And while it was drawing on to daylight, Paul exhorted them all to partake of food, saying, Ye have passed the fourteenth day watching in expectation without taking food.
Dawn is coming, the wreck is minutes away, and everyone on board has gone two weeks without a proper meal. At that moment Paul, a prisoner, tells them all to eat.
Paul's order made no obvious sense. A ship about to break apart is no place for a meal.
So they all heard the cheerful voice of the Apostle, calling them to eat. Paul seemed in command now. It was his word which made the soldiers cut the boat adrift. Now his voice called everyone on board to eat. But eat within earshot of breakers? Eat with shipwreck about to happen? Eat at such a time of intense anxiety? Yes.
Nobody would have expected a chained man to be giving orders.
How remarkably God had brought Paul forward on this voyage! A prisoner on his way to Rome, chained, we presume, to soldiers — who would have given him a thought? His first advice was ignored, and the captain learned by experience the folly of his own. When encouragement was needed, Paul gave it, and announced that God had given him everyone on the vessel (v. 24). When direction was required, Paul supplied it (v. 31). When the last meal on board was to be taken, Paul called them to it (v. 34), and so they were strengthened for the work ahead of them.
Their fasting was not religious. Two weeks of storm had wrecked the ship's routine.
Paul then comforts them and persuades them to eat. The storm had kept them from any regular meal for fourteen days.
Missing food cost them more than strength. It cost them hope.
It was impossible to take proper food. Going without food for so long had weakened their bodies. It had also lowered the hope in their minds that might otherwise have risen.
Paul ties the meal to a promise. The quote below uses an older translation, where "for your health" means "for your safety."
"This day," he said, "is the fourteenth day that you have waited and continued fasting, having taken nothing. So I urge you to take some food, for this is for your health [or rather, safety]. Not a hair shall fall [rather, perish] from the head of any of you" (vv. 33, 34).
The promise of rescue did not make the meal optional.
God had given His word to save all, but it must be in His way. He who promised the end insists on His own means, and we have only to be subject and obey... The apostle urged them all to eat after their long fast, assuring them beyond all doubt that they would be kept safe (vv. 33, 34). He set the example himself, after thanking God in front of them all (v. 35).
Words alone would have convinced no one. Paul's own behaviour carried them.
Suppose he had spoken words of faith and then stayed depressed and dejected like the rest. No one would have paid much attention to what he said. Instead, having announced words of good cheer, he was himself plainly of good cheer. He gave thanks to God, he took food, and he urged the others to do the same. His actions proved that his faith was real, and everyone was impressed by it. They too were of good cheer and took food. The circumstances had not changed yet. But they were changed as the confidence of faith found a place in their hearts.
Some readers have seen the Lord's Supper in this meal. Kelly answers one of them by name.
Olshausen said that for the Christians this was the celebration of the Lord's Supper, or of a love-feast. There is no ground for that. The words Luke uses are indeed the words used for those meals. But the same words are just as clearly used of an ordinary meal in Luke 24:30 and elsewhere... It is the object of the Lord's Supper that gives it its character, and that was entirely out of place here. But even the most ordinary food should be sanctified by the word of God and prayer. Here the apostle acts on his own instruction to Timothy (1 Tim. 4:5-6).
Hard times can starve the soul in the same way.
The church passes through troubles too. Because of them, we neglect the feeding of our souls on the truth of the Word of God... Let us take Paul's words to heart. He adds to this call the assurance that God would preserve every one of them.
- Storm — Fourteen days of gale made regular meals impossible. It drained their bodies and their hope.
- Promise — Paul told them to eat because God had promised that not a hair would perish. The meal was a step inside that promise, not a substitute for it.
- Example — He did not just give advice. He took bread, thanked God in front of everyone, and ate first.
- Evidence — His calm actions showed his faith was real. The whole ship cheered up before anything outside them changed.
- Table — Commentators say this was not the Lord's Supper. It was an ordinary meal made holy by thanksgiving — a picture of feeding the soul when life is breaking up.
Wherefore I exhort you to partake of food, for this has to do with your safety; for not a hair from the head of any one of you shall perish.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
And, having said these things and taken a loaf, he gave thanks to God before all, and having broken it began to eat.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
And all taking courage, themselves also took food.
Paul eats on a ship that is about to break up. No one aboard has had a real meal for two weeks. The verse turns on one word: all. How could one man's thanksgiving over bread lift a whole doomed ship out of despair?
The hard part was not convincing people that food made sense. It was getting someone to start. Paul went first.
But who would begin? Who would set the example? Paul took bread and gave thanks to God in the presence of them all. When he had broken it, he began to eat. Encouraged by his example, all were of good cheer, and took some food, and were refreshed. They all ate of it together — prisoners, crew, centurion, and master. It was their last meal on board, but not just the prelude to death.
Paul had already spoken words of faith. What makes this verse the turning point is that his own behaviour matched them.
If, having spoken words of faith, he had stayed depressed and dejected like the rest, no one would have paid much attention to what he said. Instead, having announced words of good cheer, he was himself plainly of good cheer. He gave thanks to God, he ate, and he urged the others to do the same. Because his actions backed up the reality of his faith, everyone was impressed by it. They too were of good cheer and took food. The circumstances had not changed yet, but they had changed for them as the confidence of faith found a place in their hearts.
Because Luke writes that Paul "took bread" and "broke it," some have read this as a religious service. Commentators here reject that, and point instead to what an everyday meal can be.
There is no basis for another commentator's claim that this was, for the Christians, a celebration of the Lord's Supper or a love-feast. The words are the same ones used for that, but they are used just as clearly of an ordinary meal in Luke 24:30 and elsewhere. In fact there is a good deal of superstition in the meaning too often attached to them. It is the purpose of the Lord's Supper that gives it its character, and that was entirely out of place here. But even the most ordinary food should be sanctified by the word of God and prayer, and here the apostle acts on his own instructions to Timothy (1 Timothy 4:5-6). No wonder they all became cheerful and took food! They had been dejected for a long time, unwilling to eat, with death in front of their eyes.
Paul was still a prisoner, yet on that deck he acted as commander and teacher. One writer notes where his calm came from.
With perfect calm and confidence, he stands up and urges and encourages, corrects and instructs. Then, in front of everyone on board, he takes bread, gives thanks to God, breaks it and begins to eat. The prisoner turned commander and instructor — but all in dependence on his God.
The meal was not comfort for its own sake. Food put strength back into men who still had work to do.
He then gives thanks and eats himself, to encourage them. Then all take heart, and eat too. They were refreshed enough now. They ate with more courage, cheered by the courage of the one who walked with God and knew His secret. So they begin to lighten the ship by throwing the grain overboard. It was not wrong to do so. God can take up the means and the intelligence of men and use them; but these means did not do much good; the hand of God did everything.
Commentators also draw a lesson from the timing. The meal came while the danger was still at its worst.
Before the whole company, two hundred and seventy-six persons, Paul took bread and gave thanks to God. They all became encouraged by the words and action. It all has its lessons. The meal tells us in picture how necessary it is that we feed on the bread of life in days of danger, the times when everything breaks up.
- Cause — Paul did not argue people into courage. He was of good cheer himself, and his actions backed up his words. Only then did anyone copy him.
- Cheer — the storm had not changed, and neither had their circumstances. What changed was that confidence found a place in their hearts.
- Common — this was ordinary food, not the Lord's Supper. The word of God and prayer set apart even a plain meal.
- Crowd — prisoners, crew, centurion and master ate together. All of them followed one prisoner who leaned on his God.
- Consequence — refreshed men could work again. God used their effort, yet the hand of God did everything.
And we were in the ship, all the souls, two hundred and seventy-six.
In the middle of a storm at sea, Luke stops to count the people on board. Why does the exact figure matter, and what was God doing with a shipload of soldiers, sailors, prisoners and passengers?
The word translated "persons" here is the ordinary word for soul. One writer uses this verse to show how many different things that word can mean in the Bible:
It is plain enough that the word translated "soul" means different things in different places. In some cases it means the person himself (Acts 27:37). Sometimes it means a person's life (v. 22). Sometimes it means that part of man which stands in contrast with the body — the part through which the body lives, and by which man is in contact with the things here and enjoys them. The spirit, on the other hand, is that by which he is in relationship with God, and responsible to Him.
Luke writes "we", counting himself among them. One writer breaks the number down into the groups on board:
The number of people on the ship is recorded here — 276. If all the soldiers under the centurion were on board, this would be 100. So there were many passengers besides. These included Luke and Aristarchus, as well as the prisoners and of course the sailors.
All 276 were in the same danger. One writer asks what made Paul the one man who could comfort the rest:
Two hundred and seventy-six souls were on board a doomed ship. Every one of them was hopeless and panic-stricken except Paul. What was it that made him the one man in that crowd who could bring comfort to it? He could say, without a tremor or a doubt, "I believe God."
The 276 had no way of saving themselves. One writer explains why:
Their salvation was to depend on God, and they had to acknowledge it. If human means could have saved any, they could have saved all. But all would have perished if the sailors had not remained on board. God had to do all the work.
This number can be checked against the outcome. One writer sets Paul's promises beside what happened:
"There will be no loss of life among you," Paul had declared. "Not a hair is to perish from the head of any of you," he had promised that very morning. It all came true. They reached the island, and when they called the roll, no one was missing from the company that had left Fair Havens. What a thing it was to be linked with Paul like this! God had given them all to him, and they all came safely through the shipwreck. And we can say that all given by God to Christ will certainly be saved.
Commentators differ on how to read this head-count. One takes it as a warning, because courage that comes from God can turn into confidence in self:
No doubt each one on the ship took courage from the words Paul spoke and the encouragement he gave; but the courage taken from the Word of God became corrupted, and confidence in self took its place. So pride enters in. A simple matter to number the people (v. 37), but what consequences! David learned this the hard way (2 Sam. 24).
Details like this exact number belong to a chapter known for its accuracy:
It is said that no other ancient writing tells us as much about how a ship of that day worked. Even the critics have admitted that this chapter "bears the most indisputable marks of authenticity."
- Counted — The "souls" of this verse are people. The 276 include soldiers, sailors, prisoners and passengers, with Luke and Aristarchus among them.
- Helpless — No one on board could save himself. If human means could have saved any, they could have saved all.
- Believing — In a crowd of 276 panicking people, one man had comfort to give. His ground was that he believed God.
- Given — God gave all 276 to Paul, and not one was lost. Writers apply this to all whom God has given to Christ.
- Guarded — One writer warns that courage from God can turn into confidence in self. He points to David, who numbered the people and learned the consequences the hard way.
And having satisfied themselves with food, they lightened the ship, casting out the wheat into the sea.
A ship carrying 276 people is close to wreck, and everyone on board has just eaten their last meal there. Now they throw the wheat cargo into the sea — so why does a crew promised that every life will be spared still bother to work?
The meal came first, and courage spread from one man to the whole crew.
They ate with more courage, cheered by the courage of the one who walked with God and shared His secret. Refreshed enough, they begin to lighten the ship by throwing the grain overboard. It was not wrong to do so. God can take up the means and the intelligence of men and use them. But these means did not do much good. The hand of God did everything.
God had promised to spare every life. That promise did not stop the sailors from working; it steadied them.
We may take Him at His word with absolute certainty. Yet this does not mean we can be fatalistic and ignore sensible precautions. Our story shows this too. Paul had announced that all would be saved. Even so, he did not let the sailors escape from the ship, because the crew was needed. Later, when all had eaten enough, they lightened the ship further by throwing the wheat into the sea. They did not fold their arms and do nothing, as fatalism would demand. They took the ordinary precautions, and they trusted God's word.
Emptying the hold was the first step toward putting the ship on a beach. In the dark they could not yet do more.
All were cheered, refreshed, and strengthened. Now they had to take steps to run the vessel ashore if possible. With the boat gone adrift, beaching the ship seemed the natural and proper course. So they lightened it. They threw what was left of the wheat cargo into the sea, ready for the next steps once daylight showed them exactly where they were.
The crew had already thrown things overboard twice before.
The next day they lightened the ship by throwing overboard its cargo — not all of it, for there was wheat at least left (v. 38). The day following they threw out those furnishings of the ship that could be spared.
The details here are exact, right down to a sailor's word for lightening a ship.
The record carefully adds their number (verse 37): two hundred and seventy-six. Then comes the lightening of the ship — a fresh nautical expression — by throwing out the wheat (verse 38). They had eaten their last meal before the wreck, and the closing verses describe that wreck in fine detail.
Some writers read the wheat as a picture of spiritual food. Then throwing it away becomes a warning.
The wheat would correspond to all the truth connected with Christ in resurrection (John 12:23-24). It would correspond to all food that strengthens our appreciation of Him in glory and so shapes us more and more into His image. It would correspond to all ministry whose object is that we live down here as people who belong to heaven and have Christ as our life. We have died with Him and been raised with Him. How dare we throw it overboard! How dare we say "we have had enough"!
The next verse shows what follows: men who have emptied the hold no longer know where they are.
After throwing the wheat overboard they cannot recognise the land. So they try to make do as best they can. Is our spiritual sight also weakened because we are not feasting on "the whole counsel of God" that Paul announced (Acts 20:27)? Have we relied instead on our own convenient fixes for the state we are in, as individuals and as a group?
- Fed first. The men ate before they worked. Courage from the one who walked with God put strength into their hands.
- Then freed. They emptied the hold to get the ship onto a beach. It was the third time they threw cargo out, not the first.
- Faith worked. God promised that all would live, and the crew still worked the ship. Faith took sensible precautions.
- God delivered. The crew used every means they had, yet the means did little. The hand of God did everything.
- A warning. Read as a picture, the wheat is truth about the risen Christ, thrown away by people who say they have had enough. They then cannot tell where they are.