Whom should a believer trust more: people, circumstances as they take shape, what are usually called objective facts, or God? The question seems...
Whom should a believer trust more: people, circumstances as they take shape, what are usually called objective facts, or God? The question seems rhetorical. But is that always how things are in reality? Alas, this question too can be considered rhetorical.
Why is this so? Not least because for many Christians Christianity has become, and for some has always been, merely a religion, one like many others. If it is better than others, it is better only in the sense in which one religion can turn out to be closer or more suitable for a particular person than all the rest. In that case a person's relationship with God, even while remaining in the foreground for him, still does not become the reality that determines his life. Indeed, a person lives in an untransformed world, obeying its laws, and if he is a realist and not a hopeless romantic, he cannot fail to understand that even God will not recreate the world anew for his sake in order to make it more suitable for believers.
It is another matter with a person living in the Kingdom, a Christian in the original and genuine meaning of the word. For such a person the Kingdom becomes, if not the only reality, then the chief and defining one. Even taking into account that, not having yet reached the fullness of transformation, he still partly belongs to the untransformed order of things, such a person cannot fail to understand that his life is nevertheless determined entirely by the Kingdom, so much so that even if he were deprived of that part of life which belongs to the untransformed world, he would still not lose the main thing: the Kingdom and its life, which far surpasses the pitiful semblance of life that bears this name in the fallen world. Then reality also opens to him differently, not because it suddenly becomes radically different, but because he begins to see it in its entirety, not only that small part called reality by those who know only the untransformed world lying in evil.
Even the righteous of the pre-Christian era lived by a foretaste of the Kingdom: only it could give them the strength to walk the path of righteousness. And after the encounter on the Damascus road, Paul, of course, no longer had any doubts about the reality of the Kingdom, which had become the determining part of his own life. That is why he also sees the untransformed world with different eyes: with the eyes of an inhabitant of the Kingdom, where the promises given by God cannot fail to be fulfilled.
27
27:1 As soon as it was determined to sail - As being a shorter and less expensive passage to Rome.
27:2 Adramyttium - was a sea port of Mysia. Aristarchus and Luke went with Paul by choice, not being ashamed of his bonds.
27:3 Julius treating Paul courteously - Perhaps he had heard him make his defence.
27:4 We sailed under Cyprus - Leaving it on the left hand.
27:7 Cnidus - was a cape and city of Caria.
27:8 The Fair Havens still retain the name. But the city of Lasea is now utterly lost, together with many more of the hundred cities for which Crete was once so renowned.
27:9 The fast, or day of atonement, was kept on the tenth of Tisri, that is, the 25th of September. This was to them an ill time of sailing; not only because winter was approaching, but also because of the sudden storms, which are still common in the Mediterranean at that time of the year. Paul exhorted them - Not to leave Crete. Even in external things, faith exerts itself with the greatest presence of mind, and readiness of advice.
27:10 Saying to them - To the centurion and other officers.
27:11 The centurion regarded the master - And indeed it is a general rule, believe an artificer in his own art. Yet when there is the greatest need, a real Christian will often advise even better than him.
27:12 Which is a haven - Having a double opening, one to the southwest, the other to the northwest.
27:14 There arose against it - The south wind; a tempestuous wind, called in those parts Euroclydon. This was a kind of hurricane, not carrying them any one way, but tossing them backward and forward. These furious winds are now called levanters, and blow in all directions from the northeast to the southeast.
27:16 We were hardly able to get masters of the boat - To prevent its being staved.
27:18 They lightened the ship - Casting the heavy goods into the sea.
27:19 We cast out the tackling of the ship - Cutting away even those masts that were not absolutely necessary.
27:20 Neither sun nor stars appeared for many days - Which they could the less spare, before the compass was found out.
27:21 This loss - Which is before your eyes.
27:23 The God whose I am, and whom I serve - How short a compendium of religion! Yet how full! Comprehending both faith, hope, and love.
27:24 God hath given - Paul had prayed for them. And God gave him their lives; perhaps their souls also. And the centurion, subserving the providence of God, gave to Paul the lives of the prisoners. How wonderfully does his providence reign in the most contingent things! And rather will many bad men be preserved with a few good, (so it frequently happens,) than one good man perish with many bad. So it was in this ship: so it is in the world. Thee - At such a time as this, there was not the same danger, which might otherwise have been, of St. Paul's seeming to speak out of vanity, what he really spoke out of necessity.All the souls - Not only all the prisoners, as Julius afterward did, Act 27:43; ask for souls, they shall be given thee: yea, more than thou hopest for, that sail with thee - So that Paul, in the sight of God, was the master and pilot of the ship.