The journey to Rome proved difficult for Paul and his companions. Sailing along the Mediterranean coast was never easy, especially in winter. In a crisis, the intuition of someone who senses the breath of the Kingdom with their whole being...
The journey to Rome proved difficult for Paul and his companions. Sailing along the Mediterranean coast was never easy, especially in winter. In a crisis, the intuition of someone who senses the breath of the Kingdom with their whole being often diverges from human experience and common sense. Experience and common sense suggest one thing, intuition another, sometimes its direct opposite. This is what happened on that voyage: Paul's advice often contradicted the advice of experienced sailors. And the apostle usually proved right.
Does this mean that someone living a full spiritual life, the life of the Kingdom, knows even what they have never studied or done? Of course not. Paul does not pretend to be a sailor. He does not undertake work about which he understands little or nothing. But neither does he disregard his intuition. He knows that if God reveals something to him, he must share that revelation with others and bear witness to it.
In the end, Paul's advice does indeed help everyone survive and escape death where it seemed almost impossible to do so. But it is not only that intuition linked to revelation enables Paul to understand how to act in situations where conclusions based on logic and common sense do not work. There is also the inner certainty that one's actions are right, without which a person is powerless. Here, intuition grounded in revelation truly stands beyond comparison with logic, experience, and common sense. Logic cannot always give an unambiguous answer, and experience and common sense often prove powerless in a crisis.
More precisely, it is the person relying on them who becomes inwardly powerless. Intuition grounded in revelation, however, proves a thoroughly reliable support. Of course, it is not directly linked to logic or experience: Paul would hardly have been able to explain, for example, his advice against sailing with an apparently favorable wind. But he knew with complete certainty that they should not sail. This certainty proved entirely justified, though he could not explain to experienced sailors why they should not put to sea with a following wind.
Yet when the storm broke and all their experience proved useless, the apostle's confidence in his actions, based on that same intuition, effectively put him in command. It was he who gave the crew and passengers the instructions that ultimately helped everyone survive. There is nothing surprising in this: Paul knows that God is leading him to Rome. Therefore, He will not let him perish on the way. Paul's companions, too, can thus be relatively calm: they are not in danger of vanishing without a trace at sea.
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.