Kindness

DEVOTION

THE BOOK OF ACTS

KINDNESS

Acts 27:3-8

3 The next day we landed at Sidon; and Julius, in kindness to Paul, allowed him to go to his friends so they might provide for his needs. 4 From there we put out to sea again and passed to the lee of Cyprus because the winds were against us. 5 When we had sailed across the open sea off the coast of Cilicia and Pamphylia, we landed at Myra in Lycia. 6 There the centurion found an Alexandrian ship sailing for Italy and put us on board. 7 We made slow headway for many days and had difficulty arriving off Cnidus. When the wind did not allow us to hold our course, we sailed to the lee of Crete, opposite Salmone. 8 We moved along the coast with difficulty and came to a place called Fair Havens, near the town of Lasea.

NIV

Certainly a tale of traveling the rough seas is what we are seeing here, but with the interjection of Paul being allowed to go ashore to meet with fellow Christians and have some food and fellowship. Surely Julius was not concerned that Paul would attempt escape, of course he was chained to a Roman soldier, who must have been treated well by Paul and his companions as well as the believers in Sidon. We might assume that Julius had this impression of Paul due to the attitude of both Festus and Agrippa toward Paul’s innocence. We could further our sense of the parallel of this hard journey to the hardships that exist in the journey of our lives, noting that at times we might have to travel in a direction we have not planned on due to certain forces that cause our course in life to go differently, but having already seen that, we should remain focused on Julius’s kindness of Paul. We should note that it may not be unusual for unbelievers to exhibit kindness toward believers. Just because someone does not believe in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior does not mean they are a bad person, it just means they are unbelievers. But we should not assume unbeliever means a vial nasty person. True, they are sinners, but then we are also sinners, but we have been saved through grace, and not of any works of our own, lest we boast. Unbelievers are more than capable of showing kindness toward others, as well as many other admirable qualities, in fact, some of them might put us to shame in that department. Perhaps this is our life lesson, in that we could be as Paul, the recipient of kindness from an unbeliever, or we could be like Julius and be the person who exhibits kindness toward others. Either way life should be filled with kindness rather than the opposite. It is easy to be unkind, as that may well be the default attitude, especially if we are self-centered. But there is also showing kindness for the purpose of looking good, or self-edification. That is when kindness is shown it is done so the person showing that kindness is highly considered. Kindness needs to be done in humility for it to be true kindness. This can be done by both believers and unbelievers alike, but as we are believers we need to allow the Spirit to grow that fruit in our lives. We also need to see that within the human spirit it is also possible to show the quality of kindness, as Julius showed Paul. So perhaps as believers we should possess a double dose of kindness.