But when her masters saw that the hope of their gain was gone, they seized Paul and Silas, and dragged them into the marketplace before the rulers. When they had brought them to the magistrates, they said, “These men, being Jews, are agitating our city and advocate customs which it is not lawful for us to accept or to observe, being Romans.”
Parallel Translations
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But when her masters saw that the hope of their gain was gone, they seized Paul and Silas, and dragged them into the marketplace before the rulers.
When they had brought them to the magistrates, they said, “These men, being Jews, are agitating our city
and advocate customs which it is not lawful for us to accept or to observe, being Romans.”
-
And when her master and mastres sawe that the hope of their gaynes was gone they caught Paul and Sylas and drue the into the market place vnto the rulars
and brought them to the officers sayinge: These men trouble oure cite which are Iewes
and preache ordinaunces which are not laufull for vs to receave nether to observe seinge we are Romayns.
Show all 3 translations
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Nowe when her masters sawe that the hope of their gaine was gone, they caught Paul and Silas, and drewe them into the market place vnto the Magistrates,
And brought them to the gouernours, saying, These men which are Iewes, trouble our citie,
And preache ordinances, which are not lawfull for vs to receiue, neither to obserue, seeing we are Romanes.
Cross-references (32)
- Esther 3:8 (v21) Haman said to King Ahasuerus, “There is a certain people scattered abroad and dispersed among the peoples in all the provinces of your…
- Acts 17:6 (v19) When they didn’t find them, they dragged Jason and certain brothers before the rulers of the city, crying, “These who have turned the world…
- Acts 21:30 (v19) All the city was moved and the people ran together. They seized Paul and dragged him out of the temple. Immediately the doors were shut.
- Acts 8:3 (v19) But Saul ravaged the assembly, entering into every house and dragged both men and women off to prison.
- Acts 16:16 (v19) As we were going to prayer, a certain girl having a spirit of divination met us, who brought her masters much gain by fortune telling.
Show all 32 cross-references
- Acts 18:12-13 (v19) But when Gallio was proconsul of Achaia, the Jews with one accord rose up against Paul and brought him before the judgment seat, saying,…
- 2 Corinthians 6:5 (v19) in beatings, in imprisonments, in riots, in labors, in watchings, in fastings;
- James 4:4 (v20) You adulterers and adulteresses, don’t you know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Whoever therefore wants to be a…
- Matthew 24:9 (v19) Then they will deliver you up to oppression, and will kill you. You will be hated by all of the nations for my name’s sake.
- Mark 13:9 (v19) But watch yourselves, for they will deliver you up to councils. You will be beaten in synagogues. You will stand before rulers and kings…
- John 15:18-20 (v20) If the world hates you, you know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own. But…
- Acts 9:16 (v19) For I will show him how many things he must suffer for my name’s sake.”
- Acts 14:5 (v19) When some of both the Gentiles and the Jews, with their rulers, made a violent attempt to mistreat and stone them,
- Acts 14:19 (v19) But some Jews from Antioch and Iconium came there, and having persuaded the multitudes, they stoned Paul, and dragged him out of the city,…
- Acts 15:26 (v19) men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
- Acts 19:24-27 (v19) For a certain man named Demetrius, a silversmith who made silver shrines of Artemis, brought no little business to the craftsmen, whom he…
- Acts 28:22 (v20) But we desire to hear from you what you think. For, as concerning this sect, it is known to us that everywhere it is spoken against.”
- Romans 12:2 (v20) Don’t be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what is the good, well-pleasing,…
- 1 Kings 18:17-18 (v20) When Ahab saw Elijah, Ahab said to him, “Is that you, you troubler of Israel?” He answered, “I have not troubled Israel; but you, and your…
- Ezra 4:12-15 (v20) Be it known to the king that the Jews who came up from you have come to us to Jerusalem. They are building the rebellious and bad city, and…
- Esther 3:8-9 (v20) Haman said to King Ahasuerus, “There is a certain people scattered abroad and dispersed among the peoples in all the provinces of your…
- Jeremiah 10:3 (v21) For the customs of the peoples are vanity; for one cuts a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman with the ax.
- Matthew 2:3 (v20) When King Herod heard it, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him.
- Matthew 10:16-18 (v19) “Behold, I send you out as sheep among wolves. Therefore be wise as serpents, and harmless as doves. But beware of men: for they will…
- Acts 15:22 (v19) Then it seemed good to the apostles and the elders, with the whole assembly, to choose men out of their company, and send them to Antioch…
- Acts 16:12 (v21) and from there to Philippi, which is a city of Macedonia, the foremost of the district, a Roman colony. We were staying some days in this…
- Acts 17:6-8 (v20) When they didn’t find them, they dragged Jason and certain brothers before the rulers of the city, crying, “These who have turned the world…
- Acts 18:2 (v20) He found a certain Jew named Aquila, a man of Pontus by race, who had recently come from Italy, with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius…
- Acts 19:34 (v20) But when they perceived that he was a Jew, all with one voice for a time of about two hours cried out, “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!”
- Acts 26:3 (v21) especially because you are expert in all customs and questions which are among the Jews. Therefore I beg you to hear me patiently.
- James 2:6 (v19) But you have dishonored the poor man. Don’t the rich oppress you, and personally drag you before the courts?
- 1 Timothy 6:10 (v19) For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some have been led astray from the faith in their greed, and have pierced themselves…
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
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John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain On vv19–21 19. But when her masters. The same devil who…
19. But when her masters. The same devil who of late did flatter Paul by the mouth of the maid, doth now drive her masters into fury, that they may put him to death; so that, having changed his coat, he doth now play a tragedy, who could not speed well before by his fair speech and flattery. And though the heat of zeal wherewith Paul was provoked to anger did raise the whirlwind of persecution, yet is he not therefore to be blamed; neither did it any whit repent Paul that he had wrought the miracle, so that he did wish that were undone which was done, because he knew full well through what motion he had driven the devil out of the maid. Whereby we are taught that we must not rashly condemn things which are well done, and that which is taken in hand at the commandment of God, though an unhappy success follow; because God doth then examine [test] the constancy of those which be his, until a more joyful and prosperous end drive away all sorrow. As touching the men, Luke expresseth the cause why they were so mad upon Paul; to wit, because their hope of filthy gain was gone. But though they were pricked forward with covetousness only to persecute the Gospel and the ministers thereof; yet they pretend a fair color, that it grieveth them that the public state should be perverted, that their ancient laws should be broken, and peace troubled. So, though the enemies of Christ behave themselves wickedly and unhonestly, yet they always invent some cause for their sin. Yea, though their wicked desire appear plainly, yet, with an impudent withal. So at this day those Papists which are more zealous over their law, have nothing else in their minds besides their gain and government. Let them swear and forswear by all their saints and sacrifices, that they are enforced only with a godly affection; yet the matter itself doth plainly show, that it is the coldness of their kitchens which maketh their zeal so hot, and that ambition is the fan thereof. For they be either hungry dogs pricked forward with greediness, or furious lions breathing out nothing but cruelty.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv19–21 Covetousness of lucre and gain is an occasion of…
Covetousness of lucre and gain is an occasion of persecuting the truth. In the mean season, God sparing Timothy, calleth Paul and Silas as the stronger, to battle.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv19–21 19 And when her masters saw that the hope…
19 And when her masters saw that the hope of their gains was gone, they caught Paul and Silas, and drew them into the marketplace unto the rulers,
Ver. 19. Their gains were gone] εξηλθεν, was gone forth together with the devil. They that count all fish that comes to not, will in the end catch the devil and all. You are his birds, saith Bradford to such, whom when the devil hath well fed, he will broach you and eat you, chaw you and champ you, world without end, in eternal woe and misery.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv19–21 Her masters; for she was a servant, or slave;…
Her masters; for she was a servant, or slave; and being very advantageous, might have many that had a share in her.
Their gains; the profit could not but be considerable, for they were to come with the rewards of divination in their hands, as they did to Balaam, Num 22:7.
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Rulers: See Poole on "Mat 16:20".
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv19–21 And when her masters saw,.... As they might by…
And when her masters saw,.... As they might by her sedateness and composure; she not being wild and frantic, and not having such motions and agitations she had whilst under the possession of the evil spirit:
that the hope of their gains was gone; the Syriac version adds, "out of her"; namely, the evil spirit which was the ground and foundation of all their hope of gains, they expected to acquire for themselves; that being gone, they had no more work to do, nor tricks to play, nor profit to expect from the maid: wherefore
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they caught Paul and Silas; they being the chief speakers, and principally concerned in the ejection of the evil spirit; they laid hold on them, took them by the collar, or held them by their clothes,
and drew them into the market place: or rather into the court of judicature, as the word also signifies; there to accuse them, and to have them tried, condemned, and punished:
unto the rulers; the judges of the court, it may be the Decuriones; for in a Roman colony as Philippi was, they chose out every tenth man, that was of capacity and ability, to make and establish a public council, and who therefore were called by this name.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv19–21 The magistrates - The supreme magistrates of the city.…
The magistrates - The supreme magistrates of the city. In the next verse they are called by a title which often signifies pretors. These officers exercised both the military and civil authority.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv19–21 Verse 19. When her masters saw] It appears she…
Verse 19. When her masters saw] It appears she was maintained by some men, who received a certain pay from every person whose fortune she told, or to whom she made any discovery of stolen goods, c., c.
The hope of their gains was gone] Ἡ ελπις, This hope viz. the spirit. So completely was this spirit cast out that the girl could divine no more and yet she continued a heathen still, for we do not hear a word of her conversion. Had she been converted, got baptized, and been associated with the apostles, the family of Lydia, c., there would have been some show of reason to believe that there had been no possession in the case, and that the spirit of divination coming out of her meant no more than that, through scruple of conscience, she had left off her imposing arts, and would no longer continue to pretend to do what she knew she could not perform. But she still continued with her masters, though now utterly unable to disclose any thing relative to futurity!
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Drew them into the market-place] This was the place of public resort, and, by bringing them here, they might hope to excite a general clamour against them and probably those who are here called τους αρχοντας, the rulers, were civil magistrates, who kept offices in such public places, for the preservation of the peace of the city. But these words, the rulers, are suspected to be an interpolation by some critics: I think on no good ground.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On v19 Act 16:19-21. And when her masters saw that the…
Act 16:19-21. And when her masters saw that the hope of their gains was gone — Was vanished with the evil spirit that was cast out. See here of how much evil the love of money is the root! If the preaching of the gospel ruin the craft of the silversmiths, (Act 19:24,) much more will it ruin that of the soothsayers and fortune-tellers. Hence here is a mighty outcry raised when Satan’s power is broken. The power of Christ, which appeared in dispossessing the woman, and the great kindness done to her, in delivering her out of Satan’s hand, made no impression upon them when they apprehended that they should lose money by it. They caught Paul and Silas — Timothy and Luke, it seems, not being so obnoxious to them; and drew them into the market-place — With a view to accuse them; unto the rulers — Or inferior magistrates, (as the word αρχοντας here means,)
who held their court there. And brought them — Τοις στρατηγοις, to the pretors, or commanders of the army, who, it is probable, as this was a Roman colony, possessed the supreme authority in the city: saying, These men, being Jews — A nation peculiarly despised by the Romans; do exceedingly trouble our city — Disturb it in an insufferable manner; and teach customs which are not lawful for us to receive — Being such as would lead us to renounce the gods of our country, and abstain from many things which the Roman laws require. The world has received all the rules and doctrines of all the philosophers that ever were; but gospel truth has something in it peculiarly intolerable to the world; neither to observe, being Romans — “Though there was, as yet, no express law of the senate, or of the emperor, against Christians, as such, yet there was an old law of the Romans forbidding them, ‘aut novos deos, aut alienigenas colere,’ either to worship new gods, or the gods of other nations; and requiring them to worship the gods of their country; from which Christianity dissuaded men, not suffering any to worship the gods of their fathers, but requiring them to turn from these dumb idols to the living God, 1Th 1:10; Act 14:15.” — Whitby. Perhaps, also, they alluded to something said by the apostle relating to the kingship of Christ, concerning which we know he preached afterward, at Thessalonica, chap. Act 17:7.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv19–21 The hope of their gains was gone - It…
The hope of their gains was gone - It was this that troubled and enraged them. Instead of regarding the act as proof of divine power, they were intent only on their profits. Their indignation furnishes a remarkable illustration of the fixedness with which people will regard wealth; of the fact that the love of it will blind them to all the truths of religion, and all the proofs of the power and presence of God; and of the fact that any interposition of divine power that destroys their hopes of gain, fills them with wrath, and hatred, and complaining. Many a man has been opposed to God and his gospel because, if religion should be extensively prevalent, his hopes of gain would be gone. Many a slave-dealer, and many a trafficker in ardent spirits, and many a man engaged in other unlawful modes of gain, has been unwilling to abandon his employments simply because his hopes of gain would be destroyed. No small part of the opposition to the gospel arises from the fact that, if embraced, it would strike at so much of the dishonorable employments of people, and make them honest and conscientious.
The market-place - The court or forum. The market-place was a place of concourse, and the courts were often held in or near those places.
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The rulers - The term used here refers commonly to civil magistrates.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv20–21 Jews. this was the name the first Christians went…
Jews. this was the name the first Christians went by among the pagans. Indeed our Saviour’s being born of that nation, and his disciples adoring the same God, and following the same morality and Scriptures as the Jews, were sufficient reasons to make them confounded. When Suetonius relates that Claudius banished the Jews from Rome, he means the Christians. (Calmet)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv19–21 when her masters saw that the hope of their…
when her masters saw that the hope of their gains was gone, they caught Paul and Silas--as the leading persons.
and drew them into the market-place--or Forum, where the courts were.
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to the magistrates, saying, &c.--We have here a full and independent confirmation of the reality of this supernatural cure, since on any other supposition such conduct would be senseless.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv19–21 19. Gains were gone—An irremediable change had taken place…
19. Gains were gone—An irremediable change had taken place in the girl, showing both power in the apostle and a previous involuntary condition in her. So impressed was the apostolic superiority over the infernal or the pagan that we wonder not that a Church of intense faith arose in Philippi, as we shall find to have been the fact by reading Paul’s most rich and loving EPISTLE to the Philippians. But, alas for these traders in oracles! they are unable to conjure another response from their pythoness.
Drew them—As a plaintiff by ancient law was entitled to drag his defendant.
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Marketplace—The agora or forum, where legal business was transacted by the magistrates.
Rulers—The city was, forsooth, a Roman colonia; the dignity of the Roman law was to be maintained, and the magistrates wore the very titles of a true Roman magistracy.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv19–21 19. that the hope of their gains was gone]…
19. that the hope of their gains was gone] The verb is exactly the same as in the last clause of the previous verse. When the evil spirit came out, there came out also the chance of more gain. What the damsel herself may have thought of her own power we cannot tell, but probably, for their end of money-making, the masters had persuaded her that her ravings were prophetic.
they caught Paul and Silas] As being the two most prominent members of the mission party.
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into the market-place] The great place of concourse, and where, as in the Roman forum, would be the seat of the authorities.
unto the rulers] The Greek word is the general one for rulers, and signifies “the authorities,” the special members thereof being indicated by the next verse.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv19–21 (19) That the hope of their gains was gone.—Better,…
(19) That the hope of their gains was gone.—Better, of their occupation. The word for “gains” is the same as that translated “gain” and “craft” in Act_19:24-25. There is something like a prophetic significance in the use, at this stage, of the word which was the key to nearly all the persecutions to which the early believers were exposed. Men could tolerate varieties of worship or the speculations of philosophers: they were roused to madness by that which threatened their business. The use in the Greek of the same verb for “was gone,” as had been used in the previous verse for “come out,” gives an emphasis which the English does not reproduce. Their business and the spirit of divination “passed away” together.
Paul and Silas.—Luke and Timotheus escaped, probably, as less conspicuous.
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Drew them into the marketplace.—The marketplace, or Agora, was, in all Greek cities, the centre of social life. In Philippi, as a colonia, reproducing the arrangements of Rome, it would answer to the Forum, where the magistrates habitually sat. What had taken place would naturally cause excitement and attract a crowd.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv19–21 But for and, A.V.; gain for gains, A.V. (ejrgasia,…
But for and, A.V.; gain for gains, A.V. (ejrgasia, as ver. 16); bald hold on for caught, A.V.; dragged for drew, A.V.; before for unto, A.V. The rulers (oiJ arcontev); the archons. Meyer thinks these were the city judges, or magistrates (who always had their court in the ajgora, or forum), by whom Paul and Silas were sent to the praetors (strathgoi) for judgment. So in Luk_12:58, the litigants go to the ajrcw) first, and he sends them on to the krithv, or judge, who orders them for punishment. This seems a more probable explanation than that commonly adopted (Howson, Alford, Renan, Lewin, etc.), that the arcontev and the strathgoi mean the same officers. No reason can be conceived for Luke"s calling them arcontev if he meant strathgoi, or for naming the office"s twice over when once was sufficient. Nor is it likely that officers of such high rank as the duumviri, or proctors, as they had come to be called, should be always in the forum, to try every petty case (see articles "Colonia, Duumviri," and "Praetor," in "Dict. of Greek and Roman Antiquities"). It seems, therefore, that Meyer"s explanation is right. At Athens the general term arcontev was applied to inferior magistrates, as well as to the nine archons ("Dict. of Greek and Roman Antiquities" "Archon").
Vers. 19-34. Joy in tribulation.
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that will live godly in Christ Jesus must suffer persecution." "We must through much tribulation enter the kingdom." The truth of these Pauline sayings had often been tested by experiences, of which this at Philippi was one of the most significant. Here, too, was one of the places where he learned to say, "Thanks be to God, who always maketh us to triumph!
I SELF-INTEREST IN ARMS AGAINST THE TRUTH. So often especially in our day are men"s interests and profits on tile same side with Christianity; we need to be reminded that godliness and gain (in the immediate and lower sense) are not identical.
1. The root of opposition to the truth. They saw their hope of gain was gone. Wherever men strike a blow against pure morality, sound and unrefuted principles of teaching, we may rely upon it some "vested interest" is at bottom the cause. The progress of the gospel has put an end to many false callings, and, let us hope, will put an end to many more.
2. The weapons of falsehood. False accusations, misrepresentations. Malice knows that the most effective mode of attack is the indirect. If you cannot disprove a man"s arguments, you may blacken his character. If his private life is blameless, try to show that his principles are dangerous to society. If he speaks unwelcome truth, accuse him of breaking up the general peace and good feeling (1Ki_18:17; Amo_7:10) The wolf in the fable! Crafty use of catch-cries is another instrument of passion and malice. The great Roman name and power is assailed, and that by hated and despicable Jews! This the first time that Roman law is invoked against the Christian. Observe the half-truth in the arguments of malice. Christianity does make men restless it frightens the evil out of false repose. It does unhinge old customs, and was destined to overthrow the Roman pride. Thus was the multitude excited, as often under such circumstances, and, amidst howls of rage and gusts of indignation, the apostles are roughly handled, their garments torn; they are beaten and cast into close confinement. So do malice and passion often appear to gain their will, while they are preparing for themselves a defeat.
II INWARD JOY AMIDST OUTWARD DARKNESS; INWARD LIBERTY IN BONDS AND PRISON. At midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns. What seems to be the gate of death and of hell may be converted by prayer and song into the gate of heaven, the avenue to Paradise. "Tis not the place that sanctifies the spirit, but the spirit that sanctifies the place. Great the triumph of the spirit, to sing, not within the safe walls of the church, but behind the barred doors of the dungeon! Sweet are "songs in the night"! It is suffering which wrings the very soul of music from the heart; and to the prayers thus uttered, a deep Amen echoes in heaven.
III DIVINE POWER MADE MANIFEST TO SENSE AND SPIRIT.
1. The earthquake. This was the outward answer to the prayer and song. Heaven and earth are moved at the prayer of the holy. As it trembled awfully through the prison, opening doors and loosening bonds, hearts also were smitten and flew open at the touch of God.
2. The agitation of the soul. The jailor wakes, at first to anguish and despair. The prisoners have escaped; he is a lost man! There is a sudden temptation to suicide, and at the eleventh hour crime is averted and salvation received. Do thyself no harm: for we are all here!" Those who love allegorical treatment of texts may find matter here. Duty and the will of God are firmer bonds than handcuffs and the stocks. "We are all here" cry the servants of God, with the witness of our word, the pattern of our life, the intercessory prayer of our love. But a new fear, more awful than the former, seizes on the jailor"s soul: "What must I do to be saved?" When it comes to this question in earnest, the soul is ripe for salvation. One such cry brings all the mercy of Heaven down.
3. The great question. It is not unprepared for. He had heard the apostles praying. Doubtless seeds of filth, dropped into his mind on some former occasion, now germinated and swiftly broke into life. As the earth breaks forth into greenness after a thunderstorm, so was new life born in the man"s soul in the midst of the dread earthquake.
4. The great answer. Believe! is all your wisdom," said the skeptical emperor Julian. True! and let us abide by it. Affiance in the Holiest and Divinest, for time and for eternity; this and this alone is wisdom. Faith in the ever-blessed One makes blessed. In him we obtain a Divine Friend in the home; a holy domestic order; sweet domestic peace; assured domestic stability; a portion in the heavenly home.
5. The great decision. It is rather implied than expressed; shown by practical results than by words. Faith works in the jailor"s heart by love. His thankfulness to Christ is shown by attentions of thoughtful kindness to his servants. The stern keeper of the stocks is transformed by the magic of love into the physician and the host. The jailor has become a "prisoner of Jesus Christ." Having washed his now honored guests from the stains of outward defilement, he receives at their hands the baptism of spiritual purity. The scene closes amidst purest jay. Thus do the darkest places and most repulsive associations become glorified and idealized by the Spirit of the living and loving God. The prison becomes a chapel; a dread place of judgment; a school of penitence and faith; a home of love and kindness; a place of new birth and new life. J.
Vers. 19-40. The first European persecution.
I It was in no way instigated by Jews, hut it proceeded from RULERS AND MAGISTRATES, under the instigation of HEATHENISH ERROR. An important distinction. Christianity, when it enlarged its sphere of operations, had to encounter the opposition of:
1. The state.
2. False philosophy regarding it as folly.
3. Heathen priestcraft, fearing the loss of their profitable superstitions.
II The method of persecution was generally through LAWLESSSESS AND UPROAR. There was no trial, no proper charge. Only the multitude against them.
III The gospel brought into light WHAT WAS GOOD IS THE ANCIENT WOULD, and drew it to itself. Roman order and discipline is here distinctly on the side of the persecuted, and the persecutors are afraid. So henceforth, when the gospel is seen at work in Europe, we find the Roman law serving it.
IV God speaks among the heathen by the voice of his PROVIDENCE and of NATURE. The earthquake assisted the cause of truth. A wonderful testimony to the whole city and neighborhood.
V The conversion of the Philippian jailor a GLORIOUS CONSUMMATION OF THE PERSECUTION. So always the wrath of man praises God.
VI THE CONTRAST of the praying and singing prisoners and the terrified authorities a striking testimony to the truth. Lydia and her companions prayed too. The little Church at Philippi, increased by the whole occurrence, "comforted them and departed." "Filling up that which is behind of the sufferings of Christ for his body"s sake, which is the Church. R.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On v19 And when her masters saw that the hope of…
Act_16:19-26
And when her masters saw that the hope of their gains was gone.
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Apostolic duty and vicissitudes
I. Christs servants will use whatever power they possess to set the slaves of Satan free. Paul did not act from mere impulse, but upon the principle of compassion with which all true Christians are animated, he was miraculously endowed, it is true, while we have only the power of influence and persuasion. But when a country is invaded, what patriot will draw back because he has not a rifle of the most approved pattern? Let us then do what we can to exorcise the demons of intemperance, etc.
II. Christs servants are not to expect that their efforts will win earthly rewards. This ought to be the result; but connected with all evils are vested interests which resist all efforts to diminish their gains. The owners of this damsel looked not at her benefit, but at their loss. For the same reason all reformers have been hated; and they must not be surprised at it (Joh_15:19-21).
III. Christ secures for His servants not exemption from sorrow, but a sustaining joy. All power is given to Christ, and He sometimes uses it to disappoint the enemies of His servants; but more frequently He leaves them, as here, to suffer for His names sake. But it is then that He gives then the sweetest assurances of His presence and love; and makes them more than conquerors (Act_5:41).
IV. By their conduct towards their persecutors Christs servants show that they are His. That can be no merely human religion which enables men to conquer the natural desire for revenge, and to do good to those by whom they have been despitefully used.
V. By their fidelity to conviction and the beauty of their character Christs servants will ultimately win the respect of those who have wronged them. The behaviour of Paul and Silas impressed the jailer quite as much as the earthquake. That might have been a natural occurrence, but the cheerfulness and kindness of the missionaries under the circumstances were obviously supernatural. So it is that the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.
VI. Turning to the jailer, we learn--
1. That the worst of men may become the servants of Christ.
2. That they may become so instantly. How long does it take to enlist a recruit? The resolve may be the fruit of long consideration, and it may take months of drill to make him an efficient soldier; but the act of enlistment is instantaneous.
3. The proof that men have become servants of Christ consists not in emotion but in conduct. (R. A. Bertram.)
Paul at Philippi
I. The preparation for Gods spiritual work. The rebuke of the evil spirit in the girl, the anger of the crowd, the imprisonment, seemed to form a series of events complete in itself and existing for itself, if we may say so. But these things were but the preparation for something more important.
1. The preparation for Gods work was by affliction. The disciples found themselves cast down, but the sequel showed it was in order that they might be exalted, by being used as a means of glorying God. A mans best work comes sometimes after he has ceased to be able to work at all. God works through our afflictions even when we do not know it. Well may we then count it joy when we are honoured by falling upon them.
2. The affliction of the apostles was certain, sooner or later, because of the ever persisting antagonism between the gospel and the world. And is it not forever so to the end of time? Must not the gospel always find opposition from the world? Surely this vile world is not a friend to grace to help us on to God.
3. Pauls understanding of this made him careless of being unpopular. He had counted the cost of his service and was willing to pay it.
4. The affliction of the apostles was relieved by faith. They trusted God to give them strength to endure it, to lead them out of it into safety, and beyond these, to use the affliction itself as an instrument of his own purposes.
5. God is with His children in times of trial.
6. Such faith makes one thoughtful for others. Paul was not so absorbed in his own rapture as to forget the jailer. Do thyself no harm; for we are all here. Forgetfulness of others is no part of the souls deepest joy.
7. In Pauls joy in God there was involved forgiveness to those who injured him.
II. The work of God. God by His permission of the apostles affliction had made ready for the first soul-ingathering among the heathen of Europe.
1. The first element that appears in the experience of the Philippian jailer is fear. He was trembling when he sprang into the cell (Act_16:29). John Bunyan had an awful experience of his own sinfulness before he was converted. If all have sinned, all are entitled to a guilty fearful conscience.
2. This dread of conscience was immediately accompanied by a consciousness of the supernatural.
3. With fear went desire. Sirs, what must I do to be saved? What it was to be saved he knew in a most undefined way. Wants do not have to be defined in order to be genuine. A child knows that it feels bad but cannot always tell where or why, yet its suffering is most real. And to want the gospel comes with complete satisfaction. But it does not come except to the want.
4. The jailer was willing to do anything necessary for salvation. Sirs, what must I do?
5. The answer has well been called classic. It sums up once for all the ages everything that is required of man in order to be saved.
(1) Do nothing. Salvation is not of works.
(2) Believe.
(3) Make Christ the object of faith.
6. This faith has its social bearing. It is recognised as an influential element in the family, which is here shown to be the God-constituted unit of human life.
7. True faith will not be ignorant. It recognises its imperfection and is ever seeking to learn more of the truth of God, that it may appropriate it by faith (verse 32).
8. As soon as faith had entered the jailers heart, it emerged again in a deed of kindness; he washed the apostles wounds. So by a beautiful spiritual chemistry faith is ever transmuting the love of God as it comes into our upward-opened hearts into love for our fellow men (1Jn_4:12).
9. Immediately there came an open recognition of Christian faith in the form of baptism. Wherever there is faith there should be frank, manly avowal of it.
10. No wonder the jailer when he had brought them into his house rejoiced (verse 34). It was the happiest time he had ever known in his life. No wonder the jailer rejoiced. Blessed beyond words are all those who come to know Christ and His salvation.
III. Lessons about conversion.
1. Providence often prepares for it, sometimes by suffering and sorrow.
2. There are many ways of being led to Christ, and all are valid. Lydia came one way, the jailer another. No one need try to force himself into anothers experience.
3. Faith is the same for all. All are sinners. All need the atoning blood. All must trust without any merit of their own.
4. Salvation is free to all. What Paul said to the jailer he said to the whole world. Whosoever will may come. (D. J. Burrell, D. D.)
The consequences of doing good
1. If you destroy a mans hope of gain you are very apt to make him your enemy.
2. When you are hindering a mans business, he will charge you with precipitating a general business panic.
3. When you drive prosperity from a bad mans door, you may be inviting adversity to enter your own.
4. When you help some afflicted one, when you free some oppressed one, the affliction or the oppression may be transferred to yourself.
5. When you do a good deed, and are put in prison for it, wait for Gods deliverance--it will come.
6. The night is not all dark, nor the stocks hard, nor the imprisonment bitter, to those who, in the consciousness that they are suffering for Christ, wait for the breaking fetters and the earthquake shock. (S. S. Times.)
Antagonism to religion: how aroused
So long as the preaching of the gospel does not interfere with bad mens money making, bad men are disposed to let it alone, as none of their business. But when the work of these temperance people interferes with liquor selling; when the work of these law and order people stops the selling of vile books and pictures, and closes Sunday concert saloons; when the religious sentiment of the community rises up against lotteries and raffles; when the political reform movements propose to stop stealing in the city institutions--then it is evident to every servant of the devil whose supply of gain is thereby cut off, that these men do exceedingly trouble our city, and the same feeling against the gospel is aroused in them as showed itself in the impoverished hog raisers of the Gadarenes. This is one of the sure hindrances in the path of all zealous Christian workers. (H. C. Trumbull, D. D.)
The effects of Christianity on ancient superstitions
The priesthood in all its branches, Flamens, Augurs, Hornspices, contemplated the advance of Christianity with dismay. It emptied their temples, curtailed their sacrifices, reduced their profits, exposed their frauds. (J. J. Blunt, D. D.)
And when they had laid many stripes upon them, they cast them into prison.--
The punishment of the missionaries
The words imply a punishment of more than usual severity, such as would leave their backs lacerated and bleeding. So in 1Th_2:2, St. Paul speaks of having been shamefully entreated at Philippi. Those who have seen anything of the prisons of the Roman empire, as e.g., Mamertine dungeon at Rome itself, can picture to themselves the darkness and foulness of the den into which St. Paul and his friend were now thrust: the dark cavern-like cell, below the ground, the damp and reeking walls, the companionship of the vilest outcasts. And, as if this were not enough, they were fastened in the stocks. St. Luke used the Greek term xylon, the same as is used sometimes for the cross (Act_5:30; Act_13:29). The technical Latin word was nervus. Like the English stocks, it was a wooden frame with five holes, into which head and feet and arms were thrust, and the prisoner left in an attitude of little ease. Here, however, it would seem, the feet only were fastened, the rest of the body being left lying on the ground. If the received version of Job_13:27; Job_33:11, which follows the LXX and the Vulgate, be correct, the punishment was common at a very early period in the East (compare Jer_29:26). (Dean Plumptre.)
Paul imprisoned at Philippi
When Catherine Evans, a Quaker heroine of the seventeenth century, was imprisoned within the gloomy walls of the Inquisition, in the Island of Malta, for obeying what she regarded as a call from God to preach the gospel in the East, she was put into an inner room of the Inquisition, which had only two little holes in it for light and air, and which was so exceedingly hot that it seemed to be the intention to stifle her. On one occasion Friar Malachi told her unless she abandoned her religion she should never go out of that room alive. To this she fearlessly replied, The Lord is sufficient to deliver me, but whether He will or no, I will not forsake the living fountain to drink at a broken cistern. In like manner Paul and Silas, when apprehended and thrust into the inner prison of Philippi, were not debarred thereby from praising and preaching Christ. To such men, indeed,
Stone walls do not a prison make,
Nor iron bars a cage.
Christian preachers in prison
Some years ago three Primitive Methodist preachers went to mission a town in Worcestershire, and when they commenced the service, there was a magistrate, a clergyman, and a constable. The constable was ordered to take the preacher down, and he took him down and put him in prison; but there was immediately a second one up preaching away. The magistrate ordered the constable to take the second one, and then the third one was up preaching away. He bad orders to take the third, and he put all three together into the prison and they made a noise there. The magistrate went to the constable, and he said, What a noise those men are making; go and separate them, and do not let them make a noise like that. So the man went in and separated them, and he put two of them in a cell with a robber, and they preached the gospel to the robber. They preached to him, and they prayed with him, and he got converted. More noise than ever now. The magistrate said, I told you to separate those men. Well, he said, I have separated them. Separate them again, then. Well, he said, if I separate them again they will all get it. That robber is as bad as they are now.
And at midnight Paul and Silas prayed and sang praises unto God.--
Devotion under difficulties
I. The men engaged were eminently good. Paul and Silas.
1. They were employed in the highest service.
2. They were the truest benefactors of society.
3. They were successful opponents of evil.
4. They were martyrs to religious fidelity.
II. The place was notoriously wicked. Prison.
1. Circumstances are no criterion of character.
2. Doing good does not necessarily produce its equivalent.
3. The world is ignorant of the nature of true religion.
4. The good are non-resistant in their method of meeting persecution.
5. The ungodly are permitted great freedom.
III. The time was extremely unusual. Midnight. It was neither of the usual hours of devotion. The heart of man on earth and the ear of God in heaven are not regulated by our chronometers. Midnight, as well as midday, is the accepted time.
1. It was singular time. The world asleep.
2. It was sacred time. David and other eminent servants of God often worshipped them.
3. It was suitable time. Silence reigned. Quietness favourable to devotion.
IV. The service was marvellous in its nature. They had been stopped serving God by preaching. In the circumstances they did what they could.
1. There was supplication.
(1) Probably for pardon of enemies.
(2) Probably for success of mission.
(3) Probably for guidance in difficulties.
(4) Probably for preservation of converts.
2. There was song.
(1) Consciousness of Divine favour.
(2) Acknowledgment of Divine favour.
(3) Enjoyment of Divine favour.
3. There was sublimity. Such conduct in such a place was unique--marvellous.
V. The results were extraordinarily great.
1. Shaking of the prison.
(1) Proof of the Divine presence.
(2) Illustration of the Divine power.
(3) Sign of the Divine indignation.
(4) Symbol of the Divine goodness. Open doors and broken chains. Moral freedom.
2. Conversion of the prison keeper.
(1) Fear.
(2) Inquiry.
(3) Instruction.
(4) Faith.
(5) Obedience.
(6) Courtesy.
(7) Joy.
3. Liberation of the prisoners.
(1) Infringement of rights.
(2) Assertion of claims.
(3) Acknowledgment of wrong.
(4) Freedom.
Conclusion:
1. God cares for the good.
2. Fidelity to God rewarded.
3. Ultimate triumph of the gospel.
4. Worship God. (B. D. Johns.)
Paul and Silas sing praises at midnight
Like the nightingale, which warbles forth its beautiful notes in the night time, and when other birds are quietly asleep, so these two apostles sang praises to God at unconventional hours, for they were in unusual circumstances, and in an unconventional place. Many people will go some distance to hear the nightingale, and do not soon forget its notes; so all this prisoners in the jail at Philippi heard the apostles sing that night, and, it is hoped, they never forgot it. The other day, when the wind was furiously swaying the trees, when the heavy hailstones rattled against the window panes, and the darkened skies poured down the rain in torrents amid lightning flashes, until our hearts were quaking with fear, a beautiful little bird sat upon one of our sheltered rose bushes and sang its clear and beautiful notes, as though it knew God would not suffer the storm to hurt it. So, when the storm of persecution burst over the apostles at Philippi, though the excitement of their situation and the soreness of their stripes kept them awake, as some think, yet they sang praises to God, believing not only that their situation would be a furtherance to the gospel, but that God would not suffer them to be hurt.
A wonderful nocturnal service
I. The unusual hour of prayer--midnight.
II. The singular temple--a prison.
III. The remarkable conductors of the service.
Paul and Silas in the stocks.
IV. The strange congregation--the prisoners in their cells. (K. Gerok.)
The prayer meeting in the Philippian jail
It is always easy to have an excellent prayer meeting when the heart is right. There were three persons attending this one there in the jail. The ancient Jews had a saying, Where two persons meet, there is ever a third. Paul and Silas and Jesus Christ spent the night together (Mat_18:19-20). It was a most unusual--
I. Time--midnight. The Jews were strict as to their stated seasons of supplication; but this was the hour of neither the evening nor the morning oblation. But God never slumbers, He is alive to His childrens wants even in the dead of night.
II. Place. This was the first time the voice of Christian devotion was heard in those precincts--the earliest dungeon in Europe which held a mercy seat, although it has had many successors.
III. Posture. It was neither standing, nor kneeling, nor lying on ones face. What a poor time they would have had, if they had been compelled to use a formula or work themselves into an attitude. God does not care for attitudes when only the heart is right, and the spirit true, and the want pressing.
IV. Kind of prayer. Praying, they sang. They set their petitions to music. True prayer is praise, and genuine praise is prayer.
V. Expression of prayer--by tones of old Hebrew melodies such as one hears now in the synagogue: wild, pathetic, plaintive, and fascinating. Match one of Davids psalms or Isaiahs anthems to it, and it will move ones heart like a strain from the sky. He who has at command psalm after psalm has wonderful resources of comfort in his times of trouble.
VI. Reach of prayer. No doubt God heard it, but the prisoners also heard it. These were the songs in the night that Elihu told Job about; perhaps the psalm was that where David told of the good his singing did him (Psa_42:8). And we can have no sort of doubt that the jailer heard everything that was going on.
VII. Force of prayer. The Lord sent the earthquake in answer, and converted the jailer.
VIII. Direction of prayer. Imagine a triangle. The perpendicular line represents the direction of a Christian mans petition: it goes up straight towards God. The horizontal line represents the level pressure of the same force, going out towards those within range. That jailer, no doubt, heard the singing and the praying; it was not addressed to him, but it swept out toward him with lateral force. It is not safe to calculate deliberately upon affecting a bystander by our supplication; preaching in prayers is never to be commended; but a life of prayer, and an unconscious fervour of prayer in an individual instance, may be useful to one who watches it. (C. S. Robinson, D. D.)
The power of song
Wondrous power of music! When prayers give out, when all is dark, the mystic waves of sweet melody have still force to lift us out of ourselves, and upon their golden tides our souls seem to float away and leave far behind them the sad life of tears and strife. I note that Jesus is recorded as singing but once. It was when His soul was exceedingly sorrowful, even unto death--when the gloom and foreboding was deepest--when His disciples could not speak or pray, and hardly dared to think. Then, after supper, when they had sung a hymn, they went out into Gethsemane. In our own homes, in times of deep trouble--after the death or burial of a beloved one--in the midst of some great pain or loss--when the children look blankly at each other, and sit talking in whispers, and father and mother scarce know how to speak without weeping--a sister or friend will go to the piano or harmonium, and presently there shall arise such a sweet hymn as shall draw the voices of the sorrowing little company together, and the cloud will be lifted, something like a tender serenity and peace coming over the oppressed and darkened hearts as the pulses of the music rise and fall. Indeed there have been times in the history of the Church when music, hymn singing, chanting, have done duty for almost the whole of religion. What a part did hymn singing play in the life of Luther--in the Lollard movement--in Wesleyan prayer meetings--in the Salvation Armies--past and present. (H. R. Haweis, M. A.)
Sorrow producing song
The agonies of Germany in the Thirty Years War and other conflicts was productive of a vast number of patriotic and Christian songs. At the end of the seventeenth century, Councillor Faankenau made a collection of 32,712, which he presented in three hundred volumes to the University library at Copenhagen; while in 1718 another collector, Wetzel, reckoned 55,000 printed German hymns. (J. FB. Tinling, B. A.)
Joy in trouble, its influence upon others
A lamp, when lighted, may burn by day, but it is only at night that it is seen by the neighbourhood. The darkness does not kindle or cause the light, but the darkness reveals it and spreads it around. It is thus that consistent joy in the Lord, when believers attain it, in a time of trouble becomes an effective testimony for Christ. Not a few owe their conversion instrumentally to the light that streamed from a saint in the hour of his departure--to the song that rose from the pilgrim when he was traversing the valley of the shadow of death. (W. Arnot, D. D.)
Paul and Silas in prison
No man has more religion than he can show in time of adversity. The jail was a test of the Christian character of Paul and Silas. The way they stood the test, not only exalts them as Christian heroes, but also shows what power there is in the religion of Jesus.
I. A great earthquake.
1. The prisoners rejoicing (verse 25). They were praying--for they needed comfort. They sang praises--for comfort was given. Their hymns were unto God alone; but the prisoners were listening unto them. The Christian often exerts an influence of which he is unaware. What must have been the feelings of the listeners? Probably--
(1) Wonder. Songs from that inner prison was an unheard of thing. From there usually came groans, curses, wails of despair.
(2) A conviction that the two men were sustained by the God whom they were praising.
(3) A desire to partake of the same peace and joy. When a disciple has sunshine in trial, then men say, If religion can do that for us, then we want it. Songs in the night are better than sermons in the daytime.
2. The prisoners loosed. God now endorses the singers. The earthquake was natural in its character; but it happened at a time that shows that God was in it, using it, as He can use any force of nature, to accomplish His will.
II. A great change.
1. The keeper despairing (verse 27). His life depended upon the keeping of the prisoners. Awakened by the shock his first thought was of fidelity to his office, and, when he beheld the open doors, his instant conclusion was that the prisoners had escaped.
2. The keeper saved.
(1) From self-destruction (verse 28). There are two interesting questions in connection with this.
(a) How did Paul know that the keeper was intending suicide? He was in the inner prison, where he could have seen nothing.
(b) Why did none of the prisoners attempt to escape? It would seem as if the songs of the two missionaries, and the marvel which followed, had held them spellbound.
(2) From eternal destruction. Why did the keeper tremble? He was in no danger; for not a prisoner had escaped. He had rightly connected the earthquake with God and the presence of the servants of God. His fear was of Him who is the Judge of all. How was he saved? Believe, etc. Note how much larger the promise was than the question--thou and thy house. He had asked for himself only, but ha obtained assurance for those whose salvation was of as much consequence as his own.
3. The keeper changed. How was the change shown?
(1) In washing their stripes. His occupation had made him indifferent to the sufferings of others. But now that he had learned to love the Saviour his heart was touched with pity.
(2) Was baptized, he and all his immediately. Thus he and they expressed at once their faith in Christ.
(3) Set meat before them. He did not forget any of their physical wants in his own great joy. Those who have been fed with the Bread of Life should not be oblivious to the fact that the minister by whom they are fed has a body that needs to be fed also.
(4) Rejoiced greatly, etc. Now he was the possessor of the same joy that had caused those songs in the night.
III. A great humiliation.
1. The magistrates permission to depart.
(1) Given (verse 35). They realised that they had acted hastily, and without warrant, and desired to get rid of the men as quietly as possible.
(2) Refused. Paul did not stand upon a point of order as a matter of pride. If they departed without vindication, their influence as preachers of the gospel would be gone. For the honour of the Master, they refused to go.
2. The magistrates humiliation (verse 37). And the magistrates were made to come. They did not feel safe until they had gone where they would not again hear from them. The missionaries went out of prison with their innocence as publicly declared as their punishment. And thus they strengthened the hold of the gospel in Philippi.
3. The missionaries departure (verse 40). Having suffered so much, one would think that they needed comforting by the brethren instead. But God had comforted them with so great a comfort, that they still were the richer, and could afford to give. They went away, but they left brethren behind them. The Church was established at Philippi, and that could not be driven out. (M. C. Hazard.)
Paul and Silas in prison
The Christian looks beyond this world for complete happiness. Yet while here on earth he has something which the world can neither give nor take away. Deprive him of all that which ministers to the happiness of worldly men, and still he is happy. We have a striking example of this in the text. What then can make us happy in any condition, or under any circumstances? We answer--that which made Paul and Silas so happy in the prison at Philippi. The same sources of support and joy are open to every real Christian. Let us, then, examine them.
I. Their comparative estimate of what they gained, with what they lost. It is by such comparisons that we form our estimate of almost every condition in human life. In this world, that is reasonably esteemed an eligible condition in which the good to be enjoyed far outweighs the evil to be endured. What then was the case of these prisoners? Were they in prison--it was not the prison of death. Were they in chains--they still possessed the liberty of the sons of God. Did they endure the pains of the lash--they had peace which passeth all understanding. Had they no hopes from the world--they had the hope of eternal glory. Who that possessed millions would grieve at the loss of a penny? When, therefore, we hear them say, As sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as having nothing, yet possessing all things, their language is intelligible.
II. The assurance that their sufferings were the means of great good. They regarded suffering not only as inseparably connected with the crown of glory, but as the appointed means of the preparation to wear it. They, therefore, gloried in tribulation because tribulation worketh patience, etc. They rejoiced in the darkness of the dungeon, because there every Christian grace shone purer and brighter.
III. Love to Him for whom they suffered. Love is the strongest passion of the human heart. It is delight in the object loved. With what cheerfulness and pleasure does it lead us to act or suffer! As intimately connected with their love to Christ, I ought to mention the great object of these men--the honour of Christ. Ease, pleasure, honour, interest, life were nothing in their view, and Christ was all in all. Conclusion:
1. Godliness hath the promise of the life that now is. Real religion in its nature is a rich source of support and joy in every condition.
2. Religion is as good a thing now as in the days of the apostles. The same sources of enjoyment are open to us as to them. Why then should not religion bless the Christian under the little crosses of this tranquil age, as well as under the terrors which the annals of persecution record? Alas t here is the defect. They have not as much religion as they ought to have and might have. (N. W. Taylor, D. D.)
The supreme power of true piety
We gather from this narrative--
1. That good men are persecuted notwithstanding the most evident signs that they are the servants of God. The presumption of evildoers.
2. That the beneficent ministries of good men incur the hatred of unrighteous traffickers.
3. That religious persecutions are generally promoted by men who have the least regard for religion.
4. That religion often has to endure the blame of tumults raised by evildoers.
I. The power of true piety to give men joy amidst circumstances of sorrow. Paul and Silas--
1. Their patient endurance.
2. Their fervent devotion.
(1) Devotion superior to physical pain. They had been beaten. Song stronger than sorrow.
(2) Devotion superior to the suggestion of mental association. Prison a suggestive place.
(3) Devotion superior to the habitual needs of human life. Midnight--time of sleep.
3. Their unique conduct. The masters with gains lost were in despair; the jailer in earthquake was about to commit suicide. Paul and Silas worshipped. Piety is supreme judged by results.
II. The power of true piety to give men calmness in physical disturbance.
1. God takes care of His persecuted servants.
2. The moral significance of the physical occurrences on the earth. Newspapers can only record the earthquake, not its hidden providences.
III. The power of true piety to enable men to give guidance amidst moral perplexity. See how the providence of God has in view the awakening of the souls of men. Believe, etc.
1. This advice was willing.
2. Wise.
3. Practicable.
4. Inspiring.
5. Accepted.
IV. The power of true piety to give men dignity in the humiliating emergencies of life. Let them come, etc.
1. Not the language of proud self-assertion.
2. The language of self-vindication. (J. S. Exell, M. A.)
Preachers in prison
I. The preachers.
1. Their punishment.
(1) Many stripes.
(2) In the inner prison.
(3) Their feet fast in the stocks. Cell windowless and damp; stocks irritating and painful.
2. Their piety. Prayed and sang. Only heroes of the highest type could have prayed in such a place.
3. Their noise. The prisoners heard them. They will have all the more attentive audience by the place and time. Noise was no new thing in the old prison. Groans, curses, threats had often echoed through those gloomy corridors; but never until now prayer and praise.
4. Their deliverance.
(1) It was supernatural. A great earthquake.
(2) It was instantaneous. Immediately the doors were opened.
(3) It was complete. Every mans bands were loosed.
II. The penitent. The exciting scenes of the afternoon and evening had passed, and at midnight the jailer is fast asleep.
1. His surprise (waking out of his sleep) at the swaying of the prison, the open doors, and the supernatural aspect of things generally.
2. His fear. That the prisoners had fled. Nothing was more reasonable. Prisoners have not much conscience when the alternative of bondage or freedom is before them.
3. His desperation. Would have killed himself. Believing his own life to be forfeited, his first thought was that of suicide. That was the highest point to which heathen culture could rise. The advice of Seneca was, If life is pleasant, live; if not, you have a right to return whence you came.
4. His instructions. Do thyself no harm. How did Paul know he was going to do himself harm?
5. His encouragement. We are all here. How, then, could Paul vouch for this?
6. His penitence. Came trembling. The marvels he had witnessed had aroused his conscience, and smitten him with an awful sense of guilt and alarm.
7. His humility. Fell down before Paul. There are earthquake crises in life when Gods despised people are appreciated--crises when they only can allay the troubled spirit, and answer the momentous questions which agitate and alarm the human heart.
8. His inquiry. What must I do to be saved? The danger implied in this question is not that which prompted him to suicide. The presence of all the prisoners saved him from that. The inquiry involves a conviction--
(1) Of danger. Saved.
(2) Of the importance of action or effort. Must.
(3) Anxiety to do what may be required. What must I do?
(4) Personal responsibility. What must I do? We lose ourselves in the crowd. True penitence individualises the man.
III. The pardon.
1. Its condition--Believe.
2. Its object--Jesus Christ.
3. Its certainty--Thou shalt be saved.
4. Its effects.
(1) Sympathetic--Washed their stripes. A man should doubt his conversion if he does not seek to undo the wrongs of yesterday.
(2) Hospitality--Into his house.
(3) Liberality--Set meat before them.
(4) Public and prompt confession--Baptised straightway.
(5) Influence--And all his. One saved man has a tendency to produce another.
The jailer, though a heathen, had some manhood and character about him, or his family would not have been so ready to follow him with such confidence. (T. Kelly.)
Good men in prison
It is a great disgrace to humanity that its greatest benefactors have been ill-treated. Next to the Saviour, the world has known no truer benefactor than Paul. And yet he was cast into prison. We feel ashamed of our complaining as we think of this Gods true hero singing songs of praise unto the Lord.
I. A good man radiates his influence. He cannot help it.
1. Silas was benefited by his connection with Paul. Silas was a man of mark, but he became more remarkable from his identification with Paul. We may not get earthly greatness or riches, but we must be better in a moral sense by allowing ourselves to be touched by a good mans influence. He that walketh with wise men shall be wise.
2. Paul and Silas together exerted a good influence--
(1) On the prisoners, who listened to the sweet singing.
(2) On the jailer, whom they rescued from death. It has been so ever since. The path of the just is as the shining light. A bird will sing in a cage; a preacher has spoken through the grating of his cell.
II. A good mans character is not damaged by outward conditions. His reputation may be affected by them; for a man may have a good character and a bad reputation. Paul and Silas had a bad reputation. But a change is soon brought about. The very jailer acknowledges them as messengers of God. Today the world delights to honour those men who sat in that cell. If we suffer as evil-doers, we have reason to be ashamed; but if we suffer as Christians, let us glorify God on this behalf.
III. Good men are true to their principles, though they have been the causes of disaster. If the world were morally right, correct principles would never bring a man into trouble. If the apostles had been brought up in the school of worldly prudence, and had sat at the feet of Professors Pliable and Worldly Wiseman, they would not have had a sore back that night, though they might have had the worse evil of an uneasy conscience. But they were brought up in the school of Christ. The lesson impressed upon their mind was, Seek ye first the kingdom of God and its righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you. It was theirs to dare to do the right, and leave consequences. Throw the mere professor into prison, and he soon recants. But when Paul and Silas are thrown into prison, they pray and sing praises unto God. They do not change their mode of procedure.
IV. Good men are sustained and encouraged in their sufferings.
1. The consciousness of having done right is a sustaining power. Paul and Silas had songs given to them in the night time of their confinement, while the poor jailer was in agonies, and the magistrates who condemned were sadly troubled.
2. The consciousness of a helper in heaven is a sustaining power. Paul without prayer would have been Paul without his lofty heroism. Prayer nerved his arm for the conflict, and brought down heavenly blessings. (W. Burrows, B. A.)
Good people in prison
John Bunyan, the immortal dreamer, speaking on one occasion of the cell on Bedford Bridge, where for twelve long years he was confined, said, So, being again delivered up to the jailers hands, I was had home to prison. When Madame Guyon was imprisoned in the Castle of Vincennes, in 1695, she not only sang, but wrote songs of praise to her God. It sometimes seemed to me, she said, as if I were a little bird whom the Lord had placed in a cage, and that I had nothing now to do but to sing. The joy of my heart gave a brightness to the objects around me. The stones of my prison looked in my eyes like rubies. I esteemed them more than all the gaudy brilliancies of a vain world. My heart was full of that joy which Thou givest to them that love Thee in the midst of their greatest crosses--a sentiment which she embodied, during one of her imprisonments, in a touching little poem, which begins thus--
A little bird I am,
Shut from the fields of air;
And in my songs I sit and sing
To Him who placed me there:
Well pleased a prisoner to be,
Because, my God, it pleaseth Thee.
Bass Rock, a lonely island cliff in the Firth of Forth, off Haddingtonshire, two miles from land, was once used by the English Government as a fortress and State prison. Here, in the seventeenth century, many good ministers, persecuted for conscience sake, suffered confinement; and one of their number, Mr. Fraser, of Brea, wrote an account of their prison hardships. They were alternately chilled through with cold and half suffocated with smoke, fed with unwholesome food, and scarcely fed at all. Many contracted diseases there which embittered and shortened their lives. But from within those walls the voice of praise and prayer might be often heard, mingled with the laughter, oaths, and songs of the reckless sentinels; and the souls of the captives were borne, on the wings of holy meditation, far aloft and away from the dreary rock within which their bodies were pent. Every day, continues Fraser, I read the Scriptures, exhorted and taught therefrom, did sing psalms and prayed with such of our society as our masters did permit to worship together, and this two times a day. I studied Hebrew and Greek, and I likewise read some divinity, and wrote a Treatise on Faith.
The miracle in the prison
I. The prayer (verse 25). It is night. All are buried in slumber. A dark building--a lodging for the night, a prison. But light is in one of the cells--internal light, the light of faith. Therefore prayer and praise.
II. The shock (verses 26-28). Not only were the walls shaken, but the jailers heart. Certainly at first a shock of anguish and despair. But eternal love watches and prevails. The comforting word. We are all here. Hope returns; but he wishes to see his fortune and to grasp it with his hands (verse 29).
III. The great question (verses 30-82). It is not entirely unpremeditated. Already the praying apostles have caused the presentiment of something higher to rise in him. Perhaps also earlier experiences in his dismal employment. The earthquake has ripened the slumbering seed. The apostles have not fled. How secure and happy they must be! What must I do that I may be the same? The great life question finds also a great life answer. There is one answer. Without Christ no one is saved; through Him all may be saved.
IV. The first love (verses 33, 34). What is it? The attempt to make a return for what has been received--to do good to Christ in His servants. (Lisco.)
What the Lord can make of a prison
I. A quiet chapel of prayer (verse 25).
II. An alarming place of judgment (verses 26-29).
III. A wholesome school of repentance (verses 30, 31).
IV. A brotherly house of Christian love and compassion (verses 32, 33).
V. A blessed birthplace of the new life (verse 34). (K. Gerok.)
Disadvantages made useful
I. Strange places may be changed into churches. If in many cases desecration has taken place, many surprising instances of consecration have also occurred. We might turn every place into a praying ground. The teaching of this immediate lesson is that distressing, harmful, and threatening circumstances may be turned into ladders up to heaven. What are you doing in your unusual circumstances--moaning, groaning, complaining? Paul and Silas sang praises. Such men, therefore, never could be in prison. Christians ought never to be in any circumstances which they cannot turn into sacramental occasions.
II. Christian workers and worshippers may have unexpected observers and listeners. It is always exactly so.
1. You do not speak without being listened to; you do not go to church without being observed. The preacher speaks to his immediate congregation, but he knows not who is listening in the vestibule. And the prisoners were listening. They never heard such music before! They had been accustomed to profane language; to violent and complaining exclamations; but here is a new spirit in the house. It is so at home. Passing the room door, we pause a moment to hear some sweet voice in prayer or praise, and it follows the life like a pleading angel.
2. What is true on the one side is true on the other. The unjust judgment you passed was listened to by your children, and they will grow up to repeat your cynicism.
III. It is possible quietly and even thankfully, to accept all the circumstances of life. Nothing must interfere with the religious sacrifice. Are we in prison? We may have to alter the hour of worship, but not the worship itself. Are we in an uncongenial atmosphere? We may have to wait until the company has broken up before communion with the Father; but it is only waiting. Show me a Christian who does not complain. Where is the ancient joy? May the old days come again! When they come Christians will accept poverty or wealth, life or death, bleak March or warm June, with thankfulness, saying, This is the best for me; I live not in circumstance, but in faith.
IV. This is a full religious service. But there was no preaching, you say. Yes, there was; for we may preach by singing. But, even in a more direct and literal sense, preaching was added to prayer and praise. The earthquake took place, and the jailer, with his house, became a congregation to which Paul and Silas did, in the literal sense of the term, preach. So that night they had a full service--prayer, praise, preaching, and conversion.
V. Look at this conversion of the jailer.
1. It took place under circumstances which may well be described as exciting. Have we not been unjust to what is called religious excitement? But are the circumstances to blame, or ourselves? We like quietness--deadness; we do not like to be excited, because the devil has chloroformed us into a state of insensibility. Jesus Christ did not rebuke the excitement which followed His ministry; when others would have had Him rebuke them, He said, I tell you that if these held their peace, the very stones would cry out.
2. Happily the incident does not end here. To excitement was added the necessary element of instruction (verse 32). Tears in the eyes that are not followed by activities in the hand harden the very heart which for the moment they softened. We shall be the worse for every revival that ends in itself. Times of revival must be followed by times of study. We might get up such services as these almost every day in the week. If we prayed and praised in every prison into which our life is thrust, we should be heard by strange listeners, we should be interrogated by strange inquirers, and doors of usefulness would be opened in the very granite which apparently shuts us in. (J. Parker, D. D.)
The surpassing power of personal Christianity
Here we see it--
I. Elevating the spirit above the greatest trials (verse 25). What gives religion this power.
1. Faith in the Divine superintendence. The apostles knew that they were not here by accident or chance, but that the whole was under the wise and kind control of the Eternal Father. This is consoling. Job felt this. He knoweth the way that I take, etc.
2. Consciousness of Gods approval. The well done of Heaven echoed within, and set all to music. If God be for us, who can be against us? Being justified by faith, we have peace with God, etc.
3. The thought of Christs trials in comparison with their own.
4. Assurance of a glorious deliverance. Our light afflictions, which are but for a moment, etc. I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared, etc. He who has this religion can find a paradise in a dungeon.
II. Ensuring the interposition of God (verse 26). While caring for all God takes special care of the good.
1. Reason would suggest this, viz., that the Eternal Spirit would feel a greater interest in mind than in matter; that the Eternal Father in His offspring than in His mere workmanship; that the Source of love and holiness in those who participate in His own moral attributes than in those who do not.
2. The Bible teaches this.
(1) In explicit declarations. To that man will I look, etc. As a father pitieth his children, etc. Wherefore if God so clothe the grass of the field, etc.
(2) In the biography of the good. Did He not specially interpose on behalf of the patriarchs, prophets, and apostles? If necessary He will make the heavens rain bread, and the rock out-pour refreshing streams. He will divide the sea, and stop the mouth of lions.
III. Capacitating the soul for the highest usefulness. The Philippian jailer--
1. Was prevented from self-destruction. The voice of Christianity to man is, Do thyself no harm of any kind. The good are ever useful in preventing evil.
2. Was directed to true safety. His question indicates a complex state of mind. He had regard not only to material and civil deliverance, but to spiritual and eternal. The question implies a sense of peril, and a sense of the necessity of individual effort. Something must be done. Paul, without circumlocution and delay, answers, Believe, etc. Believe on Him as the Representative of Gods love for the sinner, as the Atoner to Gods character, as the Guide to Gods heaven.
3. Experienced a delightful change (verses 33, 34). The ruffian who thrust them into the inner prison, and made their feet fast in the stocks, now tenderly washes their stripes, and entertains them with pious hospitality. The terror-struck soul who sprang in, in utmost horror, is now full of joy and faith (verse 34).
IV. Investing the soul with the truest independency (verse 35, etc.). This is seen--
1. In their superiority to the fear of man. As soon as they were miraculously delivered from prison, they might have hurried away from such a scene of enemies; but they remained, although the magistrates gave them liberty to depart. They were not afraid. They could chant the 46th psalm.
2. In refusing great benefits, because offered on improper grounds. We will not accept as a favour what we demand as a right. A good man will refuse liberty, social influence, wealth, unless they can be honourably and righteously obtained.
3. In triumphing over their enemies. The tyrants became fawning suppliants at the feet of their prisoners. Such is Christian piety at first displayed in Europe, and in a prison. Piety is not that weak, simpering thing which often passes for it. It is the mightiest force on earth. True Christians have not received the spirit of fear, but of love, power, and of a sound mind. (D. Thomas, D. D.)
Gods heroes and mans
On losing a battle in that neighbourhood, Cassius, the last of the Romans, hid himself in his tent, and bade his freedmen strike, while Brutus, in his sullen desperation, fell upon his sword. But, so far from drooping and murmuring, and calling God to account, who had beckoned them to Europe, and yet had permitted them to be so shamefully entreated; so far from resolving to desert a Master who had not protected them, or deeming the vision at Troas a lure to draw them on to stripes and a dungeon, Paul and Silas prayed, and not only poured out their hearts in supplication, but sang praises unto God, and that in no whispered melody, for the prisoners heard them. (Prof. Eadie.)
And the prisoners heard them.--
Indirect means of doing good
Though the speakers were bound, the Word was free; not only the Word that went upward to the throne of God, but also the echo of the Word, that pierced the gloomy partition walls and sank into the startled ears of wretched prisoners. It seemed a roundabout road that the gospel took to reach these Gentiles; but it did not miss its way. There was a dead wall between the apostles and their audience, and therefore they did not preach that night. But there was no wall between them and the Father of their spirits: praying they hymned God, and the prayer sent upward fell down again on the other side of the partition, falling there on listening ears. In this circuitous method the gospel reached some needy souls. It is thus that in modern warfare they often overcome a fortress which is too strong to be taken by direct assault. The wall frowns thick and high between the defenders and the assailants. No missile sent in a direct line can touch the protected garrison. The besiegers in such a case throw their balls high into the heavens; these fall within the enclosure and do their work. When a good soldier of Jesus Christ cannot by direct preaching reach men, he may by prayer and praise. Christians travelling in Romish or otherwise darkened districts, might in this way scatter blessings in their track. And so might those who live in benighted neighbourhoods. (W. Arnot, D. D.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
B. W. Johnson 1891 · Public Domain On v19 19–24. When her masters saw that the hope of…
19–24. When her masters saw that the hope of their gains was gone. Nothing inflames the rage of men more than to see their hope of ill-gotten gains taken away. In our country more than one man has fallen a victim to the rage of rum-sellers who have seen their hope of gain taken away. Caught Paul and Silas. As the leaders of the missionary band. Drew them into the market-place. The forum, or open square where meetings were held and the magistrates held their courts.
To the magistrates. Roman officers, two in number, called duumviri, or prætors. These men, being Jews. A great prejudice against Jews at this time existed in Europe. Near this time, Claudius Cæsar expelled all Jews from Rome (18:2). Do trouble our city. Raise disturbances.
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Teach customs … not lawful. Roman law sternly forbade one not a Jew to be circumcised.—Howson. Paul and Silas did not teach this, but it was a safe charge to make, they being Jews.
The multitude rose … against them. Inflamed with prejudice. The magistrates. Without inquiry, influenced by the outcries of the throng. Rent off their clothes. They ordered them at once to be scourged. The lictors, the executioners, were at hand. The Roman custom was to lay bare the body and to beat it with the rods borne by the lictors. Paul says (2 Cor. 11:25), “Thrice was I beaten with rods.”
Laid many stripes upon them. Moses (Deut. 25:3) mercifully restricted the number of stripes; hence, Paul says: “Five times I received of the Jews forty stripes, save one” (2 Cor. 11:24). With the Romans there was no such restriction.
Thrust them into the inner prison. A damp interior cell from which all light was excluded. The stocks. An instrument of torture as well as confinement. The feet, stretched wide apart, were thrust through holes in a wall of wood, and the prisoner was fastened there.
B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On v19 Act_16:19. The rulers, ἄρχοντες, were the town magistrates (Luk_12:58).
CRITICAL REMARKS
Act_16:19. The rulers, ἄρχοντες, were the town magistrates (Luk_12:58).
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Act_16:20. The magistrates, στρατηγοί, were the two chief civic authorities (dunmviri) in a Roman colony town, and were usually styled prætors.
Act_16:20-21. Being Jews—i.e., belonging to the despised race, whom Claudius had shortly before banished from Rome (Act_18:2); and being Romans—i.e., in proud contrast to the hated sons of Abraham. “The distinction between ὑπάρχων and ὤν seems to be that the former is used of something which the speaker or narrator wishes to put forward into notice, either as unknown to his hearer or reader, or in some way to be marked by him for praise or blame; whereas the latter refers to facts known and recognised and taken for granted by both” (Alford).
Act_16:22. Rent off—by ordering the lictors to remove—their clothes. The customary mandate was: Summore, lictor, despolia, verbera. Commanded—lit., were commanding—to beat them, the imperfect showing that the whole process of scourging went on under the narrator’s eye.
Act_16:23. The inner prison.—“In a Roman prison there were usually three distinct parts—
(1) the communiora, where the prisoners had light and fresh air,
(2) the interiora, shut off by strong iron gates, with bars and locks, and
(3) the tullianum, or dungeon. The third was a place rather of execution or for one condemned to die” (Conybeare and Howson, i. 280, note 4).
Act_16:27. Would have killed himself.—Because he would certainly have been put to death had his prisoners escaped (see Act_12:19; Act_27:42).
Act_16:28. Do thyself no harm.—As the prison was dark Paul may have learnt from some exclamation of the jailor that he meditated suicide, or, if ordinary means sufficed not to acquaint him with the keeper’s purpose, supernatural revelation may have discovered it to him.
Act_16:29. A light should be lights.
Act_16:30. Brought them out.—Not into his house (see Act_16:34), but into the outer or common prison or other room belonging to the prison, where they were joined by the jailor’s family.
Act_16:34. Believing in God with all his house, should be, he rejoiced with, or over, all his house, having believed in, or having believed, God.
Act_16:35. The serjeants were the rod bearers or lictors.
Act_16:37, They have beaten us openly uncondemned, being Romans, etc.; or, having beaten us publicly uncondemned, they cast us into prison.—It was against the Valerin law passed A.U.C. 254 to inflict stripes or torture on any Roman citizen until an appeal to the people had been decided. The Porcian law, passed A.U.C. 506, forbade stripes and torture absolutely. From this passage it appears that Silas as well as Paul was a Roman citizen. That they did not appeal to their Roman citizenship may have been due to the haste with which proceedings had been taken against them. Of the three times Paul was beaten with rods (2Co_11:25) this was one; the other two are not recorded.
Act_16:38. They, the magistrates, feared when they heard that they, the apostles, were Romans.—Because, according to Roman law, “Facinus est vinciri civem Romanum; scelus verberari; prope parricidium, necari” (Cicero, In Verrem, v. 66).
Act_16:40. The use of the third person shows that Luke remained behind in Philippi, where he was afterwards rejoined by the apostle and his company (Act_20:5).
HOMILETICAL ANALYSIS.—Act_16:19-34
The First Pagan Persecution; or, the Imprisonment of Paul and Silas
I. Before the magistrates.—
1. The prosecutors.
(1) Their persons. The masters of the girl. Their hostility formed the first instance of persecution raised against the apostles by pagans. Hitherto the adversaries of the apostles had been their own countrymen.
(2) Their motive. Because they saw that through the exorcism of the evil spirit from the afflicted maid their gains were gone. Their conduct as well as that of Demetrius of Ephesus (Act_19:23-31) show that it is always dangerous to touch a man’s pocket, and that even religion has little chance when it comes into competition with love of gain. “The first way,” says Professor Ramsay, “in which Christianity excited the popular enmity outside the Jewish community was by disturbing the existing state of society and trade, and not by making innovations in religion” (The Church in the Roman Empire, p. 130).
(3) Their violence. Having arrested Paul and Silas as the principal persons in the company, or perhaps because Luke and Timothy were at the moment out of the way, they dragged those into the market-place where the magistrates—in this case the Roman police-executive, the duumviri or prætors, as distinguished from the city rulers (see “Critical Remarks”)—were sitting.
2. The accusation. “These men, being Jews, do exceedingly trouble our city, and teach customs, which are not lawful for us to receive, being Romans” (Act_16:20-21). That is to say, they were indicted, not for the crime of observing their own form of worship, which by Roman statute was a religio licita, but of doing what Roman statute did not permit, endeavouring to persuade Romans to forsake their own religious customs and embrace those of (as it seemed) the Jews. If the charge was in appearance true, since the apostles’ preaching was undoubtedly being attended by conversions, and the Philippians could not then distinguish between Judaism and Christianity, it was still in reality false, since the real head and front of the apostles’ offence was not the publication of a new religion about which, like other easy-going tolerant pagans, the girl’s masters “did not care two straws” (Ramsay), but the interference of his preaching with their unholy profits, about which they were extremely sensitive, and more especially the destruction by his miracle of their stock-in-trade, for which they could perceive no chance of compensation.
3. The multitude. The marketplace mob, composed doubtless for the most part of idlers, out-of-work and loungers (Mat_20:3; Act_17:17), having heard the accusation, and having been incapable of understanding a defence, even had it been offered, like other eager and tumultuous rabbles, raised a yell of indignation against the apostles and demanded their punishment (compare Act_19:28; Act_19:34; Act_21:30; Act_22:22; Luk_23:18).
4. The magistrates. Yielding to the popular cry, without hearing from the prisoners a word of explanation, far less putting them on trial, the two prætors, representatives of Roman law and justice, who should have studied equity and afforded their prisoners at least an opportunity of speaking in self defence (Act_25:16), proceeded to act in flagrant violation of Roman law.
(1) Without troubling themselves to conduct even the smallest or most formal investigation, they commanded the apostles to be scourged, in accordance with the customary formula ordering the lictor to remove the prisoners’ clothes, if not, in blind fury doing this with their own hands, that on the backs of the apostles thus bared might be laid ignominious stripes by means of rods—though sometimes more severe instruments such as whips, loaded with lead, were employed for the infliction of this degrading punishment. That this was one of the three occasions on which Paul tells us he endured this indignity (2Co_11:25) there can be no doubt; and should it be inquired why, as afterwards in the castle of Antonia, he did not, in this instance, protect himself by making known his Roman citizenship (Act_22:25), it may be answered either that both Paul and Silas may have done so, though their voices, if raised, were drowned in the general din, and the fast-falling blows of the rods” (Lewin), or that in the agitation of the moment caused by the suddenness of the inhuman proposal it did not occur to them in this way to rescue themselves, or that if it did they may have preferred to suffer, thinking that by so doing they would more effectively promote the cause they had at heart.
(2) Not content with having publicly beaten the apostles, the magistrates cast them into prison, as if they had been convicted of a heinous crime, handing them over wounded and bleeding to the tender mercies of the town jailor with instructions to keep them “safely,” either in case further proceedings should require to be instituted against them, or perhaps lest some attempt at rescue should be made by their friends.
II. In the inner prison.—
1. Their degradation. The town jailor, having perfectly understood what his master wanted, thrust his supposed criminals into the inner prison, the interior ward of a Roman cell, probably a damp, cold chamber, shut off with bolts and bars, iron gates and locks, and totally excluded from fresh air and light (compare Act_12:6; and see “Critical Remarks”). In addition, improving most likely on his instructions, he made their feet fast in the stocks, which were pieces of wood drilled through with holes, into which the feet were thrust, and sometimes so far apart as to cause the stocks to become an instrument of acute torture. Compare the treatment of Joseph in the Round House at Heliopolis (Psa_105:18).
2. Their occupation. So far as can be gathered from Scripture, this was Paul’s and Silas’s first experience of a jail, Yet neither of them yielded to despondent thoughts. Their solitary hours were enlivened, and their pains alleviated by the hallowed exercises of religion, in which they prayed and sang praises to God, doubtless finding appropriate expression for their mingled emotions in well-known words from the Hebrew Psalter (compare Luk_1:46-55; Luk_1:68-79; Luk_2:29-32; Col_4:2). That they could thus pass the hours of their incarceration, forgetting the pains of their lacerated bodies and tortured limbs in the inward joyfulness of their spirits, was a signal testimony both to the sustaining grace of Him who had given them “songs in the night” (Job_35:10), and to the power of that religion they professed and proclaimed to elevate the soul above all life’s ills, as Tertullian finely says, “The limbs do not feel the stocks when the heart is in heaven.” Nor were their prison devotions without eager listeners on earth, as none can doubt they found delighted hearers in heaven (Psa_102:19-20). The inmates of the outer or common cell of the prison had never before heard such melodies proceeding from the inner or from any ward of a Roman jail, and kept listening, it can well be imagined, with wonder and amazement.
3. Their deliverance.
(1) Effected by an earthquake, which cannot be successfully explained as a natural occurrence (Baur, Zeller), which might indeed have shaken the prison’s foundations, but could hardly have unlocked the barred doors or unloosed the prisoners’ fetters. That the writer distinctly intended to describe a supernatural interposition on behalf of Paul and Silas can hardly be questioned, even by those who decline to accept the narrative as true history; and that the other prisoners partook of the same gracious visitation was as obviously designed to arrest, impress, and if possible save them, if not from earthly, at all events from spiritual bondage and condemnation. “When we reflect,” say Conybeare and Howson (i. 282), “on their knowledge of the apostles’ sufferings” (for they were doubtless aware of the manner in which they had been brought in and thrust into the dungeon); “and on the wonder they must have experienced on hearing sounds of joy from those who were in pain, and on the awe which must have overpowered them when they felt the prison shaken and the chains fall from their limbs; and when to all this we add the effect produced on their minds by all that happened on the following day, and especially the fact that the jailor himself became a Christian, we can hardly avoid the conclusion that the hearts of many of those unhappy bondmen were prepared that night to receive the gospel, that the tidings of spiritual liberty came to those whom, but for the captivity of the apostles, it would never have reached, and that the jailor himself was their evangelist and teacher.”
(2) Accompanied by a trophy of Divine grace in the person of the jailor who, through the earthquake, was awakened to more than a sense of his temporal danger, even to a realisation of his spiritually lost condition. For this he may have been in some measure prepared by his acquaintance with the character of the apostles’ preaching, of which he had doubtless heard; though he could hardly have been affected by their praying and singing, since during the time they were engaged in these holy exercises he was sleeping. In answer to his cry of distress—“Sirs! what must I do to be saved?”—an utterance which cannot be explained as signifying less than genuine soul concern—he was first directed to the one and all-sufficient method of salvation by faith in Jesus Christ: “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved”; and afterwards along with the inmates of his household, who by this time had appeared upon the scene, the jailor’s house being not necessarily above (Meyer), but on a higher level than the prison (Act_16:34), more fully instructed in the way of the Lord, with the happy result that he believed and was baptised, along with all his house, rejoicing in God.
III. In the jailor’s house.—
1. Before they entered it, while yet in the prison court underneath, the jailor took them, his lacerated prisoners, and washed their stripes. A beautiful indication that sympathy, repentance, and gratitude—three emotions to which, probably, he had been long a stranger—had begun to dawn within his soul. “The jailor,” says Chrysostom, “washed them, and he was washed himself. He washed them from their stripes, and he in his turn was washed from his sins.”
2. When they were within it, he set meat before them. “His former cruelty was changed into hospitality and love” (Conybeare and Howson). “The two sufferers may well have needed food.… They were not likely to have made a meal, when they were thrust into the dungeon” (Plumptre). Doubtless by such hospitality the jailor hoped to compensate in some degree for his previous unkindness, and to evince the grateful affection he now entertained towards his benefactors.
3. How they left it. With a triumphant acknowledgment of their innocence on the part of the magistrates (see preceding homily), who, having learnt that their prisoners were Romans, became alarmed for their own safety, because of having violated the sanctity of Roman law in scourging two uncondemned citizens, and with all haste caused them to be fetched from the prison, entreating them at the same time to leave the city. This they agreed to do, but not before they had visited the house of Lydia, and comforted the brethren, amongst whom, doubtless, henceforth the jailor took an honoured place.
Learn.—
1. That natural men as a rule, and occasionally spiritual men, as an exception, prefer their businesses to religion.
2. That Christ’s ambassadors need hardly expect to escape persecution of some sort.
3. That when Christ’s servants suffer God their maker can give them “songs in the night.”
4. That no prison doors or bars can keep out God when He wants to be in, or keep in God’s servants when He wants them out.
5. That conversions can occur in the most unlikely places, and pass on the most unlikely persons.
HINTS AND SUGGESTIONS
Act_16:20. Preachers of the Gospel, Citytroublers. Because they—
I. Interfere with men’s sinful gains—being teachers of morality.
II. Expose men’s intellectual delusions—the gospel bringing the light of truth to the understanding.
III. Change men’s irreligious customs—substituting for the worship of idols that of the true God.
IV. Turn men’s thoughts towards salvation—men not caring to be reminded of their lost condition.
Act_16:24. Fast in the Stocks.
I. A verification of Christ’s promise.
II. A testimony to the efficiency of the apostles’ work.
III. A trial of the sincerity of their faith.
IV. A means of helping on the cause of the gospel.
Act_16:25. Singing in Jail.
I. Not easy.—Requires great grace.
II. Perfectly possible.—Grace can make a Christian do all things.
III. Eminently comforting.—To those who are imprisoned innocently for conscience’ sake.
IV. Occasionally useful.—May lead to the conversion of the prison inmates.
A Strange Religious Service.
I. The unusual hour of prayer—midnight.
II. The singular temple—a prison.
III. The remarkable conductors—Paul and Silas in the stocks.
IV. The strange congregation—the prisoners in their cells.—Gerok.
Songs in the Night.
I. The singers.—Paul and Silas.
1. Their character.
(1) Servants of the most high God.
(2) Missionaries of the cross.
(3) Benefactors of their race.
2. Their condition. In the night.
(1) In the darkness of a Roman cell.
(2) In the painfulness of bodily suffering.
(3) In the sadness of disappointed hopes.
II. Their songs.—
1. The giver of them: God, whose servants they were (Psa_19:8); Christ, for whose name they had been cast into prison (Joh_16:33; Joh_17:13); and the Holy Spirit, in obedience to whose leading they had come to Philippi (Eph_5:18-19).
2. The burden of them.
(1) Thankfulness that they had been counted worthy to suffer for the name of Christ (Act_16:40).
(2) Prayerfulness for grace to sustain them while suffering, and for a happy issue to their trial in the furtherance of their mission.
3. The hearers of them. Doubtless the angels in heaven, but also the prisoners on earth. Christians when at their devotions are more frequently than they suspect observed by others.
4. The effect of them. If they comforted the singers, they most likely helped to convert the listeners.
Act_16:25. Singing in Jail.—“His presence turns a prison into a palace, into a paradise.” “From the delectable orchard of the Leonine prison”—so the Italian martyr Algerius dated his letter to a friend. “I was carried to the coal-house,” saith Mr. Philpot, “where I with my fellows do rouse together in the straw as cheerfully, we thank God, as others do in their beds of down.” “Philip, Landgrave of Hesse, being a long time prisoner under Charles V., was demanded what upheld him at that time. He answered that he felt the Divine consolations of the martyrs” (Trapp). (See on. Act_23:11, “Hints.”)
Act_16:26. Opened Doors and Loosened Bands.
I. A miracle of power.—Even if explainable as the result of the earthquake, the earthquake itself was the work of God.
II. A symbol of grace.—
1. Of the message of the gospel, which proclaims liberty to the captives and the opening of the prison to them that are bound.
2. Of the influence of the Spirit, which breaks the fetters of sin from the soul and opens the heart to receive the truth.
3. Of the work of providence, which opens doors of usefulness for Christ’s servants and gives them ability to enter in.
III. A prophecy of glory.—Of the opening of the prison-house of the grave and the unloosening of the bands of death.
Act_16:30-31. The Way of Salvation.
I. The jailor’s question.—
1. Important. Concerning the salvation of the soul, the most momentous of human concerns.
2. Personal. Concerning individual salvation. Salvation a personal affair.
3. Urgent. No time for delay in this concern of the soul’s salvation.
II. The apostle’s answer.—
1. The simplicity of it. “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.” Nothing needful but faith.
2. The certainty of it. “Thou shalt be saved.” No peradventure.
3. The sufficiency of it. “And thy house.”
Act_16:23-34. The Story of the Jailor; or, the Moral and Spiritual History of a Soul.
I. A spiritual sleeper.—
1. Unconscious of his moral degradation (Act_16:24).
2. Insensible to his danger (Act_16:27).
II. An awakened sinner.—Roused from his bodily slumber by means of the earthquake, he instantly realised the peril in which he stood—
(1) bodily and temporarily (Act_16:27), and
(2) spiritually and eternally (Act_16:30).
III. An anxious inquirer.—Manifested by his exclamation, “Sirs! what must I do to be saved?” (Act_16:30), which referred exclusively to his deliverance from the spiritual alarm which had seized upon his soul.
IV. An eager listener.—This followed of necessity from his soul agitation and the sincerity of his exclamation. Anxious souls always hear the gospel with avidity (Act_16:32).
V. A humble penitent.—Evidenced by his gentle and affectionate treatment of the apostles (Act_16:33).
VI. A rejoicing believer (Act_16:34).—As faith cometh by hearing, so does joy spring from believing. Not joy is the source of faith, but faith is the source of joy.
VII. A baptised Christian.—“He and all his were baptised” (Act_16:33), and so incorporated in the Church of Christ.
Act_16:19-34. The Jailor at Philippi.
I. “Do you, jail keeper of Philippi, believe in being scared into religion? An earthquake—pardon the suggestion—is a shaky foundation for a religious resolve. Now do you believe in religion which begins in fear?” “The question is stated offensively, although in a popular form,” such is the jailor’s reply; “but I do believe that fear is a proper motive to religion and in religion. In my case it worked well. I came into the kingdom moved by fear, as the history plainly tells you. Other motives were present, but fear was foremost. The absence of fear would have been stolidity. It is the part of wisdom to be taught by events. In them God is the Teacher, and when events are fearful we ought to fear.” It is worth while to listen to the testimony of the jailor upon this point, because current religious thought of a superficial and sentimental sort hesitates to find a place for fear amongst the motives to religion. Fear “which takes counsel of the reason and not of the imagination” is a proper motive to religion and in religion. Noah was not playing the part of a craven in a truly courageous world when he, “moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house.” An apostle made no ill-judged appeal to fear when he said to impenitent men, “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” And now let us give to fear its true place amongst religious motives. Do the great hopes of the gospel fill and sway our hearts? Then away with fear! Does the love of God, like a summer’s atmosphere full of sweet odours, enfold our spirits in its warm embrace? Then away with fear! Does gratitude, the sense of infinite indebtedness to Him who loved us and gave Himself for us, stir our hearts, so that to lay our powers and possessions at his feet is only a grateful and easy task? Then away with fear. Is the sense of duty so dominant in our hearts that we are always ready to make payment of our dues to God? Then away with fear. But if none of these higher motives have control, then, as we love our souls, we ought not to allay our fears in any other way than by seeking the grace of God to save us from the danger which occasions fear. It is conceivable that the jailor might have reasoned with his fears until all apprehension vanished, but in so doing he would have lost his soul.
II. If we were permitted to make further inquiries of the jailor, a second query would arise. We should be disposed to say: “You were upon that night of the earthquake plunged into the greatest excitement. You were well-nigh beside yourself. Of a sudden, the record tells us, you whipped out your sword to take your own life. This therefore is our question, Do you believe in emotional religion?” “My own religious life began in a sudden and tidal sweep of the emotions,” is the reply. “They were emotions which I did not stop to analyse or question, and which I could not control. Confused, tumultuous feelings rushed and crowded in upon me. The sudden manifestation of the power of God, His marvellous interference in behalf of the prisoners, His no less wonderful interposition to prevent the escape of the prisoners; in some way there came to me suddenly and with overwhelming power the feeling that I was a lost soul; that I could not repress this feeling was my salvation. And besides this, it is to be remembered that no life is unemotional.” If a fervent religions experience seems to any one the commitment of life to the control of the emotions, be it remembered that irreligious experience has its controlling emotions also. The publican who smote upon his breast was an emotional man no doubt, but he was not more under the power of emotion in his penitence and humility than the Pharisee was emotional in the self-complacency which prompted his useless prayer; only a Pharisee’s emotion was narrower and meaner, an emotion occasioned by thought of self, while the publican’s higher emotion grew out of his thought of God. “I thank Thee that I don’t believe in emotional religion.” It is wise to turn over the pages of the Bible, and to review the lives of God’s chosen ones, the master-workmen of all time, to see whether or not their religion was emotional. The record will tell us of Elijah’s tempestuous emotion in the wilderness and before the prophets of Baal. The religion which God honours and loves and uses is one which not only convinces the intellect, but which powerfully sways the heart. In thoughtful communities the Church of these last times is in as little danger of undue emotion as the North Sea is in danger from the blasts of the sirocco, a wind which never blows north of Italy. A philosophic calmness in religion may proceed from a dim apprehension of what it is to be under condemnation for sin and a feeble gratitude to our Redeemer. God is in holy emotions; cultivate them by increasing your knowledge of Him. Follow them loyally. Do not think the Christian heart that never sings or weeps is the better therefor.
III. Were we permitted further to interrogate the jailor, we should be interested to seek answer to a third question. It is this: “Do you believe in sudden conversion? You will pardon us of these last times whose habits of thought are evolutionary, if we look upon character as a slow and steady growth. It results from education and training and habit and circumstances. What character is to-day is the result of what it was yesterday. To-morrow grows up out of to-day. Now, can any man be changed at once in the spirit and purpose of his life?” “That such a change is possible,” such is the jailor’s reply, “my own experience is the sufficient proof. I was converted suddenly and thoroughly; within an hour’s time I was convicted of sin, found peace with God, and did the first works of love. In that hour of visitation from the Spirit of the living God I was transformed. That midnight hour was the pivot upon which my life turned, the hour of destiny when by faith in Christ I laid fast hold upon the grace of God.”
IV. There is a final inquiry which we should place before the converted jailor, if he were present and willing to entertain our interrogations. “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.” It is of this answer that we wish to ask: “Is not this a narrow gospel? Are there not broader conceptions of the way of life? Is nothing to be said, when this great question is answered, of civilisation, of orderly, law-abiding life, of good citizenship, of morality, of neighbourly kindness, of a human endeavour and resolve to keep the commandments? Surely salvation must mean good character. Is not the command too narrow for the diversified conditions of the good and the bad, the wise and the ignorant, the cultured and the uncouth?” “The command is narrow,” is the courteous answer, “but not narrower than the way of life. Its adaptation to the diverse conditions of human experience each man must determine for himself. I can only bear testimony that it was marvellously fitted to my needs. I needed a power within to calm the tumult of my spirit, to quiet a guilty conscience, and that power came to me by faith in Jesus. I needed to learn the lesson of human pity and kindness, and having received faith in Jesus I arose and tenderly washed the stripes of Paul and Silas, and set before them the choicest food my house could furnish. Narrow? In my case it turned out to be the one duty out of which came a dutiful life.” If the command seems to be narrow, we have only to obey it to find it exceeding broad. It touches all character and truth.—W. G. Sperry.
Act_16:35. Let those Men go!
I. An order of fear.—The Philippian magistrates to the prison serjeants. Those who wrong their fellows are commonly delighted to be relieved of the presence of their victims; like Ammon, who, having humbled Tamar, hated her exceedingly, and said, “Arise, be gone!” (2Sa_13:15).
II. A command of love.—Jesus to His captors in the garden: “If ye seek Me, let these go their way” (Joh_18:8). A signal mark of Christ’s affection for His own, in whose behalf He was going forward to condemnation and death.
III. A sentence of justice.—God to believers, in whose room and stead Christ has suffered the penaly of sin: “There is no condemnation to them who are in Christ” (Rom_5:1). “He that believeth is passed from death unto life” (Joh_5:24).
IV. A proclamation of power.—The glorified Christ when He speaks over the graves of His people, as He did at Lazarus’s tomb (Joh_11:44): “Loose them, and let them go!” “The hour is coming,” etc. (Joh_5:28-29).
Act_16:40. The Brethren in Lydia’s House; or, the Church at Philippi.
I. Its original members.—
1. Lydia. That this lady is not mentioned in the epistle to the Philippians may have been due to her having died or returned to her native city before the epistle was written, unless the unlikely supposition be adopted that she was either Euodia or Syntyche. Had the epistle been a forgery she would most probably have been named.
2. The jailor. The same difficulty presents itself with regard to this early disciple, who also is passed over in silence, which shows how dangerous it is to draw conclusions from the omissions of a composer.
3. Euodia and Syntyche. Two Christian females (Php_4:2), who appear to have been somewhat estranged from one another at the time when Paul wrote to the Church in Philippi, unless the suggestion be adopted (Farrar) that Paul was only alluding to their “joint wrestlings for the gospel.”
4. Zyzygus and Clement. The former term, meaning “yoke-fellow,” has been taken as designating an individual of that name whom the apostle playfully addresses (Meyer, Farrar, and others)—an interpretation in support of which much can be advanced; but doubt remains whether, after all, it is not Epaphroditus (Php_4:18), to whom the apostle refers under this appellation (Hutchison). Of Clement, whom tradition reports to have been the third bishop of Rome, Paul’s letter affords no clue to the identification, resting satisfied with describing him as a fellow-worker, whose name, along with those of others, was written in the Book of Life.
II. Its original character.—Whatever it may have become in later years, when Paul wrote to it, its members were distinguished by several delightful features.
1. Steadfast faith. Firm adherence to the gospel (Php_1:5), even in the face of persecution (Php_1:28-30).
2. Joyful confidence. Exulting in Christ (Php_2:17-18), and in their personal experience of his salvation.
3. Tender sympathy with the apostle in his labours and afflictions (Php_4:14).
4. Generous liberality in contributing to the apostle’s needs (Php_4:15).
5. Laborious activity, working together for the advancement of the gospel (Php_1:27; Php_4:3).
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
William B. Godbey 1900 · Public Domain On v19 19-24. After the demon has evacuated the damsel, she…
19-24. After the demon has evacuated the damsel, she has no more power to tell fortunes and practice divination than any other person. Consequently, her owners, seeing that they can get no more money for her fortune-telling, fly with an awful rage against Paul, arouse the rabble, stirring up their European prejudices against these Asiatic intruders, exciting to their very utmost Gentile prejudices against these impudent and meddlesome Jews, accusing them of infringing upon their rights and privileges as Roman citizens. They so manipulate the uncouth rabble as to raise a general uproar against the apostles, maneuvering to deceive the Roman magistrates and precipitate them into a premature and illegal verdict, even foregoing the very form of a trial, so that they simply command the lictors to strip and beat them with their cruel rods pursuant to the Roman custom.
William B. Godbey, Commentary on the New Testament (1896–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On v19 Act 16:19 - Act 16:34.
Acts
THE RIOT AT PHILIPPI
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Act 16:19 - Act 16:34.
This incident gives us the Apostle’s first experience of purely Gentile opposition. The whole scene has a different stamp from that of former antagonisms, and reminds us that we have passed into Europe. The accusers and the grounds of accusation are new. Formerly Jews had led the attack; now Gentiles do so. Crimes against religion were charged before; now crimes against law and order. Hence the narrative is more extended, in accordance with the prevailing habit of the book, to dilate on the first of a series and to summarise subsequent members of it. We may note the unfounded charge and unjust sentence; the joyful confessors and the answer to their trust; the great light that shone on the jailer’s darkness.
I. This was a rough beginning of the work undertaken at the call of Christ.
Less courageous and faithful men might have thought, ‘Were we right in “assuredly gathering” that His hand pointed us hither, since this is the reception we find?’ But though the wind meets us as soon as we clear the harbour, the salt spray dashing in our faces is no sign that we should not have left shelter. A difficult beginning often means a prosperous course; and hardships are not tokens of having made a mistake.
The root of the first antagonism to the Gospel in Europe was purely mercenary. The pythoness’s masters had no horror of Paul’s doctrines. They were animated by no zeal for Apollo. They only saw a source of profit drying up. Infinitely more respectable was Jewish opposition, which was, at all events, the perverted working of noble sentiments. Zeal for religion, even when the zeal is impure and the notions of religion imperfect, is higher than mere anger at pecuniary loss. How much of the opposition since and to-day comes from the same mean source! Lust and appetite organise profitable trades, in which ‘the money has no smell,’ however foul the cesspool from which it has been brought. And when Christian people set themselves against these abominations, capital takes the command of the mob of drink-sellers and consumers, or of those from haunts of fleshly sin, and shrieks about interfering with honest industry, and seeking to enforce sour-faced Puritanism on society. The Church may be very sure that it is failing in some part of its duty, if there is no class of those who fatten on providing for sin howling at its heels, because it is interfering with the hope of their gains.
The charge against the little group took no heed of the real character of their message. It artfully put prominent their nationality. These early anti-Semitic agitators knew the value of a good solid prejudice, and of a nickname. ‘Jews’-that was enough. The rioters were ‘Romans’-of a sort, no doubt, but it was poor pride for a Macedonian to plume himself on having lost his nationality. The great crime laid to Paul’s charge was-troubling the city. So it always is. Whether it be George Fox, or John Wesley, or the Salvation Army, the disorderly elements of every community attack the preachers of the Gospel in the name of order, and break the peace in their eagerness to have it kept. There was no ‘trouble’ in Philippi, but the uproar which they themselves were making. The quiet praying-place by the riverside, and the silencing of the maiden’s shout in the streets, were not exactly the signs of disturbers of civic tranquillity.
The accuracy of the charge may be measured by the ignorance of the accusers that Paul and his friends were in any way different from the run of Jews. No doubt they were supposed to be teaching Jewish practices, which were supposed to be inconsistent with Roman citizenship. But if the magistrates had said, ‘What customs?’ the charge would have collapsed. Thank God, the Gospel has a witness to bear against many ‘customs’; but it does not begin by attacking even these, much less by prescribing illegalities. Its errand was and is to the individual first. It sets the inner man right with God, and then the new life works itself out, and will war against evils which the old life deemed good; but the conception of Christianity as a code regulating actions is superficial, whether it is held by friends or foes.
There is always a mob ready to follow any leader, especially if there is the prospect of hurting somebody. The lovers of tranquillity showed how they loved it by dragging Paul and Silas into the forum, and bellowing untrue charges against them. The mob seconded them; ‘they rose up together [with the slave-owners] against Paul and Silas.’ The magistrates, knowing the ticklish material that they had to deal with, and seeing only a couple of Jews from nobody knew where, did not think it worth while to inquire or remonstrate. They were either cowed or indifferent; and so, to show how zealous they and the mob were for Roman law, they drove a coach-and-six clean through it, and without the show of investigation, scourged and threw into prison the silent Apostles. It was a specimen of what has happened too often since. How many saints have been martyred to keep popular feeling in good tune! And how many politicians will strain conscience to-day, because they are afraid of what Luke here unpolitely calls ‘the multitude,’ or as we might render it, ‘the mob,’ but which we now fit with a much more respectful appellation!
The jailer, on his part, in the true spirit of small officials, was ready to better his instructions. It is dangerous to give vague directions to such people. When the judge has ordered unlawful scourging, the turnkey is not likely to interpret the requirement of safe keeping too leniently. One would not look for much human kindness in a Philippian jail. So it was natural that the deepest, darkest, most foul-smelling den should he chosen for the two, and that they should he thrust, bleeding backs and all, into the stocks, to sleep if they could.
II. These birds could sing in a darkened cage.
The jailer’s treatment of them after his conversion shows what he had neglected to do at first. They had no food; their bloody backs were unsponged; they were thrust into a filthy hole, and put in a posture of torture. No wonder that they could not sleep! But what hindered sleep would, with most men, have sorely dimmed trust and checked praise. Not so with them. God gave them ‘songs in the night.’ We can hear the strains through all the centuries, and they bid us be cheerful and trustful, whatever befalls. Surely Christian faith never is more noble than when it triumphs over circumstances, and brings praises from lips which, if sense had its way, would wail and groan. ‘This is the victory that overcometh the world.’ The true anaesthetic is trust in God. No wonder that the baser sort of prisoners-and base enough they probably were-’were listening to them,’ for such sounds had never been heard there before. In how many a prison have they been heard since!
We are not told that the Apostles prayed for deliverance. Such deliverance had not been always granted. Peter indeed had been set free, but Stephen and James had been martyred, and these two heroes had no ground to expect a miracle to free them. But thankful trust is always an appeal to God. And it is always answered, whether by deliverance from or support in trial.
This time deliverance came. The tremor of the earth was the token of God’s answer. It does not seem likely that an earthquake could loosen fetters in a jail full of prisoners, but more probably the opening of the doors and the falling off of the chains were due to a separate act of divine power, the earthquake being but the audible token thereof. At all events, here again, the first of a series has distinguishing features, and may stand as type of all its successors. God will never leave trusting hearts to the fury of enemies. He sometimes will stretch out a hand and set them free, He sometimes will leave them to bear the utmost that the world can do, but He will always hear their cry and save them. Paul had learned the lesson which Philippi was meant to teach, when he said, though anticipating a speedy death by martyrdom, ‘The Lord will deliver me from every evil work, and will save me into His heavenly Kingdom.’
III. The jailer behaves as such a man in his position would do.
He apparently slept in a place that commanded a view of the doors; and he lay dressed, with his sword beside him, in case of riot or attempted escape. His first impulse on awaking is to look at the gates. They are open; then some of his charge have broken them. His immediate thought of suicide not only shows the savage severity of punishment which he knew would fall on him, but tells a dreary tale of the desperate sense of the worthlessness of life and blank ignorance of anything beyond which then infected the Roman world. Suicide, the refuge of cowards or of pessimists, sometimes becomes epidemic. Faith must have died and hope vanished before a man can say, ‘I will take the leap into the dark.’
Paul’s words freed the man from one fear, but woke a less selfish and profounder awe. What did all this succession of strange things mean? Here are doors open; how came that? Here are prisoners with the possibility of escape refusing it; how came that? Here is one of his victims tenderly careful of his life and peacefulness, and taking the upper hand of him; how came that? A nameless awe begins to creep over him; and when he gets lights, and sees the two whom he had made fast in the stocks standing there free, and yet not caring to go forth, his rough nature is broken down. He recognises his superiors. He remembers the pythoness’s testimony, that they told ‘the way of salvation.’
His question seems ‘psychologically impossible’ to critics, who have probably never asked it themselves. Wonderful results follow from the judicious use of that imposing word ‘psychologically’; but while we are not to suppose that this man knew all that ‘salvation’ meant, there is no improbability in his asking such a question, if due regard is paid to the whole preceding events, beginning with the maiden’s words, and including the impression of Paul’s personality and the mysterious freeing of the prisoners.
His dread was the natural fear that springs when a man is brought face to face with God; and his question, vague and ignorant as it was, is the cry of the dim consciousness that lies dormant in all men-the consciousness of needing deliverance and healing. It erred in supposing that he had to ‘do’ anything; but it was absolutely right in supposing that he needed salvation, and that Paul could tell him how to get it. How many of us, knowing far more than he, have never asked the same wise question, or have never gone to Paul for an answer? It is a question which we should all ask; for we all need salvation, which is deliverance from danger and healing for soul-sickness.
Paul’s answer is blessedly short and clear. Its brevity and decisive plainness are the glory of the Gospel. It crystallises into a short sentence the essential directory for all men.
See how little it takes to secure salvation. But see how much it takes; for the hardest thing of all is to be content to accept it as a gift, ‘without money and without price.’ Many people have listened to sermons all their lives, and still have no clear understanding of the way of salvation. Alas that so often the divine simplicity and brevity of Paul’s answer are darkened by a multitude of irrelevant words and explanations which explain nothing!
The passage ends with the blessing which we may all receive. Of course the career begun then had to be continued by repeated acts of faith, and by growing knowledge and obedience. The incipient salvation is very incomplete, but very real. There is no reason to doubt that, for some characters, the only way of becoming Christians is to become so by one dead-lift of resolution. Some things are best done slowly; some things best quickly. One swift blow makes a cleaner fracture than filing or sawing. The light comes into some lives like sunshine in northern latitudes, with long dawn and slowly growing brightness; but in some the sun leaps into the sky in a moment, as in the tropics. What matter how long it takes to rise, if it does rise, and climb to the zenith?
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. W. McGarvey 1914 · Public Domain On vv19–21 19-21. (19) " Then her masters, seeing that the…
19-21. (19) " Then her masters, seeing that the hope of their gain was gone, seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the market-place to the rulers, (20) and leading him forward to the magistrates, they said, These men, being Jews, do exceedingly trouble our city, (21) and are announcing customs which it is unlawful for us, being Romans, to receive or to observe. " In this accusation, the real cause of complaint was concealed, for several reasons: First, The disinterested multitude would naturally sympathize with the girl who had been restored to her mind, rather than with the masters who had made her misfortune a source of profit. Second, To have made prominent the fact that Paul, by a word, had expelled the demon, would have made an impression favorable to him and his cause. But the Jews and their religion were particularly obnoxious to the Romans, and hence, when the accusation was made by men of wealth and influence, that these men, " being Jews, " were introducing customs contrary to the religion and laws of Rome, it was easy to excite the populace against them.
J. W. McGarvey (with Philip Y. Pendleton), Commentaries on the New Testament (The Fourfold Gospel, 1914; Acts; and the epistles) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On vv19–20 (Greek - Α ," probably by the feet). Cf.…
drew
(Greek - Α ," probably by the feet). Cf. Act 14:19.
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On v19 Paul and Silas imprisoned:
Paul and Silas imprisoned:
v. 19. And when her masters saw that the hope of their gains was gone, they caught Paul and Silas, and drew them into the marketplace unto the rulers,
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v. 20. and brought them to the magistrates, saying, These men, being Jews, do exceedingly trouble our city,
v. 21. and teach customs which are not lawful for us to receive, neither to observe, being Romans.
v. 22. And the multitude rose up together against them; and the magistrates rent off their clothes, and commanded to beat them.
v. 23. And when they had laid many stripes upon them, they cast them into prison, charging the jailer to keep them safely;
v. 24. who, having received such a charge, thrust them into the inner prison, and made their feet fast in the stocks.
When the evil spirit went out of the slave-girl, the hope of gain of her masters also went out, as Luke notes, in a fine play upon the word. The income from this source was not only endangered, but was cut off entirely, a fact which touched them in their most sensitive spot. But when the owners of the girl realized this, they were filled with anger. Laying hold upon Paul and Silas, they half pulled and half dragged them to the market-place, to the forum, before the magistrates of the city. Here they became a little less turbulent in their behavior, leading their prisoners up to the praetors with some semblance of order and decency. The praetors were the chief authorities of the city, whose duty it was to try all cases of a political nature. The official title of the two men was duoviri, but they often styled themselves praetors. The charge of the masters of the slave was somewhat peculiar. They declared that Paul and Silas, Jews as they were, were not only creating a disturbance in the city, but were agitating the town by proclaiming such religious customs as would not be proper for them to accept and to exercise, since they were Romans. The complaint then was, in brief, that the apostles were upsetting the entire social and religious system of the city, a fact all the more to be condemned since the accused belonged to the despised Jews. The insinuation, which hinted at the introduction of prohibited religious customs of a particularly objectionable kind, as well as the fact that the men were Jews, was sufficient to rouse the multitude present in the forum, a mob which was easily incensed and swayed. Without so much as giving the prisoners an opportunity of defending themselves against the charges, the praetors led in the assault upon them by causing their clothes to be torn from their bodies and then commanding them to be beaten with rods, a grievous and degrading punishment. Only after many lashes had been laid upon Paul and Silas was the first fury satisfied. But then came the further indignity, according to which the praetors cast them into prison and gave the keeper of the jail the earnest charge to keep them safely with all diligence and rigor. This command the keeper interpreted in his own way, influenced possibly also by his own feeling in the matter, for he not only put them into the inner prison, with several walls between them and freedom and a minimum of light and air to cheer them, but he also secured their feet in the stocks, a wooden instrument of torture in which the feet were tightly clamped, holding them firmly in one position and thereby causing a good deal of pain. The clamping of the feet in the stocks interfered with the circulation and cramped the muscles, a torture which became more unendurable with every minute. Note: Every confessor of Christ and of the Gospel is liable to be treated in the same way, to become a partaker of the reproach of Christ. And those men especially that proclaim the way of salvation are considered disturbers of the peace and insurrectionists by the children of the world.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On v19 her masters
her masters
"the owners of the slave girl"
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When her masters saw that their opportunity to make money was now gone
It can be stated clearly why they no longer hoped to make money. AT: "When her masters saw that she could no longer earn money for them by telling fortunes" (See: Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)
into the marketplace
"into the public square." This is a public place of business, where buying and selling of goods, cattle, or services takes place.
before the authorities
"into the presence of the authorities" or "so that the authorities could judge them"
When they had brought them to the magistrates
"When they had brought them to the judges"
magistrates
rulers, judges
These men are stirring up our city
Here the word "our" refers to the people of the city and includes the magistrates who ruled it. (See: Inclusive "We")
to accept or practice
"to believe or to obey" or "to accept or to do"
translationWords
lord
hope
seize
Paul
Silas
authority
magistrate
Jew
lawful
receive
Rome
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On v19 16:19-21 As in the ministry of Jesus, sometimes the…
16:19-21 As in the ministry of Jesus, sometimes the Good News threatened established commercial interests (see also 19:25-27; Mark 5:1-20). The slave girl’s exploiters viciously attacked the missionaries and dragged them before the authorities as criminals, blamed them for fomenting a disturbance, resorted to racial bias (these Jews), and appealed to the Philippians’ pride (us Romans; the Philippians prided themselves on being Roman citizens of a Roman colony). • customs that are illegal: By law, Jews were not permitted to make converts of Romans.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.