The Church in Malta is described (in the Book of Acts written by the Apostle Luke [Acts 27:39-42; Acts 28:1-11]) to have been founded by its patron the Apostle Paul in 50-60 A.D.

As the Church in Malta celebrates the 1,950th anniversary since the Apostle’s Paul Shipwreck to Malta, it would seem fit and appropriate to view the significance of this unexpected visit to Malta within the context of biblical prophesy, history and present day Christian spirituality and most importantly the vision of the Church in line with the preaching of the Apostle himself.

God’s ways are not our ways and it was more of a God-incidence than a coincidence that Paul was shipwrecked on Malta. As far as we know to date, Paul did not write an Epistle to the Maltese and some humorously say that he did not even send us a postcard from Rome. But joking apart, he did leave something more important and that is a blueprint of how a true Christian nation should be, not merely because of his visit to Malta but also from his Epistles.

At the time of the Apostle Paul’s visit, Malta was under the Roman occupation and rule and worshipped Roman, Phoenician and other false gods and idols such as the Phoenician gods Melkart, Baal, Astarte and Tanat and the Roman gods Castor, Pollex, Minerva and Juno and several Egyptian gods and goddesses such as Isis and Seraphs.

God gave Paul a vision to fulfil, within the vision of when Jesus appeared to him on the road to Damascus. (See Acts 9 and 26). The Apostle Paul goes on to say later on, “I did not prove to be disobedient to the Heavenly Vision” (see Acts 26:19).

King Solomon, the wisest man on earth in the Bible (after Jesus that is) said something profound that many Christians need to pay close attention to: “Where there is no vision, people perish” (see Proverbs 29:18).

In the Word of God, it is clear that from cover to cover, God has spoken to His people and has passed His message from one generation to another through the spoken word, dreams and visions.

Even when God speaks a simple word from Heaven into the spirit of a human being, there explodes a vision with divine force behind it, to see it accomplished (see Genesis 15:1, Ezekiel 1:1, Daniel 2:9, Joel 12:28 and others).

We need more people in the Roman Catholic Church and other Christian Churches who are not so militant and seek to follow the Lord in the simplicity of the Gospel.

Such persons can see and understand through reading the Bible that what has been taught over the centuries is not necessarily the whole truth. Truth is not something that belongs exclusively to, or is the prerogative of any particular Christian church, denomination or organisation but truth is open for every true Christian to investigate. God gives visions to all His people in different denominations so that His purposes are accomplished on this earth. Visions always have a plan of redemption to peoples, communities, governments, countries and sometimes even to reach the whole world (Ex. Daniel in Book of Daniel and John’s vision in the Book of Revelation).

In the light of the above, are we truly a unified Body of believers within the Mystical Body of Christ? Christians need to unite and have a clear vision otherwise division will continue to prevail. The enemies of the Christian Church love ‘divide and rule’ tactics. People need to listen to the prophets of our time and not treat them as ‘voices in the desert’.

We need to put aside the petty differences that are fragmenting our society into small pockets of true believers and unite with the force and only in this way can we break the bondages and chains that are shackling our society. The list would be too long to exhaust but the following list is quite a force to be reckoned with:

• Family breakdowns and pressures with a political call for the introduction of divorce and hints for introducing abortion rights.

• Teenage pregnancies on an alarming increase.

• Single Motherhood. 25-30 % of born babies are either of unknown fathers or out of wed-lock.

• Suicides.

• Teenage ‘hard’ drug abuse.

• Health problems due to lack of exercise.

• Financial pressures due to utility cost and basic commodity increases.

• Paedophilia and other sexual perversions.

• Recurrence to occult practices such as mediums and fortune tellers and other relatively new occult and New Age practices

• Smoking.

• Gambling.

• Alcohol consumption.

• Obesity.

• Lack of rest.

• Others.

Yes and indeed our society needs to be healed just as the Apostle Paul healed Publius’s father in Malta and countless others. Malta’s healing role does not solely lie with the state of the art hospitals alone, but we need health care in the spiritual realm as well.

Many people are still bound by doubt, fear and unbelief and Christianity as explained in the Bible does not even compare to the kind of Christianity we have in Malta in many respects. Many people are living a lie thinking that Religion is the way (irrespective of the denomination). God’s people perish for lack of knowledge (Hosea 4:6).

The Apostle Paul brought us a message of salvation (spiritual new birth experience), healing, casting out demons, speaking in tongues and visible demonstration of signs and miracles by the Holy Spirit at the preaching of the Word (Mark 16:20). The extraordinary should be the ‘ordinary’ and the supernatural should be the ‘natural’ for the true Christian.

Many people do not know what inheritance (power and authority, responsibility and accountability) they have within the Kingdom of God that has been given through Christ and the Holy Spirit sent on Pentecost and many still remain ignorant of their claim to this inheritance. The Apostle’s visit to Malta in our present times would surely admonish, encourage and exhort as he did so well in two thirds of the New Testament.