Malta (Part 1)

Acts 28:1-6

“After we had reached safety, we then learned that the island was called Malta. 2 The natives showed us unusual kindness. Since it had begun to rain and was cold, they kindled a fire and welcomed all of us around it. 3 Paul had gathered a bundle of brushwood and was putting it on the fire, when a viper, driven out by the heat, fastened itself on his hand. 4 When the natives saw the creature hanging from his hand, they said to one another, “This man must be a murderer; though he has escaped from the sea, justice has not allowed him to live.” 5 He, however, shook off the creature into the fire and suffered no harm. 6 They were expecting him to swell up or drop dead, but after they had waited a long time and saw that nothing unusual had happened to him, they changed their minds and began to say that he was a god.”

Just when everyone was feeling safe, Paul was bitten by a viper.  All the natives of Malta who witnessed this saw the snake hanging from Paul’s hand and recognized the snake as particularly deadly.  All of them thought Paul would die.

The citizens of Malta thought that Paul, recently rescued from the sea, must have been a very bad man who deserved to die.   They reasoned that since he did not die in the sea, he was destined to die on land for his crimes.

When they saw that Paul simply threw the viper into the fire and suffered no ill effects, they thought it was a miracle and they mentally “promoted” Paul from a murderer to a god.

The truth is that Paul was truly once a bad man.  He was a chief persecutor of Christians and caused many to be imprisoned, suffer and die. But then he met Christ and his life changed.  From this experience, Paul wrote to the Corinthians, “So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!” (2 Corinthians 5:17)

Paul had met Christ and become a follower of Christ, a new creation.  Everything of his old life had passed away, and he was living a new life,  a life in relationship with God.  

The miracle that the people of Malta witnessed that day was not the miracle of the snake bite.  It was the miracle of God’s love and mercy.  

It was the miracle of a life transformed.

May the love of Christ be with you,

Rev. Eric Lanier (Retired)