Ministry in Malta
Published by Stanley Pouw in 2024 · 5 May 2024
This is a climactic passage. For a long time, we’ve seen Paul trying to get to Rome. And, finally, he is going to arrive. It’s hard to imagine the reaction of Paul at this point. God is in the business of fulfilling desires. And the world is really in the business of messing up everybody’s dreams. Solomon had it right in the Ecclesiastes when he said, “Man looks out on everything and all is vanity.”
But God plants desires in the heart of those who fear Him and meets those desires and fulfills them. And we see that in this passage. Now in Acts 27 we saw all the qualities of a faithful leader. Here we’re going to see the blessing of a faithful God on a faithful leader. Here are some of the things that God did in blessing a man who feared Him, and blessing a man who was faithful.
So the trip to Rome is a rich narrative because it gives us principles of leadership but it also gives us the principles upon which God blesses faithful leadership. So we come to what happens from Malta to Rome. The journey has already lasted 2-1/2 months. For 14 days they have fought the wind and the sea against this hurricane. But God has somehow controlled the hurricane.
God allowed it to drive them to Malta. The centurion, Julius, prevented the soldiers from killing all the prisoners on the ship that was breaking up. Some dove into the water, some swam through the surf and others were hanging to boards, but all of them made it to shore. And everything that God said came to pass. So the credibility of Paul and the God he claimed was ruling in the world was high.
Everyone on the island was soaking wet in a torrential rain, just having managed to escape with their lives through the surf. The wind is blowing, in that kind of a situation, there they are, beached on a place that they can’t even identify. The first thing we see is the pagan hospitality. And we’ll go through the narrative and then come back to the points on God’s blessing of a faithful man.
One great virtue of Christianity is hospitality. Hospitality is to be the characteristic of a godly person, according to 1st Timothy and Titus. But beyond that, hospitality is to be characteristic of all Christians, according to 1st Peter 4:9. Christians are to extend themselves in kindness toward strangers. Our homes are to be open. Our lives are to be available to meet the needs of strangers.
Matthew 10:40-42 says, “The one who welcomes you welcomes Me, and the one who welcomes Me welcomes Him who sent Me. 41 And anyone who welcomes a righteous person because he’s righteous will receive a righteous person’s reward. 42 And whoever gives a cup of cold water to one of these little ones because he is a disciple, truly I tell you, he will never lose his reward.”
When you go out and preach to reach people, their hospitality toward you is going to result in the blessing of God. God has always put a high price on hospitality; on kindness, on gentleness and goodness toward strangers, and this is to be part of the Christian’s life and testimony. A lack of hospitality results in treating people as if they were Gentiles, which was the worst thing for a Jew.
Well, when you really look at hospitality, we are often out-done by the world. Now in Acts 28 notice that hospitality here is characteristic of these pagans. Verse 1, “Once safely ashore, we then learned that the island was called Malta.” They didn’t recognize it when they arrived because this was not the normal port called Valletta. Malta is not large, only 17 miles long and 10 miles wide.
Verse 2, “The local people showed us extraordinary kindness. They lit a fire and took us all in, since it was raining and cold.” It’s early November and it’s bitter cold, and to be soaking wet and exposed to the wind. Now when you’re going to make a fire for 276 people to get them warm that’s some kind of fire, so they had a real bonfire. So these Maltese welcomed all these cold, exhausted visitors.
In Genesis 12 you have the first statement where God says Abraham is going to be the father of a great nation and then he says “I will bless them that bless you and I will curse them that curses you.” How the world treats the people of God is a primary concern in God’s mind. God always notes the kindness of the pagan world toward his own and in turn God blesses them too.
And one of the reasons so many wonderful things happened here at Malta was because of those people being so kind to those strangers. It says in verse 2 that they “showed us extraordinary kindness.” What it means is it was beyond normal kindness. We talk a lot about the depravity of man. But even within a pagan culture, there is something in mankind that makes them do kind deeds.
Some of the greatest philanthropists in the world have been non-Christians. Romans 2:14, 15 says, “So, when Gentiles, who do not by nature have the law, do what the law demands, they are a law to themselves even though they do not have the law. 15 They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts. Their consciences confirm this. Their competing thoughts either accuse or even excuse them.”
The activity of the people on Malta is an illustration of the internal revelation of God to the pagan. Even the individual without a knowledge of Jesus Christ, which says to love your neighbor as yourself, even a person without all of that has a sense within them to do what is right in a time of stress. They get it because the Law of God is written in their hearts. Their conscience bears witness.
Now this is one of the great proofs of the inward knowledge of right, meaning that God has revealed himself to men. People always say, what about the heathen? How will they know? How will they tell? Because God has written his law in their hearts. They have a sense of morality. They have a sense of kindness and love that is granted to them by God. They have a sense of right and wrong.
Verse 3, “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.” And by now his credibility is established. But when it comes time to gather the sticks he doesn’t start giving orders to 275 others, he just goes and gets the sticks himself. True spiritual leadership, does exactly what it expects of other people.
Paul always sacrificed. Jesus said, “For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many.” Humility is absolute to true spiritual leadership. In the ultimate fulfillment he says to them, “You do what I have done to you.” In other words, you lead with a servant mentality. You stoop to meet the needs of each other. Unfortunately, one of the sticks was alive.
Verse 4, “When the local people saw the snake hanging from his hand, they said to one another, “This man, no doubt, is a murderer. Even though he has escaped the sea, justice has not allowed him to live.” It seems strange that all of a sudden he would die here bitten by a snake when he’s just managed to be protected from 14 days of a hurricane. There’s their theology, he’s a murderer.
Verse 5, “But he shook the snake off into the fire and suffered no harm.” These pagans have a sense of justice and a sense that sin gets punished. This is a sense of morality. Now this is that which God has planted in a man’s heart. Now notice the contrast. One is a sense of goodness. The other is a sense of evil. Goodness has its consequences, evil also has its consequences.
Well, that kind of calmness is conspicuous. Usually such a snake bite would create panic and a person would be flailing around in horror. It says he felt no harm; flicked the snake off. Did you know this is a fulfillment of prophecy? Luke 10:19 says, “I have given you the authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy; nothing at all will harm you.”
Now remember that this is not for today. You drink a bottle of poison you have no guarantees except that you’ll be dead. And if you play with poisonous snakes you cannot claim Mark 16:18. Remember that the same people who want to claim that the speaking with a new language was just for the apostles aren't anxious to claim the drinking of poison or the playing with poisonous snakes.
This was purely for the apostolic era. God used miracles to confirm his apostles and to confirm their divine source and to confirm their word. Verse 6, “They expected that he would begin to swell up or suddenly drop dead. After they waited a long time and saw nothing unusual happen to him, they changed their minds and said he was a god.” Paul didn't like to be thought of as God.
Verse 7, “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.” Here is the person who is in charge of Malta. He lived in that vicinity and had a very large estate. Two hundred and seventy-six people he put up for three days. Now that’s a generous gesture.
Verse 8, “Publius’s father was in bed suffering from fever and dysentery. Paul went to him, and praying and laying his hands on him, he healed him.” Paul did two things. He prayed and he laid his hands on him. Why did he pray? Because all power is from God. Why did he lay his hands on him? Because he wanted him to see that it was through him that God moved in power.
So if Paul healed, Paul also preached. And tradition tells us that he founded in these days the church at Malta. And tradition also tells us that the first pastor of the Maltese church Christians was Publius. Now these were days, when everything that Paul had been saying about God was coming to pass and he was beginning to preach the gospel and it must have been a time of believing response.
Verse 9-10, “After this, the rest of those on the island who had diseases also came and were healed. 10 So they heaped many honors on us, and when we sailed, they gave us what we needed.” Because God was showing his kindness to those who had been kind to his people. God was establishing the credibility of Paul as his minister. Paul had three months to follow up with the gospel.
Verse 11, “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 twins called Gemini in the Constellation. They were the patrons of navigation. Verse 12, “Putting in at Syracuse, we stayed three days.” Tradition says that Paul founded a church there too. And Sicily is an island about 90 miles away from Malta.
Verse 13, “From there, after making a circuit along the coast, we reached Rhegium. After one day a south wind sprang up, and the second day we came to Puteoli.” Puteoli is the port in the Bay of Naples. Today it’s called Pozzuoli. And it is a chief port in the old days for the grain fleet; 145 miles southwest of Rome, the ships would come in there as well as at Austria and transport across the land.
Verse 14, “There we found brothers and sisters and were invited to stay a week with them. And so we came to Rome.” There was a large Jewish community in Puteoli. It was a trade center like Corinth or Ephesus and it would be occupied by Jews who were there for the trade business. And they found some Christians there and they had a terrific time for 7 days with a Christian.
And Paul was just 145 miles from Rome and here was a group of Christians. Now they would have had to go from Puteoli on the famous Appian Way. Verse 15, “Now the brothers and sisters from there had heard the news about us and had 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.”
Paul was thrilled at this reception. It had been three years since he wrote the Roman letter. Three years since he said I want to come to you on minister to you and impart a spiritual gift and mutually be comforted by you. Verse 16, “When we entered Rome, Paul was allowed to live by himself with the soldier who guarded him.” He had his own house and his own guard was chained to him.
God says, “I will fulfill the desire of all them that fear Me.” Now look what God does with this man. Just six things. God surrounds him with kindness. In Acts 27:2 - 3 when they left Caesarea he arrives in Sidon and immediately he is refreshed there and ministered to by the Christians. God ministered to his needs. When he was sick in Sidon, he was ministered to medically.
God encouraged him over and over. In Acts 27 when the ship was being torn up in the hurricane God came and sent an angel to him and the angel said don’t worry Paul, you're going to make it to Rome and everybody is going to make it with you. God protects him from harm. God saved him in a hurricane. God saved him in a shipwreck and God saved him from a snake bite.
God blessed his influence. He had such an influence on the ship that some of them came to know Jesus Christ. And a church was begun there. God fulfilled his desire. He wanted to get to Rome, he got to Rome. We see a faithful man exhibiting all the qualities of a faithful leader and in return we see God giving all the blessing. Because God is a faithful God. Let us pray.