Here Be Dragons
- Alex Portillo
- Jan 14
- 7 min read
Updated: 17 hours ago
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture quotations are from the English Standard Version (ESV).
For the ancients, uncharted land and sea were a dangerous mystery. All one could do was wonder: What kind of dangers lay in the distance? What glory awaited one brave enough to go into the horizon?
Stories would be told of mythical monsters seen by sailors and explorers—stories of giant sea serpents, territorial monsters, deceptive creatures, and demigods.
Exploration was reserved exclusively for the brave, the courageous, the adventurous, and those who sought glory. Those who saw death as a small risk for being immortalized as a hero.
Ancient cartographers would drew monsters in all uncharted and unexplored areas. The Ebstorf map, for instance, created in the thirteenth century, has all manner of animals in the south of Africa, one of which resembles a dragon. It features monstrous races, like headless beings (blemmyae) and dog-headed men (cynocephali).[1]
Many times the drawings were descriptions they had heard secondhand. An example of this can be found in the Carta marina navigatoria, which has this elephantine thing with massive teeth hanging out around Norway—likely a walrus spotted by sailors.
This is the Carta marina—a massive, detailed map of the Scandinavian countries in Northern Europe published in 1539. It's famous for its geographical accuracy, but also for what it put in the water.[2]
Like this is a sea pig that the cartographer put in the North Sea, they compared it to heretics—creatures that distorted truth and lived like swine. Or this polypus (the name means "many-footed"). The artist drew a lobster, but the description was of an octopus. No one really knew what lived down there.
And some of the illustrations were based on real animals—just warped into monstrous forms. Whales were drawn with beastly heads, part wolf, part bird, with tusks and waterspouts. Despite their gentle nature, they were shown attacking ships, dragging sailors to their deaths.
You’ll notice the monsters always live in the unknown. And it's not just about geography. The monsters weren't only in unknown places; they were in places where unknown people lived.
The ancient cartographers weaved their fears onto the maps. And if you asked them, they were being objective.
We do the same thing.
Because that is what humans do with the unknown. When we don't know what's ahead, we rarely imagine it's good. The mind doesn't like uncertainty. So it fills the gap. And it almost always fills it with threat. That's the psychology of fear. We don’t wait for evidence, we create the evidence.The most intriguing, to me, however, is not a map but a globe. The famed Hunt-Lenox Globe was built sometime between 1503 and 1507, making it one of the first European globes ever made.
Very little is known about its origins, and its authorship is anonymous, but the globe captures a snapshot of how the world was viewed in its day. It has an incomplete layout of the Americas with only Brazil and a few of the Caribbean Islands, and sea monsters in unexplored areas. But what makes this globe so intriguing to me is what the cartographer wrote on the southeast side of Asia in Latin: Hic sunt dracones.
"Here be dragons."
Here in the unexplored land, the uncharted land, are dragons. Who is brave enough to face the dragons?
Although there was much mystery and danger beyond what was known, maps of this era often also held another image: Jesus.
The Ebstorf map featured Jesus' face on top and his feet at the bottom. Christ was sovereign over all the known and unknown world. The Carta marina navigatoria had angels across the borders blowing wind. Most notable is the Psalter Map of 1250, which featured dragons at the bottom and Jesus and angels at the top.
Yes, there are dragons. But there is also Jesus. And if we follow him, we can find our way.
With each exploration, new lands and seas were discovered and charted. With each new map, there were fewer and fewer monsters. Places where it was once presumed to be dangerous because of ignorance and speculation had been found to be of no danger at all.
If your life were a map, where does the known territory end and the fog begin? What does your map look like? Where are the edges?
In Acts 20, we pick up the end of Paul's life. Paul had been beaten with rods, stoned, robbed, imprisoned, flogged, and lashed. And now, the Spirit urged Paul to go to Jerusalem.
He tells the Ephesian elders plainly
And now, behold, I am going to Jerusalem, constrained by the Spirit, not knowing what will happen to me there, except that the Holy Spirit testifies to me in every city that imprisonment and afflictions await me.—Acts 20:22–23
Paul's journey to Jerusalem took him to Caesarea, where a prophet came to him and took Paul's belt and tied his own hands and feet and said:
Thus says the Holy Spirit, 'This is how the Jews at Jerusalem will bind the man who owns this belt and deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles.' —Acts 21:11
Upon hearing this, Paul's closest friends began to beg him not to go. They had already had some close calls losing their friend, but this time they knew this was it. Then Paul answered:
What are you doing, weeping and breaking my heart? For I am ready not only to be imprisoned but even to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus. —Acts 21:13
He went to Jerusalem and was arrested, flogged, and thrown into a dungeon. He appealed to Cesar, was shipwrecked on his way to Rome, bitten by a snake, and finally arrived, where he was put under house arrest until his trial.
So what happened with Paul? We do not know exactly. The book of Acts ends with Paul still in Rome, after two years, awaiting his trial before Caesar. After that, we do not know what happened.
As most stories in the New Testament, it does not resolve. It is left open-ended—an ellipsis.
For the biblical story, what lies ahead is a mystery, an open, unexplored ocean.
To put it in ancient cartographer words: Here be dragons.
But that is not the final word.
Luke finishes by writing:
He lived there two whole years at his own expense, and welcomed all who came to him, proclaiming the kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness and unhindered. —Acts 28:30–31
That is the final word of Acts.
Unhindered.
When God calls you into the unknown, faithful obedience moves the Gospel forward—unhindered.
Think about what Luke doesn't tell us.
He doesn't tell us about the trial. He doesn't tell us whether Paul was acquitted or condemned. He doesn't tell us how Paul died—though tradition says he was beheaded under Nero.
Luke knows how the story ends. He's writing after the fact. He could have told us.
But he doesn't. He leaves all of that out. And the one thing he chooses to tell us—the one detail that matters enough to be the final word of the entire book:
Unhindered.
As if to say: You can chain the man, but you cannot chain the Gospel. You can imprison the messenger, but the message keeps moving. You can close the story, but you cannot stop what God is doing.
The final word is unhindered.
You're standing at the edge of 2026, and there are things ahead you cannot see. Some of them you're afraid of. Some of them you've been avoiding for longer than just this year.
I asked you earlier: What does your map look like? Where are the edges?
Let me ask it differently now: What have you marked "here be dragons"?
What's the territory you've been avoiding because it feels too dangerous to enter?
We all have uncharted territory. We all have places on our map where we've written here be dragons—too risky, too painful, too uncertain. But here's what I want you to hear: the same Christ who was sovereign over the ancient maps is sovereign over yours.
The Christ whose face was drawn at the top of the Psalter Map—above the dragons, above the unknown, above the monsters the cartographers feared—that same Christ is Lord over your 2026.
He's Lord over the conversation you're avoiding. He's Lord over the grief you haven't entered. He's in charge of the obedience you've been negotiating. He's Lord over the reconciliation that would cost you. He's Lord over the hope you're afraid to have. He is Lord over the world and church.
And he's not asking you to be fearless. He's asking you to be faithful.
Hebrews 11:8 says
“By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going.”
Abraham and Paul were not fearless. They just obeyed.
When you move forward in faith, the promise of Scripture is that, however the circumstance may seem, the Gospel work in the world and in YOU will move forward unhindered.
So what will you do in 2026?
You can stay in the known territory. You can keep avoiding the edges of the map.
Or you can set sail.
You can trust that Christ is already in the territory you haven't yet explored.
People love to pick a word for the year. A theme. An intention. Usually, it's something like peace or balance or growth. I want to suggest a word for you in 2026.
Unhindered.
Not because your year will be easy. But because the same God who carried the Gospel through chains, shipwrecks, and empire is carrying it still—through you. Walk by faith into the dragon-infested waters. And watch God work through and in you unhindered.
[1] https://thecartographicinstitute.com/the-ebstorf-map-unlocking-medieval-cartography-and-its-hidden-meanings/
[2] https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-enchanting-sea-monsters-on-medieval-maps-1805646/
This essay began as a sermon. You can listen to the audio here.