Acts 28: 11-16 | Paul's Arrival at Rome | TCBS

After three months on the island of Malta, Paul and his companions board a new ship and set their course for Rome. Acts 28:11–16 picks up the journey at a point where the shipwreck is behind them, the island has treated them well, and the road to Rome is finally open again.

In this episode of the Tree Church Bible Study, Pastor Stacey Crawford leads the conversation alongside Pastors Zach and Chris Reed as they work through the final leg of Paul's long journey and open a broader discussion on what God designed the church to be.

The new ship is an Alexandrian vessel, and Luke notes a specific detail about it. Its figurehead features the twin gods Castor and Pollux. Pastor Chris pointed out that this kind of ship would have been nearly identical to the one that wrecked. What is interesting is the detail Luke chooses to include. Castor and Pollux were twin brothers from Greek mythology, immortalized in the constellation Gemini, and they carried with them a symbol of brotherly love. Pastor Chris noted that this small descriptive detail lands just after the group spent their last episode talking about hospitality and friendship. The ship bearing them toward Rome carries a figurehead that quietly echoes those same themes.

The group makes a few stops along the Italian coast before arriving in Rome. Pastor Stacey reflected on how the group has joked about this throughout the study, feeling like children in the backseat asking if they are there yet. But there was a real strategy behind the stops. The winds had to cooperate, supplies needed replenishing, and after a shipwreck, no one was taking any chances.

What stands out in this passage is what happens when Paul finally arrives. Believers in Rome have already heard he is coming. They travel out to meet him, some as far as the Forum on the Appian Way, others at a place called the Three Taverns. When Paul sees them, Luke tells us he is encouraged and gives thanks to God.

Pastor Zach reflected on what that moment must have felt like. After everything Paul had endured to get there, he arrived not to an empty road or an indifferent city, but to people who love him and share his faith. The word of God has spread to Rome ahead of him. A community is already there. That kind of welcome, after that kind of journey, would have meant everything.

Pastor Chris described Paul's arrival in Rome as bittersweet, and the conversation settled on that word for a while. On one hand, God had promised Paul he would reach Rome, and now that promise has come to pass. Paul had even written a letter to the Romans before ever visiting them, expressing his longing to be with them. That longing is finally satisfied.

On the other hand, Paul knows what is waiting for him. He will stand trial before the emperor. Pastor Chris observed that Paul always seemed to carry a quiet awareness of where his life was heading. This arrival is not a celebration of escape. It is the beginning of the final chapter.

Pastor Stacey connected this to a grief that many people recognize. There are moments in life that are genuinely good and genuinely hard at the same time. A child reaches a milestone and it is worth celebrating, but something is also gone that will not come back. Paul has reached the destination God promised him. He has also arrived at the place where his story will end. Both things are true at once.

Pastor Chris put it simply. It is not the enthusiastic celebration of an Olympic gold medal. It is something quieter. It is a man looking at what God has done and saying, with real gratitude and real sobriety, thank you.

The latter half of the episode opens into one of the richest conversations of the study so far. Paul's arrival in Rome is greeted by believers he has never met, from a church he did not plant. That picture becomes the launching point for a discussion on what Pastor Stacey calls the Big C Church.

Pastor Chris explained that the early spread of the gospel created an ever-expanding presence of God's people throughout the world. From the beginning, the mission Jesus gave the disciples in Acts 1:8 was to take the gospel to Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. That movement was never meant to produce a single centralized organization. It was meant to produce local bodies of real people, living life together, carrying the same identity even as they spread across different places and cultures.

The ekklesia, the gathered people of God, takes on different expressions in different places. But what makes each expression part of the same body is the shared foundation. The apostles' teaching. The eyewitness account of who Jesus is. The central truth that Christ came in the flesh, died for sinners, and rose again.

The conversation did not stay theoretical. Pastor Stacey asked directly where the church had gone wrong, and both Pastors Zach and Chris answered with honesty.

Pastor Zach pointed to an ethnocentric mindset, the assumption that one church has everything figured out and every other church is doing it wrong. He also named the competition. When churches begin measuring themselves against each other by attendance numbers or programs, they have lost sight of the actual mission. The goal is not to grow a church. The goal is to see people come to know Jesus.

Pastor Chris added that many of the differences between churches and denominations trace back to honest disagreements about how to read and interpret Scripture. After the Protestant Reformation, when the Bible became available in languages people could actually read, different interpretations naturally emerged. Some of those differences touch on central issues, like the nature of the gospel itself, where there is no room for compromise. Others are peripheral, and those require humility.

His point was clear. If God wanted to make something perfectly plain, He would have. The hard parts of Scripture are hard for a reason. That does not mean abandoning conviction, but it does mean holding secondary disagreements with a gentler hand. A believer can land in a different place on a secondary issue, find a church that reflects their understanding, and still be fully part of the same body.

What the pastors kept returning to was the unity underneath the diversity. Pastor Chris described walking into churches across Central America and Africa, where the worship style is completely different, the service runs four or five hours, and the energy in the room feels nothing like what most Western Christians are used to. And yet, he said, every single time, there is an immediate bond. The same Jesus. The same rescue. The same mission.

Pastor Stacey pointed to the example Pastor Matthew Johnson has set at The Tree Church, reaching out to other pastors every Sunday morning with a simple message: I am praying for your church today. That kind of posture reflects what the Big C Church was always supposed to look like. Not competition. Not comparison. Shared purpose under one name.

Pastor Zach closed the episode in prayer, asking God to soften hearts and bring down walls, to unify believers under the name of Jesus, and to give the church eyes to see people who need Him and the willingness to welcome them in.

Acts 28:11–16 is a passage about arrival. Paul finally reaches the city God promised him. He is met by people who love him and share his faith, people he has never seen but who already belong to him. That picture is the Big C Church at its best. Local expressions of the same body, separated by distance and culture, but bound together by the same Lord and the same mission.

If you are looking for a church in Lancaster or a church in Logan, The Tree Church would love to have you join us.

We meet every Sunday at both of our Ohio campuses:

Lancaster Campus Sunday Services at 9:00 AM and 11:00 AM

Logan Campus Sunday Services at 9:00 AM and 11:00 AM

Whether you are new to faith or have been walking with Jesus for years, there is a place for you here.

We would love to see you this Sunday.