Unusual Kindness

Acts 28:1-6 Once safely on shore, we found out that the island was called Malta. 2 The islanders showed us unusual kindness. They built a fire and welcomed us all because it was raining and cold. 3 Paul gathered a pile of brushwood and, as he put it on the fire, a viper, driven out by the heat, fastened itself on his hand. 4 When the islanders saw the snake hanging from his hand, they said to each other, “This man must be a murderer; for though he escaped from the sea, Justice has not allowed him to live.” 5 But Paul shook the snake off into the fire and suffered no ill effects. 6 The people expected him to swell up or suddenly fall dead, but after waiting a long time and seeing nothing unusual happen to him, they changed their minds and said he was a god.
 
PAUL didn’t sit around. Safe on shore and warmed with a fire the islanders provided, the apostle gathered brush for the fire. Some Roman guards had been concerned the prisoners would escape. Paul is helping.
   The snake bites him, and the islanders believed it was the justice of some god condemning a murderer. Note these people were entrenched in pagan idolatry. They did not know the LORD God. Still they had a sense of a superior force judging evil. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities – his eternal power and divine nature – have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. (Romans 1:20)
   The islanders quickly changed their view of Paul when the snake’s bite had no affect. Some see this as a fulfillment of Jesus’ prophecy in Luke 10:19 I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you. This was a particular gift to the 72 Jesus sent out for a short time during his ministry. He apparently extended that mercy to Paul.
   Years earlier at Lystra people had believed Paul and Barnabas were gods when they spoke healing to a crippled man.Acts 14:11 When the crowd saw what Paul had done, they shouted in the Lycaonian language, “The gods have come down to us in human form!” Paul’s reaction to the islanders would certainly have been identical to his reaction to the people of Lystra: Acts 14:14 But when the apostles Barnabas and Paul heard of this, they tore their clothes and rushed out into the crowd, shouting: 15 “Men, why are you doing this? We too are only men, human like you. We are bringing you good news, telling you to turn from these worthless things to the living God, who made heaven and earth and sea and everything in them.”
   Always, always, preaching God’s power, Paul had new opportunities to reveal Jesus to the people on Malta.