April 9th, 2022

This Sunday is Palm Sunday, and it is also known as the Sunday of the Passion. And we will be looking at the last step of St. Paul’s important—and predicted [See Acts 23:11]—journey to Rome, and that has been laid out for us in the book of Acts.

This journey was a long journey. And at times it was also a fearful one. At one point in time on this journey, ‘all hope was lost [See Acts 27:20]’. How much worse could it get?
Last week we looked at the start of Acts 28[:1-10], when Paul and the people on the ship ended up on the island of Melita, and although the people there were called ‘barbarians’—a word with some negative connotations—these people were extremely helpful, and the group was on their way again.

Then comes Acts 28:11-14. And what follows is a somewhat-literal translation:

And after three months, we set sail in a ship, having wintered in the island, an Alexandrian, with an ensign, Dioscuri. And having been landed into Syracuse, we remained three days, from there, taking away, we arrived into Rhegium. And after one day, having come up a south wind, on the second [day] we came into Puteoli, where, having found brothers, we were entreated with them to remain seven days; and thus, we went into Rome.

You are probably not familiar with most of the place names that are given here. The most familiar city (after Rome), of all the places listed above, is probably Alexandria, and that word is somewhat hidden in the text, since it is connected to the ship that was involved. But of all the unfamiliar words given above, the ‘ensign’ or sign of ‘Dioscuri’ is probably the most unfamiliar. And it is probably the most important.

You may wish to look at what other translations do with this word. The Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature gives us a little help here. The word ‘Dioscuri’ means ‘sons of Zeus’. This word refers to the twin gods of Castor and Pollux, the twin sons of Zeus and Leda. In the sky they are the Gemini constellation. What is quite interesting is that they were known as ‘the Savior Gods’. And these gods were thought to be helpful to sailors [Revised and edited by Frederick William Danker; third Edition; Chicago, Illinois, USA: University of Chicago Press, 2000; page 251].

Did St. Paul go through all that difficulty on his first ship, hear all the wonderful promises of God, and then see the false gods on this new ship, and think that he could not step foot on it because of that ensign? Obviously not. But did he trust in those other gods to save him now? I think you know the answer to that question.

The writer of Acts did not need to include this small piece of information about this Alexandrian ship. But he did. And it is also interesting that the rest of the trip goes well. Is that because the twin gods were helping him? I think you know the answer to that question as well.

The true God promised at the beginning that St. Paul would make it to Rome. And some people called it a miracle that all the people on that ship made it through that terrible storm. But God did not make himself incredibly obvious through it all. And the number of miracles in the book of Acts seems to be fewer as we get farther along in the book.
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But how something looks does not determine the actual number of wonderful and amazing things that God is doing. And God, the Father, certainly does not want to overshadow the greatest miracle of his Son on the cross, his payment for all sin. He is the TRUE Savior God.