SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 10/2/2018 10:24 AM
My Worship Time Focus: Pagan
Hospitality
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Acts 28:1-2
Message of the verses: “1 When they had
been brought safely through, then we found out that the island was called
Malta. 2 The natives
showed us extraordinary kindness; for because of the rain that had set
in and because of the cold, they kindled a fire and received us all.”
As
I look at what those 276 people on board this freighter had went through for
the past two weeks I can’t imagine how exhausted that they were. Now they are standing on an island where Luke
uses the word “natives” to describe the people who live on the island of Malta,
and when one thinks of that word today it can mean that people are uncivilized
or perhaps dangerous, but not the case as we will see. Perhaps some of the crew would have been
there before, but not at what we now call St. Paul’s bay, they would have
probably stopped at the main port called Valletta.
This
island of Malta is 58 miles south of Sicily and is 17 miles long and 9 miles
wide. I lived on the island of Aruba
back in late 2004 and early 2005 which is similar in size as it is 5 miles by
20 miles so one does not have to be there too long to see all of the island,
and a part of my job was looking for things for the job that I was on and so I
drove over 6,000 miles on that tiny island in six months. John MacArthur writes that these inhabitants were
of the “Phoenician descant and the name Malta meant, appropriately, ‘a place of
refuge’ in the Phoenician language. Malta became a British possession early in
the nineteenth century and gained its independence in 1964.”
I
mentioned that the words that Luke used could make one think that they were
uncivilized, but they certainly were not.
MacArthur writes “Luke’s use of the term ‘natives’ to describe the
people of Malta does not mean they were privative or uncivilized. Barbaroi
(natives) denotes people whose native language was not Greek or Latin; it is
not necessarily a derogatory term.”
Luke
then writes that these people “showed extraordinary kindness” and so we learn
that they were indeed civilized as they did things that were actually above the
call of duty. These 276 people were wet
and exhausted and so these extremely kind people built a fire in order to warm
them up.
Believers
are to be hospitable to believers for sure, and in doing this to unbelievers we
are showing the love of God to them and then will have a time afterwards to
share Christ with them, and so as we will see Paul will take the time to repay
their hospitality as we move through these verses.
I
have one more thing to bring up and that is that we continue to see the providence
of God in getting Paul to Rome as seen by the hospitality of the people of
Malta.
Spiritual meaning for my life today: It is my desire to show kindness to both
believers and unbelievers alike, whenever possible.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Trust the
Lord to be kind and tenderhearted to those around me today.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
question: “David” (Ruth 4:22).
Today’s Bible question: “Who was known as ‘The disciple whom Jesus
loved’?”
Answer in our next SD.
10/2/2018 10:52 AM
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