Bible Study series: Acts 27:1-12. Paul, Luke (author of Acts), and Aristarchus (a Christian from Thessalonica of Macedonia) set sail from Caesarea, under guard. The centurion was Julius of the Augusta cohort. None of them clearly foresaw the near-fatal journey to reach the goal (but see v. 10, below). Time to trust God!

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Acts 27

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Let’s begin.

Scripture: Acts 27:1-12

¹ When it was decided that we should sail for Italy, they handed Paul and some other prisoners, to the centurion name Julius of the Augusta cohort. ² After embarking on the ship from Adramyttium that was about to sail for the coastal places along Asia, we sailed off. Aristarchus the Macedonian of Thessalonica was with us. ³ The next day we landed at Sidon, and Julius treated Paul kindly and permitted him to go to his friends to receive care. ⁴ From there we left and sailed under the shelter of Cyprus because the wind was contrary. ⁵ We sailed on the open sea along Cilicia and Pamphylia and landed at Myra in Lycia.

⁶ There the centurion found a ship from Alexandria sailing to Italy. He put us on board. ⁷ For several days we were sailing slowly and with difficulty arrived off Cnidus. The wind did not allow us to go father. We sailed under the shelter of Crete, off Salmone. ⁸ With great difficulty we sailed alongside it and came to a place called Fair Havens, which is near the town of Lasea.

⁹ A lot of time elapsed, and the voyage was now dangerous because the fast was already broken. Paul began to urge and ¹⁰ say to them, “Men! I perceive the voyage is about to be in damage and great loss, not only of the cargo and the ship, but also of our lives!” ¹¹ But the centurion listened to the pilot and the shipowner rather than to what was said by Paul. ¹² Since the harbor was not suitable for wintering, the majority intended to set sail from there, and if possible, to land at Phoenix and winter there, for this was the harbor on Crete facing the southwest and northwest. (Acts 27:1-12)

Comments:

Readers are encouraged to get a online google Bible map, to find all these geographical features and names. By now there may even be an interactive map. Go for it and find it!

1:

Recall that Paul’s trial was in Caesarea on the Mediterranean, on Israel’s coast.

“we”: this pronoun picks up again when it had been broken off at 21:18. Bruce speculates that Luke volunteered to be the ship’s doctor, and Andronicus was a fare-paying passenger. This sounds reasonable to me.

“they”: the subject is not stated, but the context says it has to be his Roman guards who were not going to travel to Rome.

Julius will turn out to be a kind centurion. Luke likes the military (e.g. Luke 7:3; Acts 10). Could it be that Julius joined the Christian community in Rome? We will never know for sure, but he certainly favored Paul throughout this chapter in Acts and the next one.

2-3:

Aristarchus was a good, firm, stable believer. See Acts 19:29; 20:4; Col. 4:10; Phm. 24 for further study of his life. In Col. 4:10, he was Paul’s fellow-prisoner. Now that’s loyalty!

“kindly”: we get our word philanthropy from it. It means someone who loves humanity.  See Acts 28:2.

There was a Christian community in Sidon, about 70 miles north of Caesarea, their starting point.

4-5:

They stayed close to the shoreline of Asia Minor (Modern Turkey). Traveling under the shelter of the island of Cyprus means they were on the lee side or going east and north of the island. In the summer the wind from the Levant was westerly and northwesterly.

6-8:

These are islands, and the pilot (today we would say captain) was sailing under the protection of these islands to avoid contrary winds. Crete is a giant island relative to the other ones. Alexandria is in Egypt, and this land fed Rome with grain. It turns out this is a grain ship (v. 38). But these locations and historical facts can be looked up online.

The word difficulty, used three times in this chapter (vv. 7, 8, 16), should signal us the readers that trouble is ahead.

9:

The fast was commanded on the Day of Atonement, which was about October 5 in 59 A.D. For sailing, Luke is saying that the timing is getting late.

In this storm, Jesus calmed it:

²² And so it happened during one of the days, he got into a boat, and his disciples too, and he said to them, “Let’s go across to the opposite side of the lake.” And they set sail. ²³ While they were sailing, he fell asleep. And a fierce burst of wind came down on the lake, and they were being swamped and were in danger. ²⁴ They approached him and woke him up, saying, “Master, Master! We are dying!” He woke up and rebuked the wind and rough water, and they stopped, and it became calm. ²⁵ He said to them, “Where is your faith?” They were afraid and stunned, saying to each other, “Who then is this man that commands the winds and water, and they obey him?” (Luke 8:22-25)

And in this storm, Jesus walked on water, yet he did not calm the storm. The boat got to the other wide more quickly than usual, as if miraculously.

¹⁶ When evening came, his disciples went down to the lake, ¹⁷ and getting in a boat, they were trying to cross the lake to Capernaum. It had already become dark, and Jesus had not yet come for them. ¹⁸ The lake was stirred up because a strong wind was blowing. ¹⁹ When they had gone twenty or thirty stadia, they saw Jesus walking on the lake, and when he got close to the boat, they were afraid. ²⁰ But he said to them, “It is I! Do not fear!” ²¹ Then they wanted to take him into the boat, and immediately the boat was on the shore where they were going. (John 6:16-21)

Paul’s storm was standard for us humans. It was severe, God did not calm it, and the ship did not reach land extraordinarily quick.

10:

Yes, Paul was an experienced traveler by sea, but there seems to be something prophetic in the word perceive, which comes from the Greek theōreō (pronounced theh-oh-reh-oh). It can be translated as “see,” but it is related to our word theory, which means a deeper look. Paul is putting two and two together and can spot trouble ahead, but his insight also came from God. Renewalists believe that God can give wisdom beyond human ability to figure things out (1 Cor. 12:8; Jas. 3:17).

Paul prayed in the Spirit often—his prayer language, formerly and archaically called “tongues”  (1 Cor. 14:18). We should have no doubt he was exercising this gift a lot—a storm was about to hit! And we should have no doubt that Luke was a charismatic believer, since his two volumes were charismatic, particularly Acts. Aristarchus hung out with Paul, so he used his prayer language too—or it is impossible that a man who spent time with Paul would not have his prayer language and use it.

11-12:

The pilot and shipowner were unable to spot the danger, while Paul could. The centurion was caught in the middle, between the much more experienced (a) shipowner and pilot and (b) the less experienced Paul. The centurion may have treated Paul kindly, but his mind told him to listen to the voices of experience. It is tough when you have insight, but no one listens. Are you willing to trust God that he will see you through to your goal, despite resistance and foolishness from others?

Paul had experienced a shipwreck before: “three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea” (2 Cor. 11:25b. NIV).

GrowApp for Acts 27:1-12

A.. Paul and his team are on their way to their goal. You too are on your journey. What is your goal? Have you ever reached interim goals? How did this success motivate you to reach another one?

RELATED

The Historical Reliability of the Book of Acts

Book of Acts and Paul’s Epistles: Match Made in Heaven?

SOURCES

For the bibliography, please click on this link and scroll down to the very bottom:

Acts 27