Sailing through Acts: Across the Mediterranean in the Wake of St Paul
Linford Stutzman, Monarch Books

Having been an occasional sailor, I have experienced my share of hairy moments, two of which still evoke vivid memories.

In the first, unable to release the spinnaker halyard from its cleat, the boat I was sailing on nearly overturned, resulting in the captain going overboard. The second was being becalmed right in front of a huge container ship in Sydney Harbour.

Sailing, even in protected waters is not for the faint hearted, so to take on sailing the Mediterranean, not to mention buying, repairing and re-rigging an ageing boat for the task, was an enormous challenge for Linford Stutzman and his wife Janet.

Sailing through Acts is Stutzman’s account of the journey he and Janet took throughout the Mediterranean, visiting the places the apostle Paul stopped on his missionary journeys. Stutzman takes the reader on a journey with them to Israel, Turkey and Greece in a quest to find out more about the man who brought the gospel to the Gentiles.

As they travel, the Stutzmans gain some valuable insights into the hazards of travel, such as unpredictable weather, government red tape and equipment failure.

Through these experiences we get a glimpse of Paul’s journey.

As a professor of religion at Eastern Mennonite University, Stutzman is also able to speak about details of Paul’s life and travels. This knowledge is woven together with Stutzman’s impressions of the people, places, and stories they encounter to form an image of what it might have been like for Paul as he made these same journeys nearly 2,000 years before.

Passages of scripture that used to seem dead and boring come alive when the subject is examined from this real-life perspective.

This very readable book also brings the history and culture of the Mediterranean regions that the Apostle Paul visited alive by relating adventures and misadventures of the Stutzmans’ 15-month journey.

Karyl Davison