Acts 28:11-16 meaning

In Acts 28:11-16, after months of delay and bad weather, Paul finally reaches Rome. He meets many fellow believers on this final stage of his journey and is cheered.

Luke, the author of Acts and a traveling companion of Paul during this journey, reveals that they spent three months on Malta, where they had shipwrecked:

At the end of three months we set sail on an Alexandrian ship which had wintered at the island, and which had the Twin Brothers for its figurehead (v. 11).

The ship which Paul, Luke, and the others had originally been traveling on was also an Alexandrian ship (Acts 27:6). Its captain’s aim was to spend the winter in Phoenix, Crete, but a storm blew them all the way to Malta where they wrecked on the reef at the edge of the island’s bay (Acts 27:12, 14, 41). Interestingly, another Alexandrian ship had safely wintered at the island of Malta.

Luke does not tell us whether this ship had arrived before or after Paul’s ship wrecked there, but the fact that it had wintered in Malta indicates that it was there for months to wait out the stormy season. Paul and his fellow travelers were on Malta for three months. There was nothing to do but wait for the weather to become passable, despite being relatively close to Italy. At the end of three months, the weather became favorable.

The Alexandrian ship which had safely harbored at Malta was ready to depart. Luke gives us the detail that this was a ship which had the Twin Brothers for its figurehead. The Twin Brothers is translated from the Greek word “dioskouroi,” which references the Twin sons of Zeus/Jupiter. Other Bible translations render “dioskouroi” as “Castor and Pollux,” the names of these mythological figures. In some tellings, only Castor is a son of Zeus.

In the Greek myth, “Jason and the Argonauts,” Castor and Pollux were excellent sailors who helped guide the ship “the Argo” away from storms and dangers. Because of this story, Castor and Pollux became patron deities for sailors and were often depicted on the figurehead of ships in the Mediterranean, for good luck at sea. The figurehead of a ship was the wooden carving fixed to the very front of the vessel. Perhaps Luke added this detail because of the irony that the Living God with actual power to save from storms is using a ship with wooden figures representing false gods, who have no actual power, to transport His apostle to Rome in order to share His message.

This ship accepted Paul, his companions, his Roman escort—and possibly the crew of the wrecked Alexandrian ship—on board to ferry them up to Italy.

They depart Malta, well supplied for the journey through the generosity of the Maltese (Acts 28:10):

After we put in at Syracuse, we stayed there for three days (v. 12).

Since the weather is fair, there is nothing for Luke to report of this voyage. No storms or danger. We do not know from which part of Malta they departed, but the distance from Malta to the southern shore of Sicily is only about sixty miles. Syracuse is on Sicily’s southeastern coast. It probably took them only a day or two to reach Syracuse. Syracuse was originally a colony established by the Corinthians in 733 BC. The famous philosopher and mathematician Archimedes was a resident of Syracuse when the Romans conquered it in 212 BC.

In Syracuse, Paul stayed there for three days; Luke does not mention changing ships as he did in the previous chapter (Acts 27:6), so it is probable they stayed with the same Alexandrian ship, which was possibly bound for Rome as was Paul’s former Alexandrian ship. Ships from Alexandria were usually grain merchant ships, carrying grain from Egypt to Rome to feed the capital of the empire.

They spent three days in Syracuse probably to replenish the ship’s supplies and make any repairs that could not be undertaken during the winter on Malta.

From Syracuse it is more smooth sailing:

From there we sailed around and arrived at Rhegium, and a day later a south wind sprang up, and on the second day we came to Puteoli (v. 13).

Rhegium is a city in Italy about 85 miles from Syracuse. Luke reports no incidents during the voyage. They sailed up the coast of Sicily and around to the southern tip of Italy, where they arrived in the city of Rhegium, known as Reggio Calabria in modern times.

A favorable wind arrives a day later—a south wind sprang up—carrying them swiftly northward toward Rome. It was only on the second day in which they reached Puteoli (modern Pozzuoli). Puetoli is around 200 miles north of Rhegium, and it only took two days to cover that distance. The ease and speed with which they were traveling is a sharp contrast to the snail’s pace at which they were crawling when they began this journey from Caesarea, due to contrary winds and building storms (Acts 27:4, 7, 9).

Puetoli was the main Roman hub for imports and exports brought across the Mediterranean, such as the grain cargo which was probably on the Alexandrian ship which ferried Paul from Malta to Italy. In Puetoli, there is a welcomed discovery:

There we found some brethren, and were invited to stay with them for seven days; and thus we came to Rome (v. 14).

Paul, Luke, and Aristarchus (Acts 27:2) find some brethren, meaning brethren in the faith. There was a church in Puetoli. It had been months and months since Paul and his two friends had spent time in fellowship with other believers, as far back as their layover in Sidon, Phoenicia (Acts 27:3). The brethren received these weary travelers with hospitality commendable of their faith (Hebrews 13:2, 1 Peter 4:9); these Puetoli believers invited Paul to stay with them for seven days.

For an undisclosed reason, Paul remained in Puetoli for a week. He was not traveling at his own pace or leisure. He was in the custody of a centurion, Julius (Acts 27:1), who was also in charge of transporting other prisoners to Rome in addition to Paul. But Julius seems to have had a trusting relationship with Paul, both before the troubled voyage when he allowed Paul to visit friends in Sidon, and especially after the voyage when Paul had encouraged and led them to safety through disclosing a vision he had from God during the storm in the Mediterranean. Thus, all were spared when most thought they would die (Acts 27:33, 36). Paul told Julius and the other passengers that God would spare their lives during the storm, because of Paul’s presence aboard and God’s will for him to reach Rome safely (Acts 27:24-25).

Julius also obeyed Paul’s warning when some of the sailors were trying to abandon ship, that if they successfully left the ship then God would not save the others on board. At Julius’s command, the soldiers cut loose the rowboat so that the sailors could not desert (Acts 27:30-32). When they had wrecked on the reef of Malta, Julius prevented his soldiers from impulsively killing the prisoners, including Paul (Acts 27:42-43).

Here in Puetoli, Julius apparently allows Paul to stay with his Christian brethren. Nevertheless, a soldier or two probably remained with Paul during his stay with the believers in Puetoli for seven days.

After this stay, Luke reports that thus we came to Rome. At last, they had reached the destination of their voyage, where Paul was to defend himself against Caesar. However, the following verse seems to describe what happened along the journey from Puetoli to Rome:

And the brethren, when they heard about us, came from there as far as the Market of Appius and Three Inns to meet us; and when Paul saw them, he thanked God and took courage (v. 15).

Luke’s description that they passed through the Market of Appius and Three Inns tells us that Paul and his party finished the journey on foot, walking the Roman road known as the Via Appia (the Appian Way), which ran southeast from Rome all the way to the coastal city of Brundisium (modern-day Brindisi).

The Market of Appius was a station or trading post along the road, in a marshy region forty miles southeast of Rome. It and the highway running through it were named after Appius Claudius Caecus, who built the road as well as Rome’s first aqueduct in the 300s BC.

At this trading post, Paul is greeted by more brethren in the faith. These brethren are brethren/believers from Rome. During the seven-day stay in Puetoli, it appears that word was sent ahead to the churches in Rome (when they heard about us). The Puetoli brethren were probably in communication with the Roman brethren and explained that the Apostle Paul was coming to Rome as a political prisoner. So some of the Roman brethren set out to meet and receive Paul halfway; they came from there (Rome) as far as the Market of Appius and Three Inns to meet us. Some of the Roman brethren came as far as the Market, about 43 miles from Rome, while others stayed about ten miles up the road in Three Inns.

Three Inns (Latin, “Tres Tabernae”) was another Roman “statio” or stopping place along the Appian Way. There were Inns or small houses for travelers to stop and rest during their journey. The word “Tabernae” has the same root as “tabernacle,” the English word for the Hebrew “Mishkan,” (“house,” “dwelling place”)—God’s sanctuary which He instructed the Hebrews to construct during their time in the wilderness (Exodus 25:8-9).

Doubtless, this reception encouraged Paul and his companions. Paul had written to the Romans years earlier, before his arrest in Jerusalem, of his plans to travel as far as Spain to preach the gospel, and his intention to stop in Rome to meet them (Romans 1:13). He wrote to the Romans just before his return journey to Jerusalem, where he intended to impart financial donations to the Jewish believers from the Greek believers:

“…since I have had for many years a longing to come to you whenever I go to Spain—for I hope to see you in passing, and to be helped on my way there by you, when I have first enjoyed your company for a while—but now, I am going to Jerusalem serving the saints. For Macedonia and Achaia have been pleased to make a contribution for the poor among the saints in Jerusalem…Therefore, when I have finished this, and have put my seal on this fruit of theirs, I will go on by way of you to Spain.”
(Romans 15:23-28)

His letter to the Romans was probably written to aid Priscilla and Aquila, who were embattled against competing Jewish “authorities” who were pressuring Gentile believers to submit to the Mosaic Law, instead of living by faith alone in Christ alone (Romans 2:17, 24-25, 16:3). It is not known how or when the gospel first went to Rome, but Priscilla and Aquila may have been part of its transmission to the Romans when they returned there from Ephesus. That Paul’s letter to the Roman believers survived to make it into the canon of scripture, added to the fact that believers in Rome came to greet him, tells us that many responded favorably to Paul’s message in his letter to the Romans.

In that letter, Paul made a passionate argument that being justified before God comes by grace, received by faith, and not from works, which he teaches also in other letters (Ephesians 2:8-9). In Romans, Paul made abundantly clear that the reason not to sin is because of its negative consequences, not because it adds anything to our justification before God (Romans 1:18, 24, 26, 28, 6:16). It is likely that Paul’s letter to Rome was requested by Priscilla and Aquila to aid them in their defense of the gospel, which they had learned while ministering alongside Paul.

Priscilla and Aquila were a Jewish married couple whom Paul first met in Corinth during his second missionary journey (Acts 18:1). They went with Paul to Ephesus, where he left them (Acts 18:19). While in Ephesus, Priscilla and Aquila discipled Apollos (Acts 18:24-26). In the years since, they returned to Rome and may have led one of the churches there, as they did in Ephesus, since a church met at their house (Romans 16:5, 1 Corinthians 16:19). They may have even been among those who traveled as far as the Market of Appius or Three Inns to meet their old friend and ministry partner Paul.

Paul also personally knew members of the Roman churches such as Epaenetus, Mary, Andronicus, Junias, Ampliatus, Urbanus, and twenty others whom he names or references in the final chapter of his letter (Romans 16:5-15).

But Paul had never personally met many of the other Roman believers, though he very much wanted to. In his greeting in the letter of Romans, he cites God as his witness “as to how unceasingly I make mention of you…always in my prayers making request, if perhaps now at last by the will of God I may succeed in coming to you” (Romans 1:10).

Paul was longing to see the Roman believers so that “I may be encouraged together with you while among you, each of us by the other’s faith, both yours and mine” (Romans 1:12). And the moment he met them was exactly what he had longed for years earlier when writing his letter to this community of faith, when Paul saw them, he thanked God and took courage.

Paul thanked God and was encouraged by these believers whose faith was talked about throughout the empire (Romans 1:8), whom he had written his lengthiest epistle to help guide them in living by faith, not by religious rituals or law-keeping—and they received him with friendship, having gone out of their way to travel to meet him before he arrived in the city. Those who did not know Paul personally had heard of him through their mutual acquaintances—Priscilla and Aquila and the rest. They also knew him through the letter he had written them, so their excitement to meet him and be encouraged by him was probably similar to his own expectations. That he arrived as a prisoner also drew the Roman believers to his side to minister to him in any way they could.

When we entered Rome, Paul was allowed to stay by himself, with the soldier who was guarding him (v. 16).

Luke records that Paul was allowed to live under house arrest, by himself. There were other prisoners in the Roman escort when it had first departed from Caesarea, Judea (Acts 27:1). When the prisoner transport at last entered Rome, the centurion Julius probably handed off the other prisoners to a local prison, but Paul was allowed to stay by himself. There were probably several reasons for this. The Roman authorities who oversaw Paul’s imprisonment knew he was innocent of any crime (Acts 23:28-29, 24:22, 26-27, 25:18-19, 25-27). They knew that the Jewish leadership wanted him to be handed over to them and executed due to differing religious beliefs. He was not a dangerous man and he was innocent according to any Roman law.

Paul was also trusted by the centurion Julius. Julius was considerate and allowed Paul to visit his friends in Sidon (Acts 27:3), similar to how Paul was treated while prisoner in Caesarea for two years, having some limited freedom and permission to see any visiting friends (Acts 24:23). Furthermore, Paul’s God had carried them safely through the storm, preserving everyone’s life, as Paul had told all aboard would happen. Paul had also survived a snakebite with no injury, and had healed many sick Maltese (Acts 28:5, 8-9).

Julius possibly had a very high view of this prisoner by the end of this long, perilous journey; this was a man whose God looked after him and worked miracles through him. He did not belong in a common cell among other prisoners or dangerous men. Paul also had the funds to pay for his own rented room, whether from his own personal earnings, charity from other believers, or a combination of the two (Acts 28:30).

Even so, Paul was not a free man until Caesar had decided his case, so he lived by himself insofar as he was not in a prison with criminals, but there was one soldier who was guarding him who also stayed in Paul’s rented home. It is very probable that Paul preached the gospel to the soldier who was guarding him. In his letter to the Philippian church, which he wrote during his imprisonment in Rome, Paul mentions that,

“my imprisonment in the cause of Christ has become well known throughout the whole praetorian guard, and to everyone else and that most of the brethren, trusting in the Lord because of my imprisonment, have far more courage to speak the word of God without fear.”
(Philippians 1:13-14)

We can see he was active in preaching the gospel despite being chained and limited as to where he could go, so that it inspired the other believers in Rome to also preach the gospel courageously in the city.

As Paul’s imprisonment in Rome begins and the book of Acts draws near to a close, in the following passage Paul will seek to make peace and understanding with the local Jewish leadership who do not know the gospel.