Shipwreck

I’mstill writing about the Apostle Paul here on Sundays. He preached in the citiesof Ephesus, Corinth, Philippi, Thessalonica, Athens, Rome, Antioch, Iconium,Lystra, Jerusalem, and Damascus, and more. I’d love to write about theremarkable things that happened in each of these places, but you’ll just haveto pull out your Bible and, starting in Acts 13, read about all this yourself.

Duringmany of these visits, the leaders of the local Jewish churches accused Paul ofcausing trouble and spreading lies. He was run out of a lot of towns andarrested multiple times. At one point when he was in prison, he asked to go toRome to be tried. As a Roman citizen, he could appear before the Roman emperorto get a fair trial. This meant a long, long ship ride through theMediterranean Sea. 

Here'sthe story beginning in Acts 27, with Paul’s travel companion, Luke, narrating(and with me deleting a lot of it as the whole story gets pretty long).

7 We sailed slowly for several days andwith great difficulty finally arrived off the town of Cnidus. The wind wouldnot let us go any farther in that direction, so we sailed down the shelteredside of the island of Crete, passing by Cape Salmone. 8 We kept close to thecoast and with great difficulty came to a place called Safe Harbors, not farfrom the town of Lasea.

Paul told them, 10 “Men, I see that ourvoyage from here on will be dangerous; there will be great damage to the cargoand to the ship, and loss of life as well.”

 Butthose in charge ignored him.

13 A soft wind from the south began toblow, and the men thought that they could carry out their plan, so they pulledup the anchor and sailed as close as possible along the coast of Crete. 14 Butsoon a very strong wind—the one called “Northeaster”—blew down from the island.15 It hit the ship, and since it was impossible to keep the ship headed intothe wind, we gave up trying and let it be carried along by the wind.

         18 The violent storm continued, so on thenext day they began to throw some of the ship's cargo overboard, 19 and on thefollowing day they threw part of the ship's equipment overboard. 20 For manydays we could not see the sun or the stars, and the wind kept on blowing veryhard. We finally gave up all hope of being saved.

21 After everyone had gone a long timewithout food, Paul stood before them and said, “You should have listened to meand not have sailed from Crete; then we would have avoided all this damage andloss. 22 But now I beg you, take courage! Not one of you will lose your life;only the ship will be lost. 23 For last night an angel of the God to whom Ibelong and whom I worship came to me 24 and said, ‘Don't be afraid, Paul! Youmust stand before the Emperor. And God in his goodness to you has spared the livesof all those who are sailing with you.’ 25 So take courage, men! For I trust inGod that it will be just as I was told. 26 But we will be driven ashore on someisland.”

Thestorm continued for fourteen days.

33 Just before dawn, Paul begged them allto eat some food: “You have been waiting for fourteen days now, and all thistime you have not eaten a thing. 34 I beg you, then, eat some food; you need itin order to survive. Not even a hair of your heads will be lost.” 35 Aftersaying this, Paul took some bread, gave thanks to God before them all, brokeit, and began to eat. 36 They took courage, and every one of them also ate somefood. 37 There was a total of 276 of us on board. 38 After everyone had eatenenough, they lightened the ship by throwing all the wheat into the sea.

39 When day came, the sailors did notrecognize the coast, but they noticed a bay with a beach and decided that, ifpossible, they would run the ship aground there. Then they raised the sail atthe front of the ship so that the wind would blow the ship forward, and weheaded for shore. 41 But the ship hit a sandbank and went aground; the frontpart of the ship got stuck and could not move, while the back part was beingbroken to pieces by the violence of the waves.

42 The soldiers made a plan to kill allthe prisoners, in order to keep them from swimming ashore and escaping. 43 Butthe army officer wanted to save Paul, so he stopped them from doing this.Instead, he ordered everyone who could swim to jump overboard first and swimashore; 44 the rest were to follow, holding on to the planks or to some brokenpieces of the ship. And this was how we all got safely ashore.

Idon’t know. It sounds like the plot for a Hollywood block buster. It could havebeen Jack Dawson clinging to one of those planks, with Rose riding on top ofit. Or I hear the haunting tune of Gordon Lightfoot’s “The Wreck of the EdmundFitzgerald”, especially when I read about the men on Paul’s ship not eating forfourteen days.

Justlike the sinking of the Titanic and the Edmund Fitzgerald, Paul’s ship sank as well.But the crew and all the passengers survived! God had so much more planned for Hisservant Paul, and to prove that God is God over all, He saved everyone else onthat ship as well. 

(Of all the pictures I've taken on so many lakes, I didn't have any with a boat being tossed about. Probably a good thing. The photos above were both taken at Cave Point County Park in Door County in October of 2020. It was a brisk day.)