Living with the Extraordinary


Acts 28:1-10
1After we were brought safely through, we then learned that the island was called Malta.
2The native people showed us unusual kindness, for they kindled a fire and welcomed us all, because it had begun to rain and was cold.
3When Paul had gathered a bundle of sticks and put them on the fire, a viper came out because of the heat and fastened on his hand.
4When the native people saw the creature hanging from his hand, they said to one another, “No doubt this man is a murderer. Though he has escaped from the sea, Justice has not allowed him to live.”
5He, however, shook off the creature into the fire and suffered no harm.
6They were waiting for him to swell up or suddenly fall down dead. But when they had waited a long time and saw no misfortune come to him, they changed their minds and said that he was a god.
7Now in the neighborhood of that place were lands belonging to the chief man of the island, named Publius, who received us and entertained us hospitably for three days.
8It happened that the father of Publius lay sick with fever and dysentery. And Paul visited him and prayed, and putting his hands on him healed him.
9And when this had taken place, the rest of the people on the island who had diseases also came and were cured.
10They also honored us greatly, and when we were about to sail, they put on board whatever we needed.

During my early childhood I spent several years living in the Black Hills of South Dakota. I still remember being warned about the rattlesnakes. You gave them wide berth and didn’t mess with them; unless you were my dad and killed them with a shovel. The one thing that you didn’t want to have happen was to be bitten by one. While snakes don’t particularly bother me, I still give them lots of room. In our story for today we find Paul suffering a snake bite and he shakes it off like it was a mosquito. The people of Malta were amazed and so are we.

Our shipwrecked passengers land on their feet, so to speak, as they are taken in by the people of Malta where they remain for three months. Paul is given numerous opportunities to minister in the lives of the people on that island and ample time to spread the Gospel. The story reads much like those that we read in the Gospels about Jesus. Paul enters the area and heals people although he heals in and through the name of Jesus, not because he is Jesus. But he becomes Jesus with skin on to the people of the island and there is where he is no different that we are. We too can be emissaries of Jesus. Now I haven’t been allowed to heal anyone (that I know of) but I have been moved to speak the Gospel. You get the impression from the reading that these events were just everyday stuff to Paul and that is enviable. Life would be truly amazing and interesting if every day I simply allowed Jesus to move through me and work His miracles as if that were completely normal and not extraordinary. Perhaps that freedom would allow Him more room to work in my life.

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