Scripture: Acts 28:1-8: This passage is included in the category of Healing and Deliverance because Paul got a sustained healing, a divine inoculation (of sorts).
God’s plan was not accomplished in Paul’s ministry. He had to get to Rome. He was also about to perform healing miracles on the island of Malta.
The translations are mine, but if you would like to see many other translations, please go to biblegateway.com. I include the Greek text to bring out the nuances, but readers may ignore the left column, if they wish.
Let’s begin with v. 3.
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Paul Is Bitten by a Viper and Survives (Acts 28:1-6) |
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| 1 Καὶ διασωθέντες τότε ἐπέγνωμεν ὅτι Μελίτη ἡ νῆσος καλεῖται. 2 οἵ τε βάρβαροι παρεῖχον οὐ τὴν τυχοῦσαν φιλανθρωπίαν ἡμῖν, ἅψαντες γὰρ πυρὰν προσελάβοντο πάντας ἡμᾶς διὰ τὸν ὑετὸν τὸν ἐφεστῶτα καὶ διὰ τὸ ψῦχος. 3 Συστρέψαντος δὲ τοῦ Παύλου φρυγάνων τι πλῆθος καὶ ἐπιθέντος ἐπὶ τὴν πυράν, ἔχιδνα ἀπὸ τῆς θέρμης ἐξελθοῦσα καθῆψεν τῆς χειρὸς αὐτοῦ. 4 ὡς δὲ εἶδον οἱ βάρβαροι κρεμάμενον τὸ θηρίον ἐκ τῆς χειρὸς αὐτοῦ, πρὸς ἀλλήλους ἔλεγον· πάντως φονεύς ἐστιν ὁ ἄνθρωπος οὗτος ὃν διασωθέντα ἐκ τῆς θαλάσσης ἡ δίκη ζῆν οὐκ εἴασεν. 5 ὁ μὲν οὖν ἀποτινάξας τὸ θηρίον εἰς τὸ πῦρ ἔπαθεν οὐδὲν κακόν, 6 οἱ δὲ προσεδόκων αὐτὸν μέλλειν πίμπρασθαι ἢ καταπίπτειν ἄφνω νεκρόν. ἐπὶ πολὺ δὲ αὐτῶν προσδοκώντων καὶ θεωρούντων μηδὲν ἄτοπον εἰς αὐτὸν γινόμενον μεταβαλόμενοι ἔλεγον αὐτὸν εἶναι θεόν. | 1 After we made it safely through, we found out that the island was called Malta. 2 The natives provided no ordinary kindness to us: They lit a bonfire and welcomed every one of us because the rain was falling and the cold. 3 After Paul gathering a bundle of brushwood, and while he placed it on the fire, a viper was driven out from the heat and fastened on his hand. 4 When the natives saw the creature dangling from his hand, they said to each other, “Clearly this man is a murderer! Though he was saved from the sea, Justice has not allowed him to live!” 5 But he shook the creature off into the fire and suffered no harm. 6 They were expecting him to swell up shortly or suddenly to fall over dead. They were waiting a long time and observed nothing unusual happen to him. They changed their minds and began to say he was a god. |
Comments:
“saved from”: this again comes from the one verb is diasōzō (pronounced dee-ah-soh-zoh and used 8 times), and the prefix means “through.” Here are the occurrences: Mark 14:36; Luke 7:3; Acts 23:24; 27:43-44; 28:1, 4; 2; 1 Pet. 3:20. Often to be rescued through and up to the very end, like Paul’s ship landing on Malta after going through the storm. They were saying Paul was saved through the storm or rescued through the storm.
Justice is personified as a goddess. It is best to drop lightminded theology that says whenever bad things happen to you, God did that. Luke explains why the snake crawled out of the brush—the heat. God did not cause the snake to bite Paul, for it was following its “snaky nature.” God gave us enough sense to know what to do about it.
“shook … off”: it comes from the Greek verb apotinassō (pronounced ah-poh-tee-nahs-soh), which combines apo– (off or away or from) and tinassō (shake or brandish, as in a sword). It is used only here and in Luke 9:5 in the NT.
“waiting … observing”: “waiting” is the same verb translated as “expecting” in the same verse. It is definitely a mental activity. The whole point is that they were waiting and watching him, expecting him to swell up or drop over dead. But nothing out of place or unusual (atopos in Greek) happened to him.
“changed their minds”: this phrase comes from the one verb metaballō (pronounced meh-tah-bahl-loh), and the word mind is implied. (We get our word metabolism from it.) The prefix meta– implies a movement from one state or condition to another one, like expecting one thing, but getting another thing, so you adjust your belief. Here, they switched rapidly, from falsely concluding that Paul was a murderer to a false conclusion that he was a god. Our beliefs can get wacky because our minds can get confused. We have to work extra-hard to ensure that our beliefs stay on the right path, and the best way to do that is to get into Scripture, daily. It can build and renew our minds (Rom. 12:2).
Application for Ministry Today
I believe we can learn how to minister as the apostles did, because of the nine gifts of the Spirit are available to all believers (1 Cor. 12:4-11). Three gifts are discernings of spirits, the workings of miracles (which happened here) and gifts of healings, as the Spirit distributes them. All Bible-based leaders should pray for and welcome these gifts and the seven others in that passage, when people needs healings and deliverances. Let me number my points in this section for clarity and order.
1.. Paul was gathering brushwood (or sticks). This shows he was not afraid to do menial labor. Good lesson for all of us.
2.. Normally, I don’t like to symbolize or spiritualize real things in a nonpoetic, nonsymbolic section of Scripture, but I’ll go it for this time, as I did for the storm in Acts 27 (can be seen as the storms of life). When you are under attack from a snake of a spiritual kind (a spirit being called Satan or a demon), just shake it off. You can do that through Scripture in Jesus’s name. He quoted from Deuteronomy in this temptation struggle against Satan (Matt. 4:1-11; Luke 4:1-13; cf. Mark 1:12-13). If he quoted from Scripture, then so should we. He showed us the way. Why do we over-intellectualize things? Let’s follow him, instead.
3.. You can quote Eph. 6:16, which says to put up the shield of faith that quenches the fiery arrows of the enemy. You don’t need to spend half your mental life each day rebuking Satan. Just get the Word in you. Just pray, “Lord, according to Eph. 6:16, I raise up a shield of faith over my mind to quench the fiery darts of the enemy.” I do that almost every day. And it works. The attacks are less frequent and very minimal—no longer powerful at all now!
4.. As for Paul’s remarkable and miraculous resistance to the poison, let’s remember that he prayed in the Spirit often—his prayer language, formerly and archaically called “tongues” (1 Cor. 14:18). We should have no doubt that he was exercising this gift a lot, especially right after the snake bite. No, he was not shouting in his prayer language, just as someone without this gift would not shout his prayers in his known, native language. He was praying under his breath—or so I like to believe. Luke assumes that we would read his charismatic Acts from this perspective.
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