Acts 27-28: Is this Passage for Me?

Matthew 11:25 At that time Jesus said, "I praise You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and have revealed them to infants.'

Paul was an apostle, assisted by the direct working of the Holy Spirit in his speech...but not all the time. When Paul delivered a message from God, it was resolute, firm. But Paul also spoke sometimes while not under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. One of those occasions is recorded in Acts 27:10 when he said, "Men, I perceive that the voyage will certainly be with damage and great loss, not only of the cargo and the ship, but also of our lives." When I first read this, I thought these men were fools not to listen to Paul, an inspired apostle. The centurion who was guarding Paul listened to the captain of the ship, an experienced seaman, instead of Paul. I probably would have, too. He was the authority on these things. He wouldn't intentionally send his precious ship into danger.

But back to our first thought: how do we know Paul was not speaking by the authority of the Holy Spirit at this time? Because later he DID speak by the power of the Holy Spirit a contradictory message. It was revealed to him while they were lost at sea that there would be NO loss of life aboard the ship (Acts 27:22). This was exactly opposite what Paul had said at the beginning, and the Holy Spirit does not contradict Himself.

There are lessons to be learned from this on how to interpret Scripture. We must look at all the pieces of the puzzle before we can claim a command or statement is relevant to us.

FIRST: Are we looking at a statement given by the Holy Spirit? If it is not an inspired statement, it may or may not be wise to listen to it. I think of the advice of Gamaliel in Acts 5:38-39 in which he said, "if [this plan] is from God, you will not be able to overthrow them; or else you may even be found fighting against God." He was right, but there is no indication he was speaking by the power of the Holy Spirit.

SECOND: Does the statement apply to me? There are many statements and commands in Scripture.

• Many of them apply to all Christians. When we put together statements found in Acts 2:38; 8:12; 8:36-38; 9:18; 10:47-48, etc, we see that baptism was a universally-applied condition to salvation for the Jew and the Gentile. This would include all men.
  
• Many of them contain universal principles which apply to all Christians, but maybe the command itself does not apply to me, specifically. Jesus said to the rich, young ruler, "Sell all you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven" (Mark 10:21). I understand there is a principle here for me: nothing must stand between me and my Lord. But the command to sell all I have and give to the poor is not to be universally applied to all men. The command to "greet one another with a holy kiss" (Rom. 16:16; 1 Cor. 16:20; 2 Cor. 13:12; 1 Thess. 5:26) is found four times among Paul's letters. We understand a great principle of greeting one another in a holy and loving way, but we understand this was a tradition of the people at the time to greet each other with a kiss.
  
• Many of them were commands given only to specific individuals. These don't apply to me at all. "Take up your bed and walk," Jesus said to the man with palsy. In Acts 21:11 the prophet Agabus relayed a message from God: "This is what the Holy Spirit says: 'In this way the Jews at Jerusalem will bind the man who owns this belt and deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles.'" This was a message directly from the Holy Spirit - but it was intended only for Paul. I can learn some lessons by seeing how Paul responded to the revelation, but this message is not for me to follow today.
  

God intends for us to discover His will for us by examining the pattern given in His word and using our common sense.

God bless,
Nathan

Tomorrows Reading: The letter of 1 Timothy