The Bible Says
Acts 27:33-38 Meaning

In Acts 27:33-38, Paul invites the others aboard to eat, to build up strength and hope.

Paul, while on a prisoner transport to Rome, has been trapped in a storm on the Mediterranean Sea for two weeks. God has warned him that he will be saved, along with everyone else on board the ship. They would reach an island, but the ship would be destroyed.

Finally, at midnight the night before, land was sighted. The morning is near, and with it, hope of escaping their desperate situation:

Until the day was about to dawn, Paul was encouraging them all to take some food, saying, “Today is the fourteenth day that you have been constantly watching and going without eating, having taken nothing (v. 33).

Paul has taken on something of a leadership role during this crisis. He is still a prisoner. The captain of the ship and sailors are doing their best with their nautical expertise to slow the ship down so that they do not crash into any rocks. Paul is being treated with respect and some deference, having given hope to some of the passengers by telling them about the promise of deliverance God made through an angel (Acts 27:22-26).

The ship has just survived another night in the storm. Visibility is returning, and at midnight the crew saw land approaching, just as Paul said would happen. So just as the sun is near to rising, Until the day was about to dawn, Paul speaks more wise counsel and hope to the crew. He was encouraging them all to take some food, saying, “Today is the fourteenth day that you have been constantly watching and going without eating, having taken nothing.”

The crew had been eating little, on rations, because they had been caught in the storm for two weeks and would run out of provisions if they did not manage it carefully (Acts 27:21). As Paul notes, Today is the fourteenth day since they were blown away from Crete and were lost at sea. In that time, the crew had been working very hard. They had been constantly watching for signs of land and obstacles to avoid. The storm blew the ship where it wanted to, but the sailors still had to expend energy trying to keep the craft upright, and doing what they could to stay away from shallow waters (Acts 27:17).

During this constant work and anxiety, they were going without eating, having taken nothing. Paul is probably speaking about the most recent hours or days with some hyperbole; if the sailors had not eaten literally anything for two weeks while applying the energy they had, many of them would already be dead. He probably means nothing as compared to what they would normally eat.

Given this circumstance, they were probably not far from physical collapse. They were eating small rations to make their food last; likewise, in recent hours, they had little time to stop to eat or rest, as they approached land. And at various times they would have been preoccupied because the storm had been so violent and they had to be on the job all the time to prevent capsizing or wrecking. But Paul knew that the island they were approaching was where they would find refuge for the winter.

So Paul urges them to eat, Therefore I encourage you to take some food, for this is for your preservation, for not a hair from the head of any of you will perish (v. 34).

There was no point in rationing food anymore. Therefore, since they had eaten nothing during this crisis, the sailors needed to take some food. They needed their strength for the final trial of this voyage, which was soon approaching. Paul’s language is seasoned with kindness: I encourage you to take some food. He is not bossing them or talking down to him. He speaks like a friend.

And he tells them they need this food, for this is for your preservation. If they don’t eat, they might not be preserved. They are near starvation at this point. Pretty soon, though they don’t know it yet, they will be forced to swim ashore. Without this meal and the strength it will give, this endeavor might not be successful.

The Greek word translated preservation is “soteria” which is most often translated “salvation.” It is the same word translated “salvation” in Romans 1:16, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.” This is a good illustration that “salvation” refers to someone being delivered from something, with context determining who is being delivered from what by whom. In this case, taking some food will give the passengers energy to help them be delivered from destruction from the storm (by swimming to shore).

Paul reminds them of God’s promise to keep everyone on board alive and deliver them from what they believed to be their death: for not a hair from the head of any of you will perish. This is an expression to illustrate how certain and complete their survival will be. It is not only that none of them will perish, but that they will come out of this peril completely unharmed, not even a hair from the head of any of them will be lost. Down to the most delicate, expendable part of the body, our hair, which can be cut or shed naturally without our even noticing it, even the hair on the heads of the men on that boat will remain intact on the other side of this trial.

Paul then takes initiative to pass around food, without anyone’s permission, it appears. First he prays over the meal:

Having said this, he took bread and gave thanks to God in the presence of all, and he broke it and began to eat (v. 35).

Having said that the crew needed sustenance, Paul took bread and gave thanks to God, his God, the One true God. The Romans aboard presumably worshiped Roman gods, and the crew, which may have been Greek, worshiped Greek gods. But it was Paul’s God who sent His angel to tell them that they would run aground an island and survive. Paul’s God had brought them hope, and the island was within sight, validating what Paul had promised them.

Paul gave thanks to God in the presence of all, so that all heard him. Even as a prisoner on a stormy sea, Paul displays faith and worship toward God.

The text does not say whether or not he preached the gospel to the men he traveled with, but it would be uncharacteristic of Paul had he not. He could not keep himself from preaching (1 Corinthians 9:16). It was God’s calling on his life (Acts 26:16).

Paul had preached the gospel to the Roman governors and the Judean king during his imprisonment in Caesarea (Acts 24:24, 26:2); years earlier he had preached the gospel to a different jailor, during his night in prison in Philippi (Acts 16:27-31); Paul probably preached to the Roman soldiers guarding him, his fellow prisoners, and the crew of this merchant ship, if they were willing to listen. During his imprisonment in Rome, we learn that Paul preached the gospel even to the Praetorian Guard which protected Caesar (Philippians 1:13).

The other men on the ship knew what God Paul gave thanks to, and that their survival had been guaranteed by this God. Paul broke the bread and began to eat, setting the example to go ahead and consume what must have been the last or nearly the last of their rations, trusting in the sureness of their escape to the approaching island.

They followed Paul’s advice:

All of them were encouraged and they themselves also took food (v. 36).

The result of Paul’s speech—where he urged them to eat, reassured them of their survival, and gave thanks to the God who was protecting them—is that the crew was indeed encouraged and followed Paul’s example, they themselves also took food and ate it, regaining their strength; perhaps it is implied that in doing so they were putting faith in Paul’s promise that they would reach the shore.

The word encouraged (Greek, “euthymos”) can also be translated “became cheerful,” as it was translated “cheerfully” in Act 24:10. Paul’s words cheered them up. This was occurring shortly after some of the sailors had panicked and tried to escape on the spare boat and abandon the others (Acts 27:30). All fear and desperation has been done away with in this moment, after a good meal and Paul’s words which brought confidence and cheer.

Luke reminds the reader here that he was also on board, writing:

All of us in the ship were two hundred and seventy-six persons (v. 37).

It seems in making this note of the entire population of passengers (All of us) on that ship, that Paul may have urged the entire two hundred and seventy-six persons to eat as well, which would include the Roman soldiers and fellow prisoners.

When they had eaten enough, they began to lighten the ship by throwing out the wheat into the sea (v. 38).

When they had eaten enough is translated from one word, “korennymi,” which means they were full. They ate until they were stuffed, because this was the last meal they would have from their supplies and would seek future food on the island they approached. To further illustrate their faith in Paul’s promise of survival, they began to lighten the ship by throwing out the wheat into the sea. This was the supply of wheat they had been commissioned to transport from Alexandria, Egypt, to Rome.

Wheat was one of the main exports of Egypt, helping to feed the capital of the Empire. But by throwing it out into the sea, they were accepting the reality that this ship and its objectives were a failure, were finished, and all that mattered now was staying alive. They would not be able to take the wheat to Rome, nor would they need to use it for food any longer. They were putting all their hope in reaching the island in their sights. By throwing it overboard they were able to lighten the ship and increase their odds of steering it close enough to the island to reach it alive.