Acts 28:1-16 - Hospitality and Snake Bites

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Today, we are in the very last chapter of Acts.

And yesterday, we saw the Apostle Paul and those that he was with, those that were escorting him, those that were taking him to Italy and to Rome, to where he would be put on trial before the Roman Emperor, as opposed to being tried in Jerusalem by

the religious rulers. And that was kind of Paul's right as a Roman citizen. And so he appealed to Caesar, and to Caesar, he would go.

Yesterday, we saw that there was multiple weeks, at least two weeks of a storm that Paul and his entourage and those that were escorting him to Rome, there was a storm that they were encountering for quite a bit of time that ended in a shipwreck

where the ship ran aground on this island and the waves and everything beat down, the ship was destroyed. But everyone that was on the ship, I believe 246 people, 276 people from chapter 27 in verse number 37, 276 of them made it safely to shore.

And really a miracle that God did and spoke to Paul and told him he didn't have to be afraid of what was coming because he was with Paul. And so thankful that God is with us. So that's where we find ourselves.

We are on an island having been shipwrecked with several Roman soldiers It was a ship that had come from Alexandria in Egypt. So some sailors had some prisoners as well outside of Paul.

Paul also had some people that were with him that were not imprisoned. So Luke is writing and he writes in the word we.

So there's at least him and Paul, if not some other companions as well that we would read from even some other places in scripture. And it might be that Timothy is with him.

I don't know who all he has with him because he doesn't specifically mention it, but at least Luke and Paul are now on this island. It's not deserted, as we'll see in chapter 28 and verse number one.

Once safely ashore, we then learned that the island was called Malta. The local people showed us extraordinary kindness. They lit a fire and took us all in since it was raining and cold.

Here, hospitality was a huge... Oh, it was a great trait to exhibit in the ancient world. Nowadays, we're pretty nervous about who we let into our homes.

We have many nice things, things that we go, I don't really know if I invite someone in, they might steal my jewelry, they might steal my TV, they might whatever this.

But in the ancient world, in a time when there weren't a lot of luxuries that normal people had, pretty much all you would have would maybe be a place to sleep, even if it was just that there was a roof over the person's head, and you might have

food. And here that's what some of these men needed after being in the Mediterranean Sea and experiencing all of this hardship for day after day after day.

They needed a fire, and they needed some food, and that's what they were given by these people.

And today, even though there's a lot of fear that can come with hospitality, I encourage you, maybe it might not be someone that's shipwrecked outside of your home.

Maybe if it's just someone that is a co-worker, that you know is going through a hard time, that they're struggling in their life, and they've got struggles in relationships. Maybe they've lost a loved one.

Maybe their spouse is diagnosed with cancer. Have a Christian heart of hospitality that would say, I'm not content just to have you maybe on the outside of my life, but I want you to be a part of it.

I want to eat with you and to talk about what's important to me and what's important to you and be able to have some of that, have a importance placed on the hospitality.

Verse number three, as Paul gathered a bundle of brushwood and put it on the fire, a viper came out because of the heat and fastened itself on his hand.

When the local people saw the snake hanging from his hand, they said to one another, this man no doubt is a murderer. Justice has not allowed him to live. But he shook the snake off into the fire and suffered no harm.

They expected that he would begin to swell up or suddenly drop dead. After they waited a long time and saw nothing unusual happened to him, they changed their minds and said he was a god.

So I think I've mentioned this before when we were all the way back in, was it in Lystra? I want to say before when Paul and Barnabas at that point, they came to the city.

Barnabas did a lot of the speaking, or it might have been Paul that was doing the speaking. And so they called Paul Jupiter and Barnabas Mercury or vice versa.

And they thought, oh, great, the gods of old have come down and they are with us and they are doing incredible things.

And here again, because there was something supernatural that had taken place, that someone had been bitten by a venomous snake and was not killed, there wasn't even any swelling, any allergic reaction to it.

They thought, oh man, this must be the divine at work. However, as we'll see, Paul once again goes, I'm not divine, I'm just a man.

Now, in the area around that place was an estate belonging to the leading man of the island named Publius, who welcomed us and entertained us hospitably for three days. Publius' father was in bed, suffering from fever and dysentery.

Paul went to him, and praying and laying his hands on him, he healed him. After this, the rest of those on the island who had diseases also came and were healed, so they heaped many honors on us. And when we sailed, they gave us what we needed.

Here, what an incredible thing that Paul does for people, something that really no one else could do, that God had in this moment in time, given him the ability to, through the Holy Spirit, heal these people, heal them of their diseases.

And I think about us today in America, that God has given us something that he has not given every believer throughout the world. And what that is, is riches.

To be able to have money, maybe it's not a lot of money, maybe you don't have $1,000 a year that you can just give to others, but maybe you might have something that would be small, $10, $50, $100, $250, $150 throughout the course of the year that

you might be able to give to help someone else, that maybe you might be able to donate to something like a hospital, that they would be able to, as here, help heal and be with people, that you might be able to give to... I think about our church

right now. We're praying over our Annie Armstrong Easter Offering, where we're supporting church planters and new churches and new works for Christ that are being done all throughout the United States and Canada.

And maybe you don't have a ton of money, but you would give a little something. You'd give $10, you'd give $20, you'd give $500 to help the Gospel go around our world.

I think even as our church helps support both the Baltimore Baptist Association and the Baptist Convention of Maryland, Delaware, specifically with the Baptist Convention of Maryland, Delaware, some of the things that they use funds for is disaster

relief. That those that experience flooding or fires or catastrophic events, that then we'd be able to have our partners, our brothers and sisters in Christ, that go into those areas and help give needed supplies.

They help to give warmth, they help to give food, they help to give supplies to those that are in desperate need.

Or in other instances in which our BCMD works, they help by supporting those that have severe mental health needs or disabilities to be able to worship together, to have moments of time where they are helped and they are honored.

And I think that here as Paul is doing for others what God has given him, that we with our finances should have a heart to help out others because in other portions of the world, I think of our believers in Africa and in South America and in

Southeast Asia, places where there is abject poverty, that if they could would love to help give to those areas, give to help the gospel go around, give to help those that are in disaster areas. I think they would love to do those things, and since

God has given us some finances to be able to give, that we ought to do that. Not out of a heart that goes, okay, well, I guess you better, or else God's really going to whatever, or if, hey, if you don't give this amount, or if you don't give to this

thing, then God's going to take away all the rest of the stuff that you have. Not out of a heart of that, but here is with Paul, that he just wanted to give what God had given to him. I'd encourage us, let's do that.

I know I've been praying, and I've been setting aside money for the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering. And I'd encourage you, set aside money so that you can be a blessing to other people. That here, as Paul helped others, that you would do the same.

I'm going to enter here into Roman verses 11 through 16, and then we'll take that next portion, that last half of Acts 28, in tomorrow's episode.

So, after three months, we set sail in an Alexandrian ship that had wintered at the island with the twin gods as its figurehead. These were the twin sons of Zeus, Castor and Pollux as its figurehead. Putting in at Syracuse, we stayed three days.

From there, after making a circuit along the coast, we reached Regium. After one day, a south wind sprang up, and the second day we came to Putioli. There, we found brothers and sisters.

There, we found fellow Christians, and we're invited to stay a week with them. And so, we came to Rome. Now, the brothers and sisters from there had heard the news about us and come to meet us as far as the Forum of Appius and the Three Taverns.

When Paul saw them, he thanked God and took courage.

Here, the fact that there were other believers, that they cared about him, that they visited him, that they traveled to go meet him there at that Forum, he saw them, he thanked God and took courage because of the encouragement of other believers

being there, caring about him, visiting him. I encourage you to do the exact same thing. Be there for other believers. Encourage them with your presence.

Visit others. Don't live your life in isolation. Live it in community with others because it can encourage other people.

When we entered Rome, verse 16, Paul was allowed to live by himself with the soldier who guarded him.

Here God has done incredible things in Paul's life that he has opportunities to be able to witness that he's not maybe in deepest, darkest prisons, obviously not a cushy area with having an armed guard always with him.

But God worked, and even in times where you're going through difficulties, you are a prisoner, be thankful for the little blessings that you can find in your difficulties.

You might say, well, I don't know, I'm going through this health struggle, but maybe God's providing for me to be able to go through it. Maybe God's given me people that will encourage me and that are there for me and that are praying for me.

Maybe you might say, oh, this gives me an opportunity to witness to the doctors or nurses or those around me. One of my friends from several years ago was my pastor's dad, Dennis Fountain Sr. And he struggled with four different cancers.

He beat cancer four different times from 2010 or 2011 on.

And for 10 years, he fought against four different cancers, beat each of them every time, went through various times of chemotherapy and T cell transplants and all sorts of things to defeat those cancers.

And through that time, he lost weight, he lost hair, he lost strength, he lost all of those different things. But he took the time even in his difficulties.

He would often say, a lot of people might say, why me, God, why are you allowing this to happen to me? He says, but my heart in this is I want to say, what God, like what do you want me to do as a result of what I'm going through?

And here, Paul, even in difficulty, even in being a prisoner, he takes courage. He's able to see the good that God is doing, and we'll see some more of that even tomorrow as we end the book of Acts.

So I'd encourage you today, in your circumstances, will you be hospitable to others?

Will you do for others what maybe others would want to be able to do, but with what God has given you, with talents, with treasure, with your time, will you invest in care for others?

And then, will you take time to encourage other people, to visit them, to live your life in community with other believers, that you're not isolated from everyone else, the only time you see them might be a Sunday or might be a Wednesday when the

church at large is doing something. But will you do something individually to meet with and love and pray for and to spiritually encourage and to spend time with other believers?

And in your moments of difficulty, will you turn to God and ask, God, what do you have me to do in this moment? What are the blessings that I can see that you are giving me, even in my times of difficulty?

I hope that would be an encouragement to you today. Thanks for tuning in to Tabernacle Talk. If I randomly said Strength for the Day at some other point in the podcast, please forgive me.

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And if you want, you can turn into my friend Dennis Fountain's Strength for the Day Podcast. His is also, I believe, weekdays.

And last I saw, they were going through First Thessalonians, they've gone through Nehemiah, they've gone through, oh, I think, another book or two this year.

But if you're like, man, I just really love hearing the Bible and people talking about it where it's kind of on, if you will, it's on the bottom shelf, like there's not a bunch of original language stuff, there's not, I'm nodding over my head.

Strength for the Day would be another wonderful Bible podcast that you can look at and you can find that wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for tuning in today. We finish out the Book of Acts tomorrow.