Acts 28:11-16--Paul Arrives at Rome

Acts 28:11-16
English Standard Version
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Paul Arrives at Rome
11 After three months we set sail in a ship that had wintered in the island, a ship of Alexandria, with the twin gods as a figurehead. 12 Putting in at Syracuse, we stayed there for three days. 13 And from there we made a circuit and arrived at Rhegium. And after one day a south wind sprang up, and on the second day we came to Puteoli. 14 There we found brothers and were invited to stay with them for seven days. And so we came to Rome. 15 And the brothers there, when they heard about us, came as far as the Forum of Appius and Three Taverns to meet us. On seeing them, Paul thanked God and took courage. 16 And when we came into Rome, Paul was allowed to stay by himself, with the soldier who guarded him.

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While the island of Malta had been unknown to the crew of the ship that Paul and the other prisoners were originally on, it was not unknown to other sailors, as, after three months of being the guests of the people of Malta, a ship of Alexandria (probably referring to the Alexandria that is in Egypt since it is probably the largest and most well-known of the cities that Alexander the Great named after himself), made port and took these men aboard and offered them passage to Rome.  Luke notes that the ship had the heads of the twin gods (I assume Gemini) as a figurehead that showed the allegiance of the crew and was supposed to say "if you mess with us, you mess with these gods that are supposed to protect us, because we have sworn allegiance to them."

The next several verses tell of the exact route they took to get to Rome.  It's probably not very direct because the Alexandrian ship likely had other goods to deliver first and the soldiers and prisoners would have to wait until they had completed their promised deliveries before they could be ferried to Rome.  However, God knew the exact route and allowed Paul to find some Christian brothers to fellowship with right before they were to leave for Rome, so that he could be encouraged and could encourage them.   So they stayed there for seven days before leaving for Rome.

When Paul arrived in Rome, news of his arrival spread far and wide and people from far away came to see him (we'll learn later that his friends Aquilla and Priscilla have been in Rome and leading the church there, so it is not too surprising that they were expecting him and had the Christians in Rome ready to meet him and encourage him).  The text does say how they were greatly encouraged.

Now Paul finally arrived in the city of Rome, and was allowed to live under house arrest, but even so he was given great liberty as he was given his own house to live in where his friends could come and go as they please and many came bringing letters to him and Paul would write letters back to the churches that he had ministered to.  Yet there was always a soldier there with him.  Imagine being one of those soldier being with Paul as he was writing these letters and being visiting by the church members of Rome and having guests from other churches far away come and visit him.  All this man did day in and day out would be pray and study the Scriptures and write letters to inform and instruct the churches, and the home that was meant to be a prison turned into a place for him to disciple others and have Bible study with them.  In this way we will see Paul say in later letters that the whole Pretorian guard and all of Caesar's household (which probably included all the government officials near Caesar too) had heard the gospel and many of them greeted the saints Paul was writing to as brothers and sisters in the Lord.  We would never imagine that the Lord would have a plan to let someone be arrested so that his gospel could go forth to the officials and authorities of a country, but we saw the LORD do that with Joseph and in a way with Hananiah, Mishael, Azariah, and Daniel, and now again with Paul.  God uses these kinds of circumstances to allow his people to stand before kings and governors to share the gospel and now look at all the people that Paul has shared the gospel with even as the ship was talking him to Rome--places that he had never imagined going to, but God directed those ships to take him to unreached people groups and then to places where there were brothers and sisters to encourage him.