There are those who wonder why Acts ends so abruptly. I dealt with it briefly at the beginning of this series. There is every reason to believe that Luke wrote both his Gospel and Acts as a kind of court brief for Paul’s defense before Caesar. Theophilus appears to have been a Christian in a official capacity in Roman government who Luke hoped would help Paul with his defense. If Acts ends abruptly and does not detail the trial or any part of the years following, up to and including Paul’s death by Roman execution around AD 64, it might be because the finished product had already been given to Theophilus in AD 61-62.

Much ministry must have taken place in those three months that Paul and the other passengers wintered on the island of Malta. Luke didn’t give much detail, but Paul being Paul, the possibility of a vacation seems unlikely. When the seas were again open for travel, the passengers obtained passage on an Alexandrian ship, which had wintered there on Malta and was bound for Rome. Luke not only tells us that this was an Alexandrian ship (undoubtedly a grain ship), but that it had “the Twin Brothers” for its figurehead. These “twin brothers” were the heathen gods who were believed to provide safety and success on the sea. In the shadow of God’s mighty hand in delivering Paul and all on board his ship, how paltry these two gods must have seemed to Luke. The One True God is in charge of all, while the heathen make their “gods” to bolster their hopes for safety and success. Even they were used to fulfill God’s plan to take Paul to Rome.

In contrast to the detail with which Luke described the journey which ended in shipwreck (chapter 27), he told us very little about the journey from Malta to Rome. I think this is because not much happened. Their route took them from Malta to Rome, via Syracuse, Sicily’s major port city, then onto Rhegium on the “toe” of Italy and then to Puteoli, where Paul stayed seven days visiting Christian brethren. Luke gave details that could be checked against archeology, which is one reason he is such an important Biblical historian. We know Paul met the Roman Christians at the Market of Appius and the Three Taverns along the Appian Way. Paul had written a very important letter to these believers some time before (we call it the Book of Romans) and had spoken of his earnest desire to visit and minister to them and allow them to minister to him (Romans 1:7-15). This was joyous fellowship, but Luke did not dwell on the minor details, for he had a more important goal in writing this account. Luke had almost nothing to say about Paul’s relationship to the church in Rome, particularly Roman Gentiles. Instead he ended his narrative with an account of Paul’s meeting with the leading Jews of Rome.

Although Paul had arrived in Rome, his appearance before Caesar would be delayed by the normal “red tape” paperwork and processes of government. Paul was kept in custody during this time of waiting, allowed to stay in a house, under guard by one soldier. This freedom appears to be the result of one or more factors. First, Paul was not yet a convicted criminal. The Romans had great difficulty even deciding upon what charges to press against Paul, let alone succeeding in convicting him. Second, Paul had won the confidence of at least Julius, the centurion commander of the Augustan cohort (27:1). Paul was therefore granted a fair measure of freedom, being under a kind of “house arrest.” This also seems to have been consistent with Roman governance under Claudius and the administrators who acted in Nero’s stead before the madman reached his majority. These were sensible men who saw no reason to act rashly just because they had the power to do so.

This freedom did not allow Paul to travel about on his own, but it did give him the opportunity to minister to any who would come to him. Three days passed before Paul called for visitors. We do not know what happened in these three days, or why Paul waited to invite the Jews to his house. My best guess is that Paul wanted to meditate and pray about this matter, to be able to come to some conviction as to what he should do.

Paul determined to invite the Jewish leaders, so that he could explain the reason for his presence in Rome and open the door to proclaim the gospel to unbelieving Jews there. Paul had at least two meetings with these Jews. On their first visit, Paul is not said to have presented the gospel to them. His first order of business was to explain his presence in Rome and assure the Jews of his innocence and sincerity. Paul faced an uphill battle in this. He was, after all, a Roman prisoner. He had to explain the cause of his arrest and the reason for his presence in Rome. He claimed not to have violated any customs of the Jews and he assured them that the Gentiles had purposed to release him, but had been dissuaded by protest from certain Jews.

The Roman Jews were rapidly facing difficulties of their own. Claudius had expelled Jews from Rome for a period of time because of unrest and the coming rebellion of the Jews in Jerusalem would lead to the sack of Jerusalem by the Romans. Thus, Roman Jews were likely sensitive to the presence of any Jews who might cause trouble with Rome. They dealt with Paul in an apparently open-minded fashion. They claimed to have not heard the details of his case and they insisted while they had heard nothing against him, the Jewish response to the gospel was uniformly unfavorable. They assured him they were willing to listen to his views and they set up a second meeting to do so.

“They set a day to meet with him, and they came to him where he was staying in even greater numbers. From morning until evening he explained things to them, testifying about the kingdom of God and trying to convince them about Jesus from both the law of Moses and the prophets. Some were convinced by what he said, but others refused to believe. So they began to leave, unable to agree among themselves, after Paul made one last statement: “The Holy Spirit spoke rightly to your ancestors through the prophet Isaiah when he said,

‘Go to this people and say, “You will keep on hearing, but will never understand, and you will keep on looking, but will never perceive. For the heart of this people has become dull, and their ears are hard of hearing, and they have closed their eyes, so that they would not see with their eyes

and hear with their ears and understand with their heart and turn, and I would heal them.”’

On the appointed day they arrived in large numbers and Paul proclaimed the gospel all day long. The Jewish response to Paul and the gospel was, as usual, mixed. Some were persuaded by what Paul taught and believed in Jesus as the promised Messiah. Others did not. As usual, this created another dynamic in the group. Rather than telling us that the unbelieving Jews polarized against Paul, Luke recorded a polarization between the believing and unbelieving Jews. Having arrived in unity, they departed along gospel lines. Those who chose not to believe decided that Paul was insane while those who believed the gospel found him the sanest man in Rome. As the day drew to a close and Paul was about to bid his guests farewell, he had one last thought to share. Paul had used Scripture to prove that Jesus was the Messiah; he now reminded them of Isaiah 6:25-28.

There was a distinct parallel between Paul’s ministry to the Jews of his day and Isaiah’s ministry to Judah and Jerusalem centuries earlier. Paul found an explanation for the rejection of these Jews of his day and a corresponding word of warning for them in God’s instruction to Isaiah could therefore find in God’s instructions to Isaiah. The people of Judah and Jerusalem have not listened to God’s admonition; now the time for her divine discipline had drawn near. Isaiah was commissioned to preach to this disobedient nation to bring about repentance, but God had made it clear that his words would not succeed Paul saw the parallels between his ministry and that of Isaiah. He knew that God had spoken once and for all in Jesus and that the Jews had rejected Him. His ministry would not be one of ushering in the kingdom of God, but of preceding the coming day of God’s discipline. Paul pointed back to God’s words to Isaiah as being also words to his own generation of Jews. Let them listen well to this ancient warning, for just as Judah and Jerusalem of Isaiah’s day were soon to go into a period of captivity at the hand of the Babylonians, so the Israel and Jerusalem of his day were to go into captivity at the hands of the Romans.

These were Paul’s last words to most of the unbelieving Jews in Rome, but for the other Jews who believed in Jesus, Paul’s words were only the beginning. Luke recorded that Paul spent the next two years continually ministering to all who came to him, both Jew and Gentile.

The concluding words of the Book of Acts are sad because they focus on the fate of the nation of Israel. Luke had started his Gospel introducing the Savior God had promised to His people, but the Jews rejected Him. The church had been commissioned at the start of Acts to carry on Jesus’ work, but the Jews continued to reject the gospel. The gospel expanded from Jerusalem all the way to Rome and there were Jewish listeners as well as Gentile listeners, but the Jews persisted in rejecting the gospel and persecuted those who proclaimed it. Now, at Rome, the majority of the Jews there rejected the gospel. The Jews have heard, and most have rejected the truth that Jesus was the Messiah, who came to the earth, took on human flesh, was rejected, crucified, and raised from the dead. Now, after nearly 40 years of grace, the time of God’s judgment drew near. The Book of Acts ends, not with the salvation of Israel and the establishment of the kingdom, but with the rejection of Israel and the approaching time of Israel’s captivity and suffering. There is, in this sense, a deep feeling of sorrow as the Book of Acts draws to a close.

Yet, in a way, the Book of Acts does not end here and Luke’s way of ending indicates that. If the gospel has been rejected by the Jews, it is still being proclaimed and believed by the Gentiles. We Gentiles, who now live some 20 centuries after the ending of Acts, find that what Jesus continued to do through the apostles, He is still doing today. The Book of Acts ends one chapter in the history of Israel as it begins a whole new chapter in the history of the church. Jesus is still at work in and through His church to this very day. Perhaps it will not be long before “the times of the Gentiles” come to a close, and the return of the Lord Jesus to establish His kingdom will take place. The day of judgment for all mankind draws near. Each individual must repent of his sin and trust in the solution for sin which God provided in Jesus, Who died in the sinner’s place, and Who offers righteousness to all who would believe, which God requires for eternal life.

Paul’s focus (and Luke’s) was not a happy ending that resolved Paul’s life, but the advancement of the gospel. Today, we seek to motivate Christians to obey Christian principles so that they can live happier, more successful lives. Paul urged Christians to live in obedience to the Word of God so that the gospel would not be hindered. When Paul prayed or asked for prayer, it most often pertained to his boldness and clarity in proclaiming the gospel, not in his deliverance from suffering and difficulties. The gospel had been proclaimed and Paul was in Rome, the place where God wanted him. This was the focus of Acts from the beginning and it remained the focus of Acts in the end. The gospel proclaimed!

We are not, however, done with Paul because the Lord was not done with him. Luke’s court brief was apparently successful and Paul was released. He ministered about three more years before being rearrested and eventually executed by Nero.

For this reason, we will take a look at the three letters Paul wrote after the close of Acts and then move onto the letters that grew from his death.

One of the things we like best about living in Alaska is the outdoors. The Chena River, which flows placidly through downtown, is a little powerhouse of rapids in its upper courses. Although we are not white-water canoeists, we enjoy an occasional momentary thrill as the Chena reaches Class 3 in some spots. One Memorial Day weekend we decided to take advantage of an early spring and a hot day to canoe the Chena from just below Chena Hot Springs to a campground near the highway to Chena Hot Spring. We were floating along, commenting on the warm sun when we hit rapids. No sooner were we in the center of the river aiming for the best slot then we saw two men up to their chests in the rushing water trying to pull their overturned power boat out from under a submerged log. Our Lab, who wasn’t water-rescue trained but never missed an opportunity to get wet, immediately went over the side of our canoe to “rescue” these men, swamping us, which turned us sideways to the current and flipped us.

Alaskan water is COLD!!  Even on a warm day in the middle of summer, it takes your breath away and numbs your hands and feet quickly. We surfaced gasping and sputtering and worked for the next couple of minutes to retrieve our canoe from a sweeper and beach it. Our Lab had decided that her allegiance was owed to us, but she was still concerned about those men we had passed in the slot, so we slogged back there to investigate. Both were blue and hypothermic, but determined to get their boat free.  I built a fire while BJ and Girl Dog, who thought she was a water-loving freight puller, tied off to their boat and pulled it free of the log. The men stumbled to the fire so cold they couldn’t talk without biting their tongues. One man was babbling about stuff that wasn’t there. When he came to, for a moment, he hollered. Later he told us that the fire and the pain in his hands and feet as blood returned had made him think he was in Hell.

I think Paul knew how he felt as his party came ashore on Malta. There were probably some islanders who turned out for the shipwreck – shore people have for millennia made money off sunken treasure and it’s best to keep the survivors distracted so they don’t know you’re stealing from them. They probably built a fire and offered warm drinks around. Those passengers who recovered quickly no doubt lent a hand gathering firewood. Paul, apparently, was one.

“After we had safely reached shore, we learned that the island was called Malta.  The local inhabitants showed us extraordinary kindness, for they built a fire and welcomed us all because it had started to rain and was cold. When Paul had gathered a bundle of brushwood and was putting it on the fire, a viper came out because of the heat and fastened itself on his hand. When the local people saw the creature hanging from Paul’s hand, they said to one another, “No doubt this man is a murderer! Although he has escaped from the sea, Justice herself has not allowed him to live!”  However, Paul shook the creature off into the fire and suffered no harm. But they were expecting that he was going to swell up or suddenly drop dead. So after they had waited a long time and had seen nothing unusual happen to him, they changed their minds and said he was a god.” Acts 28:1-6

While gathering sticks and brush, Paul found more than wood. A viper was apparently lying dormant among the sticks, and did not come to life until the heat of the fire roused it, whereupon it fastened itself to Paul’s hand. Paul’s reaction was simple and decisive: he shook the creature into the fire. (Growing up without snakes in Alaska, I am amazed that he didn’t panic and endanger others by flinging the creature away from him; I would have!). Just as during the shipwreck, Paul didn’t do anything “spiritual”. He seems to have gone on with what he was doing.  He didn’t kneel in prayer or make some pious last speech or preach a sermon. The man who had gotten up off the ground and walked back into Lystra after being stoned seems to have continued gathering wood. He didn’t act like he was about to die. There are commentators who will assure you that this viper was not venomous at all because present-day Malta, a small and overcrowded island no longer has such snakes. They will insist that the islanders and passengers, including Luke were merely mistaken about the risk to Paul’s life. Let’s set aside the idea that God’s inspired writer, empowered by the Holy Spirit, could be mistaken. Luke was a doctor who may well have treated snake bites in the past. Doctors were not then as they are not now careless about the identification of snakes which might have a fatal bite. Far from being primitives who knew nothing of herpetology, people in Paul’s day knew more about nature than we do today, who live in paved cities. Their lives depended upon knowing the difference between a venomous snake and one that was not. They knew Paul had been well and truly bit for the snake clung to his hand. They waited for Paul’s hand to swell and for him to die. This was the natural course of events from such an encounter.

God intervened. Paul went on as usual and, eventually, became clear that Paul was not going to die be adversely affected. Jesus had promised as much in Luke 10:17-20. Christians should not have been surprised at Paul’s miraculous deliverance from death. The natives, however, were. Supposing he was a dangerous criminal who had escaped justice by drowning at sea, they had expected him to die from the snake bite. When he did not, they concluded it was evidence that Paul was a god. I don’t know why Luke didn’t follow up on this incident. Surely there were consequences from being deemed divine. We can be assured, based on past experience, that Paul did not allow the Maltese natives to worship him as a “god”. I think that this is similar to the experience in Lystra, where Paul used the mistaken identity to refute claims that he was a god and in so doing, proclaimed the way of salvation.

The serpent incident was the perfect entre to the gospel. The Maltese did not believe in a personal god, but in an impersonal force or divine being they called “justice” (fate, might be a better term). If they thought Paul had escaped the “sting of death”, well, they too could escape that fate through faith in Jesus Christ. Paul, the great theologian who didn’t hesitate to preach before Athenian philosophers and kings, capitalized on this opportunity, I’m quite certain.

“Now in the region around that place were fields belonging to the chief official of the island, named Publius, who welcomed us and entertained us hospitably as guests for three days. The father of Publius lay sick in bed, suffering from fever and dysentery. Paul went in to see him and after praying, placed his hands on him and healed him. After this had happened, many of the people on the island who were sick also came and were healed.  They also bestowed many honors, and when we were preparing to sail, they gave us all the supplies we needed.^”  Acts 28:7-10

The incident with the serpent brought Paul to prominence on the island and paved the way for an expanded ministry while on Malta. Publius, the chief official on the island, seems to have offered these 276 stranded, shivering souls meals and a place to stay for three days, after which they seem to have found winter accommodations on the island. Publius’ genuine hospitality allowed Paul to learn of his father’s illness and to determine that God’s power was available to heal him. Seeing the ailing man, he prayed for him and then laid hands on him for healing. This resulted in others being brought to Paul for healing. Paul did not presume that God would heal through him, any more than He would deliver those on board ship, as though Paul could turn God’s power on and off like a water faucet. Paul only acted when he was assured of God’s will in these matters. Only when the angel of the Lord appeared to Paul did he assure the passengers of their safe landing (27:21-26). I believe that Paul only laid hands on the father of Publius after he was convinced that God willed his miraculous healing. Would that Christians today would do likewise, rather than claiming to have constant power which they employ at their discretion. The inference of Luke 5:17 is that there were times when the power of the Lord was not present for performing healings; Jesus was sensitive and attentive to such times. He would not act independently of the Father, or seek to force Him to act in accordance with His own will (Luke 4:1-11; John 7:1-9; 8:28-30). Paul also seems to have performed miracles, signs and wonders, only when it was apparent that it was God’s will to do so (Acts 14:3). In addition to Paul’s sensitivity to God’s sovereign leading, Paul also took other related factors into account, such as the faith of those who would be healed (Acts 14:9-10). God’s sovereignty therefore means that He is always able to heal and perform miracles, but that He is not always willing to do so. We do not manipulate God; He manipulates us!

And so it was that Paul concluded it was God’s will to heal the father of Publius, which opened the door for many other healings. Once again, Paul had come to the forefront; he had gained prominence. This took place through the sovereign workings of God, and it likely resulted in the proclamation of the gospel and the salvation of some souls. Luke does not tell us that Paul preached, or how he did so. Neither does he give us a “head count” of the “souls won.” Such statistics are unnecessary and often inaccurate. God was at work here. This is evident. And where God is at work the results are assured. As a matter of fact, an accurate understanding of the sovereignty of God assures us that for the Christian, God is always at work, for his or her ultimate good and most importantly for the advance of the gospel and of God’s purposes.

The islanders, grateful to God and grateful for Paul’s presence, showed their gratitude in a very tangible way—they gave all the passengers provisions for the final days of their journey to Rome. Once again, the presence of but one man—Paul (not to mention the other saints with him)—was a source of blessing for the entire gathering of those on board this ship. How the presence of but a few saints can be a blessing to the rest (see 1 Corinthians 7:12-14).

We are about to leave these islanders behind, as Paul and his fellow-passengers will board ship, headed for Rome. But let us leave these Maltese natives with a final thought. They rushed to the shore, thinking that they could be of help to these shivering passengers. What they were to learn shortly was that God had sent Paul and the gospel to help them. It was not long before those who rushed to the shore to help Paul were rushing to Paul for help from God. How marvelous are His ways!