Shipwrecked
Treasures
The aged centurion Julius sat waiting in a hallway outside Governor Festus’ office. Julius had been an officer in the imperial regiment, and he had known the Augustan Cohort for many years. He was a battle-hardened veteran of many campaigns, and had been recalled to the garrison at Caesarea on the northern coast of Palestine for his last mission before retirement.
His thoughts were interrupted by an officer summoning him. “The governor will see you now.” Julius rose to his feet, and with his helmet under his arm, entered the governor’s office.
“Have a seat, Centurion,” Governor Festus said, looking up from his paperwork. “I trust you’ve been informed about your mission of transporting prisoners. Here are the papers containing the charges against the prisoners that you are to escort back to Rome for trial.”
Handing the stack of official papers to Julius, Festus said, “Here’s one more.” He handed him one last paper and said, “You will be taking a Jewish prisoner to Rome also, one Paul of Tarsus. He is to stand trial before Emperor Nero himself.”
“What is his crime?” Julius asked.
Governor Festus sighed deeply, “That’s the problem, I have no charges to bring against him, and as far as I can discern, he is innocent. But the high priests and Jewish leaders in Jerusalem have been pressuring us to have him sent to them for trial. Apparently he has broken some of their religious laws. But rather than be sent to Jerusalem, Paul appealed to stand trial before Caesar in Rome. He’s a Roman citizen, so I must honor his request.” (See Acts 26:30–32.)
He went on to say, “But treat him well, Centurion. You needn’t bother to chain him, just ensure that he is safely transported to Rome.”
After being excused, Julius received the prisoners from the palace jailer, and accompanied by a dozen Roman soldiers, marched them to the docks of Caesarea. There he loaded them aboard a merchant vessel headed for the southern coast of Turkey, then a Roman province. Traveling with Paul were two of his companions, Luke and Aristarchus (Acts 27:1–2).
As Festus had instructed him, Julius was courteous to Paul, and the next day when their ship stopped at the coast of Sidon in Lebanon, he allowed Paul the liberty to disembark and visit the Christians in the city (Acts 27:3). As Paul returned to the ship, the brethren gave him gifts of things he would need for his long journey, and bade him farewell as the ship left the harbor.
Once the ship had crossed the length of open sea along the southern Turkish coast, it arrived at a city called Myra. There the centurion discovered that a merchant ship had arrived from Egypt and was bound for Italy. In short order they were all aboard the new ship (Acts 27:5–6). The ship was quite large, 90 feet long and 30 feet wide, and the decks were crowded with travelers from all over Turkey, Palestine, and Egypt.
“How many passengers are on board?” Julius asked Maxus Mercurius, the owner of the ship. “276 people,” Maxus replied, “including your group and the crew. But we can hold as many as 300 passengers.”
“What cargo are you carrying?” Julius enquired.
“The main cargo we’ve got down in the hold is wheat from the Nile Delta,” Maxus replied. “In fact, we are carrying 250 tons of it! And now, sir, I’ll show you your quarters, so you can settle in for a quiet voyage to Rome.”
However, the winds were constantly changing, and for many days they made very little headway in their voyage. The winds began to blow so contrary that they could no longer continue straight across the Aegean Sea, but were forced to veer southward below the island of Crete. But even there the winds were very turbulent, and it was only with difficulty that they finally arrived at a harbor on the south coast of Crete known as “Fair Havens” (Acts 27:6–8).
By then it was late in the year, and winter winds were already beginning to blow, so the captain, the ship owner, Julius, and some of the ship’s officers met to discuss the situation.
“We’ve already lost a lot of time, and it’s now mid-September,” the captain said, his weather-beaten face growing stern. “Navigation has become hazardous, so I suggest that we winter the ship here in Crete for three months until we can safely sail again.”
“The harbor here at Fair Havens is very exposed,” said Maxus. “It’s very windy and a poor place to winter in. We’d do best to sail up the coast to the port of Phoenix on the west end of Crete and winter there.”
The prisoner, Paul, had not been invited to the council, but now he stepped forward and said, “Men, after careful observation, I can see that this voyage is bound to meet with disaster and heavy loss, not only to ship and cargo, but to our own lives as well” (Acts 27:9–10).
Surprised at Paul’s interruption, no one spoke for a moment, then the captain laughed and said, “Even the prisoners have an opinion!” The entire group broke out in laughter, but Paul motioned to Julius to come aside and insisted that to continue would be ill-advised.
Julius answered Paul, saying, “The captain, the ship’s owner and the majority of the crew feel that they should try to sail to Phoenix. I think we’d best take heed to their experience and opinion” (Acts 27:11–12).
A day later, a gentle south wind began to blow, and thinking they had smooth sailing ahead, they weighed anchor, hoisted the sail, and began to sail westward, hugging the coastline. They were halfway up the coast to Phoenix when a violent, tempestuous wind called the northeaster struck and caught up the ship and drove it along (Acts 27:13–15).
Within minutes, the hurricane-force wind had caught up the merchant ship and driven it many miles from the shore. “Get all the passengers below deck!” Maxus shouted, as the fierce winds whipped across the vessel, sending heavy waves crashing across the deck. Driven by the raging wind, the ship was swept out to sea, and soon passed the tiny island of Clauda, south of Crete. For just a moment, the island sheltered them from the full blast of the wind,
“I don’t think the ship can take this kind of pounding,” Maxus shouted to the sailors. “You had better undergird the ship to strengthen its hull!” (Acts 27:16–17).
Feverishly the crew labored to place heavy supports and braces inside the bottom of the hull, and no sooner had they wedged them securely than the ship came out from behind the small island and the full force of the winds hit them again. All night long, sheets of rain pounded the deck and waves battered the ship. Below deck, passengers lay sprawled on the bare boards, seasick and frightened for their lives.
The ship was riding so dangerously low in the sea by the third day of the storm that the captain had the crew throw the ship’s tackle overboard. For many days the storm and the tempest raged so savagely that neither the sun nor the stars were visible. During this time, the passengers and crew had been without food, and all hope of being saved was at last abandoned (Acts 27:19–20).
That night, Paul continued to pray desperately to the Lord for His deliverance and protection. The next morning, radiating faith and calm, he stood up amongst the huddled mass of prisoners and soldiers below the deck and shouted:
“Men, you should have taken my advice and not set sail from Crete, and then you would not have brought on us this misery and loss. But even now I urge you to keep up your courage! None among you will be lost; only the ship will be destroyed. For just last night an angel of the God whom I serve stood beside me and said, ‘Do not be afraid, Paul. You are destined to stand trial before Caesar, and God has graciously given you the lives of all who sail with you.’ So keep up your courage, men! I have complete confidence in God that it will all work out exactly as I have been told” (Acts 27:21–25).
It was just past midnight of the fourteenth night of the storm, and the wind and rain showed no sign of letting up as they were driven about in the Adriatic Sea. In fact, it was a miracle that they had survived this long, But God was strategically driving them to Malta, which would become one of the early cradles of Christianity in the world.
When Paul came to the deck, he noticed that the sailors were talking excitedly amongst themselves, as they suspected that land was near. They took a sounding and found that the sea was only 20 fathoms deep, and a short time later they took another sounding and found it was only 15 fathoms (about 30 meters or 90 feet deep).
For fear that the ship would be dashed against some rocky coast, they dropped four anchors and prayed earnestly for daylight (Acts 27:27–29). The sailors were so fearful that they decided to secretly abandon the ship and escape to shore in the small lifeboat. Pretending that they were going to run out anchors from the bow, they lowered the boat into the sea.
God revealed the sailors’ plan to Paul, and he warned Julius and the soldiers, “Unless these men stay with the ship, you have no chance of surviving!” By this time, the centurion had learned to trust Paul’s advice, and he ordered his soldiers to cut the ropes that were lowering the boat. It fell into the sea and drifted away (Acts 27:30–32).
Just before dawn, Paul stood up and said to everyone, “For fourteen days now you have lived in constant suspense, and no one has eaten anything. But now I urge you to eat, so you’ll have the strength to survive. Don’t worry! Not one of you shall lose a single hair from his head” (Acts 27:33–34).
Paul then took some bread, gave thanks to God before them all, and began to eat. He inspired such faith that they all took courage and took some food. When they had eaten enough, the captain told Maxus, “If we want to make it to shore, we’ll have to throw all the grain overboard.” For the next few hours, all hands were on deck unloading sack after sack of Egyptian wheat (Acts 27:35–38).
Not long after they completed this task, daylight came and they saw a bay with a creek and sandy beach where they decided to run the ship aground. But the ship hit a sandbar, and the stern began to shatter because of the violent pounding of the surf (Acts 27:39–41).
As they were very near to shore, the sailors and passengers prepared to dive into the sea to swim for shore. But several of the Roman soldiers drew their swords and called out to Julius, “Centurion, we must kill the prisoners! Otherwise, they might swim to land and escape.” Julius knew how dangerous the prisoners were, but wanting to spare Paul, he cried, “No! Put away your swords!”
Turning to the prisoners, Julius commanded those who could swim to jump overboard and make for land. Pointing to planks and timbers that had been ripped from the ship by the waves, he shouted, “The rest of you float ashore on those timbers” (Acts 27:42–44).
As the Lord had told Paul, everyone made it safely to shore, and not one person of the 276 souls on the ship was lost. They soon discovered that they were on the island of Malta, and before long, the natives who lived near the beach, seeing the great shipwreck, showed them unusual kindness. They built a fire and welcomed them because it was raining and cold.
Paul helped them gather firewood, and when he threw his bundle of brushwood on the fire, a deadly viper, escaping from the heat, slithered out and bit his hand. At the sight of the snake hanging from his hand, the natives jumped back and said to one another, “This man must surely be a murderer if, after his escape from the sea, the goddess Justice will not let him live!” (Acts 28:1–4).
But Paul calmly shook the snake off into the fire and suffered no harm. The natives expected to see him swell up and fall down dead, but after waiting for quite some time, they changed their minds and began to whisper that he must be a god. Julius now knew for certain that the God of Paul was the one true God (Acts 28:5–6).
The estate of Publius, the chief Roman official on the island, was near the beach where they had shipwrecked, and hearing of the disaster, he took them into his villa and hosted them there for three days. When Paul heard that Publius’ father was laid up with chronic fever and dysentery, he went into the old man’s bedchamber and laid his hands on him while praying over him, and immediately he was healed (Acts 28:7–8).
They wintered in Malta for three months, and during that time, Paul witnessed all over Malta, leading scores of the local people to the Lord and teaching the new converts daily how to live a Christian life. When they set sail for Rome three months later, the thankful people brought many gifts to Paul and his friends, and loaded them with all the provisions they would need for their journey (Acts 28:9–10).
Julius fulfilled his mission by escorting Paul to Rome as he had been ordered, but our story does not end here. Even while under guard in Rome, for two years Paul stayed in his own rented house and from morning to evening, he proclaimed the kingdom of God and taught about the Lord Jesus Christ—with all boldness and without hindrance (Acts 28:30–31).
As Christians, we will face misfortune, setbacks, or delay, and we may be tempted to wonder why God has allowed this. But the Bible promises us that “for those who love God, all things work together for good” (Romans 8:28). And so it was that while Paul was headed for prison in Rome, this shipwreck was God’s plan for him to preach the gospel and bring many people in Malta to the Christian faith, making it one of the first Roman colonies to convert to Christianity.
From an article in Treasures, published by the Family International in 1987. Adapted and republished February 2025.
