SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 9/27/2018 10:30 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-1 “The Shipwreck”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Acts 27:27-44
Message of the
verses: In today’s SD we will begin
to look at the shipwreck that Paul, Luke and the others who were on the boat
that was supposed to be heading to Rome.
This is a rather long section of Scripture and so we will look at it
when we make comments on these verses.
There is a fairly long quote from F. F. Bruce as he comments on a book
written by the 19th century British yachtsman James Smith’s book “The
Voyage and Shipwreck of St. Paul.”
“27 But when the fourteenth night came, as we were being driven about in the Adriatic Sea, about midnight the sailors began to surmise that they were approaching some land.”
Luke
is writing about the 14th night since they had left “Fair
Havens. This day found Paul and his
fellow travelers still being driven about in the Adriatic Sea and this should
not confuse us with the modern Adriatic Sea which is located between Italy and
Croatia. In Paul’s day, that body of
water was known as the Gulf of Adria, and this today is the central
Mediterranean Sea. Now as we continue on
in verse 27 we can see that it looks like this difficult voyage was about to
end because “about midnight the sailors began to surmise that they were
approaching some land.” Perhaps they
heard the crashing of surf on a shore and this caused them to believe that they
were getting near to land. They were
only three miles from what is appropriately called “St. Paul’s Bay.” MacArthur adds “Remarkably, in the providence
of God, the storm had driven them across the Mediterranean to a small dot of
land in the middle of the sea.”
We
will now look at the quote that I mentioned earlier and will probably end this
SD with this quote:
“Smith relates how he made careful
enquiries of experienced Mediterranean navigators in order to ascertain the
mean rate of drift of a ship of this kind laid-to in such a gale. The conclusion which he reached was a mean
drift of about thirty-six miles in twenty-four hours. The soundings recorded in v. 28 indicate that
the ship was passing Koura, a point on the east coast of Malta, on her way into
St. Paul’s Bay. ‘But the distance from
Clauda to the point of Koura…is 476.6 miles, which, at the rate as deduced from
the information…would take exactly thirteen days, on hour, and twenty-one
minutes.’ And not only so: ‘The coincidence of the actual bearing of St.
Paul’s Baby from Clauda, and the direction in which a ship must have driven in
order to avoid the Syrtis, is if possible still more striking than that of the
time actually consumed, and the calculated time.’ Then, after carefully reckoning the direction
of the ships head with the wind, and from the lee-way, he goes on: ‘Hence according to these calculations, a
ship starting late in the evening from Clauda would, by midnight on the 14th
[day], be less than three miles from the entrance of St. Paul’s Bay. I admit that a coincidence so very close as
this, is to a certain extent accidental, but it is an accident which could not
have happened had there been any inaccuracy on the part of the author of the
narrative with regard to the numerous incidents upon which the calculations are
founded, or had the ship been wrecked anywhere at Malta, for there is no other
place agreeing, either in name or description, within the limits of which we
are tied down by calculations founded upon the narrative.” “The Book of Acts, The New International
Commentary on the New Testament.”
Spiritual meaning for my life today: What the authors of the above quote were
actually talking about in my mind is the sovereignty of God, as there is no
other way that this ship would have ended up where it did if it were not in the
divine control of God. This makes me
wonder how many things that have happened in my life that are similarly
controlled by my Sovereign God, and I suppose there were many of them and
probably still more to come. For all of
these that happened and will happen I praise the Lord.
My
Steps of Faith for Today: Trust the Lord to care for what is going on
in Washington D. C. today that it will bring glory to the Lord.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible question: “Because they were bitter” (Exodus 15:23).
Today’s Bible question: “According to 1 Thessalonians 5:18, when
should a Christian thank God?”
Answer in our next SD.
9/27/2018 11:05 AM
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