Paul’s Centurion, Julius
Acts 27:1 names the centurion who was placed in charge of Paul for his voyage to Rome as “Julius.” Perhaps the fact that he is named is an indicator that he was a follower of Jesus. At any rate, an interesting inscription, pictured above, was discovered at Caesarea, the port from which Paul and Julius set sail for Rome. What makes it interesting is that it has four similarities to the centurion mentioned in Acts 27:1. 1) The personal name is the same. In Latin, it is spelled “IVLIVS,” the exact equivalent......
Julius the Centurion?
In Acts 27:1-3, Luke gives an account of the first leg of Paul’s voyage to Rome. Twice in these verses he mentions the centurion who was put in charge of taking Paul to Rome. Interestingly, he calls him by name, “Julius.” This is in contrast to the centurion and the tribune (of even higher rank) mentioned in Acts 22:25-28, both of whom remain anonymous. Why does Luke give the name of the centurion in Acts 27? In his book Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, Richard Bauckham suggests that typically the reason why some......
I Press On
As we enter 2019, Paul’s teaching in Philippians 3 can help us re-set our thinking for the new year. “But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” (Phi 3:13b-14, ESV). Paul was fond of using word-pictures from athletics to illustrate various aspects of the Christian life, and that seems to be what he is doing here. Like a well-trained athlete, Paul urges us to forget what......
