What does First B Jackson teach about acts 28?
Drawn from the messages where it was actually addressed: the words said from the front, the passages taught, and where to hear the whole thing.
At First B Jackson, the teaching on Acts 28 follows Paul from the shores of Malta all the way to his rented lodging in Rome, and the steady argument across every message in this series is that the gospel moves forward no matter what stands in its way. The shipwreck survivors land on Malta to unexpected kindness, and when a viper fastens onto Paul's hand the islanders swing from calling him a murderer to calling him a god, which the teaching holds up as a picture of how people read events through instinct rather than understanding. The healings that follow authenticate the message Paul carries, not as spectacle but as confirmation, and Malta has remained deeply Christian for two thousand years as a result.
When Paul reaches Rome he is not bitter, even though it was opposition that put him in chains. Within three days he calls together the leading Jewish men, explains his situation plainly, and invites them to hear what the hope of Israel actually is. A second, larger gathering listens from morning until evening as he works through the law and the prophets to show that everything points to Jesus. Some are persuaded and some refuse to hear, and the teaching treats that split response as the consistent pattern across the entire book of Acts, not a failure but the normal shape of gospel proclamation. When the resistant ones begin to leave, Paul quotes Isaiah 6, the passage where God sends Isaiah to speak to people whose hearts have grown dull, making the point that refusing to hear is not a new problem and the word goes out anyway.
What follows is two years of Paul in his own lodging in Rome, open to everyone who came, preaching the kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ. Pastor Mark, teaching this passage in an earlier series, pointed out that Luke ends not with a grand climax but with that one word: unhindered. That is where the teaching lands. The same message John the Baptist preached, the same message Jesus preached, is still going out, and the chains and the shipwrecks and the divided crowds have not stopped it.
Taught from Acts 28 · Isaiah 6:9-10 · Isaiah 6:8 · Acts 2:42 · Acts 5:42
The passage taught · Acts 28
1 When we had escaped, then they learned that the island was called Malta.
2 The natives showed us uncommon kindness; for they kindled a fire, and received us all, because of the present rain, and because of the cold.
3 But when Paul had gathered a bundle of sticks and laid them on the fire, a viper came out because of the heat, and fastened on his hand.
4 When the natives saw the creature hanging from his hand, they said to one another, “No doubt this man is a murderer, whom, though he has escaped from the sea, yet Justice has not allowed to live.”
World English Bible
Messages that go deeper
- October 19, 2025 The Hope of Israel in Chains The pastor walks through Acts 28, the final chapter of Luke's account, weaving in a motorcycle accident, a snakebite on a mission trip, and what it means that the gospel moves forward unhindered.
- October 12, 2025 The Gospel Is Not Hindered Pastor Ray walks through Acts 28, the final chapter, showing how the gospel moved forward unhindered despite shipwrecks, snakebites, imprisonment and rejection, and still does today.
- February 16, 2014 And Thus We Came to Rome The pastor concludes Acts by walking through Paul's arrival in Rome, where he preached Christ unhindered, showing the gospel must be shared, cannot be stopped, and alone can save.