St. Patrick Presbyterian Church, Epc

Seafaring stories have long captured the imagination, and the Bible is no different. People might appear like gods walking on the firmness of Earth, but put them in even the largest ship on the vastness of the ocean and suddenly they seem small. Even the hubris that surrounded the Titanic, the “unsinkable” ship, was found wanting against the uncontrollable forces of wind and wave.             So, of course, we find Paul caught up in a seafaring tale that includes a harrowing dance with death and a dramatic shipwreck. From a literary perspective, Acts 27 is gripping—you can feel the hurricane-like wind that rips them from the safety of the lee side of the island and sets them adrift in the wine-darkened sea, heading helplessly into only God knows where. You can see panicked sailors scrambling up the mast to reef the mainsail, lash cables around the beam, and drop sea anchors into the water to keep the ship from running too fast with the waves. You can feel a ship that is doomed. It feels like something I have