Curt Harlow [00:00:00]:
Hello, my friend Pastor Curt here and I'm joined as always with Dena Davidson. Dena Davidson, the frontal loaf of Thrive College here at Bayside Church. We are about to end our whole series on the Book of Acts. If you haven't watched the podcast before this, I really recommend you go back and watch a bunch of them. We are in chapter 28, literally the end of the most epic history of the early church. We're going to jump right in at verse one, so grab out your Bible, unless you're driving, then don't wreck. And follow along with us as we seek to really find the original meaning and the original intent of the author and of ultimately the Holy Spirit here in chapter 28, Paul has just survived a horrendous over two week horrendous shipwreck. And we take up the story after they all get washed ashore on pieces of the boat.
Curt Harlow [00:00:51]:
In 28 verses, verse 1, it says this. Once safely on the shore, we found out that the island was called Malta. The islanders showed us unusual kindness. They built a fire and they welcomed us all because it was raining and cold. Paul gathered a pile of bushwood and as he put it on the fire, a viper driven out by the heat fastened itself on his hand. When the islander saw the snake hanging from his hand, they said to each other, this man must be a murderer. For for though he escaped from the sea, the goddess of justice has not allowed him to live. But Paul shook the snake off into the fire and he suffered no ill effects.
Curt Harlow [00:01:33]:
The people expected him to swell up or suddenly fall dead. But after waiting for a long time and seeing nothing unusual happen to him, they changed their minds and said that he was a God. So what an interesting story. We have incredible storm, horrible storm. They survived the storm and they're greeted with hospitality. We're going to cook some food for you and get you warm. And then all of a sudden a viper bites you. Yeah, it's like the old out of the pot and into the kettle thing.
Curt Harlow [00:02:03]:
What's going on here? Dena, how should we study this passage exactly?
Dena Davidson [00:02:07]:
Okay, well, we're still very much under God's sovereignty. The whole theme of these preceding chapters of Acts is God is on the move and he's moving Paul to where he wants Paul to be. It's not Paul' plan, It's not the soldiers plans, it's not Rome's plan, it's not the Jewish people's plan. It is God's plan that is playing out in this chapter. And I, I love this chapter because oftentimes when I read the Gospel of Mark. There's a tie in verse here in Mark. And I, I read this verse where it talks. I'll read it to you here.
Dena Davidson [00:02:39]:
Jesus said this. He basically said, like, you are going to do all of these great things and that these vipers, these snakes will bite you and you will not be harmed at all. And so we think, oh, wow, that's like hyperbolic language. Jesus is saying, like, you will not be harmed by anything that tries to attack you. Well, we literally have an instance here where Paul, one of Jesus's disciples, Jesus was prophesying, he's saying, this is the type of thing that's going to happen to you. And look, it does not harm you. And it's this moment where the people of God who've been following along in this story really come to understand nothing can harm you, that God does not want to harm you. Now, it is not that Paul has not been harmed at any point in the story.
Dena Davidson [00:03:23]:
He has been harmed over and over and over and he's literally just been shipwrecked. But no harm will come to you that is outside of God's ultimate sovereign plan. So take heart, because as Jesus says, I have overcome the world. So I just find that fascinating. We literally, in Mark, Jesus said, this is gonna happen to you and it's not going to harm you. And here we have it in Acts, it happens to Paul and he shakes it off. That is not the thing that stops this man from preaching the gospel. I love that.
Curt Harlow [00:03:52]:
I bet you didn't expect you tune into the snake handling episode of the Bible study, the podcast. He says the same thing to the apostles. They come back and they say, you know, do you know Jesus, the demons submitted to us. He goes, yeah, don't rejoice about that. Rejoice that your name is written in the Lamb's book of life. Because the only reason the demons are submitting to you is, is because of the power of my Father. So you. And he says this, you are like a lamb among wolves.
Curt Harlow [00:04:22]:
But then he adds, to make your exact point, he says, but do not worry, nothing will harm you. Now, the disciples, the apostles, they go through lots of harm. What he means, I think what he means there is you cannot be permanently harmed. Paul will not be permanently harmed even if he loses the trial in Rome.
Dena Davidson [00:04:41]:
That's right.
Curt Harlow [00:04:41]:
Paul will not be distracted or taken off of the path that God wants for him. No matter what storm comes or what viper, there is a sovereign inertia to you and it carries you along and it Ends up in eternity with Jesus.
Dena Davidson [00:04:57]:
That's right.
Curt Harlow [00:04:58]:
So in that sense, no, nothing. All of the harmful potential will lose.
Dena Davidson [00:05:03]:
Right.
Curt Harlow [00:05:04]:
Is what we're saying here. And then it's very interesting, too, that there's literally a snake that happens in this. Here's just really good principle. Probably don't have to say, just because God said it would happen doesn't mean you have to go out and seek it to happen.
Dena Davidson [00:05:19]:
Right.
Curt Harlow [00:05:19]:
So don't go find some snakes.
Dena Davidson [00:05:21]:
That's a misreading of that passage in.
Curt Harlow [00:05:23]:
Mark, my first ever sociology class, I barely knew anything about the Bible. And the teacher, Professor Applegate, she says, well, let's look at a group that you're going to find very strange, and they do a primitive thing. And I want to see what you think. Think about this. And I thought, oh, we're going to go somewhere in the developing world, the deepest, darkest continents. And then she put on these Appalachian Christians that were handling snakes and being bit quite a bit and suffering some harm.
Dena Davidson [00:05:53]:
Must not have had enough faith.
Curt Harlow [00:05:54]:
I know, it was crazy. But, yeah, you know what I see in here, Dena and I think this is a theme throughout the last couple chapters. There is a really healthy balance in Luke guided, inspired by the Holy Spirit, to talk about the relationship between the practical and the supernatural. So Paul has this visitation where. Where God says, hey, everyone on the ship's going to survive. Paul's like, how are they going to survive? Not going to tell you. I got a plan. It involves bashing the chip a ship up in a very scary way so you can ride.
Dena Davidson [00:06:31]:
You're not going to like the plan.
Curt Harlow [00:06:32]:
You're not going to like the plan, but everyone will survive. You not lose a head of your hair. So you can't get more supernatural than that. Yeah, you have a manifestation, messenger of God making an outrageous promise. And then Paul gets up and he says, hey, I'm taking command of this thing. I'm going to tell you guys, do as I say and we'll all survive. In fact, God's already told me, you're all going to survive anyway. And their reaction to that was to, hey, let's throw the prisoners overboard.
Dena Davidson [00:06:57]:
Yeah.
Curt Harlow [00:06:58]:
And Paul then says, eat something. You guys didn't. Haven't been. You haven't been eating for two weeks. Eat something. And then Paul sets the example and he eats something. I think there's two types of people. I think we're both on one side of the scale or another.
Curt Harlow [00:07:17]:
And one is people that are looking for God to always do a supernatural thing to the Exclusion of practical discernment.
Dena Davidson [00:07:25]:
Yeah.
Curt Harlow [00:07:25]:
To the exclusion of just doing the thing, you know, to already do. God doesn't have to tell you to go to bed on time and eat something green and be kind and nice to the person next to you and be a good employee, be a good student.
Dena Davidson [00:07:38]:
Yeah.
Curt Harlow [00:07:39]:
And so we're always looking for that fleece, you know, to use the Old Testament story of. Oh, come on.
Dena Davidson [00:07:49]:
Gideon, though, the fleece. Sorry. Yes, the fleece dragon.
Curt Harlow [00:07:53]:
I had a cold this week.
Dena Davidson [00:07:54]:
So anyway, a cold of death. Black.
Curt Harlow [00:07:56]:
So we're like, we're like, God, you know, you have to make the bathroom mat wet one night and make the bathroom mat dry next. I'm not doing it. Then on the other hand of that is we have the people that are suspect of the supernatural. So that makes me uncomfortable. That feels too emotional. That. That's. That phony and it's manipulative.
Curt Harlow [00:08:13]:
And by the way, there are people that are phony and manipulative, and they use the supernatural claims as a way to be phony and manipulative. That happens. So I could see other. That way. And over and over, Luke, inspired by the Holy Spirit, goes, see how both these work together? See how they're not. They're friends.
Dena Davidson [00:08:32]:
Yeah.
Curt Harlow [00:08:33]:
And so in this one, it's always fun to put yourself into the different characters in the. In the text, Paul gets out, he's doing chores, which.
Dena Davidson [00:08:43]:
He's gathering up the sticks.
Curt Harlow [00:08:44]:
Most famous apostle, and he's doing chores, and the viper comes and bites him. He doesn't die. And they're like, you are a God. You are a God.
Dena Davidson [00:08:54]:
First he's a murderer, and then they think he's a God.
Curt Harlow [00:08:57]:
Yes, the Bible. Yes, very, very true. You are a murderer because a snake got you and you escaped. You somehow outwitted the gods, but they took another shot at you.
Dena Davidson [00:09:07]:
Yeah.
Curt Harlow [00:09:08]:
And which tells you a lot about what they thought about their gods. Yeah. And then they. He didn't die. He's like, no, you are a God. You're. You're a demigod. You're.
Curt Harlow [00:09:16]:
You. Who did Zeus sleep with? You're his son, aren't you?
Dena Davidson [00:09:19]:
Right.
Curt Harlow [00:09:20]:
And. And I always says, if we put ourselves in the islander's place and we saw someone get bit by a snake that we recognized as a very, very dangerous snake, and they didn't die, what would we. We wouldn't make the mistake and say, oh, you're a God. We would make the other mistake. We would say, oh, we must have misidentified that snake.
Dena Davidson [00:09:43]:
Right.
Curt Harlow [00:09:44]:
That Snake must have had a illness or a mutation where their venom didn't work. We would not, we would refute the supernatural. So they were over supernatural, right? This is God's attacking you. And now, no, you are a God. And we would be over secular. We would be over, you know, like, I'm not going to trust what I know to be true. A venomous snake just bit you for a long time. And we all saw it.
Curt Harlow [00:10:10]:
And I think this goes with the same thing. Luke is saying, guys, there is a place for faith and saying, God, I need your supernatural invention intervention. And there is a place to say, you know what, you haven't eaten, let's eat, let's eat, let's eat and be practical. Yeah.
Dena Davidson [00:10:27]:
So something that we do share with these islanders though is we tend to look at people and judge our, judge someone by their circumstances. And this is just a theme all through the Gospels. You know, someone would see like a blind man, say who, who sinned, this man or his parents. And over and over we see in the Gospels and in the book of Acts, God is correcting this mischaracterization of what he feels about people. He's like, I don't, you can't look at someone's circumstances just to know who they are. Because here, like, look how quickly they flip flop. So they start by saying, oh, he's a murderer, right? Because he escaped to the shipwreck. And then he gets bit so clear he's a murderer, we know who this man really is.
Dena Davidson [00:11:10]:
And then they flip flop like 10 seconds later, oh, he must be a God. And like the wildness of going from a murderer to a God, this is such a human thing. And I can't help but think that there are people reading Luke's book, reading Luke Acts and asking the question, what, what should I say about this sect of Christianity? What should I say about this man, Paul, who stirred up dissension is now in imprisonment. Surely if God, you know, was for this man, he wouldn't be chained up. And they're looking at Paul's circumstances to try to figure out who Paul is. And, and God's just saying, hey, the math is all wrong on this. It is not circumstances that declare God's feelings towards an individual.
Curt Harlow [00:11:53]:
Thank God. Thank goodness. Another little topic that comes up here, if you're looking at the passage carefully, is how, what is Luke's attitude throughout the Book of Jews? So Luke is a gentile, Paul is a devout Jew, but is accused of and very much hated by Jewish authorities for preaching that Jesus is the Messiah and that they miss the Messiah and that they're. And the whole second half, the next podcast tune in, Paul's going to say, you guys, you're getting what you deserve because you have stubborn ears. And a lot of Paul's imprisonment is because Jewish authorities are demanding that the Roman authorities, you know, take care of this problem for us. And, and because they don't want to ruffle the feathers of the Jewish nation. And so some scholars have looked at the whole book of Acts and said, yeah, it's just the church began to just hate Jews and they left their Jewish roots. And you see it here, and you see it here and you see it here and they will go into the Gospels, it's even starting here.
Curt Harlow [00:12:56]:
And, and then a lot of Jewish people will read that sort of stuff and go, yeah, this was all against us all the time. And which is so sad. And the point being, Paul is equally as hard on Greek and Roman false gods as he is on the Jewish authorities that oppose him. In fact, not only is he hard on the Jewish authorities that oppose him, but he's super embracing of the Jewish people that convert. So it's not like Paul has a bad relationship with every Jew and every single Jew is being criticized. It's a complex relationship. They are literally hounding him. This few that doesn't want to convert, we'll see this in the very next part of the chapter.
Curt Harlow [00:13:40]:
And then there's always some that do convert and they become the best friends and the best leaders and the Jewish distinction is held onto. And Paul, almost every time this happens, he goes, I've not done anything wrong. I'm not preaching against our way of life. I am not bringing in new doctrines. I am showing you what the Old Testament teaches. And not only that, when there's an instance where it shows the supernatural stupidity of pagan religion, Luke puts it on full display, right? He's not trying to defend these guys. Same thing with the entire book of Corinthians. The entire book of Corinthians is Paul going, if you only understood God's moral code, but you stupid Greeks and Romans don't understand later on in the passage.
Curt Harlow [00:14:31]:
It's not part that we're going to study. In the next podcast, Paul makes our Luke makes a statement that the ship is coming from Alexandria and it's bringing them up to Rome and they've got another Alexandrian ship. That's how they get to Rome. So it's Egyptian ship and on it are two gods and I can't remember the name of the gods. But essentially they're Gemini. They're the twin gods of the zodiac. And the point being made here is, yeah, we had a rough go on the seas. Even though you Greek and Roman gods are supposed to.
Curt Harlow [00:15:05]:
The, the, the Gemini gods are supposed to be the protectors of salesmen.
Dena Davidson [00:15:11]:
Yeah.
Curt Harlow [00:15:11]:
So this is like an insult that Luke's putting in there, like going, yeah, all the shipwrecking, all the storm, all the sailing during storm season, your gods were not strong enough to do anything to help us.
Dena Davidson [00:15:22]:
And they still set out with those gods at the helm. They're just like, oh, let's try this again. Like, let's still, let's not convert, let's try this, let's run this back.
Curt Harlow [00:15:30]:
I think our ignorance of really what Greeks and Romans worshiped and believed keeps us from seeing that they're equal part criticizers of both. You know, this is foolishness to gentiles and a stumbling block to Jews. Paul says the stumbling block, the criticism to the Jewish authorities is you're too stubborn to hear the truth.
Dena Davidson [00:15:58]:
Yeah.
Curt Harlow [00:15:58]:
Because you'd have to admit you're wrong. And the criticism to the Greek and Romans is you believe some really, really man made stuff. Yeah, some really. You're praying to nothing.
Dena Davidson [00:16:12]:
Yeah.
Curt Harlow [00:16:12]:
You're praying to an unknown God. You don't even know who he is. And so I see the equal parts in there.
Dena Davidson [00:16:17]:
All right, I have a question.
Curt Harlow [00:16:19]:
Yeah, go.
Dena Davidson [00:16:19]:
Okay. I want to go back to the viper because I feel like this is one of those classic Bible passages where if you don't have great exegetical principles, you're going to do this wrong. So let's go back and say you're just reading this story for the first time. When Paul had gathered a bundle sticks and put them on the fire, a viper came out because of the heat and fastened on his hand. What is a great way to interpret that and what is a poor way to interpret that? Give me the gamut of how someone might take that and extrapolate some bad theology versus some good theology that Luke was intending to communicate.
Curt Harlow [00:16:54]:
Well, I mean, the first thing is one we already discussed is that you go see, this is an affirmation of what it says in Mark, that the believers will be able to refute poison. And it's a universal promise for every single person. And so every single time that there's strychnine or venom, we're good. And so let's that are witness to the world. Then let's go find snakes and take strychnine. So you know, that's. You're not going to see a lot of that now. But that is one really horrible error that has been directly tied to this.
Curt Harlow [00:17:24]:
The other one is what I brought up here too, is when you take it kind of for granted. So you don't see the hyper spiritualness in the pagan people and go, that is wrong. That is that you are exactly what you said. You're coming to conclusions too fast and you don't see the healthy spiritual part. You dismiss it. It must have been a different snake. The other thing I think you could do here, especially in these last couple chapters, that would be wrong is try to see too much meaning in it. So the snake represents that Paul will be bitten in Rome and it's another sign to not go to Rome.
Curt Harlow [00:18:04]:
Or, you know, the snake represents that he is the representative that Jesus talked about in the garden when he said, I will crush the head of the snake. And you know what Luke is doing here and he's mentioning every port, every island name. He is, he's got so much detail in here and what he's trying to say. And this is so hilarious because when you read the scholarship on the other side, the non Bible believing side of the this, there's so much criticism at the end of the book of Acts. Ah, they didn't resolve the story. We don't know what happened to Paul. This was all con was conjured up by Luke. Luke wanted to end it all poetic.
Curt Harlow [00:18:45]:
And he wanted to start in Jerusalem and end at the ends of the earth. Because Jesus said, go to Jerusalem. J on the ends of the earth. No, Luke is sitting here going, guys, this really happened.
Dena Davidson [00:18:54]:
Yeah.
Curt Harlow [00:18:55]:
So more like a lot of this, you just go. It's Luke being very credible in the way Luke is.
Dena Davidson [00:19:01]:
Yeah.
Curt Harlow [00:19:01]:
So why did a snake come out of the bushes? Well, the Bible tells us because it got too hot in the bushes.
Dena Davidson [00:19:09]:
Exactly.
Curt Harlow [00:19:10]:
The Bible interprets itself.
Dena Davidson [00:19:12]:
It's Satan himself from the garden. No, it was hot.
Curt Harlow [00:19:16]:
Now, you know, you could take that circumstance and not make it allegorical, but still, how did Paul and Luke, as mature, courageous Christians, how did they respond to that? So how they act during the storm is what you should focus on when you're reading chapter 27, how they acted here, how they responded to the people here. And of course, the response is always the same response, Dena, to the point where in chapter eight, 28, it gets a little boring. You know, they did, these people that called them gods, they said no, by the way, let me tell you about who God is. They just Preach. They just keep preaching and they keep preaching and they keep preaching.
Dena Davidson [00:19:56]:
That's okay.
Curt Harlow [00:19:56]:
So, yeah, I wouldn't. Don't. Art. I think our tendency would not be go handle snakes, but it's going to be reading into it too much. You know, the fire of God makes the snakes come out, and then the danger moment of spiritual battle. This is all spiritual battle. No, it's fire make snake move.
Dena Davidson [00:20:16]:
Yeah.
Dena Davidson [00:20:16]:
And I think, you know, there's. There's a tension here because sometimes God can speak and he can. He can direct you to Acts 28 and say, hey, you're in a tough season. You've got perhaps some criticism from things that you're doing. And he takes you straight to Acts 28, and you read this verse and you're like, oh, wow, there's these. There's this opposition coming against me. I need to shake it off, and God's going to protect me. Sometimes that happens.
Dena Davidson [00:20:39]:
But, man, we should be careful about that type of interpretation. While God sometimes does speak that way, oftentimes it's just recorded because it was history. And we shouldn't go seek out dangerous situations and we shouldn't put ourselves intentionally in them or even stay in them, just because there's a verse in here that says, hey, you know, the viper didn't hurt Paul. Maybe it won't hurt me.
Curt Harlow [00:21:00]:
Right. I. I would say just to move to application, you know, like, what. How would you apply this? I would say, number one, put yourself in the place of the islanders and say, do I come to too quick of a reaction about people because I'm uninformed or have a spiritual bias? You know, this proves that person is this. This proves that person is that the old TV show Lost. One of the things I liked about Lost is they would start a character arc and they would make you love that character. Then they would give you the backstory, and you would hate that character. And then they would bring a villain out and you would hate that character.
Curt Harlow [00:21:40]:
And then they show you the backstory and everything they went through, and you go, oh, I probably would have turned out that bad, too. This is really more what humans are. We are not murderers or gods. And so the reaction of the islanders, the first application is, do not judge too quickly. The second application is really simple. Paul is not surprised by one more hurdle. He's on an island in the storm still going. Why would he be surprised? We think, oh, it can't get worse than this.
Curt Harlow [00:22:14]:
And then a snake jumps out, and we're like, where are you, God? And what'd you do. You're still in the same broken world. So what Paul did, like I said before, and what you and I should do, if we put ourselves in Paul and Luke's shoes, we should just keep preaching and living the gospel. If it's a viper, keep preaching. If it's no viper, keep preaching. Luke got the better part of this story. He got to write about it instead of getting bit. But they both preached the gospel.
Curt Harlow [00:22:42]:
They moved, here's nothing, and they preached the gospel.
Dena Davidson [00:22:45]:
Yeah.
Curt Harlow [00:22:45]:
What do you. What are your application thoughts? Dena?
Dena Davidson [00:22:47]:
My. My application thought is that you simply cannot know what God thinks and feels about you based on your circumstances.
Curt Harlow [00:22:55]:
There.
Dena Davidson [00:22:55]:
There is just no line between what is going on in your life and how the God of the universe feels about you. And I know we even might be talking to people who have some great theology, and they say, yeah, Dean, I know that. But when something bad happens at you, if your first thought is, I want to be distant from God in this because you think that he's allowed this to happen to you, or he has done this to you and it's because of some wrong in your life, and. And if you create that gap of distance between you and God, just know this. God over and over takes pains in his word to disconnect those two things. You cannot know what God thinks and feels about you based on your circumstances. So the proper thing to do when you. You're in a bad circumstance is to turn to God and say, what.
Dena Davidson [00:23:43]:
What is going on? Help me to be close to you in this and get me through to the other side. And in the midst of this, let's save some people. Let's preach the gospel. Do exactly what you're saying.
Curt Harlow [00:23:53]:
This is really good. You cannot tell how God feels about you based on your circumstances, but you can tell how God feels about you based on his circumstances. He came to earth. He died on the cross. He suffered every breath he took here on this earth. He conquered death itself. He put him in a circumstance, and that tells you already, no matter what happens to you, how he feels about you.
Dena Davidson [00:24:17]:
That's right.
Curt Harlow [00:24:18]:
That's very good thought to end on. Hey, we're going to go deeper into the last chapter of the Book of Acts. On the next podcast, it'll be Dean and I again. We've kind of eliminated some of the fluff here in this beginning of summer, though. Guests will be back. I think we're having Jason Kane and two podcasts. Is that right, Bri? So we're going to start a new series called Summer in the Psalms. The but definitely finish with us in Acts next week and then get ready for a great study, psalm by psalm.
Curt Harlow [00:24:45]:
We're going to learn all the genres of the Psalms. We're going to learn why the Psalms are so important to the Gospel and the whole story of salvation in the Bible. You won't want to miss it. In fact, it's going to be a very uplifting. It's going to. It's going to be uplifting. And the Psalms are good for the heart. So put that on your calendar.
Curt Harlow [00:25:04]:
Join us for the last week and also get ready for the Psalms to come again. Thanks for liking, sharing and subscribing. Subscribing, subscribing. We really appreciate it.