Malta: It’s Not Gilligan’s Island

Gilligan’s Island was a TV show about 7 people who took a 3-hour tour but were lost in a storm. Their boat crashed on this uninhabited island. There was “Gilligan, the skipper, too, a millionaire and his wife, a movie star, the professor, and Mary Ann there on Gilligan’s Island.” 🙂

They built huts to live in and made everything from things on the boat and in the jungle. They even had a shower. Each episode was another attempt to get off of the island and return home. (When the natives occasionally visited the island, they wore grass skirts.)

Acts 28:1, “…they learned that the island was called Malta.” Modern English Version

See St. Paul’s Bay!

“…Malta is the Maltese name for the island that the Greeks (and Romans) called Melite…means Land of Honey…situated in the heart of the Mediterranean Sea, straight south of Sicily, the large island at the tip of the boot of Italy….the famous Roman naval base which had been instrumental in the Punic wars of three hundred years prior….” abarim-publications.com/Meaning/Malta.html#.WWIGrNUrLc

Malta was not at all like Gilligan’s Island. The inhabitants of Malta were well off.

Publius lived in an estate, 28:7.
The estate was large enough to accommodate 276 people, 27:37; 28:7.
They provided the necessary supplies when they sailed, 28:10.
They fed and housed them for three months of winter, 28:11.

“He thought of everything, provided for everything we could possibly need, letting us in on the plans he took such delight in making.” Ephesians 1 The Message

Are you going through a storm? Do you feel like you’ve been booted by life? There’s good news! Off of the tip of the boot, God has a “land of honey” waiting. He thinks of everything and provides for everything.

Circumstances will not disappear. Paul was still a prisoner but he described it this way…