Immerse: Messiah - Flipbook - Page 119
26:29–27:14
L UK E – A cts
107
Paul replied, “Whether quickly or not, I pray to God that both you and
everyone here in this audience might become the same as I am, except for
these chains.”
Then the king, the governor, Bernice, and all the others stood and left.
As they went out, they talked it over and agreed, “This man hasn’t done
anything to deserve death or imprisonment.”
And Agrippa said to Festus, “He could have been set free if he hadn’t
appealed to Caesar.”
When the time came, we set sail for Italy. Paul and several other prisoners
were placed in the custody of a Roman officer named Julius, a captain of
the Imperial Regiment. Aristarchus, a Macedonian from Thessalonica, was
also with us. We left on a ship whose home port was Adramyttium on the
northwest coast of the province of Asia; it was scheduled to make several
stops at ports along the coast of the province.
The next day when we docked at Sidon, Julius was very kind to Paul
and let him go ashore to visit with friends so they could provide for his
needs. Putting out to sea from there, we encountered strong headwinds
that made it difficult to keep the ship on course, so we sailed north of
Cyprus between the island and the mainland. Keeping to the open sea, we
passed along the coast of Cilicia and Pamphylia, landing at Myra, in the
province of Lycia. There the commanding officer found an Egyptian ship
from Alexandria that was bound for Italy, and he put us on board.
We had several days of slow sailing, and after great difficulty we finally
neared Cnidus. But the wind was against us, so we sailed across to Crete
and along the sheltered coast of the island, past the cape of Salmone. We
struggled along the coast with great difficulty and finally arrived at Fair
Havens, near the town of Lasea. We had lost a lot of time. The weather
was becoming dangerous for sea travel because it was so late in the fall,
and Paul spoke to the ship’s officers about it.
“Men,” he said, “I believe there is trouble ahead if we go on—shipwreck,
loss of cargo, and danger to our lives as well.” But the officer in charge
of the prisoners listened more to the ship’s captain and the owner than
to Paul. And since Fair Havens was an exposed harbor—a poor place to
spend the winter—most of the crew wanted to go on to Phoenix, farther
up the coast of Crete, and spend the winter there. Phoenix was a good
harbor with only a southwest and northwest exposure.
When a light wind began blowing from the south, the sailors thought
they could make it. So they pulled up anchor and sailed close to the
shore of Crete. But the weather changed abruptly, and a wind of typhoon
strength (called a “northeaster”) burst across the island and blew us out to
