to visit with some people there that Paul knew.
Then they got back on the ship. The winds were very strong. Remember their ships in those days were all sail ships. So the wind was important to give attention to.
The wind was so strong that it was hard for them to stay on the path they wanted to go.
Finally, they came into land at one place. The man in charge of the prisoners, found another ship to go on.
But the winds were so strong that the ship could hardly go forward. It kept close to the land and stopped in different places. They were losing much time and still had a long way to go to get to Italy.
But the winds were so bad it did not look like they were going to make it to Italy before winter storms began in that area. The ships would not sail for awhile then.
Paul felt that they should not sail any more. It seems that Paul felt a warning from the Lord that bad things were going to happen.
Paul told the man in charge of the prisoners that he felt the ship could be wrecked and maybe people would die.
But the man in charge of the prisoners talked with the captain of the ship. He decided to listen to the captain. The captain wanted to go on up the coast of the island of Crete.
The place where they had stopped was not a good place to stay for the winter. So the ship went on trying to get further up the coast of Crete. Then they would stay there for the winter.
So the ship started out. They tried to stay close to land. But a very strong wind came up like a hurricane and blew them out to sea. They tried to get back to land, but the wind was too strong. They finally had to let the wind blow them as it would.
The ship finally sailed near a small island and they tried to get behind it for protection. The storm kept on for days. The men began throwing out boxes of things the ship was carrying. The were trying to make the ship lighter so it would not sink.
After days Paul told the leaders You should have listened to me and stayed where we were. He told them an angel spoke to me last night. The angel told me that the ship will be lost. But no one will die.
Then Paul said “I believe God. It will be just as he said.” What a wonderful verse to remember. God will do what he said. Do you believe that? God will do what he said.
Vs. 27-44
The storm had been going for about 14 days. The men thought they were getting near land. They were afraid the bottom of the ship would hit rocks and would break apart.
They threw out 4 anchors. In the morning, some of the sailors let down small boats. They planned to escape. But Paul told them everyone needs to stay on the ship if they want to stay alive. So the men stayed on the ship.
Paul encouraged all of them to eat. No one has eaten for several days because everyone has been worried. There were 276 people. They ate. After everyone ate, the sailors threw more of the wheat and boxes over into the sea.
The men cut the ropes to the anchors and let the ship go where it would. They hoped to get closer to land. The bottom of the ship hit something and it broke the ship apart.
The soldiers wanted to kill the prisoners so they would not get away, but the man in charge of the prisoners wanted to save Paul so he said NO. He told everyone to get off the ship. If they could swim to go ahead and for others to hold onto a board or whatever they could to float and hope to get to land.
Everyone made it to land safely.