Please open your Bibles to Acts 27. Alright, so we're actually going to jump back a few verses. We're going to go to verse 24 of chapter 26. Okay, so chapter 26, verse 24. Now as he thus made his defense, Festus said with a loud voice, Paul, you are beside yourself. Much learning is driving you mad. But he said, I am not mad, most noble Festus, but speak the words of truth and reason. For the king, before whom I also speak freely, knows these things, for I am convinced that none of these things escapes his attention, since this thing was not done in a corner. King Agrippa, do you believe the prophets? I know that you believe." Then Agrippa said to Paul, you almost persuade me to be a Christian. Paul said, I would to God, that not only you, but also all who hear me today might become both almost and altogether such as I am, except for these chains." When he had said these things, the king stood up, as well as the governor and Bernice and those who sat with them. And when they had gone aside, they talked among themselves, saying, this man is doing nothing deserving of death or chains. Then Agrippa said to Festus, this man might have been set free if he had not appealed to Caesar. And when it was decided that we should sail to Italy, they delivered Paul and some of the other prisoners to one named Julius, a centurion of the Augustan regiment. So entering a ship of Adromitium, we put to sea, meaning to sail along the coasts of Asia. Aristarchus, a Macedonian of Thessalonica, was with us. And the next day, we landed at Sidon. And Julius treated Paul kindly and gave him liberty to go to his friends and receive care. When we'd put to sea from there, we sailed under the shelter of Cyprus. because of the winds, because the winds were contrary. And when we had sailed over the sea, which is off Cilicia and Pamphylia, we came to Myra, a city of Lycia. There the centurion found an Alexandrian ship sailing to Italy, and he put us on board. When we had sailed slowly many days and arrived with difficulty off Nidus, the wind not permitting us to proceed, we sailed under the shelter of Crete, off Psalmi. Passing it with difficulty, we came to a place called Fairhavens, near the city of Lasea. Now, when much time had been spent And sailing was now dangerous because the fast was already over. It's the Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur. So because we'd already passed Yom Kippur in this fall season that's got worse weather. And sailing was now dangerous because the fast was already over. Paul advised them, saying, Men, I perceive that this voyage will end with disaster and much loss, not only of the cargo and ship, but also our lives. Nevertheless, the centurion was more persuaded by the helmsman and the owner of the ship than by the things spoken by Paul. And because the harbor was not suitable to winter in, the majority advised to set sail from there also, if by any means they could reach Phoenix. A harbor of Crete, opening toward the southwest and northwest, and winter there. When the south wind blew softly, supposing that they had obtained their desire, putting out to sea, they sailed close by Crete. But not long after, a tempestuous headwind arose called Euryclidon, So when the ship was caught and could not head into the wind, we let her drive. And running under the shelter of an island called Claudia, we secured the skiff with difficulty. When they had taken it on board, they used cables to undergird the ship. And fearing lest they should run aground on the Surtees Sands, They struck sail, and so were driven. And because we were exceedingly tempest-tossed, the next day they lightened the ship. And the third day, we threw the ship's tackle overboard with our own hands. Now, when neither sun nor stars appeared for many days, and no small tempest beat on us, all hope that we would be saved was finally given up. But after long abstinence from food, Then Paul stood in the midst of them and said, men, you should have listened to me, and not have sailed from Crete and incurred this disaster and loss. And now I urge you to take heart, for there will be no loss of life among you, but only of the ship. For there stood by me this night an angel of the God to whom I belong and whom I serve, saying, do not be afraid, Paul, you must be brought before Caesar. And indeed, God has granted you all those who sail with you. Therefore, take heart, men, for I believe God that it will be just as it was told me. However, we must run aground on a certain island. Now, when the 14th night had come, as we were driven up and down in the Adriatic Sea, about midnight, the sailors sensed that they were drawing near some land. And they took soundings and found it to be 20 fathoms. When they had gone a little farther, they took soundings again and found it to be 15 fathoms. Then, fearing lest we should run aground on the rocks, they dropped four anchors from the stern, that's the back of the ship, and prayed for day to come. And as the sailors were seeking to escape from the ship, when they had let down the skiff into the sea, under pretense of putting out anchors from the prow, that's the foremost part of the ship on the bow, Paul said to the centurion and the soldiers, unless these men stay in the ship, you cannot be saved. Then the soldiers cut away the ropes of the skiff and let it fall off. And as day was about to dawn, Paul implored them to take food, saying, Today is the fourteenth day. You have waited and continued without food and eaten nothing. Therefore, I urge you to take nourishment. For this is for your survival, since not a hair will fall from the head of any of you. And when he had said these things, he took bread and gave thanks to God in the presence of them all. And when he had broken it, he began to eat. Then they were all encouraged and also took food themselves. And in all, we were 276 persons on the ship. So when they had eaten enough, they lightened the ship and threw out the wheat into the sea. When it was day, they did not recognize the land. But they observed a bay with a beach onto which they planned to run the ship if possible. And they let go of the anchors and left them in the sea, meanwhile, loosing the rudder ropes. And they hoisted the mainsail to the wind and made for shore. But striking a place where two seas met, they ran the ship aground, and the prow stuck fast and remained immovable. But the stern was being broken up by the violence of the waves. And the soldiers' plan was to kill the prisoners, lest any of them should swim away and escape. But the centurion, wanting to save Paul, kept them from their purpose and commanded that those who could swim should jump overboard first and get to land, and that rest some on boards and some on parts of the ship. So it was that they all escaped safely to land. So we find out in the next verse that the island they're on is Malta. So that's the completion of the reading portion. A little point that's kind of interesting. This location in Malta is fairly identifiable because the place where it's between two, where the seas meet, there's a little island off of Malta with a beach that's fairly like that, and it's known for where the currents, where the two seas push in, it creates sandbars and there's reefs there, and so it's called St. Paul's Bay. And so it's a place that's one of the more easily identifiable things given geography. If the geography has not been altered significantly, then we have good reason to believe that would be the location. There was a significant tidal wave that occurred not too long after this in a time near 70 AD that might have altered some of the beachfronts, and so that may not be the case. So this is a place that is kind of thought to be known. Salmoneta is the island that is on the other side that makes it so that there's a little place where the two seas meet. Anyways, so let's jump back to the beginning here. We've got all sorts of goodies packed away in this one, so there'll be many digressions, but I hope they will all be interesting and edifying. So first of all, I reread the end of the last chapter because I wanted to take a moment to address a little bit more this idea of the words of truth and reason. Paul, we are going to see the reality that he is facing a wall of ignorance, right? The people that he's being judged by and the people that have control of him and force him to go with them, right? He gives very good advice, if only others would take it, right? There is this problem, for example, that we go through the rest of the chapter on, and that is, He advises them to not go to sea in the stormy season for relatively little gain, and that advice is not taken. The short-sightedness of other people is emphasized in chapter 27, and Christians, because of the fact that we are encouraged to have a perspective that is eternal, we are encouraged to have a perspective that is based upon delayed gratification. It's often called the Protestant work ethic or the Puritan work ethic, the idea of delayed gratification, the words of truth and reason. Now, these words, establish the basis for being able to deal with that Paul tolerates being in chains, because he wants to be able to go and accomplish his mission, right? He could, he could perhaps get out if he would just seek to cooperate. He could easily have bribed governors to get out. He is choosing to suffer in some ways to continue on for his mission. And so even if he got free, what would he do but go find ways of new suffering for the sake of his mission, right? The doxological focus, the glory of God, doxa, glory, and the idea of the doxological focus, that we set our minds on the glory of God as our purpose. And that's how we seek our good. And that's the value of meditating on the law of God. Now, the words of truth and reason. Okay, you look at that phrase back in verse 25, John 26, verse 25. This is in contrast to being called mad. The words of truth and reason. None of those words is Logos. Okay, the word for words is Rhema, and then truth is his normal one. And then reason there is the same root as Sophronon, which we've spent a lot of time talking about. So it might be better to say that these are the words of truth and self-government, or perhaps better, the words of truth and prudence, or wisdom. And in fact, I'll tell you a little secret. I run a company, and our first value, we have 14 values. The first one is truth and wisdom. This is the verse that I stole the idea. from. And that's, I think, a description of the first commandment, the concern for truth and wisdom, the knowledge of God. But the words of truth and wisdom, words of truth and wisdom. And so I want to remind you, because we're about to look at a chapter where people do not act with wisdom, but there are certain parts where there is a beginning to acting wisdom. The end of the chapter has some pretty impressive acts of wisdom in light of earlier foolishness. I want to suggest to you again that the centurion Julius is, sadly he sides with those who give bad advice, but when he has to make calls in the midst of trouble, he is quite an impressive man. There's Paul. So this idea of the words of truth and reason. I want to remind you of the five attributes of truth. I want to encourage you. Last time I talked about the fact that we need to have patterns of sound words in our minds. When you talk about truth and you deconstruct views that do not have truth, do not have a coherent claim, they're ultimately going to be denying one of these five things. These are the five attributes of truth. They are very important for you to have to be able to deconstruct things well. be very valuable tools. They're incredibly powerful deconstructive tools. Truth has five attributes. And these five attributes, there's more attributes that can be given to truth. But these are, these are five that the denial of any one of these is easily refutable. They are immediately absurd. There's There's only one step of reasoning necessary to demonstrate the absurdity of the denial of any of these things. Some arguments require multiple steps. So these would be examples of something that are self-evident in the sense that it's sometimes used that one step of reasoning makes it obvious that these have to be true. And when you talk about the scriptures, they're self-evident in that you can, by multiple steps of reasoning, demonstrate the defensibility of any part of it. So the whole truth system is self-evident in that way, and it's self-attesting. But this one-step idea. So, truth is propositional, truth is rational, truth is knowable, it is unchanging, and it is universal. Propositional. We've talked about this before. Giving a class on this, I would spend a long time on propositional to make sure it's understood. Let me remind you of the basic element here of propositional. Truth is propositional means that truth is the meaning of declarative sentences. It's not the sentence itself, right? Because we're reading the Bible in English, and the New Testament is written in Greek, and there's a meaning communicated in either language, okay? Bible is translatable. The Bible shows itself to be translatable. The New Testament translates the Old Testament, okay? You have quotes of Hebrew texts put into Greek, and you have people like Jesus saying, is it not written? And then he tells you what it says. So we have either Jesus himself speaking in Greek in some of those situations, or one of the gospel writers translating of Jesus' Aramaic or Hebrew into Greek, okay? So we have the Bible itself attesting to translation. There are also many other places where the Bible does that, but the Bible attests to translation, which means the same message can be communicated with different words, which means there's a thought. There's the meaning of a declarative sentence that is distinct from the words. The words are signs that point to meaning. The meaning is what is communicated. The words are the means that God uses, and they are sufficient. They are sufficient for the purpose that God has appointed them. So, propositions. Truth is propositional. And so, if someone attempts to claim that truth is not propositional, the question is simply, is that proposition true? If it is true, then it defeats itself. If it is false, then it defeats itself. That's an immediate inference, okay? So, rational, in accordance with the laws of logic. That means you can differentiate A and non-A. If somebody says that truth is not rational, then they're saying that truth is not such that a thing can be distinguished from something else. And so if you say, okay, so you mean to say that truth is not rational I mean to say that truth is rational. Either we're saying the same thing, because differences cannot be shown, or we're saying something different. If we're saying something different, I'm right. And if we're saying the same thing, I'm right. I'm saying truth is rational. We're either saying the same thing, or we're saying something different. So that's immediate inference, the absurdity of denying the rationality of truth. Truth is knowable. Do you know that? If someone says the truth is not knowable, do you know that? There's nothing incoherent about saying you know the truth is knowable. There is something incoherent about saying you know the truth is not knowable. Unchanging. If you say the truth is changing, if you say the truth is changing, then will the truth, the truth is changing, ever change? If someone says no, then they're just saying the truth is unchanging. They claim that it's true the truth is changing, will never change, has never changed. So that's a self-refuting position. If you assert that it will change, that it has changed, then the idea is that at some point truth was not changing, which would mean that it can't change. And at some point it will become not changing, at which point it will be locked in, because when it doesn't change, it can't change anymore. Right? So that's the idea that truth is propositional, rational, knowable, and unchanging. It's also universal. It's the same for everybody everywhere. 2 plus 2 equals 4 here, Africa, China, Europe, and yes, even in Canada. So if that's the case, and the truth is the same for everybody everywhere at all times, Truth is noble, it's rational, it's propositional. Then we can say anything that denies that is not true. Any system that denies that is not true. And so we can use that to break down alternatives. And so that is what we have. Christianity is called crazy, but Christianity is the only philosophy that can consistently uphold Those assertions, the truth is propositional, rational, knowable, unchanging, and universal. And other things get torn down. And so that's what, when we talk about deconstructive apologetics, we look at other views, we show how they're wrong. And we've seen throughout Acts, this kind of deconstructive effort. Paul has been a master of it. At Athens, he excellently destroyed and showed contradiction inside of the other views. when there's a positive constructing of Christianity and the asserting of it. So we have the duty as Christians to speak the words of truth and reason, the words of truth and wisdom, the words of truth and wisdom. We have the duty to speak the words of truth and wisdom because we have them and other people don't. Withholding them is not giving to other people the only means of spiritual life. And so our duty, we see people around us dying. We see people around us who are already dead. The only way to resuscitate them is to give them the words of truth and wisdom. It's our duty to do that. And when other people, in their dying breath, seek to shut down the words of truth and wisdom, it is our duty to parry the blow, to show them why their objections are false. Now, wisdom is knowledge of the good and the means to the good. Let me remind you of a couple of things. There's ignorance. There are really three epistemic states, four words that I want you to remember here. Wisdom is knowledge of the good and of the means to the good. So it's knowledge of the best thing, the highest thing, the thing worth getting, the end in itself, the thing that's worth chasing after. You know what that is. the means to get it, the stuff you use to get what's good. And so that's wisdom. Now, knowledge, right? You think about, well, knowledge of the good and the means to the good. So what is knowledge? Well, knowledge is true, justified belief. It's a true belief. It's a belief of something that's true. And you can give a defense of it. You can give a rational justification. You can give an account of how you know. Somebody says, how do you know? You can give them an answer. And it's a objectively satisfying answer. It's not maybe subjectively satisfying to everybody, but it's objectively satisfactory. It's sufficient. Now, a belief, you could have knowledge as a belief, or you could have just an opinion. And an opinion, Okay, is where you believe something, it could be true, it could be false. But you have a belief, you don't have a rational justification for it. So true opinions, people say, well, who cares if you have real knowledge, or I just have a true opinion, who really cares? What's the difference? The difference is a rational justification. If you believe what's true, and you don't have an account for why you know, or how you know, then you will be blown about still, you might believe something is true today, and then believe something is false tomorrow. And so you need an account or a justification. And that gives stability. And so Then below that is ignorance, which is a lack of thoughts about a subject. Okay, so we have ignorance, the lack of thoughts about a subject. Opinion, which is a belief, it could be true, it could be false. Knowledge, which is a true belief, so not false beliefs, only true beliefs, but you have an account or a rational justification, a defense of how you know. And then wisdom is knowledge, so a true belief with an account. Wisdom is knowledge, of what is good and how to get what's good. It's knowledge of the good and the means to the good. So, Paul has wisdom. He has knowledge of the truth. He has the words of truth. And now he's being sent off to Italy. So, the beginning of chapter 27. It was decided that we should go to sail to Italy. They delivered Paul. some other prisoners to one named Julius the centurion of the of the Augustan regiment so they're going to Italy we has we in there this Luke's going along okay Luke's on the ship so Julius is the centurion it says of the Augustanian regiment the Romans did not have regiments they had cohorts cohorts or subunits of legions okay cohort is typically at this time 400 legionaries plus about 200 auxilia or support troops, so about 600 men. However, if you are on some sort of, I don't know, let's say you're in an unruly province like Judea, and let's say you're in a province that's on the border, okay, legions could be up to like 10,000 men, which means that cohorts could be up to like 1,000. The Augustan regiment is somewhere between probably 600 and 1,000 men. And so we've got a centurion of that group. Now, whether this is the centurion who is just in charge of one of the centuries, which is about 100 men, or whether he happens to be the centurion who's in charge of the whole cohort, we don't know. But he's a centurion. They enter this ship. from Adramitium, which is a coastal city in Asia, so Turkey, Asia Minor. And this ship is probably a coastal going ship. They're going from city to city on the coast, and it's also from a place in Asia Minor. So it's probably a smaller ship, not designed to be larger. Later on, we're going to get a ship that's from Alexandria, probably a bigger ship. The number of people on the ship is not that large for ships in the era. When we look at the ship and it's kind of coming apart, the people on board, it's like 277 if I'm recalling correctly. It's not that big of a number for a number of people on the ships of the era. But this earlier ship, we're not told how many people get on it, but this initial ship It's a small ship, and it's a coast-going ship. They get on there. They start moving along. It tells us about where they go. They're going along the coast of the Levant, or sorry, they're going along the coast of the Eastern Mediterranean. And they are, they land in Sinan. There's people here who are, who are Paul's friends that he's able to interact with, right, fellow believers. Also, Aristarchus is mentioned. Aristarchus gets mentioned back in chapter 19 and chapter 20. He's mentioned in Philemon. He's mentioned in Colossians. So this is a guy who's a consistent companion of Paul's. So he gets on board. He's going with them. So we have this traveling group. And so you've got fellow Christians. They're working together, undoubtedly evangelizing. One of the great things about being stuck on a ship is people can't get away when you're evangelizing to them. So there's opportunity here, they've got these evangelists on this ship, and they're going in and out of port, which means people are getting on and getting off regularly as well. These are kind of, you know, it's like a thing about city bus, you know, you stop, somebody can get off, somebody can get on. Right. So there's this process there, you're making extra money along the way. So you're making fares, you're transporting goods, you're doing shorter and longer term. transportation, you might even be a merchant simultaneously if you own this ship and just buy stuff and sell it because you're traveling and you're learning things. Other people pay to transport things, people pay to go along. So it was a way of getting pretty wealthy. Merchants and ships were able to carry a lot of stuff and move pretty quickly because they move while people sleep sometimes. But traveling at night, especially along the coast was more concerning. So less likely for that. But anyways, so that's that's what's going on. So They're moving along. He gets to Sidon. Julius is kind to Paul, lets him go around and talk to his friends and receive care. So he's a high opinion of Paul. And that's probably passed along partly from the people he talked to who would have been back in the palace and who would have been engaging. So there's people from the Roman government. Paul's got a good reputation. It's passing along over time. And he continues to uphold that good reputation with the people that are holding him captive. He's not trying to get away. He comes back after he's been given leave, gets back on the ship. He wants to go talk to Caesar and preach the gospel to Caesar. So then they leave. They go behind Cyprus. Cyprus, you know, is kind of in that, with an armpit with the Levant and Turkey. And, you know, Cyprus is right there. I'm not trying to say anything bad about Cyprus, just it's right there. So you're going in between that edge of of Asia and the island to hide from the winds, because the winds were contrary. So they're able to move faster without using the winds. And when they had sailed over the sea, verse 5, which is off Cilicia and Pamphylia, we came to Myra, a city of Lycia. And so these are, you know, we're continuing along that coastal zone of Turkey now. There, the centurion found an Alexandrian ship sailing to Italy, and he put us on board." So, you know, ports are kind of like the airports of the time. You think about, you could just hop on a plane, get into an airport, and you'd find there's a ticket available for the plane. So you're trying to reconstruct, you might, you know, I can't, let's say computers get shut down, you can't talk to anybody, you just look for, you're looking for flights that are available quickly to get to some place that's closer to where you're trying to get, right? you could kind of skip your way across the country and go from New York to Los Angeles. And you just figure it out by kind of going to the next airport and look for major airports where you're likely to find more planes and all that kind of stuff. And you just start hopping in that direction. And that's kind of what's going on here. They don't, they don't have some elaborate schedule of ships and when they're going to be where or whatever. They're just kind of moving along and they're looking for a ship to transfer onto because there's so much trade that's going on and you use the little ships to get to the big ports and you look for big ships to go the longer distances. And so here they are, they're at this ship from Alexandria and being from Alexandria, um, you know, Alexandria was a very big port, um, had a, a big, uh, ship construction, industry and there's probably this larger ship and they're using it to go to Italy and so you think about the route that this ship is used to taking it's used to crossing probably rather than going along the coast constantly right like going along the Aegean and then along the Adriatic and then kind of getting to a place where you could cross over the boot or maybe even going all the way over around Italy getting to the side closer to Rome That's not what's happening. Probably it's probably crossing over and we see the behavior of the ship You know as it gets into the storm it tends it deals with the storm in a way that suggests it's able to deal You know, it survives 14 days of substantial Storm in the deeper part of the Mediterranean So this is probably a bigger ship. So the Alexandrian ship is sailing to Italy and it put us on board and Verse 7, when we had sailed slowly many days and arrived with difficulty off Nidus, the wind not permitting us to proceed, we sailed under the shelter of Crete off Salmoni. Now, so Crete is being used in the same way that Cyprus was. And so Crete is being used to kind of shelter the winds, shelter the waves, and so they're traveling along it. and using it as a kind of breaker of those things. And you see that kind of behavior from skilled sailors at this time all over the place. So there's this intelligent hopping and opportunity movement. So you think about how the scheduling would be very difficult, how you couldn't have a centralized schedule, because everything is so variable, dependent upon the winds, right? You're blown about by every wind of wind. That's just the way it is. That's what it was to be a sailor. Now they can intelligently try to manage it, right, they can use these things, you're gonna slow yourself down and change your route. Right? So who knows what, who knows what ports they might have intended to go to that they end up just skipping. And then you know, passengers and goods, maybe you let them off and say, Well, this is now. Now here, and that's, that's your problem. Or maybe you go, well, we'll come back the return trip, and try to get that port. So there's a lot of variability. So they're using Crete, Verse 8, passing it with difficulty, we came to a place called Fairhavens, near the city of Licea. Now, everything's fine and dandy, until they're here in Fairhavens, and they say, you know what? Fairhavens is not as enjoyable, comfortable, as Phoenix. And I get it, Phoenix is a great city. But not this Phoenix. And so they're talking about another Phoenix. And the discussion is they want to get to Phoenix, verse 9. Now, when much time had been spent and sailing was now dangerous because Yom Kippur, the feast, sorry, the fast, was already over, Paul advised them, saying, Men, I perceive that this voyage will end with disaster and much loss, not only of the cargo and ship, but also our lives. Now, this is not Paul prophesying. Okay? Because look down at verse 22. In verse 22, he says, And now I urge you to take heart, for there will be no loss of life among you, but only of the ship. For there stood by me this night an angel of the God to whom I belong and whom I serve. And he says that everyone there will be granted safe, which there's debate about. Does that mean they're going to be saved, or they're all going to live? It's pretty clear that it's a repetition of the idea that they're all going to live. So this is Paul just giving his advice. He's a frequent traveler. He's saying, look, this is the bad season. Everybody knows this is the bad season. And we're not even in the bad season. We're in the really bad season. This is the time where the storms are the worst and the most unpredictable here. And so the cargo of the ship and our lives are going to be at risk. We shouldn't do this. There's a high probability of us dying. And so it's silly for us to just go leave when we've got a perfectly acceptable place to stay. And you're saying, let's go find a better place to stay. This is not worth it. Now, Phoenix is only like 30 miles away in terms of the sailing distance, which that's a pretty short jump. Easily get there in a day. Easily. And so you're looking at that, you're going, yeah, it's not that far, it's a little thing. Verse 11, nevertheless, the centurion was more persuaded by the helmsman and the owner of the ship. There's some debate about whether this is one person who is the helmsman owner, or whether it's two people. I think it's unlikely that the owner is the helmsman. If you own a large ship, you have substantial wealth, and to make yourself be the helmsman, you're likely to have a helmsman at least as an alternate for yourself. But it could be the same, it could be both, it's not particularly important. But two witnesses tend to be persuasive, so I'm inclined to think this is two different people. And again, because of the wealth issue. But so, this man, or these men, are more persuasive to the centurion than Paul is. And so, the centurion's basically going, these guys are the experts, they're doing this all the time. Let me give you a warning about experts. experts are just like you. And I think about anything you're expert at yourself, you're really good. I'm good at this thing. Are you ever wrong about the thing you're really good at? Everybody's an expert at something. You're wrong about the thing you're an expert at. You ever forget something? That that problem, the experts, you have to check the reasoning of the experts. The other thing about experts is experts have their own interests. And if you're in a small port versus a bigger port, which one's a bigger market? A bigger port. If you are a merchant, you're gonna be stuck someplace for months. Where would you rather be? A bigger market or a smaller market? A bigger market. You have opportunity to sell the stuff, the stuff on your ship is there, it's likely that there's going to be this opportunity to sell the stuff there. People might consume through things and have a demand for it. And so making more money while waiting around is more likely in the bigger port. So the interest of the owner helmsman or the owner and the helmsman is higher to be there. Also sailors are known for preferring to be in cities that have more interesting things to do for shore leave. And so there's the other tendency. The other thing is, If your sailors spend all of their money on things for entertainment, they are more likely to just get back on board rather than having a bunch of savings and say, you know what, maybe I should, we're at our location or whatever. We're finished this tour. Maybe I should just go do something else. And so there are a number of reasons why the owner of the ship might want to get to a bigger city. And it could just simply be the human desire to have a nicer place to stay. And so this choice of taking a substantial risk with all of their lives is something that these guys were the experts. They persuade the centurion, Julius, to go along. Then there's a broader group discussion, and the majority agrees to go along. Well, sailors and soldiers and prisoners not thinking too much about the future. I'm sure it's shocking, shocking to everybody here. The idea that they might be concerned about the short term finding a more comfortable place to stay rather than the longer term. Julius and the as the centurion and the owner of the ship are really the substantial parties here who should be thinking and discussing this thing. Julius is concerned about The fact that he's a wealthy man, the average centurion made like five times a normal soldier. And that's not accounting for any other extra benefits that they might get. And then the ship owner, they're both wealthy men who have a concern about the future, who are a significant part of the establishment, prosperous. They should be thinking about their interests and the care for the people under them more and not being so concerned about what everybody else really wants here. most of these passengers, frankly, are under the command of Julius. So the idea of discussing it with the majority is an interesting thing. But the majority advised to set sail from there also. So they try to reach Phoenix, the harbor of Crete, opening toward the southwest and northwest. They want to winter there. So verse 13, when the south wind blew softly, supposing that they had obtained their desire, putting out to sea, they sailed close by Crete." Okay. In evangelical culture, it is common to talk about an open door. The Lord just opened a door for me. The Lord opened a door here. The south wind blew softly. Look at this. I mean, it's just, what else? What else could you want? It's like the wind is blowing softly in the direction we want to go. It's going to be a pleasure cruise. It's only 30 miles away. We're going to get there. We're going to get there in like five hours. This is nothing. Let's just do this thing. We'll just hop over. There's no jumping and skipping afterwards. It's just a quick hop. That's it. That's all there is. So let's do that. Now, trying to read Providence is a dicey game. you can't go into God's mind unless it's revealed to you. And God has given his revealed will in the scriptures, his commandments, and he's told us what happens in the future to some extent. That's the revealed will of God. The rest of it, you have to make prudent choices based upon risk-reward assessment. That, remember my earlier conversation about how God's will is revealed to you. Conversations tend to have conversation both ways, speaking both ways. Remember my earlier monologue where I said that there's ignorance, there's opinion, there's knowledge, and there's wisdom? Wisdom, friends, wisdom involves risk-reward assessment. Reward, an enjoyable few months, possibly some extra profit, risk, The death of 277 people, the destruction of the cargo, the destruction of the ship, the probability of this very high because the storming season is such that any given day has a very high percentage of that having a storm in it, in that area, and the winds being difficult and treacherous to deal with. The idea that you say, well, maybe there's only a 10% chance in the five hours or six hours that that would happen, a 10% chance of everybody dying. So Paul's risk assessment situation here is such that we have to stay here anyways. We're talking about a more comfortable and somewhat more profitable potentially for the ship owner, but not for those who are hiring the ship owner. We're talking about just a few months of time waiting. And we're not saying that we're in the wilderness or whatever. We're in a smaller town. Let's go to a bigger town. That's the choice. So the foolishness of this, how this is madness. This is not words of truth and prudence. These are words of truth and prudence. foolish choices. Verse 13, when the south wind blew softly, supposing that they had obtained their desire, putting out to sea, they sailed close by Crete. But not long after, a tempestuous headwind arose called Heraclodon. Now, not long after, again, we're talking hours, hours, right? This journey would have taken hours, especially if they had a nice wind going where they wanted to go. We're talking hours later, they are blown out to sea. Verse 15, so when the ship was caught and could not head into the wind, we let her drive. Okay, let's stop this. We're taking on water. We need to just kind of go with the wind so that we can now intelligently manage the waves. And so this is about using the wind power to deal with the waves, okay? And so you think about this, the waves are going to be driven the direction that the wind is driven. Okay, and so you're going to be going with the waves, so you're going to get strength to go over them, and you'll be able to ride down them, and you're going to have the waves going with you, which will soften your downward ride, and it's going to take you longer to go up over them, and you're going to go over less of them, right? So the waves, going down the waves is the risk point. The idea of also being hit by a wave on the side, and causing the ship to be turned over or causing the ship to be filled with water. Those are the concerns and so you are as opposed to driving into the falling waves as you're going along the the easier part to go up you're going to the more rounded piece of it and traveling with it as it's kind of going down. So you are reducing the risk that's the whole idea of this strategy. So there's a decision they give up because this is Our plan is done, we just need to go with this. So that's a good decision by the helmsman and the owner and so forth, whoever's making the call there. And so they're doing that, try to stay alive. But there's no hope now of getting into any place reasonably. You're really just saying, we're gonna be blown around here, we're gonna wait for this storm. You're hoping at that point of the storm, you can make it through. and running under the shelter of an island called Clodagh, we secured the skiff with difficulty. So they obviously were not able to figure out how to get safely onto this other island, but they're able to use this island temporarily. And what's the skiff? So the skiff is just the boat, right? The difference between a ship and a boat, a ship has a boat, a boat doesn't have another boat. Okay. So the ship has a skiff associated with it. And so there's this smaller boat, and this boat is being pulled in to the ship. That's the skiff. And so that would be used to go ashore, get supplies, whatever. If there's not a port that you can use, it would also be something you could use as a safety device to get to get off the ship potentially. Yeah. So there's, there's a number of uses of this skiff. So they're pulling it in. When you pull it in, here are some of the dangers. One, you no longer have it ready to sail. Two, it's adding weight to the ship, which is going to make it so that the draft goes deeper. Okay. And so you've got less surface area for that weight to be over. Cause previously you had two holes that were carrying that weight and now it's all on the main ships hole. And so you're going to make the ship go deeper into the water. And that means that it's easier for that ship to sink. It's easier for that ship to take on more water to become too low that it sinks. So, That's the choice that they make, but they're trying to preserve the skiff. Now, think about how important additional weight becomes as we continue to read on. They secure the skiff with difficulty. They get it on. They take it on board. They use cables to undergird the ship. Now, this is to strengthen the ship, right? The ship, the concern here is that the ship is not going to be able to survive the storm. And so they're trying to increase the strength of it. They don't think they're going to be able to get off. They don't think they're going to be able to get away. They have to survive the storm. You cannot make a ship to avoid storms, but you can make a ship to survive storms. And this is too delicious of an opportunity to compare this to Christian philosophy. Right? You cannot avoid storms in life. You cannot avoid trouble. But what you can do is you can strengthen your soul by having wisdom, the words of truth and wisdom. And you can use that to be able to be strengthened in the midst of storms. You can't design your life to avoid the storms, but you can strengthen your soul to survive them. And so this is a wise move here on their part to further prepare to be able to survive. You see this kind of hardening process there. They're giving up on trying to get someplace comfortable. They just try to survive the storm. Now they're pulling in the skiff. Now they're also tightening the cables to preserve the ship. And so all of that has happened. Now they take the skiff on board. They use the cables to undergird the ship. And fearing that they should run aground on the Serrati sands, They struck sail, and so were driven. So they now go, okay, so we've been able to do this, we've used this island to be able to protect ourselves, but now we need to get away from it and go back out into the sea. Because the sands are the danger. If we get stuck on the sands, then we'll certainly be destroyed, because then we'll be stuck in one place and the waves will hit against us over and over again for the duration of this storm, and the ship will be broken apart. And so we have to just go out. Think of the desperation of that choice. Our choice is to get further from land and to just let the winds drive us into the sea in the midst of this storm. Verse 18, And because they were exceedingly tempest-tossed, the next day they lightened the ship. You know what that means? It means they threw off the cargo. The only cargo they really have left that we see later is the wheat food. And they throw that off later. So they're throwing off all the stuff that would make money. Now, unless the ship owner owns multiple ships, which seems unlikely since he's on this ship, this would be an enormous loss for him. That's either all the property he has there to trade, or it's somebody else's property. And so, remember, Paul warned that the cargo of the ship and the lives would be lost. Well, the cargo has been lost now. So then from there, after lightening the load, on the third day, we threw the ship's tackle overboard with our own hands. And you might hear that and go, oh, yeah, tackle. And you go, I don't know what that is. Tackle is all the rigging and everything that you use to move stuff around. So this is the stuff on the ship that you can think about tackles associated with sails. You can think about tackle associated with other things. This is the tackle associated with the cargo. stuff you use to load and unload things from the ship. So first they get rid of the cargo, then they get rid of the stuff they need to do business. So it's like throwing away your inventory as a business, and then throwing away your ability to move inventory in and move it out. Does that sound desperate? So then, they tackle overboard with their own hands. Why did they do it with their own hands? because the tackle is what you use to throw stuff and move it off. They get nothing else to do it, because this is like heaving the crane over, because you don't have a crane to take the crane out. So they threw it out with their own hands, because that's what you do when you're throwing the equipment that you lift stuff with out. Verse 20. Now, when neither sun nor stars appeared for many days, and no small tempest beat on us, all hope that we would be saved was finally given up. And they're just desperate. They're just despondent at this point. But after a long abstinence from food, then Paul stood in the midst of them and said, man, you should have listened to me. I love Paul. I love him so much. Man, you should have listened to me. This is the I told you so speech. And not have sailed from Crete and incurred this disaster and loss. And now I urge you to take heart, for there will be no loss of life among you, but only of the ship." So cargo, ship, and lives. Paul was wrong about the lives, because God's going to preserve them through it. Verse 23, "'For there stood by me this night an angel of God to whom I belong and whom I serve, saying, "'Do not be afraid, Paul. You must be brought before Caesar, and indeed God has granted you all those who sail with you.'" Therefore take heart, men, for I believe, God, that it will be just as it was told me. However, we must run aground on a certain island." That's Malta, right? So then, verse 27, "'And the fourteenth night had come, as we were driven up and down in the Adriatic Sea. About night the sailors sensed that they were drawing near some land. Right? So the sailors, they begin to get an awareness of things, really small signs that other people might not be aware of that they're near land. And they took soundings and found it to be 20 fathoms. And when they had gone a little farther, they took soundings again and found it to be 15 fathoms. Right? So the depth of water, has decreased by 25% in this small distance. So they go, OK, we're heading in a direction towards the rising land. So there's going to be some piece of land here. Then, fearing lest we should run aground on the rocks, they dropped four anchors from the stern. So the stern's the back of the ship. They dropped four anchors. They're trying to really, this is like slamming on the brakes. They're really trying to slow this thing down. They're going, whoa, whoa, whoa, this is rising fast. from 20 to 15, that's rising fast. Then fearing lest we should run aground on the rocks, they dropped four anchors from the stern and prayed for day to come. And as the sailors were seeking to escape from the ship, when they had let down the skiff into the sea under pretense of putting out anchors from the prow, Paul said to the centurion and the soldiers, unless these men stay in the ship, you cannot be saved. And the soldiers cut away the ropes of the skiff and let it fall off. So here's what's happening. So the bow of the ship is the front. The prow is the sharp going off of the front. The keel is the rounded kind of edge that's cutting through the water. So they're trying to put anchors off the prow. And the idea is, you know, the bow of the ship, we can't just get to the front. We need to have more of them, put them out further. Cause that will help us to stay more stable or give me some sort of justification about needing to get off of the ship. And so we need to lower the boat so we can get off the ship so that we can go put these anchors off of the prow. And, um, Paul is looking at this and he says, look, this is an excuse to leave. They just want to go away. They want to leave us here to die. That's what they, They've decided that the situation is this. Let everybody else die. Sailors get on the little boat and get away and get onto the land. So that sailor choice to try to use a pretense to get away, Paul tells that to the centurion and to the soldiers. And the soldiers very quickly just cut away the ropes and let the skiff go away. That increases their risk, because they don't have a skiff now. But they're trying to preserve the ship. So they're believing Paul. Think about this. How much do you have to believe the guy who's talking to you to throw away the lifeboat? So they're worried. They're seeing this odd look in the sailor's eyes. So they cut away the ropes of the skiff and let it fall off. Well, now the ship is lighter. They got rid of the tackle. They got rid of the cargo. Now they got rid of the skiff. It's better. It's less likely to get caught on something, right? It's even better. So then, the day's about to dawn. Paul implored them all to take food, saying, today's the 14th day you've waited and continued without food and eat nothing. Why are they doing that? Because if you're in a horrible storm and you get seasick, you're going to throw up. You're going to be weaker than if you hadn't eaten at all. That's how bad this is. They're all going, we can't eat. We can't keep any food down for 14 days. Bad storm. Therefore, I urge you to take nourishment, for this is for your survival." He's saying, you're so weak, we're gonna have to swim, we're gonna have to do some activity. We're done here, eat some food. "'Cause not a hair will fall from the head of any of you." Remind you of Jesus, and a hair falls from your head apart from the will of the Father. And when he had said these things, he took bread and gave thanks to God in the presence of them all. Some people try to take this view that this is like him serving the Lord's Supper all of a sudden, because that's why he's thanking, he's giving, he's blessing it. This is not the case. This is a good proof text for the fact that you should pray over every meal. Giving thanks over food. People will say, look, it says that God's going to make it so all of them get saved, and then he has the Lord's Supper with everybody on the ship, and it's just evangelism explosion. He's telling them to eat for their physical strength. This is proof. What do you take the Lord's Supper for? For spiritual nourishment. He's telling you to eat for your physical nourishment. So this is not the Lord's Supper. This is an ordinary meal. This is a proof text that you should pray before you eat, giving thanks to God for the food. So then, he gives thanks to God in the presence of all. And when he had broken it, he began to eat. Then they were all encouraged and also took food themselves. In all, we were 276 persons on the ship. I think I've been saying 277 this whole time. I'm off by one. So, 276 persons on the ship. So when they had eaten enough, they lightened the ship and threw out the wheat into the sea. That's all they got left. They got the food, throw out the food. Trying to lighten the ship to get as close to the shore as possible and not run aground. Verse 39, when it was day, They did not recognize the land, but they observed a bay with a beach, onto which they planned to run the ship, if possible. And they let go of the anchors and left them in the sea, meanwhile loosing the rudder ropes." OK, that doesn't sound nearly as dramatic as it is. Letting go of these anchors, letting them drop. So these soldiers just took out their two-edged sword and cut loose the ropes for the skiff. And they're like, no, sailors, you're staying on board. Thanks, though. Then they do the same thing. They're just cutting loose these anchors. Gone. Lightens the ship. Don't have to take the anchors on board. Then the ropes for the rudder, when you cut the ropes for the rudder on an ancient ship, there's not a hinge point. It's only attached by ropes. They're throwing away the rudder. There is no pretense here of saving the ship. anything we can do to get on the beach. This is now, this is the Centurion being very wise. He is not concerned about it. The ship owner is either tolerating this or also being wise at this point, saying, save our lives, get rid of the boat, the ship. Maybe we call it a boat this time because it doesn't have a boat inside of it. But that's the plan. So you get rid of the rudder, and that's an interesting way to save some weight, is to cut off the rudder. There's nothing else. At that point, when you're getting rid of the rudder, there's not a whole lot of things to save weight. So the rudder's gone. They strike a place where the two seas met. They ran the ship aground. And the prow, it's really the bow, because the prow's above it, but the ESV is bow. It's the bow. It stuck fast and remained immovable, but the stern was being broken up by the violence of the waves." So the ship's falling apart at this point. And the soldier's plan was to kill the prisoners, lest any of them should swim away and escape. But the centurion, wanting to save Paul, kept them from their purpose and commanded that those who could swim should jump overboard first and get to land. And the rest, some on boards and some on parts of the ship. And so it was that they all escaped safely to land. The favor of this centurion is used by God to save Paul and this aggressive action to just let the, just start throwing off pieces of the ship and all that. They're just did everything they can to get this ship to the, to the beach. And so that's how this thing concludes. They get there, they get stuck on this shoal or reef, and then they are swimming and some people just grabbing stuff and floating to shore and they all get there. So we see the danger of the foolish who put small things above great things. The cargo was lost, the ship was lost, and every life on board would have been lost apart from the grace of God to save Paul and his companions so he can get to Caesar. So my concluding thought for you is to remember There is a great danger to ignorance and to false opinion. That's what foolishness is. And it leads to the destruction of so much that the wise seek to preserve. And so the destruction of this ship and its cargo is the result of that. It's obviously used for the glory of God, as all foolish decisions that are destructive are used for the glory of God. Comments, questions, objections from the voting members? Mr. Nye? Can you speak to chapter 27, verse 12? And because the harbor, Fair Havens, was not suitable to winter in, the majority advised a set sail from there and try to reach Phoenix. I don't think you really touched on that. Yeah. So Philip Kaiser talks about that word and he discusses the word being personally really study the word as much not spending a lot of time on it. But I can't remember what it is. Forgive me. But the word is not really suitable in the sense like they couldn't stay there. It's just like this isn't a nice place isn't a comfortable place isn't a good place to enter. And then. Another thing, I don't know if we have time to talk about this because of the time that it is now, and I think it requires some research, but just given the, in verse 14, the Timpetuous had written, called the Euroclidon, I think given the direction of winds and where, the direction that we're trying to go, It doesn't really make much sense. So I think that it would be good for us to look into that, because it seems that there is a possible contradiction going there. And I don't think, given the time, we have the time suitable for that right now. But I want to bring that up. Well, I understand the time. I would just like to say it's a southeast wind. And it's a problem. The arachnidon is the southeast wind. Yeah. And so if they're going, the southeast wind is coming from the southeast. That's the direction of wind. It comes from the direction of the description. And if they're going west, it's coming from the southeast. So that can't be a headwind. And that's why the majority text tries to say, well, and it would also be driving them into toward the land and not away from the land. So the waves would be coming in toward the land. So it would be taking them toward the land and not out to sea, like the text is describing. So the Critical text, I said majority text earlier. The majority text says it's the uroclodon. The critical text says it's the uroclodon, which is a northeaster. So coming from the northeast, which would drive them away from the land, but it's still not a headwind. So both of those terms there would not be headwinds. And so that's why I think this merits further investigation, because it's problematic. It would not be a headwind. And my knowledge of sailing in winds is very negligible, but that's my understanding. Let me look into this, the alternate name and the justification for it. In brief, my understanding is there's some dispute about the possibility of the direction versus the origin of the direction and the idea of headwinds having partly to do with whether or not something is a direct headwind or whether it's a headwind in the sense of cutting against and the type of tacking that's available to be done based upon triangular sails was not, there weren't triangular sails in wide use in Rome, so they would have rectangular sails which would make the headwinds are broader than we think of them today and the So there's two issues, the description of the direction, how to interpret the direction, and then the ability of not having triangular sails for using in tacking. Those are the major issues that I'm recalling from what I've read. But I'll look into it further until I get a more full answer. And I think the coast and where you are on the coast, how close you are to it, would also affect what's really a headwind versus not. And so I'll look into those three things and try to come back. But that's my short answer. Thank you. I appreciate your teaching. Thank you very much.