Acts 28
1 When we had escaped, then they learned that the island was called Malta.
2 The natives showed us uncommon kindness; for they kindled a fire and received us all, because of the present rain and because of the cold.
3 But when Paul had gathered a bundle of sticks and laid them on the fire, a viper came out because of the heat, and fastened on his hand.
4 When the natives saw the creature hanging from his hand, they said one to another, “No doubt this man is a murderer, whom, though he has escaped from the sea, yet Justice has not allowed to live.”
5 However he shook off the creature into the fire, and wasn’t harmed.
6 But they expected that he would have swollen or fallen down dead suddenly, but when they had looked a great while and saw nothing wrong come to him, they changed their minds, and said that he was a god.
7 Now in the neighborhood of that place were lands belonging to the chief man of the island, named Publius, who received us and entertained us courteously three days.
8 It happened that the father of Publius lay sick of fever and dysentery. Paul entered in to him, prayed, laid his hands on him, and healed him.
9 When this was done, the rest also who had diseases in the island came, and were cured.
10 They also honored us with many honors; and when we sailed, they put on board such things as we needed.
11 After three months, we set sail in a ship of Alexandria which had wintered at the island, whose sign was “The Twin Brothers.”
12 Touching at Syracuse, we stayed there three days.
13 From there we circled around and arrived at Rhegium. After one day, a south wind sprang up, and on the second day we came to Puteoli,
14 where we found brothers, and were entreated to stay with them seven days. So we came to Rome.
15 From there the brothers, when they heard of us, came to remind us as far as The Market of Appius and The Three Taverns. When Paul saw them, he thanked God and took courage.
16 When we entered Rome, the centurion delivered the prisoners to the captain of the guard, but Paul was allowed to stay by himself with the soldier who guarded him.
17 After three days, Paul called together those who were the chief of the Jews. When they had come together, he said to them, “Brothers, though I had done nothing against the people or the customs of our fathers, yet I was delivered prisoner from Jerusalem into the hands of the Romans,
18 who, when they had examined me, desired to set me free, because there was no cause of death in me.
19 But when the Jews spoke against it, I was constrained to appeal to Caesar, not that I had anything about which to accuse my nation.
20 For this cause therefore I requested to see you and to speak with you. For because of the hope of Israel I am bound with this chain.”
21 They said to him, “We neither received letters from Judea concerning you, nor did any of the brothers come here and report or speak any evil of you.
22 But we desire to hear from you what you think. For as concerning this sect, it is known to us that everywhere it is spoken against.”
23 When they had appointed him a day, many came to him into his lodging. He explained to them, testifying about God’s Kingdom, persuading them concerning Jesus, both from the law of Moses and from the prophets, from morning until evening.
24 Some believed the things which were spoken, and some disbelieved.
25 When they didn’t agree among themselves, they departed after Paul had spoken one word, “The Holy Spirit spoke rightly through Isaiah the prophet to our fathers,
26 saying, ‘Go to this people, and say, By hearing you will hear, and will in no way understand; By seeing you will see, and will in no way perceive;
27 For this people’s heart has grown callous. Their ears are dull of hearing. Their eyes they have closed; Lest they should see with their eyes, Hear with their ears, Understand with their heart, And should turn again, And I would heal them.’
28 “Be it known therefore to you, that the salvation of God is sent to the Gentiles, and they will listen.”
29
30 Paul stayed two whole years in his own rented house, and received all who were coming to him,
31 preaching God’s Kingdom, and teaching the things concerning the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness, without hindrance.
Acts 28 Commentary
Chapter Overview
Acts 28 completes Paul’s journey from the wrecked ship to Rome. On Malta, the survivors receive unexpected kindness, Paul survives a viper’s bite, and many sick people are healed. In Rome, he lives under guard but is able to receive visitors and explain the kingdom of God. Paul arrives in chains, yet the gospel arrives with freedom.
The chapter continues the promise-and-responsibility pattern of Acts 27. God had promised that everyone aboard would survive, but reaching safety did not end every danger or need. The survivors face cold rain, Paul is bitten, Publius’s father is ill, and the onward voyage must wait through winter. Divine faithfulness does not remove ordinary hardship; it carries God’s servants through it.
Luke also brings several themes from the whole book to their conclusion. Paul witnesses first to Jewish leaders, reasons from the Law and the Prophets, receives both belief and rejection, and announces that salvation is going to the Gentiles. These themes summarize the missionary pattern already seen from Pisidian Antioch in Acts 13 to Corinth in Acts 18.
Acts ends without reporting Paul’s trial before Caesar or the later course of his life. Luke’s final emphasis is not that every question about Paul has been answered, but that God’s kingdom is still being proclaimed. The last picture is of a chained apostle receiving all who come, teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ “with all boldness, without hindrance.” Human confinement has not confined the word.
Key Themes
The islanders show “uncommon kindness” to all the shipwrecked people. Older translations sometimes call them “barbarians,” but Luke’s term refers to people outside the Greek-speaking world rather than describing them as uncivilized. Their welcome challenges easy moral stereotypes: people without Paul’s biblical knowledge nevertheless display hospitality that protects exhausted strangers.
Paul gathers sticks for the fire instead of treating himself as too important for ordinary work. His apostolic calling does not separate him from practical service. The scene fits the pattern of his manual labor in Acts 20: spiritual authority is compatible with carrying burdens, meeting immediate needs, and sharing unglamorous tasks with others.
When the viper fastens onto Paul, the islanders first conclude that personified Justice is punishing a murderer who escaped the sea. After he remains unharmed, they swing to the opposite conclusion and call him a god. Both judgments are too quick. Visible suffering does not prove secret guilt, and unusual deliverance does not make a human being divine.
Paul does not perform a ritual over the snake or invite admiration. He simply shakes it into the fire and suffers no harm. Luke’s concern is God’s preservation of the witness who must reach Rome, not a technique for handling dangerous animals. The episode should not be converted into permission to manufacture risks in order to demonstrate faith.
Publius receives the travelers courteously, and Paul responds to his father’s illness with prayer and the laying on of hands. Paul appeals to God before acting; healing is mercy from God, not an impersonal force resident in the apostle. When other sick people come and are cured, an unplanned winter delay becomes an opportunity to serve Malta.
The islanders honor the company and provide needed supplies for departure. Their generosity is not described as purchasing healing or earning spiritual favor. It is grateful hospitality toward people who arrived with nothing. Christian ministry may rightly receive practical support, but the gospel’s gifts are never merchandise to be sold, as Peter made clear to Simon in Acts 8.
After three months, the travelers leave on another Alexandrian ship marked with the Twin Brothers, a familiar pagan symbol associated with sailors. Luke mentions the figurehead without suggesting that it saved the voyage. The ship’s religious emblem does not control the story; the God who promised Paul’s arrival has preserved him through vessels, crews, winds, and ports belonging to the Roman world.
At Puteoli, Paul finds believers before Roman Christians travel to meet him at the Market of Appius and the Three Taverns. The gospel has reached Italy before Paul arrives, showing mission as shared work rather than one leader’s achievement. Their welcome causes him to thank God and take courage; even mature believers need companionship and visible support.
Paul is permitted to live by himself with a guarding soldier, later in a rented house. His conditions are more flexible than a prison cell but are not freedom; he remains a prisoner awaiting imperial judgment. Acts does not romanticize his chains. It shows how Paul uses the access available to him instead of postponing ministry until every restriction is removed.
Within three days, Paul invites Rome’s leading Jewish representatives to meet. He does not wait for rumors to define him, nor does he approach them as enemies. He calls them brothers, affirms the people and ancestral customs, and explains why he appealed to Caesar. His defense is direct, but it contains no desire to accuse or punish his nation.
Paul says he is bound because of “the hope of Israel.” That hope includes the promised Messiah, the resurrection of the dead, forgiveness, and God’s faithful fulfillment of Scripture. The gospel is not presented as contempt for Israel’s story but as its fulfillment in Jesus, the same claim Paul defended before Felix and Agrippa in Acts 24 and Acts 26.
The Roman Jewish leaders say they have received no accusing letters and want to hear Paul’s views because the Christian movement is spoken against everywhere. They neither accept nor condemn automatically; they are willing to listen. Fair inquiry hears the actual message rather than assuming public opposition has settled its truth.
Paul spends an entire day explaining the kingdom of God and persuading them concerning Jesus from Moses and the Prophets. His method joins proclamation with patient reasoning. He does not treat the Old Testament as an obstacle to Christian faith, nor does he appeal only to private experience. He argues that the Scriptures themselves point toward the reign of God fulfilled through Christ.
Some are persuaded and others refuse to believe. The same evidence meets different responses. Paul’s explanation has not failed because it produces disagreement. Faithful witness offers clear truth and sincere persuasion while recognizing that the messenger cannot control every decision.
Paul closes the meeting by quoting Isaiah 6, a passage about people who hear and see yet resist understanding and turning. The quotation does not teach that God delights in keeping willing seekers away. It exposes a settled hardness in which repeated refusal dulls perception. Divine judgment confirms a resistance for which the hearers remain responsible.
Isaiah’s warning must not be used to condemn every Jewish person. Jewish believers have filled the story of Acts, including the apostles, Paul, and many synagogue hearers. Even in Rome, “some believed.” Paul addresses the divided group before him and repeats a pattern of rejection that Israel’s prophets had confronted, not a racial verdict against an entire people.
Paul announces that God’s salvation has been sent to the Gentiles and that they will listen. This does not mean Gentiles always respond or that Jewish mission is permanently abandoned. It declares that ethnic resistance cannot stop God from gathering the nations. The inclusion first defended in Acts 10 and Acts 15 now reaches the capital of the empire.
Many modern Bibles omit or footnote verse 29, which describes the Jewish leaders leaving after intense discussion. The sentence appears in later manuscript traditions but is absent from several early witnesses. Whether printed in the main text or a note, it adds no doctrine missing from the surrounding verses: the hearers are divided, Paul speaks, and the meeting ends.
Paul spends two full years receiving everyone who comes to him. The word “everyone” gives the conclusion unusual openness. Earlier barriers of geography, ethnicity, riot, courtroom, storm, and imprisonment have repeatedly been crossed. Now the apostle’s lodging becomes a place where any visitor may hear about God’s kingdom and the Lord Jesus.
The book ends with bold proclamation “without hindrance.” Paul is personally guarded and chained, but the message is not. Acts began with Jesus promising witness to the ends of the earth in Acts 1; arrival at the imperial center shows that movement continuing. Luke’s open ending shifts attention beyond Paul to the church’s ongoing witness through the Holy Spirit.
Important Verses
Verses 2–6 contrast genuine hospitality with unreliable spiritual conclusions. The islanders care well for strangers, yet they misread Paul first as a condemned murderer and then as a god. Kindness should be honored, but compassion does not make every religious interpretation correct.
Verses 14–16 show the strengthening power of Christian fellowship. Believers welcome Paul before he enters Rome, and their presence gives courage to an apostle who has already survived imprisonment and shipwreck. God often answers the need for courage through the arrival of faithful people.
Verse 20 summarizes Paul’s legal and theological position: he is chained for the hope of Israel. His message about Jesus and resurrection is not a personal innovation detached from Scripture. It is his claim that Israel’s promised hope has reached fulfillment in the Messiah.
Verses 23–28 present the final major preaching scene in Acts. Paul explains the kingdom and Jesus from the Law and the Prophets; some believe, others reject, and the Gentile mission continues. Scripture-centered witness can be patient and persuasive without hiding the seriousness of unbelief.
Verses 30–31 provide the book’s final picture. Paul receives all who come and teaches with boldness despite confinement. “Without hindrance” is not a statement that Christians face no opposition; it is the declaration that no opposition has been able to imprison God’s kingdom or silence the Lord Jesus Christ.
Practical Applications
Receive vulnerable strangers with practical kindness. The Maltese islanders begin by making a fire in cold rain, not by demanding that shipwrecked people prove their worth. Hospitality can become the first setting in which exhausted and displaced people experience mercy.
Resist quick moral explanations for suffering or success. A crisis does not prove that someone is secretly guilty, and an extraordinary escape does not make that person spiritually superior. Interpret circumstances humbly and test conclusions by the character and revelation of God.
Use delays and restrictions as places of faithful service. Paul heals on Malta, encourages believers on the road, and teaches from rented confinement. Waiting for ideal freedom can become an excuse for inactivity; ask what truth, mercy, and welcome are possible within today’s real limits.
Explain the gospel from the whole biblical story and allow honest hearers time to consider it. Paul combines testimony, Scripture, kingdom, Messiah, resurrection, and repentance. Clear Christian witness is more substantial than a slogan, yet it remains centered on Jesus rather than on winning admiration for the speaker.
Measure ministry by faithfulness, not by control over outcomes. Some of Paul’s hearers believe and some do not, but he continues receiving all and teaching boldly. The book of Acts ends by placing an open door before the reader: the gospel is unhindered, and the work of witness continues.