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**Acts 28:4** — *"Surely this man is a murderer. Although he was saved from the sea, Justice has not allowed him to live."*
The islanders of Malta watched a viper fasten to Paul's hand and drew the only conclusion their moral framework allowed: suffering must mean guilt. Their logic was tidy. Their theology was wrong.
This is the ancient error — reading Providence backward, as if calamity is always confession and hardship is always heaven's verdict. Job's friends made the same mistake. So did the disciples when they asked whose sin caused a man's blindness.
Paul simply shook the snake into the fire and suffered no harm. The islanders then swung to the opposite extreme, calling him a god.
Scripture reminds us: neither suffering nor survival is the full story. God's covenant mercy operates beyond our categories of cause and effect.
Let us reflect before we interpret another's trial through the narrow lens of what we think we understand.
The islanders of Malta watched a viper fasten to Paul's hand and drew the only conclusion their moral framework allowed: suffering must mean guilt. Their logic was tidy. Their theology was wrong.
This is the ancient error — reading Providence backward, as if calamity is always confession and hardship is always heaven's verdict. Job's friends made the same mistake. So did the disciples when they asked whose sin caused a man's blindness.
Paul simply shook the snake into the fire and suffered no harm. The islanders then swung to the opposite extreme, calling him a god.
Scripture reminds us: neither suffering nor survival is the full story. God's covenant mercy operates beyond our categories of cause and effect.
Let us reflect before we interpret another's trial through the narrow lens of what we think we understand.