Acts 28:4,6 …No doubt this man is a murderer…they changed their minds, and said that he was a god
If you pay attention to your own life, you can probably track some real highs and real lows. There are days when you are on top of the world and days when people just treat you like you are garbage. Sometimes that may happen in pretty close succession. Sometimes you have an entire year where you are riding high generally and another year where you are having a rough time. Sometimes those times in life can come one after the other. That was certainly the case for Paul when he was travelling to Rome. He had been shipbound as a prisoner for the gospel of Christ. He was being taken to Rome, and they had a shipwreck. God spared all the people on that ship, but they ended up on this island, Melita.
Acts 28:2 says that the people of Melita showed them great kindness. They warmed them with a fire and fed them. Something remarkable happened. Paul was carrying a load of sticks to the fire and a snake hidden in the sticks came out and latched onto Paul. Verse 4 says, “And when the barbarians saw the venomous beast hang on his hand, they said among themselves, No doubt this man is a murderer, whom, though he hath escaped the sea, yet vengeance suffereth not to live.” They knew he was a prisoner and assumed there was some bad crime involved because this stroke of bad luck happened to him.
Acts 28:5 goes on to say, “And he shook off the beast into the fire, and felt no harm.” Verse 6 says, “Howbeit they looked when he should have swollen, or fallen down dead suddenly: but after they had looked a great while, and saw no harm come to him, they changed their minds, and said that he was a god.” Talk about a quick change! “No doubt this man is a murderer,” then, “He is a god.” This had similarly happened in Acts 14 when people thought Paul was great, then subsequently stoned him and left him for dead. There are highs and lows in your life. Sometimes the lows may be lower than you like and the highs may be higher than you should stand, but you and Jesus cannot both get credit for your life at the same time. The wonderful, liberating element in Paul’s life was that he knew this.
Don’t take everything personally. If you do take everything personally, make that person the Lord Jesus. Jesus is the source of power. Both Paul’s message and the miracles that Paul did were the power of Christ. Over and again in Acts, Jesus’ disciples did things that they could not do. They did things that Jesus did through them and people were amazed at the miracles and the men who they assumed did them. In each case the disciples reminded the people, “Hey, the power is not of me, but of the risen Christ.” The consistent message was that Jesus was risen from the dead. He had died bearing the sins of every sinner, was buried, but He rose again. So, Jesus is the source of power.
Second, Jesus was the cause for persecution. The very reason Paul was on this voyage in the first place was because he had been on trial for preaching the gospel of Christ. Paul could tie both the hardships and the blessings of his life to a cause, a purpose that was greater than himself. That purpose is Jesus and the gospel.
The very last verse in Acts says that Paul was “preaching the kingdom of God, and teaching those things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ, with all confidence.” Where did this confidence come from? Why did Paul have confidence in his life? It was because he knew that come what may, he was not living alone. There was a reason and it was not of him. Jesus was the source of power and the cause for persecution, and that gave Paul great stability in his life. He was neither arrogant when people thought he was great, nor was he discouraged when people thought he was worthy of death. Why? It is because both you and Jesus cannot get credit for your life at the same time and you don’t need to. Jesus is worth sharing with the world, and if He is, He is also the One Who is with us in high times and low, good times and bad.