Sun.’s Devo - Bound for Rome

Read: 1 Chronicles 7:1-8:40; Acts 27:1-20; Psalm 7:1-17; Proverbs 18:22 Today we read about the descendants of Issachar, Benjamin, Manasseh, Ephraim, and Benjamin. Some things that jumped out to me were that their warriors were counted by individual tribes where in Chapter 5 the armies of Reuben, Gad and the half tribe of Manasseh were all counted together. *** The other half of Manasseh was in our reading today. Manasseh had an Arabian concubine which makes me wonder about that love story. *** We are also given a short story of Ephraim’s descendants. Two of his nine sons were killed stealing livestock from the local farmers near Gath. His wife had another son after that named Beriah which sounds like the meaning of “tragedy”. Then he had a daughter named Sheeran. I guess that they were to take the place of the two they lost. *** In Acts, Paul had appealed to Caesar, so Paul, Luke and other believers as well as other prisoners boarded the same ship bound for Rome. The Roman officer in charge of Paul was named Julius and he was very respectful and kind to Paul. He gave him freedom at their stops to go and be taken care of by his friends. *** They changed ships at Myra and boarded an Egyptian ship. The weather was against them so they lost a lot of time. Winter was approaching which would make it more dangerous to sail. They were warned to not continue but the captain wanted to go on to Crete where there was a safer harbor than the one they were at. So they set sail for Phoenix and were met by a typhoon. It got worse and worse until they had to throw over cargo and gear. When the storm raged on, they thought all hope was gone. *** To be continued… *** Lord, you train our hands for battle and you go before us to do valiant things in your name. May your enemies be scattered and may justice prevail in our lives and in the nations of the world.