A Glimpse At Human Nature and its Behavior in Three Varieties At One and the Same Conjuncture
Acts 27:30-32
And as the shipmen were about to flee out of the ship, when they had let down the boat into the sea…


The episode comprised in these few verses is full of startling effect. It displays human nature - that which is alike so one and so manifold - in this its latter aspect, rather than in the former. It invites us to look, to wonder, and, if wise, to be warned and learn in time. Let us notice the manifestation of human nature as made now by three varieties of people -

I. BY THE SHIPMEN. That is, by the "master and owner" of the ship (ver. 11), and evidently the officers and crew (ver. 27) of the ship. Every sentiment of honor, every plain demand of duty, called upon them to stand by their ship to the last, and to be the last to leave it. They now try to do all the reverse of this, competent to purpose it, and taken in the attempt to do it by craft, "under color" of doing something else. They reveal:

1. Cowardice. That they should fear was natural and a sign that nature had not gone callous in them. But cowardice began when they did not face to the end what had now some days been a common danger, one for which they were in part themselves answerable, which they could best meet, and which others must meet.

2. Selfishness. They try to save themselves,

(1) regardless of others who belonged to them, as if only so much freight;

(2) and yet worse, doubling the risk of them, by

(a) withdrawing their own professional help, and

(b) withdrawing the boat.

3. The unfaithfulness of the hireling. Seldom could there be found a more typical instance of this (John 10:11-13). They were hired, they "cared nothing" for the lives of those entrusted to their charge, and they did attempt to "flee."

4. The "wisdom in its generation" of human nature. For, baulked of their purpose, and baulked in a most transparent and peremptory manner, they are too "wise" to court lynch law; and they appear to follow the policy at once of saying nothing, and making the best of it. They fall into their places, and do whatever is to be done. So versatile can human nature be when it suits her.

II. BY PAUL. Paul under any showing was the character and the hero of the boat. We should not be content without knowing anything of him that opens to our view. A great deal does open to our view. He steps out not now for the first time since the storm began. It would be very far from the truth to say now that it was only human nature that we have the opportunity of seeing. No; the subordination of human nature was, perhaps, not yet perfect. Yet there was no willing strife (Romans 7:15-25), no great strife, no very distorting strife, between the human and the Divine in him.

1. Paul was the one calm watcher of everything that transpired.

2. His was the eye that read and that was then engaged in reading nature in others. It was in very deed, at any time, part of his office to do this very thing.

3. His was the eye that, so clear itself, detected the fraud, the would-be fraud of others.

4. His was the unfaltering tongue that declared it, though probably with no addition of safety to himself.

5. His was the mind conscious in its own rectitude and confident in God's truth and providence, that does not for a moment hesitate to expose itself to being taxed with certain theological inconsistency. Most positively and publicly had he committed himself to the statement that God had promised him himself and "all them that sailed with him." And yet he brings to the fore a condition, a new sort of proviso, and that one that postulated the help and co-operation of a number of godless and inhuman hirelings. These things all show, not only that the truest Christian need be no less a true man, but rather that it is only the true Christian who touches at all sufficiently the possibilities of the true man. For Paul the prisoner, on the way to trial, of many the despised, is nevertheless the man in every essential respect, in that boat, and succeeds in commanding not only a professed respect, but a practical obedience from all the rest.

III. BY THE ROMAN CENTURION AND SOLDIERS.

1. So soon as Paul has had his say, they see quickly, because their eyesight is keen by reason of the instinct of self-preservation.

2. They are not nice as to the source from which they derive their clue. Extreme peril has done a great deal to strip off from them all unnecessary artificiality, all dignified ceremony, all officialism and mere sense of authority. Nature itself stares them in the face, and puts not lispingly the alternative - Where may all these be very soon?

3. They act, act at once, and act trenchantly too. They cut off escape from the coward and the knave and the supremely guilty. Let what may be said to them, let what may be threateningly looked at them, they act, for so it is given to human nature to do in the last resort. And those who do not act in the presence of the solemn, supreme dangers of life, cutting off escape from the evil-doers, though these be themselves, are the men who will be left yet more "without excuse" for what is written in the book, in this threefold illustration of human nature in the presence of peril. - B.



Parallel Verses
KJV: And as the shipmen were about to flee out of the ship, when they had let down the boat into the sea, under colour as though they would have cast anchors out of the foreship,

WEB: As the sailors were trying to flee out of the ship, and had lowered the boat into the sea, pretending that they would lay out anchors from the bow,




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