In this second article of this series, a voyage across the Mediterranean begins, and, in a picture, a voyage around the world and through twenty centuries!
By W. D. Penfield. Originally published on Substack, December 15, 2021.
The Voyage Begins
Perhaps it was a sunny, early Fall day filled with the sights, sounds, and smells of a busy port city—the gentle creaking of wooden ships at anchor, the squawks of seabirds, the lapping of waves, the clatter of dock workers and crew scurrying about, the chatter and bustle of passengers carrying luggage and bedrolls for sleeping on open decks at night, the wobbling and bouncing of gangplanks, the smells of salt air and cargo and people.
And here’s where Paul began his voyage to Rome.
Paul’s personal voyage was already astonishing. He was once Saul, a ruthless religious zealot, a prominent Pharisee in the Jewish theocracy, an educated, authoritarian legalist who gave his official approval to the stoning of the beloved disciple Stephen—whose face he himself likely saw appear “as it were the face of an angel” (Acts 6:15).
But when Saul journeyed to Damascus to persecute Christians, he encountered Jesus. And that encounter changed his plans. And changed him.
Saul became a good man—a very good man who refused to fall into a snare of thinking of himself as a good man. Transformed, the old cruel unsympathetic legalist Saul no longer existed. In his place stood Paul, the kind, humble, gentle yet assertive, fervent, loving apostle of Jesus Christ.
He was a man of uncompromised agency, yet he had come into union with the heart and mind of God. He became a conduit of the living God—his love a conduit of God’s love, his feelings and emotions a conduit of God’s feelings and emotions, his writing a conduit of God’s writing. He became an expression of the heart and mind of God while remaining an uncompromised individual. That is how God’s amazing belief system works.
And just before Acts 27 begins, Paul has been wrongfully imprisoned for two years.
Paul was a Roman citizen. As such, he had the right to appeal his case to Caesar. Being very much a human being like us, and having grown frustrated with how the proceedings against him were going, Paul did just that. His appeal was granted, and arrangements were made to transport him to Rome via sailing ship.
And that’s where the story in Acts 27 opens.
Things are about to get interesting. Paul’s voyage won’t just be across the Mediterranean sea. It will also be across time, through our entire current New Testament age and into the Tribulation period that will follow.
AND when it was determined that we should sail into Italy, they delivered Paul and certain other prisoners unto one named Julius, a centurion of Augustus’ band.
2 And entering into a ship of Adramyttium, we launched, meaning to sail by the coasts of Asia; one Aristarchus, a Macedonian of Thessalonica, being with us.
The voyage likely started in the port city of Caesarea in Israel. As Paul boarded the ship, we have a picture of him putting Israel behind him—temporarily, meaning about 2,000 years.
When Israel rejected Jesus as Messiah, and therefore rejected God’s offer of the restored Kingdom, He temporarily set Israel aside. Israel became “Lo-ammi,” or “not my people” in God’s eyes (Hosea 1:9).
But that became a blessing to the whole world. The gospel of salvation by grace through faith went out from Israel to all people, Jews and Gentiles alike.
Paul and company launched into the Gentile (non-Jewish) world bearing his gospel to the uncircumcision—meaning the gospel preached to the Gentiles (Galatians 2:7). Paul is the apostle to us Gentiles (Romans 11:13, 1 Timothy 2:7), but his gospel to the uncircumcision is the gospel for all men in this age, Jews and Gentiles alike: Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.
After the conclusion of this series I’ll post a bonus article Three Offers of the Kingdom, and the Duration of Our Current Age with more detailed explanation of these things.
The Centurion
Paul, and by association his gospel, was delivered to a Roman centurion. Christianity first spread to the world through the Roman Empire.
The Adramyttium ship
Let’s look again at verse 2.
2 And entering into a ship of Adramyttium, we launched, meaning to sail by the coasts of Asia; one Aristarchus, a Macedonian of Thessalonica, being with us.
There’s a lot going on in this verse! Let’s look at three big things.
- They boarded an Adramyttium ship. If you look up Adramyttium on the internet, you’ll find it’s now called Edremit, and it’s now located a little farther inland from its historical site. Check directions on your favorite map service and you’ll find that Edremit is less than a four-hour drive (or under two-hour flight) from Istanbul, which is the modern name for Byzantium, which was the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire. The Eastern Empire is also called the Byzantine Empire.
When the Roman Empire split in two, Adramyttium was incorporated into the Byzantine Empire. And there’s the link that qualifies the ship of Adramyttium as a picture of the Byzantine family of Bible manuscripts.1
And we have a Biblical picture of Paul being bundled into this Byzantine vessel to begin his long voyage.
Does that Byzantine connection seem like a reach? Are you skeptical? Well hang on. Wait until you see what happens in the rest of the chapter.
- They intended to sail by the coasts of Asia. Asia is a type of the Gentile world. The Greek word kata, translated as the little preposition “by,” can also mean throughout (Strong’s Greek). We can infer they planned to visit every major port. That’s a picture of intent to take Paul and the gospel of the uncircumcision throughout the known world in this Byzantine vessel.
“We” launched, says the text. Note the plural. All of the authors of the Bible were on board the ship of Adramyttium. And there’s another passenger of note:
- “One Aristarchus, a Macedonian of Thessalonica, being with us.”
Why bother including a side note that Aristarchus was also with them? Because of who he represents. He’s mentioned in Acts chapter 19 as a traveling companion of Paul.
Aristarchus means “the best prince,” Macedonia means “burning; adoration,” and Thessalonica references “victory.”2 Can you think of a most High Prince worthy of adoration, through whom we have victory and eternal life?
Aristarchus is a picture of Jesus traveling with them and, through Paul’s gospel, going out to all the world!
There’s more. In Colossians 4:10, Paul describes Aristarchus as “my fellowprisoner”. This perfectly depicts Jesus “in bonds” in this age, not acting openly or visibly, in order to protect the terms of the gospel and the security of believers. All who believe on Him during this age get full credit for believing and are sealed unto the day of redemption. (See Ephesians and Colossians.)
Paul’s two-year imprisonment in Rome, which followed the events of Acts 27, is also a picture of Jesus in bonds for the 2,000-year duration of our current age. During that time, Paul wrote his Prison Epistles—Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon—the four New Testament epistles written specially for us in our current age.
Back to the story:
3 And the next day we touched at Sidon. And Julius courteously entreated Paul, and gave him liberty to go unto his friends to refresh himself.
That “next day” was 300 years later (meaning around 300 A.D.) when the Roman Empire became tolerant of Christianity, set it at liberty, and allowed it to spread freely. And spread it did. Christians began to evangelize the world.
The name Sidon means hunting and fishing and venison. “Follow me,” said Jesus, “and I will make you fishers of men.” (Matthew 4:19)
We might imagine Paul going fishing with his friends, out to catch as many as possible while they had the time, and rejoicing over every catch. “Likewise, I say unto you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth.” (Luke 15:10)
Stay alert, things are moving fast. Centuries are about to fly by.
4 And when we had launched from thence, we sailed under Cyprus, because the winds were contrary.
Their original plans were to make their way north and west along the coast, but now the winds had turned against them. Sailboats of that era weren’t very efficient. Beating upwind would have meant hard work and a long struggle.
So, note this, they cut across the open sea.
What we have is a picture of some 1500 years into this present age, when the winds became “contrary” to the Protestant Reformation. Freedom of religion then became a big issue. So the pilgrims cut across the ocean and settled in the New World, meaning America. They brought along their Reformation-era Byzantine text Bibles, with Paul and company traveling aboard them.
5 And when we had sailed over the sea of Cilicia and Pamphylia, we came to Myra, a city of Lycia.
Cilicia means which rolls or overturns, like a big ocean. And Pamphylia means a nation made up of every tribe, or mingled peoples.
That’s a picture of America, the world’s melting pot, the land across the big rolling Atlantic, the country that became the greatest—the richest and most powerful—Gentile nation in history.
They came to Myra, a city of Lycia. The word translated “came” is katerchomai which, according to Strong’s Greek, means come down or descend. Myra means “flow, pour out, weep.”
Lycia possibly means “wolf” (or “dogs”), which suggests a predatory nature. Remember, time is passing very quickly in this picture. It appears that this great nation of mingled people is eventually going to descend, turn bad, and meet a bad end.
So far in the story, the sturdy and reliable ship of Adramyttium, the Byzantine text family, has done a great job of transporting Paul and making him and his gospel and his teachings known. And it has carried him and his traveling companions across the open sea to the new land.
But things are about to change. Remember that fork in the road I mentioned in the introduction? It appeared early on (around 200 A.D.), but so far hasn’t been a big issue. It’s about to become one.
Up next: The ship of Alexandria appears!
By the way, Wikipedia lists some notable people of Adramyttium, among them Theodosius III, a Byzantine emperor, and a fellow named Demetrius, or Demetrius Ixiom, who was a Greek grammarian and who, interestingly, was quite critical of the Alexandrian Greek dialect, calling it a “mongrel patois” in the title of the treatise of Demetrius Ixion. See link, scroll to about the third paragraph.↩
Name definitions in this series of articles are taken from Strong’s Hebrew and Greek dictionaries and Hitchcock’s Bible Names.↩
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