Paul on Malta (Acts 28:1-10)

Most travellers today go to Malta on a plane, or on a cruise ship. Many interesting locations are suggested as places of interest, including taking bus tours to the spots where Paul is assumed to have been. While it is useful to look at where he had been, it is more helpful to read what happened, and the only place we can do so is in these few verses. Yet a lot happened.

First, the local people took care of them. After all, it is not every day that two hundred and seventy-six people come ashore as they did. Luke points out that the kindness shown to them was unusual, perhaps because they were not a threat. The good doctor takes care to mention that Paul helped gather sticks for the bonfire.

 

Second, the local people were astonished that Paul survived being bitten by a viper. Initially, they assumed that he was a murderer whom the gods had caught up with. Those gods had not been able to destroy him in the storm, but they now had managed to do so. At least, that is what they thought. But as with all superstitious people, they jumped to the opposite conclusion when Paul suffered no ill effects and they proclaimed that he was one of the gods.

 

Third, a local dignitary called Publius entertained them for three days. Paul visited the father of Publius and after praying for him healed him of a fever. If this was the fever known to have been common in Malta, it usually lasted for several months, or even a couple of years. The outcome was that many other sick people came to Paul, and he healed them as well (it is noteworthy that Luke the doctor was not involved in those healings; rather he verified that they had happened). So it is not surprising that when the company left on another ship, the Maltese gave them provisions for the sail to Rome.

 

I suppose that a question is, why does Luke mention those three incidents? We need to remind ourselves again that he is describing the activities of Jesus and here his activities through Paul. Jesus enabled the Maltese through his common grace to welcome the arrivals; Jesus through his grace prevented the bite of the viper from poisoning Paul; and Jesus through his grace healed many people through Paul, including the local dignitary’s father.

 

Another reason is to realise that just because something bad happens to a person it does not mean that a person is bad. The viper may have looked like a stick; and, after all, Paul had issues with his eyesight. It was superstitious for the Maltese to assume that Paul had done something bad. The fact is, we don’t know why Jesus allows to happen the things that happen.

 

A third reason is that Jesus had planned to commence a church in Malta. Luke tells us that Paul was there for three months, waiting for a ship to sail to Rome. Three months was ample time for Paul to get a church set up, longer than he spent in some other places. The storm had been sent for many reasons, but the commencement of a church in Malta was one of them.