Acts 27:1–8 (ESV)
And when it was decided that we should sail for Italy, they delivered Paul and some other prisoners to a centurion of the Augustan Cohort named Julius. And embarking in a ship of Adramyttium, which was about to sail to the ports along the coast of Asia, we put to sea, accompanied by Aristarchus, a Macedonian from Thessalonica. The next day we put in at Sidon. And Julius treated Paul kindly and gave him leave to go to his friends and be cared for. And putting out to sea from there we sailed under the lee of Cyprus, because the winds were against us. And when we had sailed across the open sea along the coast of Cilicia and Pamphylia, we came to Myra in Lycia. There the centurion found a ship of Alexandria sailing for Italy and put us on board. We sailed slowly for a number of days and arrived with difficulty off Cnidus, and as the wind did not allow us to go farther, we sailed under the lee of Crete off Salmone. Coasting along it with difficulty, we came to a place called Fair Havens, near which was the city of Lasea.
There are many interesting details in this passage that are easy to miss. We learn that there were some other prisoners on board the ship with Paul. Since appealing to Caesar wasn’t common, that’s a mystery.
The centurion guarding Paul is named—Julius. This is high praise. The only other centurion in scripture who merits a name is Cornelius, who (in Acts 10:22) was directed by an angel to play a key role in Peter understanding his vision of the sheet. Julius may deserve being named by Luke because he treated Paul kindly and gave him leave to go to his friends and be cared for.
As we will see, Paul’s status as a prisoner doesn’t keep him from earning the respect of everyone on the ship. Julius’s treatment of Paul, right off the bat, sets him up to be paid attention to. This ends up being critical.
The next day we put in at Sidon. We?
Luke is on the ship! Consider the magnitude of the sacrifice that implies. This isn’t a one-week vacation so Luke can tour Rome; it’ll cost him months (and maybe his life) to accompany Paul.
That kind of sacrifice, which was typical of the first Christians, puts us to shame.
No one asked Luke to make this sacrifice (at least none recorded). Luke’s description doesn’t note anything we’d describe as a “calling.” He just went.
This contradicts the notion that we need some kind of sign to make a life-changing sacrifice. Luke seems to have made this choice without any supernatural prodding, or even a natural nudge from a friend.
This means that insisting on a sign can be wrong. Sometimes, we should make decisions simply by using the tools God gave us.
That includes our brains.
