Shipwreck

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

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

Here's the 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 and with great difficulty finally arrived off the town of Cnidus. The wind would not let us go any farther in that direction, so we sailed down the sheltered side of the island of Crete, passing by Cape Salmone. 8 We kept close to the coast and with great difficulty came to a place called Safe Harbors, not far from the town of Lasea.

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

 But those in charge ignored him.

13 A soft wind from the south began to blow, and the men thought that they could carry out their plan, so they pulled up the anchor and sailed as close as possible along the coast of Crete. 14 But soon 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 into the wind, we gave up trying and let it be carried along by the wind.

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

21 After everyone had gone a long time without food, Paul stood before them and said, “You should have listened to me and not have sailed from Crete; then we would have avoided all this damage and loss. 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 I belong and whom I worship came to me 24 and said, ‘Don't be afraid, Paul! You must stand before the Emperor. And God in his goodness to you has spared the lives of all those who are sailing with you.’ 25 So take courage, men! For I trust in God that it will be just as I was told. 26 But we will be driven ashore on some island.”

The storm continued for fourteen days.

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

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

42 The soldiers made a plan to kill all the prisoners, in order to keep them from swimming ashore and escaping. 43 But the 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 swim ashore; 44 the rest were to follow, holding on to the planks or to some broken pieces of the ship. And this was how we all got safely ashore.

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

Just like 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 His servant Paul, and to prove that God is God over all, He saved everyone else on that 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.)