Paul on the Storm-Tossed Ship with Roman Soldiersby IpswichSDA
27:15Acts 27:15
And when the ship was caught, and could not bear up into the wind, we let her drive.
The verse belongs to an age when travel was especially perilous, when sailors steered largely by the sun and stars and storms could make safe navigation nearly impossible. It belongs to Paul's long, difficult voyage to Italy as a prisoner, a voyage marked by hardship, on which Luke and Aristarchus accompanied him, with Aristarchus sharing his imprisonment by choice so he could care for him. The ship's plight resulted from rejecting Paul's counsel to winter at Fair Havens, for the majority judged to try to reach Phenice and the centurion followed them, so they left Fair Havens on a softly blowing south wind hoping soon to reach that harbor.
A violent, tempestuous wind seized the ship so it could not be sailed or turned into the wind, and the sailors gave up trying to steer into it and let the vessel drift with the storm. The storm caught the ship so suddenly and violently that the sailors could not steer it into the wind or prepare to resist, and they had to leave it to the tempest to drift.
The sea journey served God's purpose, in that the ship's crew witnessed God's power through Paul, and people who heard his teaching or saw his miracles could come to know Jesus.
The verse belongs to an age when travel was especially perilous, when sailors steered largely by the sun and stars and storms could make safe navigation nearly impossible. It belongs to Paul's long, difficult voyage to Italy as a prisoner, a voyage marked by hardship, on which Luke and Aristarchus accompanied him, with Aristarchus sharing his imprisonment by choice so he could care for him. The ship's plight resulted from rejecting Paul's counsel to winter at Fair Havens, for the majority judged to try to reach Phenice and the centurion followed them, so they left Fair Havens on a softly blowing south wind hoping soon to reach that harbor.
A violent, tempestuous wind seized the ship so it could not be sailed or turned into the wind, and the sailors gave up trying to steer into it and let the vessel drift with the storm. The storm caught the ship so suddenly and violently that the sailors could not steer it into the wind or prepare to resist, and they had to leave it to the tempest to drift.
The sea journey served God's purpose, in that the ship's crew witnessed God's power through Paul, and people who heard his teaching or saw his miracles could come to know Jesus.