And on the third day they threw the ship's tackle overboard with their own hands. When neither sun nor stars appeared for many days, and no small tempest lay on us, all hope of our being saved was at last abandoned. We will walk through a telling of this story. It involves a shipwreck. It involves the telling of people who are saved from this storm. Luke gives us a lot of details. Thomas Walker says this, "There is no such detailed record of the working of an ancient ship in the whole of classic literature." What Luke does here, no one else has done. No one has ever in classical literature given us as many details about a ship's voyage as Luke does here in the 27th chapter of Acts. He has an entire chapter of what I could have written in two sentences...They left the port; they had a shipwreck and they landed on an island. Everyone was saved. That could have been the whole description. Now, get back to the mission. Let's get back to the gospel. Now, let's get back to what we are supposed to do, take the gospel to the ends of the earth. But Luke takes an entire chapter and fills it with details. Yet, he is not a sailor. Perhaps he is doing it wrong. Perhaps he doesn't know how to properly log a ship's trip. Maybe that is true. Or, maybe in the details he is trying to do something else. Maybe in the details of this story he is hinting at a bigger story. He is trying to hint at some things that have happened in the past that impact Paul's future and our future. As we read this chapter, there are a lot of details that we will think about and what all the details mean for us. We will walk with Paul who will give us a lot of actual life lessons, things we can do as Christians and leaders that can make a difference to those around us. Also, there are some bigger picture lessons on how we are to live our storm-tossed lives. Let's pick up this very detailed story. The ship's voyage starts in Jerusalem. They travel to several places. As we read these places in Luke's narrative, you can think about where Paul is, where the islands are. Anybody reading this, familiar with Paul's locations, could vividly see these places he visited. They are merely names to us. A map of the locations can help us navigate in our minds where this boat is going. Acts 27:1-3: And when it was decided that we should sail for Italy, they delivered Paul and some other prisoners to a centurion of the Augustan Cohort named Julius. And embarking in a ship of Adramyttium, which was about to sail to the ports along the coast of Asia, we put to sea, accompanied by Aristarchus, a Macedonian from Thessalonica. The next day we put in a Sidon. And Julius treated Paul kindly and gave him leave to go to his friends and be cared for. So, here is just a little detail in the text that I want to draw attention to. It says that Julius treated Paul kindly. That might not seem big to us but think about it for a moment. Julius treated Paul kindly. Who is Julius? He is the centurion in charge of all the prisoners. He is the boss of the prisoners. Yet, he is treating Paul, a prisoner, kindly. What does this tell us about Paul? Paul is a good prisoner. Paul is a prisoner somewhat like Joseph was a prisoner. Joseph was a man of integrity. He did the right things. He was a blessing to the other prisoners. He was a blessing to the guards. That was what Paul was doing. He was a blessing to those around him and he gained favor, even from those who were in charge of him. I can imagine that most centurion guards didn't befriend prisoners because they had to give them the stick to get them where they needed to go. But Paul is so endearing that this centurion shows him kindness. I think what we will see is that no matter where you are and no matter what circumstances you are in, if you love God and love your neighbor, it will help your influence in every situation. We will see this is absolutely true for Paul. Because Paul built a relationship with Julius and Julius favors him and shows him kindness, it helps the whole rest of the way. Notice that Julius lets Paul go to his friends who care for him. Paul was presumably a good friend because he had friends. His friends wanted to care for him. We see in the character of Paul that he does the right things in the right places. He is befriendin
