Paul's Voyage and Shipwreck to Rome

The event

Paul, along with other prisoners, was placed under the guard of a centurion named Julius for the long sea voyage to Rome. Luke, who accompanied him, gives one of the most detailed and vivid nautical narratives to survive from the ancient world. Paul warned the ship's crew against setting out so late in the sailing season, but the centurion trusted the ship's pilot and owner instead, and soon after leaving Crete the ship was caught by a violent northeaster that drove it helplessly for two weeks across the Mediterranean (Acts 27:9-20).

With all hope of survival apparently gone, an angel appeared to Paul and assured him that God had granted him the lives of everyone on board, though the ship itself would be lost. Paul's calm leadership during the crisis - urging the exhausted crew and 276 passengers to eat, and reassuring them repeatedly that not a hair on their heads would perish - stands in sharp contrast to the panic around him (Acts 27:21-26, 33-36). The ship finally ran aground and broke apart on the island of Malta, but exactly as promised, everyone made it safely to shore.

On Malta, Paul was bitten by a viper while gathering firewood and suffered no harm, leading the islanders to first assume he was a murderer under divine judgment and then, when nothing happened to him, to declare he was a god. After three months, Paul finally completed the journey to Rome, where believers came out to meet him along the Appian Way. This harrowing voyage closes the book of Acts' account of Paul's travels and delivers him, at last, to the capital of the empire.

Scripture references

• Acts 27:1-28:16