Acts 28:1-6 meaning

In Acts 28:1-6, Paul and company discover they have shipwrecked on Malta. God’s protection of Paul will be shown to the Maltese natives, who treat him and his companions with hospitality.

In the previous chapter, Luke (the author of Acts) recorded Paul’s troubled passage across the Mediterranean Sea. Luke was present as an eyewitness for this ill-fated voyage. Paul had been a prisoner to the Romans for several years while still in Judea, and, having appealed to have Caesar hear his case, he was put on a ship in Caesarea, Judea, bound for Rome. On the shores of modern-day Turkey, a second ship was boarded, one which sailed late in the year for a trip to Rome, and was plagued by viciously windy storms. By God’s providence, the ship was wrecked in the bay of an island, and all people on board were saved.

Luke begins the final chapter of Acts by revealing the identity of the island upon which Paul had shipwrecked:

When they had been brought safely through, then we found out that the island was called Malta (v. 1).

By they, Luke is referencing the passengers of the shipwreck in the final verse of Acts 27, “And so it happened that they all were brought safely to land” (Acts 27:44). The chapter divisions in the Bible were added centuries later to help readers navigate and cite scripture with ease, but when Luke wrote this chronicle, Acts 27:44 and Acts 28:1 would have occurred side by side, one sentence after the other.

Luke is emphasizing the safety in which all passengers were brought to the beach of the island. They had to float and swim across the bay on debris from the ship, but, as God promised Paul (Acts 27:23-26), everyone survived the voyage.

At the point which the sailors, prisoners, and soldiers had been brought safely through the bay and landed on the beach, they learned where they were. After weeks lost at sea in darkness, blown westward, where their last known location was the tiny isle of Clauda (Acts 27:16), they found out that this island was called Malta. When the sailors first sighted the island, “they could not recognize the land” (Acts 27:39). Based on verse 2, it would seem that Paul and his fellow passengers were greeted by the Maltese locals, which is how they found out that the island was called Malta. In Luke’s original Greek text, the island is referred to by an older name, “Melita” which means “sweet” or “honey.”

Malta is a small island (17 miles long) south of Sicily. It had been a site of contention during the Punic Wars, changing hands between the Carthaginians and the Romans several times. During the first century, it was governed by Sicily, partnered with local administration (“Publius,” Acts 28:7).

Luke highlights the gracious hospitality of the Maltese to this shipwrecked crew:

The natives showed us extraordinary kindness; for because of the rain that had set in and because of the cold, they kindled a fire and received us all (v. 2).

The voyage had failed because it was undertaken late in the year, in the autumn, when the stormy season began in the Mediterranean and made passage basically impossible. The storm that drove Paul’s ship to Malta had lessened, but the weather was still wet and cold. Because of the rain that had set in on the island and because of the cold, the Maltese natives take care of these wet, shivering castaways. Luke calls them natives (Greek “barbaros,” literally “barbarians”) to indicate that they were not primarily Greek-speaking; they probably spoke Punic, a dialect of Phoenician, a close relative of the Hebrew language, since the Punic people were originally Canaanites from Phoenicia (modern-day Lebanon).

The Maltese were less Romanized and Hellenized compared to other regions of the Roman empire, holding onto their Punic/Carthaginian culture and religion in the first century. The Punic/Carthaginian people were Canaanite colonizers from Tyre, Phoenicia who spread throughout the Mediterranean and North Africa, developing their own culture and increasing territory over time, until Rome conquered them after several wars.

The Maltese who greet Paul, Luke, and the others were a hospitable people. They showed us extraordinary kindness as they kindled a fire to warm Paul and the others, who had just swam ashore and were soaking wet. The Maltese received us all as guests whom they would help.

Paul, always ready to serve rather than be served (Acts 20:33-35, 1 Corinthians 9:19, Romans 15:2, 1 Thessalonians 2:9), goes out to help add to the fuel supply of the fire:

But when Paul had gathered a bundle of sticks and laid them on the fire, a viper came out because of the heat and fastened itself on his hand (v. 3).

After he had gathered a bundle of sticks from the trees and brought them to add to the fire, and laid them on the fire, an unexpected inhabitant of that stick-bundle reveals itself. In nature, snakes will nest in piles of branches or wood. Such is the case here. There is a viper in the bundle of sticks Paul gathered without noticing the snake. The viper, sensing danger and threat from the fire it had just been dropped into, came out because of the heat of the fire and strikes Paul. It fastened itself on his hand the way snakes will when defending against predators. By fastening itself on Paul’s hand, the snake is clamping down long enough to inject venom through its fangs into his bloodstream.

The Maltese locals immediately give Paul up for dead:

When the natives saw the creature hanging from his hand, they began saying to one another, “Undoubtedly this man is a murderer, and though he has been saved from the sea, justice has not allowed him to live” (v. 4).

The creature (the viper) was visibly hanging from Paul’s hand for all gathered by the fire to witness. The natives of Malta make an assumption about Paul based on their own religious superstitions. They began saying to one another that Paul must deserve the deadly snakebite. They decide that it must be that Paul was an evil man, that Undoubtedly this man Paul is a murderer whom the gods were punishing. Even though Paul had miraculously been saved from the sea, it was his day to die. He had dodged fate once that day by not drowning in the sea, but justice has not allowed him to live, and justice sent the snake to destroy him.

But the true Judge and bringer of justice (Psalm 75:7) has not sent the snake, or if He has, it was to demonstrate His glory, rather than punish Paul for a sin (John 9:3). God spares Paul from any injury:

However he shook the creature off into the fire and suffered no harm. (v. 5).

Paul does not panic or react in pain. Despite what the natives thought, Paul shook the creature (the viper) off from his hand where it was hanging on by its teeth, so that it fell back into the fire and either crawled away or was burned up. As for Paul, he suffered no harm.

There may be some truth to the idea that the snake was sent to Paul, but not as a punishment. Nothing happens outside of God’s allowance or awareness. God is all-knowing. God is sovereign over all events (Colossians 1:16-17, Matthew 10:29-31). It may have been that God sent, or permitted, the snake to bite Paul simply to demonstrate that Paul was under the protection of divine powers, and would guarantee fair treatment toward him while staying on Malta.

God’s protection has been over Paul throughout his ministry. Paul has certainly suffered mistreatment and physical abuse (2 Corinthians 11:23-27), but God has protected him; not always from pain, but from defeat (Acts 14:19-20). As Paul wrote to the Corinthians, he and the other apostles endured hardship but persevered for the sake of the gospel; he was “struck down, but not destroyed” (2 Corinthians 4:8-9).

But in this case, on the island of Malta, Paul is spared pain also; after he shook the snake off his hand and into the fire, the natives continued to watch him closely, because they were sure he would die from the viper’s venom:

But they were expecting that he was about to swell up or suddenly fall down dead. But after they had waited a long time and had seen nothing unusual happen to him, they changed their minds and began to say that he was a god (v. 6).

They watched him closely because they were expecting that he was about to swell up, which is a symptom of snake venom attacking the victim’s tissue, resulting in inflammation. Ultimately, the Maltese expected Paul to suddenly fall down dead. The expectation that he would suddenly fall down dead may be because Paul was acting perfectly fine, as if nothing had happened, and perhaps had rejected any offers of medical attention.

Thus, the natives thought this man who was being judged by the gods would topple over soon enough, despite his pretense that he was all right. But Paul did not fall down dead, nor did he so much as swell up. No symptoms of a snakebite or venom in his bloodstream were apparent. God may have prevented venom from entering Paul, or simply denied the venom’s destructive properties and rendered it inert. However God accomplishes His miracles, they are accomplished. He can speak life into being (Genesis 2:7) as well as end it when He chooses (Genesis 38:10). The Maltese people waited a long time and had seen nothing unusual happen to Paul.

This man was obviously not a murderer being judged by the gods. The Maltese then conclude the complete opposite: they changed their minds and began to say that he was a god. What first seemed like divine judgment now appears to be confirmation of divinity. They began to say that Paul, having survived the snake’s bite, was himself a god.

Neither of their conclusions are correct. Paul is neither a murderer whom the gods are trying to punish nor a god himself walking among men. It is not the first time Paul has performed a miracle and been mistaken for a god (Acts 14:8-12). But the natives’ sense that something divine has happened is accurate. Paul is protected by God. Paul’s miraculous survival does not glorify Paul; it glorifies God. God is protecting His messenger.

Throughout the Bible, God allows trials to happen to His chosen servants, to bring them out on the other side to show Himself to those who witness it. We can remember Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, who refused to worship an idol, were thrown into a furnace to be burned alive, but were shielded by an angel of the Lord to show God’s glory to the Babylonian king, Nebuchadnezzar (Daniel 3:28). Or Daniel, who endured a night in a cave filled with lions, and was unharmed, so that the Persian ruler Darius could observe God’s glory (Daniel 6:19-22).

The symbol of the snake in scripture is also worth pondering. Satan disguised himself as a serpent in the Garden of Eden to deceive Eve and Adam into disobedience, leading to the Fall of Man (Genesis 3:1-5, Revelation 20:2). Because of this moment, the snake is, from then on, often illustrative of death, deception, and sin in opposition to God’s will (Genesis 3:14-15, Psalm 58:3-4). Jesus called the hypocritical religious leaders of the Jews a “brood of vipers” (Matthew 12:34). He empowered His twelve disciples with authority over demons, whom He compared to “serpents and scorpions” (Luke 10:19).

Perhaps the most striking serpent symbology is found in Jesus’s comparison of Himself to an image from the Old Testament, illustrating the choice of death alone and apart from God or healing through faith in God’s promise. When the Israelites were wandering in the wilderness, they were bitten by venomous snakes and were dying. God commanded that a bronze serpent be raised on a pole, and whoever had enough faith to look upon the bronze snake, hoping to be delivered from the snake venom, would be delivered from physical death (Numbers 21:4-9).

In the same way, Jesus was lifted up on a cross to save people from spiritual death. Every human is poisoned with the venom of sin that separates us from God, but God has given us help in the person of Jesus. If we have enough faith simply to look on Jesus lifted up on the cross, hoping to be delivered from the sin that separates us from Him, then Jesus promises that we will have eternal life (John 3:14-16). All we are told to do is put our trust in Him.

Finally, in the last prophecy of scripture—the book of Revelation—Satan is designated as “the great dragon…the serpent of old” whose fate, just like the viper which bit Paul, is to be cast into fire (Revelation 12:9, 20:10). In taking all sin upon Himself on the cross, Jesus became sin for us that through His death all who believe can have eternal life. As Paul states in a letter to believers in Corinth:

“He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”
(Corinthians 5:21)