Acts 27
Paul sails for Italy under guard in late sailing season; a two-week hurricane drives the ship across the Adriatic; it runs aground on an unknown island and breaks apart, but all 276 people aboard survive.
Summary
When it is decided that they are to sail for Italy, Paul and some other prisoners are handed over to a centurion named Julius of the Augustan Cohort. They sail in a ship from Adramyttium and find an Alexandrian ship bound for Italy at Myra. The winds are unfavourable; they sail with difficulty to Fair Havens on Crete. Paul advises them that the voyage will be disastrous, but the centurion follows the advice of the pilot and owner rather than Paul. Since the harbour is unsuitable for wintering, they decide to sail on and try to reach Phoenix on Crete. A moderate south wind tempts them to press on, but a violent northeastern wind, Euroclydon, strikes the ship. Unable to face the wind, they give way and are driven along. The crew jettisons cargo and then the ship's tackle. When neither sun nor stars appear for many days and the storm rages, all hope of survival is abandoned. Paul stands among them: men, you should have listened to me and not sailed from Crete and incurred this injury and loss. I urge you now to take heart, for there will be no loss of life among you, but only of the ship. Last night an angel of the God to whom I belong and whom I worship stood before me and said: do not be afraid, Paul; you must stand before Caesar; and behold, God has granted you all those who sail with you. Take heart, men, for I have faith in God that it will be exactly as I have been told.
After fourteen nights drifting across the Adriatic, the sailors sense they are approaching land. They take soundings and find twenty fathoms, then fifteen, and fearing they will run on rocks, they drop four anchors from the stern and pray for day. The sailors plan to escape from the ship on the pretext of laying anchors from the bow. Paul says to the centurion and soldiers: unless these men stay in the ship, you cannot be saved. The soldiers cut away the ropes of the ship's boat and let it fall. As day comes, Paul urges all to eat: today is the fourteenth day that you have been waiting and going without food. Not a hair will perish from the head of any of you. He takes bread, gives thanks before all, breaks it, and begins to eat. They are all encouraged and eat. There are 276 persons in the ship. They lighten the ship by throwing the wheat into the sea. When day comes, they see a bay with a beach and decide to run the ship ashore there. Striking a shoal, the bow sticks fast; the stern is broken up by the surf. The soldiers plan to kill the prisoners lest any escape. The centurion, wishing to save Paul, prevents this and orders all who can swim to jump first and make for land; the rest to follow on planks or pieces of the ship. So it is that all escape safely to land.
- Acts 1Chapter 1 is a prologue and a hinge.
- Acts 2Pentecost is the structural and theological engine of the whole book.
- Acts 3Chapter 3 is the first miracle narrative in Acts, and its structure follows a pattern the book will repeat: the sign, the crowd, the sermon, and the opposition (which comes in chapter 4).
- Acts 4Chapter 4 is the first formal opposition scene in Acts, and it establishes a pattern: arrest, interrogation, the apostles' refusal, release, prayer, and the Spirit's confirmation.
- Acts 5Chapter 5 is one of the most dramatically concentrated in the book.
- Acts 6Chapter 6 is transitional but efficient.
- Acts 7Chapter 7 is the theological and dramatic climax of the Jerusalem section.
- Acts 8Chapter 8 is the first chapter of the middle section — Judea and Samaria — and it works by juxtaposition.
- Acts 9Chapter 9 contains the first telling of Paul's conversion (the other two are in chapters 22 and 26), and it is worth reading all three consecutively to see how Luke shapes each one for its audience.
- Acts 10Chapter 10 is the structural pivot of the first half of Acts and one of the most carefully constructed chapters in the New Testament.
- Acts 11Chapter 11 has two movements.
- Acts 12Chapter 12 is the last major Peter chapter in Acts, and it works as a deliberate counterpoint to the Herod material.
- Acts 13Chapter 13 is the beginning of the long Pauline section, and it opens with a scene worth pausing over: the Spirit speaks during a worship service in Antioch — while they are worshipping and fasting — and sets Barnabas and Saul apart for a specific but unnamed work.
- Acts 14Chapter 14 completes the first missionary journey and its most memorable episode is the Lystra scene (verses 8-20).
- Acts 15Chapter 15 is the structural centre of Acts and one of the most important chapters in the New Testament.
- Acts 16Chapter 16 is one of the richest in Acts.
- Acts 17Chapter 17 covers three cities and demonstrates the range of Paul's rhetorical repertoire.
- Acts 18Chapter 18 is relatively measured in tone after the drama of chapter 17.
- Acts 19Chapter 19 is the longest account of Paul's settled ministry in any city and falls into two parts.
- Acts 20Chapter 20 is the most elegiac in Acts.
- Acts 21Chapter 21 is the beginning of the long arrest sequence that occupies the rest of the book.
- Acts 22Chapter 22 is the second telling of Paul's conversion (the first is in chapter 9, the third in chapter 26).
- Acts 23Chapter 23 is structurally a thriller: the Sanhedrin hearing (verses 1-10), the night vision in the barracks (verse 11), the assassination plot (verses 12-22), and the extraordinary military escort to Caesarea (verses 23-35).
- Acts 24Chapter 24 is the first of three formal hearings in Acts — before Felix (24), before Festus (25), and before Agrippa (26) — and it establishes the pattern the others follow: Jewish accusation, Paul's defence, Roman incomprehension of the internal religious question, and a procedurally inconclusive result.
- Acts 25Chapter 25 is a pivot chapter.
- Acts 26Chapter 26 is the third and final telling of Paul's conversion (compare chapters 9 and 22) and the most rhetorically elaborate.
- Acts 27Chapter 27 is one of the most detailed sea narratives in ancient literature and is written in the first person plural (the we-passage resumes at verse 1), which gives it its immediacy.
- Acts 28Chapter 28 is the ending the book has been building toward, and it rewards slow reading.