Encouraged

 DEVOTION

THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES

ENCOURAGED

Acts 28:11-16

11 After three months we put out to sea in a ship that had wintered in the island. It was an Alexandrian ship with the figurehead of the twin gods Castor and Pollux. 12 We put in at Syracuse and stayed there three days. 13 From there we set sail and arrived at Rhegium. The next day the south wind came up, and on the following day we reached Puteoli. 14 There we found some brothers who invited us to spend a week with them. And so we came to Rome. 15 The brothers there had heard that we were coming, and they traveled as far as the Forum of Appius and the Three Taverns to meet us. At the sight of these men Paul thanked God and was encouraged. 16 When we got to Rome, Paul was allowed to live by himself, with a soldier to guard him.

NIV

Once more we are engaged in a travelog as they sailed from port to port on their way to Italy and eventually Rome. It is interesting that one of the ships Paul was aboard had the figurehead of the twin gods caster and Pollux. We found through our research that these two gods were fabulous semi-deities reported to be the sons of Jupiter and Leda. Who afterward translated to the heavens and made the constellation called Gemini or the twins. This constellation was deemed favorable to mariners, and it was customary to have the images of their gods both on the head and stern of their ships. It is also interesting among the British royal navy of in modern times, in Christian culture, they have named various ships in different eras, “The Juniper and the Minerva as well as the Castor”. We would think that if those men of two thousand years ago if were able to visit the British Royal Navy in recent times, they would think their old religion had continued unaltered. However, in Paul’s and his companions' journey, they finally arrived at Rome. Word of their travels arrived at Rome before they got there and therefore the brothers, fellow believers, traveled some distance to meet Paul and his companions. Again, from our research, we found that the Forum of Appius was about 53 miles from Rome along a road paved from Rome to Campania which was by the sea. The Three Taverns was on the same road some 33 miles from Roman. That is a long way to travel to meet Paul. We are not told how these Christians happened to be in Italy, however, from the timeline given by the various epistles it appears that Paul had already written his letter to the Romans year before. Somehow there had to be some Jews that had converted to the Way, perhaps some of those who were among the thousands that accepted Jesus because of the speech of Peter on the Day of Pentecost, that made their way to Rome and started a church in Italy. The point of all this is that when the brothers met Paul, at the sight of them Paul thanked God and was encouraged. The question is how much are we encouraged and how much do we thank God at the sight of other believers. Although it might be true that Paul might have thought these believers were in some way a result of his labor in the Lord, or maybe he was simply encouraged because there were believers, and they were interested in meeting him. Maybe they too were encouraged when they met Paul because they had read his letter to the believers in Rome. Still, the point for us is whether we are encouraged to see other believers, or is the church just a ho-hum experience, or perhaps just a social gathering of Christians. Then there is the idea of meeting other believers along life’s way. Do we get encouraged about their faith, or do we simply try to impress them with our faith? Are we encouraged when we hear their testimony and that they are others, who believe as we do, in Jesus? Then are we an encouragement to them? Do we bolster their faith, and thank God for them? Just something for us to ponder, and if we are remiss in encouraging each other, then we must change the way we think and behave. We are told to build each other up until we all reach unity in the faith. So let us begin to build through encouragement and thanking God for them.