Not all at sea
I love phoning friends and discovering what they are reading in the Bible. It's like stubbing your toe on a previously unseen gemstone in your backyard, and even if the rest of your day is wasted nursing a sore foot, you feel like you've come out ahead.
The other day I phoned Mike Wirth to talk about our daughter's baptism, and we ended up in the deep waters of Acts 27 and 28. Here Luke spends an extraordinary 60 verses describing Paul's epic journey to Rome which involved shipwreck, fearful foreign sailors, an attack by a viper in Malta, and other great adventures. But why? Why spend so much time recounting a trip which could have been covered in a sentence—something like “Paul was taken to Rome, and despite shipwreck and attacks from a vindow viper, arrived in good health to preach the gospel”?
Mike, having spent time thinking about the Old Testament and some other ancient near-eastern documents, mentioned how the sea was traditionally a place of chaos and fear (the place, for example, where monsters dwell— see Psalm 74:13 and Isaiah 27:1). For God to exercise supreme control over such a situation when the pagan sailors, trusting in their own gods, had sunk into the depths of helpless despair makes their rescue all the more glorious. The more Luke tells us of the sheer terror of the storm (hence the meticulous detail), the more God's greatness in salvation is revealed.
Related to this, Mike also pointed out something that even the normally excellent English Standard Version of the Bible doesn't quite succeed in conveying: how frequently the words ‘saved’, ‘salvation’ and other related words occur in Luke's account in the original Greek in reference to rescue from the storm and shipwreck. Not only had the sailors given up all hope of being “saved” from this storm—not only had Paul told them how to be “saved” (Acts 27:20; Acts 27:31—the ESV gets these right, along with “safely” in 27:44 and 28:1)—but the sailors are also told to eat, “for this is for your safety” (American Standard Version of Acts 27:34, which uses the same Greek ‘salvation’ word), and in 28:4, Paul has been “saved” from the sea. The point is that Paul's entire seaborne adventure speaks of God's power to save his chosen messenger of the gospel to the Gentiles in the face of the chaos of creation.
I wondered too about another well-known storm at sea involving one of God's Old Testament messengers. This man—Jonah—was also saved by God from a storm at sea for the express purpose of bringing the message of judgement and salvation to people outside Israel. God, unchanging in his grace, wants all people everywhere to hear the news of salvation.
This last comparison isn't made by Luke in Acts 27-28 so it may be pushing it. I'm not even going to mention Noah's flood or the Egyptians being drowned in the deluge of the waters of the Red Sea; I don't want to blame Mike for my flights of join-the-dots fancy. But one thing is sure: the Old and New Testament God will not let even the wildness of a fallen creation stand in the way of the good news of the kingdom of God. Paul makes it to Rome and announces there that “this salvation [yes—again the same Greek word!] of God has been sent to the Gentiles; they will listen” (Acts 28:28). Let's be sure we do.