Friday
Friday
Rome at Last!
And so we came to Rome.
Acts 28:14
Many readers of Acts 27 have commented on the precision and vividness of Luke’s narrative. It is surely due to the fact that Luke himself accompanied Paul throughout their voyage from Caesarea to Rome and so could draw on his daily log of their progress. His accuracy has been vouched for by a certain James Smith, a Scottish yachtsman of thirty years’ experience, who had familiarized himself with the weather patterns of the Mediterranean and wrote up his findings in his book The Voyage and Shipwreck of Saint Paul. The early days of their voyage around the eastern shores of the Mediterranean were uneventful. But, unable to find a safe and suitable berth on Crete in which to harbor for the winter, they sailed on in the open sea until a northeasterly wind of hurricane force caught them, and they drifted helplessly for fourteen days until they were grounded on Malta. The islanders looked after them for the three winter months, and then they set sail for Italy. Some Christian brothers heard that they were coming and walked about thirty miles along the Appian Way to welcome them.
In Rome Paul was permitted to live in his own lodgings, though under the surveillance of a soldier. He invited the Jewish leaders to meet him and assured them that he had done nothing against the Jewish people or customs and that the Romans had wanted to let him go. The leaders replied that they had heard nothing against him but that they would like to learn more about his beliefs. So on the appointed day they met him, and he proclaimed the kingdom of God and taught about the Lord Jesus Christ, doubtless arguing for the identification of the historical Jesus with the biblical Christ. Paul’s audience was divided, but because of the hardness of Jewish hearts, Paul for the fourth time turned decisively to the Gentiles, for, he added, “They will listen!” (v. 28). For two whole years they came to Paul and listened to him.
The final words of the Acts are adverbial expressions meaning “with all boldness” and “without hindrance.” They describe the freedom that the gospel enjoyed, with neither internal nor external restraint. They speak of a wide-open door, through which we in our day now have to pass.
For further reading: Acts 28:17–31