Acts 28:1-16

¹ After we were brought safely through, we then learned that the island was called Malta. ² The native people showed us unusual kindness, for they kindled a fire and welcomed us all, because it had begun to rain and was cold. ³ When Paul had gathered a bundle of sticks and put them on the fire, a viper came out because of the heat and fastened on his hand. ⁴ When the native people saw the creature hanging from his hand, they said to one another, “No doubt this man is a murderer. Though he has escaped from the sea, Justice has not allowed him to live.” ⁵ He, however, shook off the creature into the fire and suffered no harm. ⁶ They were waiting for him to swell up or suddenly fall down dead. But when they had waited a long time and saw no misfortune come to him, they changed their minds and said that he was a god. ⁷ Now in the neighborhood of that place were lands belonging to the chief man of the island, named Publius, who received us and entertained us hospitably for three days. ⁸ It happened that the father of Publius lay sick with fever and dysentery. And Paul visited him and prayed, and putting his hands on him healed him. ⁹ And when this had taken place, the rest of the people on the island who had diseases also came and were cured. ¹⁰ They also honored us greatly, and when we were about to sail, they put on board whatever we needed. ¹¹ After three months we set sail in a ship that had wintered in the island, a ship of Alexandria, with the twin gods as a figurehead. ¹² Putting in at Syracuse, we stayed there for three days. ¹³ And from there we made a circuit and arrived at Rhegium. And after one day a south wind sprang up, and on the second day we came to Puteoli. ¹⁴ There we found brothers and were invited to stay with them for seven days. And so we came to Rome. ¹⁵ And the brothers there, when they heard about us, came as far as the Forum of Appius and Three Taverns to meet us. On seeing them, Paul thanked God and took courage. ¹⁶ And when we came into Rome, Paul was allowed to stay by himself, with the soldier who guarded him.

I suppose one of the most humorous hospital visits I ever made was to an elderly man named Ike Chambless. I received a phone call that Mr. Ike was in the emergency room of a hospital in Albany, Georgia. He had been bitten by a baby rattlesnake in his front yard. He had been working in the yard and put his hand down in a hole to remove an obstruction and, when he pulled the hand out, a baby rattlesnake was hanging from his finger. That is not the funny part! In fact, it was terrifying!

I rushed over the emergency room and found Mr. Ike sitting up in his bed, his hand badly swollen but the IV doing its job as it helped the antivenom into his body. I relaxed when I saw that Mr. Ike was ok and that he was in good spirits. We talked and even laughed about it while we sat down cheering the medicine on in its task of combating the venom!

The funny part came some moments after I had been there when the doctor, who had apparently not seen him yet, came into the room. He asked Mr. Ike to tell the story of what had happened to him. Ike did so. When he was finished the doctor said, “Well, what did you do with the snake?” To which Ike responded, “Oh it’s right there behind you.” The doctor and I both turned and looked at the counter behind the doctor. There, laid out on top of a plastic grocery store bag, was the snake!

The doctor jerked backwards away from the counter and my heart lept into my throat! Mr. Ike chuckled and said, “Oh, don’t worry. It’s dead.” The doctor, composing himself said, “Let me get somebody to put this thing in a sealed container!”

It was a funny moment! Ike and I had a good laugh about it. I do not recall the poor doctor cracking a smile!

Paul had his own snake story, though it was much more important than Mr. Ike’s. Paul’s story demonstrated in a miraculous way the power of God (not, I should add, that Mr. Ike’s didn’t!). It stands as a most interesting little story demonstrating some wonderfully big truths in the midst of an amazing life!

The power of God working in Paul’s life confounded the pagan theology of the world and drew nonbelievers to Christ.

It happened on the island of Malta where Paul and the crew of the ship found themselves after their frightening ordeal at sea.

¹ After we were brought safely through, we then learned that the island was called Malta. ² The native people showed us unusual kindness, for they kindled a fire and welcomed us all, because it had begun to rain and was cold.

“The native people” referred to in verse 2 is a translation of the Greek word barbaroi which is sometimes translated as “barbarous people.” Our word “barbarian” is a transliteration of the word barbaroi. Jaroslav Pelikan points out that this is “a term that in modern English probably carries more pejorative connotations than it does in Greek, where it means, with relative neutrality, ‘non-Greek,’ as it does in other appearances in the New Testament.”[1] Thus, no slight is intended by the term. They were simply the island inhabitants, pagans, to be sure, but considering the kindness they showed the shipwrecked crew they were obviously a benevolent people. Even so, their spiritual blindness became evident in their reaction to something surprising that happened to Paul.

³ When Paul had gathered a bundle of sticks and put them on the fire, a viper came out because of the heat and fastened on his hand. ⁴ When the native people saw the creature hanging from his hand, they said to one another, “No doubt this man is a murderer. Though he has escaped from the sea, Justice has not allowed him to live.” ⁵ He, however, shook off the creature into the fire and suffered no harm. ⁶ They were waiting for him to swell up or suddenly fall down dead. But when they had waited a long time and saw no misfortune come to him, they changed their minds and said that he was a god.

Well, that is surprising indeed! Paul is bitten by a snake that he appears almost to casually shake off into the fire. A Snake being mistaken for wood is not unheard of. James Montgomery Boice has passed on a somewhat similar story from Lawrence of Arabia.

            T.E. Lawrence, better known as Lawrence of Arabia, described something like this in his book Revolt in the Desert about the desert campaign in the World War I. It was cold. The Arabs had gathered sticks for a fire. One of the sticks turned out to be a snake that was revived by the fire’s warmth and slithered away into the dark night, in this case without biting anybody.[2]

What was unique about the instance involving Paul on Malta is the fact that he was bitten then shook the snake off with no ill effects.

Ben Witherington notes that critics of this story point out that there is no record of there ever having been venomous snakes on the island of Malta. However, he points out that “it may…be the case that Luke has not used the term echidna with precision” and that, furthermore, “there is a snake, which has long been found on Malta, belonging to the species Coronella austriaca, which is a type of constrictor. This is thought to better fit the description of a snake fastening itself on Paul’s hand.” Furthermore, Witherington points out that “Pliny the Elder indicates it was a common belief, even among the educated, that all snakes were poisonous and that they were often agents of divine vengeance.”[3]

Regardless of the arguments of detractors, Luke has proven himself to be an accurate historian throughout Acts and his testimony should be sufficient enough proof: Paul was bitten. The bite led the inhabitants to conclude that Paul must be a murderer or some terrible criminal. They appear to have thought that Dike, the goddess of justice, was punishing Paul for some crime.[4] In reasoning thus, they demonstrated that they held to a belief in what we would call today “karma,” a belief in cause-and-effect justice that is hardwired into the universe itself. However, Paul shook the snake off with an indifferent shrug. As a result, the islanders swung to the other extreme and called Paul a god!

Such is the nature of pagan theology: it understands neither God nor man. It is deficient in both its theology and its anthropology. Paul’s example in the episode with the snake confounded their theology and shattered its categories. In fact, Paul was living proof that their simplistic understanding of justice did not have a category for that which makes gospel good news: grace. After all, Paul was a murderer, but he had been declared righteous by the righteousness of Christ that he received by grace through faith. He was no god, but he knew the God of the universe. Thus, the snake served as an illustration to the watching islanders that what they thought they knew about God (or, as they would have put it, the gods) and man was deeply deficient.

Then, God worked powerfully through Paul to draw people to Himself.

⁷ Now in the neighborhood of that place were lands belonging to the chief man of the island, named Publius, who received us and entertained us hospitably for three days. ⁸ It happened that the father of Publius lay sick with fever and dysentery. And Paul visited him and prayed, and putting his hands on him healed him. ⁹ And when this had taken place, the rest of the people on the island who had diseases also came and were cured. ¹⁰ They also honored us greatly, and when we were about to sail, they put on board whatever we needed.

Paul’s ministry on Malta consisted of a miraculous blocking of poisonous death on the one hand and miraculous healings on the other. His instrument for demonstrating His power in both cases was Paul, His missionary champion. He used Paul to heal the father of the power man on Malta, Publius. Then, He used Paul to heal the crowd that thronged to him.

We are provided a cursory sketch of these events. Luke does not permit us to hear Paul’s words on Malta. Regardless, we can be sure that Paul made much of Jesus, that he used all of these circumstances to promote the gospel. We can be sure of this because this is what Paul always did. God was creating missionary moments for Paul, both through the situation with the snake and through the healings of the sick.

It is evident, then, that Paul remained a mighty and powerful instrument in the hands of God. That makes what happened next that much more moving.

And the power of God working through the Church encouraged and strengthened Paul.

Having touched so many lives through Paul and his ministry, God now touched Paul’s life through the life and ministry of the Church. As Paul approached Rome, he suddenly found himself the object of the Church’s acceptance, love, mercy, and compassion.

¹¹ After three months we set sail in a ship that had wintered in the island, a ship of Alexandria, with the twin gods as a figurehead. ¹² Putting in at Syracuse, we stayed there for three days. ¹³ And from there we made a circuit and arrived at Rhegium. And after one day a south wind sprang up, and on the second day we came to Puteoli. ¹⁴ There we found brothers and were invited to stay with them for seven days. And so we came to Rome. ¹⁵ And the brothers there, when they heard about us, came as far as the Forum of Appius and Three Taverns to meet us. On seeing them, Paul thanked God and took courage. ¹⁶ And when we came into Rome, Paul was allowed to stay by himself, with the soldier who guarded him.

How very touching this is! “On seeing them, Paul thanked God and took courage.” T.C. Smith writes, “Paul, the man who had been comforting others on the voyage, was now comforted…The strongest Christian also needs the sympathy, compassion, help, care, and concern of others.”[5] That is so true and so well said!

Show me a great Christian, a brave Christian, a strong Christian, a champion of the gospel, a luminary in the Church, a man through whom God has done mighty works and through whom He has touched innumerable lives, and I will show you a man who still needs the encouragement of the Church, the love of the Church, the compassion and understanding of the Church.

Nobody…nobody…is beyond the need for encouragement. This is evident from Paul’s reaction to seeing these believers come to meet him as he begins to approach Rome. It also demonstrates that we need to be sensitive to those around us, especially those we consider to be strong and boundless sources of energy. We must begin to understand that our fellow believers are a mission field for the ministry of encouragement. It is a great gift that we can give to one another.

Will Willimon put it beautifully when he said this:

In a narrative filled with accounts of power, miraculous deliverance, and divine intervention, this is perhaps the greatest power the Christian faith puts at the disciple’s disposal – the power of brothers and sisters in the church. In struggles with injustice, cruelty, and life’s difficulties, one of the church’s greatest gifts to us is the church. If Luke seems preoccupied with the church, it is perhaps because Luke knows that the church has become the content of the gospel proclamation. Jesus came preaching, not simply a new philosophy of life but a new way of living…The Acts question is not merely the intellectual one of “Do you agree?” but the political and social question, “Will you join up?”[6]

Yes, the Church, when it is the Church, represents a new life and a new way of doing life together. The Church’s movement toward Paul was a movement of affirmation not only of how the gospel had taken root in Paul’s life in such powerful and dramatic ways but also of how the gospel had likewise taken root in the life of the Roman church.

Our text is therefore a powerful and memorable display of how God worked through Paul to touch the lives of numerous people and then of how God worked through numerous people to touch the life of Paul.

God longs to work powerful through us as well: through us to the outside world and through us to our fellow Christian as well.

Be the instrument that God intends for you to be.

 

[1] Jaroslav Pelikan, Acts. Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible. (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2005), p.290.

[2] James Montgomery Boice, Acts. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1997), p.418.

[3] Ben Witherington III, The Acts of the Apostles: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary. (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1998), p.777-778.

[4] T.C. Smith, “Acts.” The Broadman Bible Commentary. Vol.10. Clifton J. Allen, gen. ed. (Nashville, TN: Broadman Press, 1970), p.149.

[5] T.C. Smith, p.150.

[6] William H. Willimon, Acts. Interpretation. (Louisville, KY: John Knox Press, 1988), p.186-187.