“Therefore I urge you to take nourishment, for this is for your survival, since not a hair will fall from the head of any of you.” Acts 27:34

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I translate this as, “Therefore, I encourage you to take food for this is for your salvation. For not a hair of the head of you will fall.” (CG).

Paul had just implored those gathered before to take food, noting that it was the fourteenth day that they had gone without nourishment. Because of this, he continues with, “Therefore, I encourage you to take food.”

They need to eat. A time is coming very shortly when they would need to be strengthened both in body and in mind, something that eating food would do for them. He tells them all that “for this is for your salvation.”

Paul had already told them in verse 23 that he had been assured by an angel that all would come to safety, but now he shows that this doesn’t mean they were not to be participants in that truth. In telling them to eat, it was to ensure that they would have the strength for whatever ordeal may lie ahead.

The word he uses literally means “salvation,” but the context indicates that a different word such as “preservation” or “survival” is acceptable. The idea of salvation is most often connected to the eternal soul. That is not what Paul is saying. Rather, it is the salvation of life.

If they had already been told that they would all survive, and yet Paul indicates that this is for their salvation, then an obvious deduction would be that if they didn’t eat, they would have to be saved by those who did. Instead of living off the welfare of others, each should be responsible enough to eat and be prepared to rescue himself from the ordeal that was coming.

Either way, however, they would all be saved. And more, Paul says, “For not a hair of the head of you will fall.”

This is a proverbial saying used several times in Scripture and which even Jesus alludes to. See 1 Samuel 14:45; 2 Samuel 14:11; 1 Kings 1:52, Matthew 10:30, & Luke 21:18. As for the word “you,” it is plural. Every person would come through this ultimately unscathed.

However, it might be that those who didn’t eat would be so utterly exhausted that they might not physically recover for weeks, or they might face some other malady or embarrassment that eating would help avoid. Paul is using wisdom, based on the prophecy, to prepare those with him for the coming shipwreck.

Life application: The words of this verse call to mind the promises of the Bible which ask the same from us. Time and again, we are given exhortations. If we choose to reject them, then the harms that come upon us are actually self-inflicted wounds.

Jesus has promised salvation to those who believe in Him. This is an eternal decree of God, and thus salvation itself is eternal. One is sealed with the Holy Spirit as a guarantee of future redemption. And yet, what shape will we be in when we get to the end of this life?

We may have bodies worn out from abuses that the Bible warned us against. We may live lives filled with trials and troubles simply because we didn’t heed the word and apply it to our lives. Is this what we want?

And more, once we have been brought before Jesus, there will still be consequences for the lives we lived. This will be at the judgment seat of Christ where we will receive rewards or loss. Paul explicitly tells us that we will be saved, yet as through fire.

Paul is telling those on the ship what to do so that their earthly salvation will be easier than it otherwise might be without eating. His letters tell us that our eternal salvation will be better if we do what the word tells us to do as we live out our lives in Christ. Let us pay heed!

Lord God, may we carefully consider our walk before You each day. Help us to include adherence to Your word in our daily decisions and actions of life. May we be fully prepared for the day we stand before You to receive our judgment for the lives we have lived. Help us in this, O God. Amen.