Frapping & Anchors

A few years ago, I was blessed with the opportunity to become a part of the Board of Directors of International Disaster Emergency Service (IDES). I’ve been exposed to IDES and their incredible ministry for as long as I can remember and have, on several occasions, had the joy of sharing in its work. From participating in work trips to a storm-ravaged Pearlington, Mississippi after Hurricane Katrina, to helping with shed building projects after a tornado ripped through our neighboring region in 2012, to volunteering with numerous “God Always Provides” (G.A.P.) food packing events, IDES has always been a familiar and beloved mission to me. 

After witnessing the devastation of a Bangladesh cyclone in 1970, Milton and Janet Bates were burdened by the plight of the disaster victims and were moved to provide some kind of aid or relief those in need as a ministry of the Churches of Christ and Christian Churches. What began at one willing and prayerful couple’s kitchen table has grown into an extraordinary and ever-expanding pillar of mission work that has, throughout its existence, had a singular focus: To meet the physical and spiritual needs of suffering people around the world in the name of Jesus! While IDES’ primary focus areas are disaster response, development, and disciple making, the broad scope of its work is to provide help and hope around the world. In fact, “Help & Hope” is so much at the core of what IDES does that the phrase is integrated into nearly all of its materials, marketing, and messages. Help and hope is truly what IDES is, what it does, and what it embodies.

Appropriately, each board meeting opens with a devotional time and I was given the privilege of sharing that devotion a few months ago. My thoughts kept gravitating toward IDES’ foundational principle of “Help & Hope.” As I dug more deeply into those two words, their meanings, their uses in scripture, and their application to the mission of IDES, I couldn’t help but feel that another phrase may be more befitting. The phrase “Frapping & Anchors” began to materialize through a study of scripture and I felt is could easily supplant “Help & Hope,” giving an even more accurate and explanatory description of IDES efforts. Despite the realization that a mass overhaul of all marketing materials was both impractical and highly unlikely, I was still inspired to share my reasoning and why this new, unconventional phrase resonated. It’s a phrase worth sharing as it not only applies to the ministry of IDES, but also to our call as the body of Christ to provide help and hope – or frapping and anchors – to a world so desperately in need of both.

From a Roman maritime perspective, the ideals of help and hope are perfectly manifested in the concepts of frapping and anchors, and scripture bears this out. The account of Paul & the shipwreck off the island of Malta in Acts 27 illustrates the terms. Following Paul’s trial before King Agrippa and his petition to have his case appealed to Caesar, he is set on a course for Rome. Paul is put aboard an Alexandrian grain freighter which soon encountered “a wind of hurricane force, called the Northeaster.” (Acts 27:14) This mediterranean meteorological phenomena was actually an euroaquilo and is a cyclonic, tempestuous northeast wind known for its destructive force. Acts 27:15-17 further describes the mariners’ plight, saying that “[t]he ship was caught by the storm and could not head into the wind; so we gave way to it and were driven along. As we passed to the lee of a small island called Cauda, we were hardly able to make the lifeboat secure, so the men hoisted it aboard. Then they passed ropes under the ship itself to hold it together. Because they were afraid they would run aground on the sandbars of Syrtis, they lowered the sea anchor and let the ship be driven along.”  (Emphasis added.)

The process noted in verse 17 of passing ropes beneath the ship to keep it held together is a description of frapping, an ancient maritime practice that would’ve been well known among Mediterranean seafarers. Heavy cables, ropes, or chains were used as a make-shift girdle, so to speak, that could come around the ship and hold the hull planks together. The express purpose of frapping was to strengthen and reinforce a vulnerable ship in a storm.

The Greek word for this nautical procedure in Acts 27:17 is boētheia, a beautiful parallel and an accurate embodiment of the help offered both through IDES and through the church at large. When hurricane force winds (perhaps just like what Paul encountered) beat and batter homes and churches, IDES’ U.S. Disaster staff and countless volunteers (facilitated through our unified network of Restoration Movement churches) are on the ground, quite literally providing reinforcement and strength to storm-stricken structures…just like the ropes and chains that were passed under that Alexandrian grain freighter. When tsunamis, earthquakes, droughts, or political “northeasters” threaten people around the world, the international aid staff of IDES, their field workers, and brotherhood mission partners around the globe come alongside the afflicted and do precisely what Paul’s shipmates did: They gird up the planks of storm-tossed lives by providing resources that are so immediately and desperately needed. It is truly amazing to consider that this boētheia, this real-life sea-faring process of frapping that literally means “help” is exactly what IDES does and what the church is called to do for those in storms all around us. What better example of real-life boētheia?

What’s particularly fascinating about this Greek word, though, is that it is only use one other time in scripture. We find it in Hebrews 4:16, where the writer encourages us to “approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help [boētheia] us in our time of need.” The very limited yet divinely-inspired uses of that word boētheia help to illustrate a spiritual truth with a visible, physical act. The same help, or frapping, the girding up and strengthening, is what we gain from the Father when we go to His throne in prayer in times of storm, but also daily! Not only is boētheia something we can provide to others in their need, but something that we, too, stand in need of receiving from our good God.

What about hope, then? Does scripture also give us such a perfectly illustrative explanation of hope? Interestingly, just a bit later in the book of Hebrews, another nautical term is used – the Greek word agkyra, or anchor. You may already have guessed the connection, but if not, Hebrews 6:19 sheds light as the writer, in emphasizing Christ as the fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham, says, “We have this hope as an anchor [agkyra] for the soul, firm and secure.” And that word “anchor,” takes us right back to our starting point: The account of Paul’s shipwreck. It is, in fact, the exact word used in Acts 27:29 for the Roman maritime anchors dropped by the sailors as a last-ditch effort to hold the freighter during a tempestuous storm. There could hardly be a clearer picture of the anchor and the steadfast stay we have in Christ Jesus our Lord! Beyond the help that IDES or the church as a whole can provide to those in life’s storms, the greater need of the hurting can only be met through the hope – the anchor – of a Savior.

In one brief account of an apostle slash inmate caught up in a seabound hurricane, the Word gives us a deep and profoundly beautiful illustration of the purpose and goal of IDES, of the church, and of each individual Christian: extending help and hope – frapping and an anchor – through physical aid and support in literal storms and by introducing those impacted to the one true anchor and hope for their souls – Jesus Christ.

In his 2003 book, “The Lost Shipwreck of Paul,” biblical investigator and international explorer Robert Cornuke details his work off the coast of Malta in search of artifacts from the disaster detailed in Acts 27. Throughout the course of his expedition called “Project Malta,” Cornuke conducted extensive research, including digs and deep-sea diving, but ultimately discovered he was beaten to the punch by mediterranean fishermen. At the end of his book, though, he reflects on the project and on the shipwreck itself. He ponders why, when God had already promised Paul that he was to end up in Rome, did He even allow this storm to happen? Cornuke suggests that we often think of this account and might consider Paul a kind of lone messenger, a single shot in spreading the Gospel to Rome. But he posits that, maybe, the storm and shipwreck had a much more extensive and momentous impact.

What was the meaning of that storm, of that frightful shipwreck? Suddenly it occurred to me—the prisoners who survived that shipwreck, and who drew strength from Paul’s heroic words, would go on to tell this miraculous story to other prisoners they encountered. The ship’s owner, witness to the miracle of his own salvation at sea, would relate the tale to the aristocracy of Rome. The sailors would travel on to distant lands, everywhere speaking of their deliverance and of the Jewish slave who spoke to angels and served this man called Jesus. The soldiers no doubt carried the Good News of Christ down the long dusty roads leading to military campaigns in far-off frontiers. Through a terrible storm, from the ruins of a shipwreck, Paul’s story would be carried on the lips of seafaring travelers the world over. . . [I]n the vast, unknowable economy of God, it had been ordained that many would carry the message of hope abroad.¹

Could it be that Paul’s shipwreck served a far greater and more widespread purpose than we envision from when reading those 44 verses in Acts? If the goal of IDES or the goal of the church was simply to give help to those in the physical storms, the work would be worthwhile, albeit incomplete. By offering the anchor of Christ, though, real impact is made. But can we really fathom the full reach of that impact? When the storms have subsided and the help, the frapping – boētheia – has been provided and the hope, the anchor – agkyra – has been shared, it is possible that the name of Jesus and the message of His Gospel could be carried farther and longer than we ever expected or even imagined? It is the call for IDES, for the body of Christ, and for each and every follower of Jesus to share help and hope. Or, perhaps you now agree, we’re more precisely called to share frapping and an anchor. Whatever we may call it, our ultimate prayer should always be that the boētheia and agkyra found in our Lord and Savior may continue to travel on after the storm, through space and time; across mountains and seas; into workplaces and families and prisons and governments; and from one generation to the next and the next and the next.

Help and hope. Frapping and an anchor. It’s what we’ve been given through Jesus and it’s what we’re to extend as ones entrusted with the Gospel of Christ.