Setting Sail for Rome
It was three months after the shipwreck that we set sail on another ship that had wintered at the island—an Alexandrian ship with the twin gods as its figurehead. Our first stop was Syracuse, where we stayed three days. From there we sailed across to Rhegium. A day later a south wind began blowing, so the following day we sailed up the coast to Puteoli. There we found some believers, who invited us to spend a week with them. And so we came to Rome. The brothers and sisters in Rome had heard we were coming, and they came to meet us at the Forum on the Appian Way. Others joined us at The Three Taverns. When Paul saw them, he was encouraged and thanked God. When we arrived in Rome, Paul was permitted to have his own private lodging, though he was guarded by a soldier.
Acts 28:11-16
It really is surprising that Paul met so many Christians the nearer he got to Rome. Stop and think about it for a moment. This is Paul’s first time on the road to Rome. He had not been into this part of the world before. It was not like his journeys into Asia Minor or north of Israel into Antioch and the surrounding hinterland. There were numbers of times he had passed through Cilicia, Pamphylia and Lycia along the northern coast. He kept cycling back to those places to check up on the believers there. Most of the other places Paul visited were first time encounters where there were no believers. He started the churches in those places. But on this journey heading to Rome from Puteoli onward Paul encounters groups of Christians. Where did those Christian come from?
In Puteoli, the place which smelt of sulphur, they found some believers who pleaded with them to stay a week with them. It may have smelt like hell there, but even there near the heart of the Roman empire, there were believers. How did that happen? You can bet that Paul filled that week with encouragement to the believers of Puteoli. Doing with them what he did each time he visited the other well known places where there were believers.
They set out on the long walk to Rome, a walk of 228 kms, the equivalent of a journey from Auckland to Rotorua. It takes over 2.5 hours to do that distance by car. Think about walking it. 7 km per hour is a fast walk. Imagine walking fast over 228 kilometres. At that rate it would take you 32.5 hours to get there. But you are unlikely to keep that pace up for 32 hours. The pace would drop back to a more leisurely 5 km per hour. At that rate it would take you 45 hours to get there walking non-stop. Think about how you would do such a journey. Likely as not you will break the journey somewhere along the way to stay the night. The journey from Puteoli to Rome was the standard route into the capital of the Roman Empire. Everyone did this journey until the artificial harbour was created at Portus Augusti by Claudius (24 January 41 – 13 October 54), and before Trajan made the mouth of the Tiber the principal port of Rome in the second century. At that time ships could sail all the way to Rome. Before that everyone walked to Rome from Puteoli, the main port of Rome in those earlier years.
As result there were inns or taverns along the route for weary travellers. So Paul and the group would have stuck together and overnighted at least twice on the journey. Think also about this journey from the point of view of where Julius, the Roman commander and his troops, were in all this time. Paul was still a prisoner, but it is clear that Julius continued to be lenient toward Paul during the week in Puteoli and also on the journey overland to Rome. How long did this journey take and how many times did they stop? Notice Luke’s words in verse 14 – “And so we came to Rome.” Those words almost capture the exasperating length of the journey. Hardly just the length of the journey from Puteoli to Rome but more the overall nature of the journey from Caesarea to Rome. Some of you have commented to me how the way I have approached this account of Paul’s journey to Rome has emphasized how long and drawn out it was. Thanks for spotting that. I have deliberately done it that way and have kept the map before us each step along the way for that reason. I suspect they may have stopped more times and overnighted more that we may imagine. I don’t think that Julius was driving them along the way. I think they took on this last leg at a much more leisurely pace. But in the final analysis we are not told by Luke how long the journey actually took.
It is interesting to note that they met the brothers and sisters from Rome at both the Forum on the Appian Way and at the Three Taverns. They came to the Forum on the Appian Way first which was 43 miles or 69 kilometres from Rome. The Forum on the Appian was a commercial centre, a trading place. You might call it the Forum Mall on the Appian Way in today’s terms. There would have been “shops” but also too inns in which to stay the night. The Three Taverns was a famous place to stay the night on the journey to Rome along the Appian Way. It was a cluster of three taverns especially dedicated to travellers on the journey between Puteoli and Rome. The Three Taverns were 33 miles or 53 kilometres from Rome. Did they stop in both places and overnight? There were only 10 miles or 16 kms between the Mall and the Taverns. Did they go straight from the Mall to Rome and not overnight at the Taverns or did they stop at both? They may well have stopped at both, especially if Julius was so benevolent toward Paul. Besides there was quite a gathering of Christians at both places. Who were these people? Where did they come from?
That’s easy. I can likely tell you their names. There would have likely been Priscilla and Aquila, Phoebe, Epenetus, Mary, Andronicus, Junia, Ampliatus, Paul’s special friend, Urbanus, and Stachys, Apelles, Aristobulus and his household, Herodion, and the household of Narcissus, Tryphena and Tryphosa, Persis, Rufus, Asyncritus, Phlegon, Hermes, Patrobas, Hermas, and the people from their house church, Philologus, Julia, Nereus and his sister, and Olympas and all the believers who meet together in his house there to greet Paul in either the Appian Mall or at the Three Taverns. There may well have been well over forty people who met Paul on the journey on the Appian Way even before they arrived in Rome. Why? How could that be? And how do you know their names Ian? Do you have another source behind the Bible that gives you all this detail? You may well ask? I will tell you the secret in the next Gem.
What’s in a name? A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.
William Shakespeare
“I read in a book once that a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, but I’ve never been able to believe it. I don’t believe a rose WOULD be as nice if it was called a thistle or a skunk cabbage.”
Anne of Green Gables
It ain’t what they call you, it’s what you answer to.
W C Fields
Keep your life journey personal; make sure you connect with the people you meet along the way.
Ian Vail
It is important to get to know the people you meet regularly through life. Knowing their names is important. It shows that you care about them and remember them.
Ian Vail
Do you know the names of the people who serve you in life? Whether you know them by name or not says more about you than it does about them.
Ian Vail