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.”
The multitude rose up together against them and the magistrates tore their clothes from them, then commanded them to be beaten with rods. When they had laid many stripes on them, they threw them into prison, charging the jailer to keep them safely, who, having received such a command, threw them into the inner prison, and secured their feet in the stocks.
But about midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them. Suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken; and immediately all the doors were opened, and everyone’s bonds were loosened. The jailer, being roused out of sleep and seeing the prison doors open, drew his sword and was about to kill himself, supposing that the prisoners had escaped. But Paul cried with a loud voice, saying, “Don’t harm yourself, for we are all here!”
He called for lights, sprang in, fell down trembling before Paul and Silas, brought them out, and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”
They said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household.” They spoke the word of the Lord to him, and to all who were in his house.
He took them the same hour of the night and washed their stripes, and was immediately baptized, he and all his household. He brought them up into his house, and set food before them, and rejoiced greatly, with all his household, having believed in God.
John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain On vv19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 26, 27, 29, 30, 31, 33, 34 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, 20, 21, 22, 24, 25, 27, 28, 33 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 vv19–34 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 vv19–34 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.
William Burkitt 1703 · Public Domain On vv25, 29, 33, 34 The apostles are here, by Satan and his instruments,…
The apostles are here, by Satan and his instruments, cast into prison; but observe, they had their prison-comforts.
1. The joy of their hearts runs out at their lips: they sang praises unto God, when their bodies were in prison, and their feet were in the stocks; these holy servants of God were not only meek and patient, but joyous and cheerful under persecution, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for him who had undergone so much indignity and shame for them.
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2. They enjoy sweet communion with God in prayer: At midnight they prayed, and the prisoners heard them. No place can be improper, no time unseasonable, for prayer. No prison can bolt out God, nor deprive us of our communion with him: prayer will get up to heaven in spite of all opposition either of hell or earth.
Observe, 3. How sudden the answer, and how sensible the return of prayer was which the Lord graciously gave his suffering servants: Suddenly there was a great earthquake. This earthquake was an infallible sign of God’s audience; that he heard them, and would stand by them.
Observe, 4. The powerful efficacy of St. Paul’s prayer: his prayer shook the heavens, the heavens shook the earth, the earth shook the prison, even to the very foundations of it. Prayer has a divine kind of omnipotency in it: Vincit invincibilem et light omnipotentem: "It overcomes God with his own strength."
Observe, 5. What influence this earthquake had upon the gaoler: it occcasioned such an heartquake in him, that to give himself ease, silly soul, he resolves to murder himself.
Lord! how miserable are the consolations which the carnal and unregenerate world have recourse and fly unto, when trouble and distress take hold upon them! They run to an halter, to rid them of their trouble, having no God to go unto, and thereby plunge themselves into endless troubles, yea, eternal torments.
Observe, lastly, How kind the apostle was to his cruel keeper: he that hurt the apostles’ feet with the stocks, hears the apostles crying unto him in the midst of the earthquake, Do thyself no harm. Good men ever have been, and are, men of tender and compassionate dispositions; not so solicitous for their own liberties, as for others’ lives. The apostles might have held their peace, and suffered the gaoler to have slain himself, and thereby made their own escape; but they preferred the gaoler’s eternal salvation before their own temporal liberty and happiness: Paul cried with a loud voice, saying, Do thyself no harm.
William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On v25 We have here the designs of the persecutors of…
We have here the designs of the persecutors of Paul and Silas baffled and broken.
I. The persecutors designed to dishearten and discourage the preachers of the gospel, and to make them sick of the cause and weary of their work; but here we find them both hearty and heartened.
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1. They were themselves hearty, wonderfully hearty; never were poor prisoners so truly cheerful, nor so far from laying their hard usage to heart. Let us consider what their case was. The praetors among the Romans had rods carried before them, and axes bound upon them, the fasces and secures. Now they had felt the smart of the rods, the ploughers had ploughed upon their backs, and made long furrows. The many stripes they had laid upon them were very sore, and one might have expected to hear them complaining of them, of the rawness and soreness of their backs and shoulders. Yet this was not all; they had reason to fear the axes next. Their master was first scourged and then crucified; and they might expect the same. In the mean time they were in the inner prison, their feet in the stocks, which, some think, not only held them, but hurt them; and yet, at midnight, when they should have been trying, if possible, to get a little rest, they prayed and sang praises to God. (1.) They prayed together, prayed to God to support them and comfort them in their afflictions, to visit them, as he did Joseph in the prison, and to be with them, - prayed that their consolations in Christ might abound, as their afflictions for him did, - prayed that even their bonds and stripes might turn to the furtherance of the gospel, - prayed for their persecutors, that God would forgive them and turn their hearts. This was not at an hour of prayer, but at midnight; it was not in a house of prayer, but in a dungeon; yet it was seasonable to pray, and the prayer was acceptable. As in the dark, so out of the depths, we may cry unto God. No place, no time, amiss for prayer, if the heart be lifted up to God. Those that are companions in suffering should join in prayer. Is any afflicted? Let him pray. No trouble, how grievous soever, should indispose us for prayer. (2.) They sang praises to God. They praised God; for we must in every thing give thanks. We never want matter for praise, if we do not want a heart. And what should put the heart of a child of God out of tune for this duty if a dungeon and a pair of stocks will not do it? They praised God that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for his name, and that they were so wonderfully supported and borne up under their sufferings, and felt divine consolations so sweet, so strong, in their souls. Nay, they not only praised God, but they sang praises to him, in some psalm, or hymn, or spiritual song, either one of David's, or some modern composition, or one of their own, as the Spirit gave them utterance. As our rule is that the afflicted should pray, and therefore, being in affliction, they prayed; so our rule is that the merry should sing psalms (Jam 5:13), and therefore, being merry in their affliction, merry after a godly sort, they sang psalms. This proves that the singing of psalms is a gospel ordinance, and ought to be used by all good Christians; and that it is instituted, not only for the expressing of their joys in a day of triumph, but for the balancing and relieving of their sorrows in a day of trouble. It was at midnight that they sang psalms, according to the example of the sweet psalmist of Israel (Psa 119:62): At midnight will I rise to give thanks unto thee. (3.) Notice is here taken of the circumstance that the prisoners heard them. If the prisoners did not hear them pray, yet they heard them sing praises. [1.] It intimates how hearty they were in singing praises to God; they sang so loud that, though they were in the dungeon, they were heard all the prison over; nay, so loud that they woke the prisoners: for we may suppose, being at midnight, they were all asleep. We should sing psalms with all our heart. The saints are called upon to sing aloud upon their beds, Psa 149:5. But gospel grace carries the matter further, and gives us an example of those that sang aloud in the prison, in the stocks. [2.] Though they knew the prisoners would hear them, yet they sang aloud, as those that were not ashamed of their Master, nor of his service. Shall those that would sing psalms in their families plead, in excuse for their omission of the duty, that they are afraid their neighbours should hear them, when those that sing profane songs roar them our, and care not who hears them? [3.] The prisoners were made to hear the prison-songs of Paul and Silas, that they might be prepared for the miraculous favour shown to them all for the sake of Paul and Silas, when the prison-doors were thrown open. By this extraordinary comfort with which they were filled it was published that he whom they preached was the consolation of Israel. Let the prisoners that mean to oppose him hear and tremble before him; let those that are faithful to him hear and triumph, and take of the comfort that is spoken to the prisoners of hope, Zac 9:12.
2. God heartened them wonderfully by his signal appearances for them, Act 16:26. (1.) There was immediately a great earthquake; how far it extended we are not told, but it was such a violent shock in this place that the very foundations of the prison were shaken. While the prisoners were hearkening to the midnight devotions of Paul and Silas, and perhaps laughing at them and making a jest of them, this earthquake would strike a terror upon them, and convince them that those men were the favourites of Heaven, and such as God owned. We had the house of prayer shaken, in answer to prayer, and as a token of God's acceptance of it, Act 4:31. Here the prison shaken. The Lord was in these earthquakes, to show his resentment of the indignities done to his servants, to testify to those whose confidence is in the earth the weakness and instability of that which they confide, and to teach people that, though the earth be moved, yet they need not fear. (2.) The prison-doors were thrown open, and the prisoners' fetters were knocked off: Every man's bands were loosed. Perhaps the prisoners, when they heard Paul and Silas pray and sing psalms, admired them, and spoke honourably of them, and said what the damsel had said of them, Surely, these men are the servants of the living God. To recompense them for, and confirm them in, their good opinion of them, they share in the miracle, and have their bands loosed; as afterwards God gave to Paul all those that were in the ship with him (Act 27:24), so now he gave him all those that were in the prison with him. God hereby signified to these prisoners, as Grotius observes, that the apostles, in preaching the gospel, were public blessings to mankind, as they proclaimed liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison-doors to those that were bound, Isa 61:1. Et per eos solvi animorum vincula - and as by them the bonds of souls were unloosed.
II. The persecutors designed to stop the progress of the gospel, that no more might embrace it; thus they hoped to ruin the meeting by the river side, that no more hearts should be opened there; but here we find converts made in the prison, that house turned into a meeting, the trophies of the gospel's victories erected there, and the jailer, their own servant, become a servant of Christ. It is probable that some of the prisoners, if not all, were converted; surely the miracle wrought on their bodies, in loosing their bands, was wrought on their souls too. See Job 36:8-10; Psa 107:14, Psa 107:15. But it is only the conversion of the jailer that is recorded.
1. He is afraid he shall lose his life, and Paul makes him easy as to this care, Act 16:27, Act 16:28. (1.) He awoke out of his sleep. It is probable that the shock of the earthquake woke him, and the opening of the prison-doors, and the prisoners' expressions of joy and amazement, when in the dark they found their bands loosed, and called to tell one another what they felt: this was enough to awaken the jailer, whose place required that he should not be hard to wake. This waking him out of his sleep signified the awakening of his conscience out of its spiritual slumber. The call of the gospel is, Awake, thou that sleepest (Eph 5:14), like that of Jonah, Jon 1:6. (2.) He saw the prison-doors open, and supposed, as well he might, that the prisoners had fled; and then what would become of him? He knew the Roman law in that case, and it was executed not long ago upon the keepers out of whose hands Peter escaped, Act 12:19. It was according to that of the prophet, Kg1 20:39, Kg1 20:42, Keep this man; if he be missing, thy life shall go for his life. The Roman lawyers after this, in their readings upon the law, De custodia reorum - The custody of criminals (which appoints that the keeper should undergo the same punishment that should have been inflicted on the prisoner if he let him escape), take care to except an escape by miracle. (3.) In his fright he drew his sword, and was going to kill himself, to prevent a more terrible death, and expected one, a pompous ignominious death, which he knew he was liable to for letting his prisoners escape and not looking better to them; and the extraordinarily strict charge which the magistrates gave him concerning Paul and Silas made him conclude they would be very severe upon him if they were gone. The philosophers generally allowed self-murder. Seneca prescribes it as the last remedy which those that are in distress may have recourse to. The Stoics, notwithstanding their pretended conquest of the passions, yielded thus far to them. And the Epicureans, who indulged the pleasures of sense, to avoid its pains chose rather to put an end to it. This jailer thought there was no harm in anticipating his own death; but Christianity proves itself to be of God by this, that it keeps us to the law of our creation - revives, enforces, and establishes it, obliges us to be just to our own lives, and teaches us cheerfully to resign them to our graces, but courageously to hold them out against our corruptions. (4.) Paul stopped him from his proceeding against himself (Act 16:28): He cried with a loud voice, not only to make him hear, but to make him heed, saying, Do not practise any evil to thyself; Do thyself no harm. All the cautions of the word of God against sin, and all appearances of it and approaches to it, have this tendency, "Do thyself no harm. Man, woman, do not wrong thyself, nor ruin thyself; hurt not thyself, and then none else can hurt thee; do not sin, for nothing else can hurt thee." Even as to the body, we are cautioned against those sins which do harm to it, and are taught to hate our own flesh, but to nourish and cherish it. The jailer needs not fear being called to an account for the escape of his prisoners, for they are all here. It was strange that some of them did not slip away, when the prison-doors were opened, and they were loosed from their bands; but their amazement held them fast, and, being sensible it was by the prayers of Paul and Silas that they were loosed, they would not stir unless they stirred; and God showed his power in binding their spirits, as much as in loosing their feet.
2. He is afraid he shall lose his soul, and Paul makes him easy as to this care too. One concern leads him to another, and a much greater; and, being hindered from hastening himself out of this world, he begins to think, if he had pursued his intention, whither death would have brought him, and what would have become of him on the other side death - a very proper thought for such as have been snatched as a brand out of the fire, when there was but a step between them and death. Perhaps the heinousness of the sin he was running into helped to alarm him.
(1.) Whatever was the cause, he was put into a great consternation. The Spirit of God, that was sen to convince, in order to his being a Comforter, struck a terror upon him, and startled him. Whether he took care to shut the prison-doors again we are not told. Perhaps he forgot this as the woman of Samaria, when Christ had impressed convictions on her conscience, left her water-pot and forgot her errand to the well; for he called for a light with all speed, and sprang in to the inner prison, and came trembling to Paul and Silas. Those that have sin set in order before them, and are made to know their abominations, cannot but tremble at the apprehension of their misery and danger. This jailer, when he was thus made to tremble, could not apply to a more proper person than to Paul, for it had once been his own case; he had been once a persecutor of good men, as this jailer was - had cast them into prison, as he kept them - and when, like him, he was made sensible of it, he trembled, and was astonished; and therefore he was able to speak the more feelingly to the jailer.
(2.) In this consternation, he applied to Paul and Silas for relief. Observe, [1.] How reverent and respectful his address to them is: He called for a light, because they were in the dark, and that they might see what a fright he was in; he fell down before them, as one amazed at the badness of his own condition, and ready to sink under the load of his terror because of it; he fell down before them, as one that had upon his spirit an awe of them, and of the image of God upon them, and of their commission from God. It is probable that he had heard what the damsel said of them, that they were the servants of the living God, who showed to them the way of salvation, and as such he thus expressed his veneration for them. He fell down before them, to beg their pardon, as a penitent, for the indignities he had done them, and to beg their advice, as a supplicant, what he should do. He gave them a title of respect, Sirs, kurioi - lords, masters; just now it was, Rogues and villains, and he was their master; but now, Sirs, lords, and they are his masters. Converting grace changes people's language of and to good people and good ministers; and, to such as are thoroughly convinced of sin, the very feet of those that bring tidings of Christ are beautiful; yea, though they are disgracefully fastened in the stocks. [2.] How serious his enquiry is: What must I do to be saved? First, His salvation is now his great concern, and lies nearest his heart, which before was the furthest thing from his thoughts. Not, What shall I do to be preferred, to be rich and great in the world? but, What shall I do to be saved? Secondly, He does not enquire concerning others, what they must do; but concerning himself, "What must I do?" It is his own precious soul that he is in care about: "Let others do as they please; tell me what I must do, what course I must take." Thirdly, He is convinced that something must be done, and done by him too, in order to his salvation: that it is not a thing of course, a thing that will do itself, but a thing about which we must strive, wrestle, and take pains. He asks not, "What may be done for me?" but, "What shall I do, that, being now in fear and trembling, I may work out my salvation?" as Paul speaks in his epistle to the church at Philippi, of which this jailer was, perhaps with respect to his trembling enquiry here, intimating that he must not only ask after salvation (as he had done), but work out his salvation with a holy trembling, Phi 2:12. Fourthly, He is willing to do any thing: "Tell me what I must do, and I am here ready to do it. Sirs, put me into any way, if it be but the right way, and a sure way; though narrow, and thorny, and uphill, yet I will walk in it." Note, Those who are thoroughly convinced of sin, and truly concerned about their salvation, will surrender at discretion to Jesus Christ, will give him a blank to write what he pleases, will be glad to have Christ upon his own terms, Christ upon any terms. Fifthly, He is inquisitive what he should do, is desirous to know what he should do, and asks those that were likely to tell him. If you will enquire, enquire ye, Isa 21:12. Those that set their faces Zionward must ask the way thither, Jer 50:5. We cannot know it of ourselves, but God has made it known to us by his word, has appointed his ministers to assist us in consulting the scriptures, and has promised to give his Holy Spirit to those that ask him, to be their guide in the way of salvation. Sixthly, He brought them out, to put this question to them, that their answer might not be by duress or compulsion, but that they might prescribe to him, though he was their keeper, with the same liberty as they did to others. He brings them out of the dungeon, in hopes they will bring him out of a much worse.
(3.) They very readily directed him what he must do, Act 16:31. They were always ready to answer such enquiries; though they are cold, and sore, and sleepy, they do not adjourn this cause to a more convenient time and place, do not bod him come to them the next sabbath at their meeting-place by the river side, and they will tell him, but they strike while the iron is hot, take him now when he is in a good mind, lest the conviction should wear off. Now that God begins to work, it is time for them to set in as workers together with God. They do not upbraid him with his rude and ill carriage towards them, and his going beyond his warrant; all this is forgiven and forgotten, and they are as glad to show him the way to heaven as the best friend they have. They did not triumph over him, though he trembled; they gave him the same directions they did to others, Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. One would think they should have said, "Repent of thy abusing us, in the first place." No, that is overlooked and easily passed by, if he will but believe in Christ. This is an example to ministers to encourage penitents, to meet those that are coming to Christ and take them by the hand, not to be hard upon any for unkindness done to them, but to seek Christ's honour more than their own. Here is the sum of the whole gospel, the covenant of grace in a few words: Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house. Here is, [1.] The happiness promised: "Thou shalt be saved; not only rescued from eternal ruin, but brought to eternal life and blessedness. Though thou art a poor man, an under-jailer or turnkey, mean and of low condition in the world, yet this shall be no bar to thy salvation. Though a great sinner, though a persecutor, yet thy heinous transgressions shall be all forgiven through the merits of Christ; and thy hard embittered heart shall be softened and sweetened by the grace of Christ, and thus thou shalt neither die for thy crime nor die of thy disease." [2.] The condition required: Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. We must admit the record that God hath given in his gospel concerning his Son, and assent to it as faithful, and well worthy of all acceptation. We must approve the method God has taken of reconciling the world to himself by a Mediator; and accept of Christ as he is offered to us, and give up ourselves to be ruled and taught and saved by him. This is the only way and a sure way to salvation. No other way of salvation than by Christ, and no other way of our being saved by Christ than by believing in him; and no danger of coming short if we take this way, for it is the way that God has appointed, and he is faithful that has promised. It is the gospel that is to be preached to every creature, He that believes shall be saved. [3.] The extension of this to his family: Thou shalt be saved, and thy house; that is, "God will be in Christ a God to thee and to thy seed, as he was to Abraham. Believe, and salvation shall come to thy house, as Luk 19:9. Those of thy house that are infants shall be admitted into the visible church with thee, and thereby put into a fair way for salvation; those that are grown up shall have the means of salvation brought to them, and, be they ever so many, let them believe in Jesus Christ and they shall be saved; they are all welcome to Christ upon the same terms."
(4.) They proceeded to instruct him and his family in the doctrine of Christ (Act 16:32): They spoke unto him the word of the Lord. He was, for aught that appears, an utter stranger to Christ, and therefore it is requisite he should be told who this Jesus is, that he may believe in him, Joh 9:36. And, the substance of the matter lying in a little compass, they soon told him enough to make his being baptized a reasonable service. Christ's ministers should have the word of the Lord so ready to them, and so richly dwelling in them, as to be able to give instructions offhand to any that desire to hear and receive them, for their direction in the way of salvation. They spoke the word not only to him, but to all that were in his house. Masters of families should take care that all under their charge partake of the means of knowledge and grace, and that the word of the Lord be spoken to them; for the souls of the poorest servants are as precious as those of their masters, and are bought with the same price.
(5.) The jailer and his family were immediately baptized, and thereby took upon them the profession of Christianity, submitted to its laws, and were admitted to its privileges, upon their declaring solemnly, as the eunuch did, that they believed that Jesus Christ is the Son of God: He was baptized, he and all his, straightway. Neither he nor any of his family desired time to consider whether they should come into baptismal bonds or no; nor did Paul and Silas desire time to try their sincerity and to consider whether they should baptize them or no. But the Spirit of grace worked such a strong faith in them, all on a sudden, as superseded further debate; and Paul and Silas knew by the Spirit that it was a work of God that was wrought in them: so that there was no occasion for demur. This therefore will not justify such precipitation in ordinary cases.
(6.) The jailer was hereupon very respectful to Paul and Silas, as one that knew not how to make amends for the injury he had done to them, much less for the kindness he had received from them: He took them the same hour of the night, would not let them lie a minute longer in the inner prison; but, [1.] He washed their stripes, to cool them, and abate the smart of them; to clean them from the blood which the stripes had fetched. It is probable that he bathed them with some healing liquor, as the good Samaritan helped the wounded man by pouring in oil and wine. [2.] He brought them into his house, bade them welcome to the best room he had, and prepared his best bed for them. Now nothing was thought good enough for them, as before nothing bad enough. [3.] He set meat before them, such as his house would afford, and they were welcome to it, by which he expressed the welcome which his soul gave to the gospel. They had spoken to him the word of the Lord, had broken the bread of life to him and his family; and he, having reaped so plentifully of their spiritual things, thought it was but reasonable that they should reap of his carnal things, Co1 9:11. What have we houses and tables for but as we have opportunity to serve God and his people with them?
(7.) The voice of rejoicing with that of salvation was heard in the jailer's house; never was such a truly merry night kept there before: He rejoiced, believing in God, with all his house. There was none in his house that refused to be baptized, and so made a jar in the harmony; but they were unanimous in embracing the gospel, which added much to the joy. Or it may be read, He, believing in God, rejoiced all the house over; panoiki - he went to every apartment, expressing his joy. Observe, [1.] His believing in Christ is called believing in God, which intimates that Christ is God, and that the design of the gospel is so far from being to draw us from God (saying, Go serve other gods, Deu 13:2) that it has a direct tendency to bring us to God. [2.] His faith produced joy. Those that by faith have given up themselves to God in Christ as theirs have a great deal of reason to rejoice. The eunuch, when he was converted, went on his way rejoicing; and here the jailer rejoiced. The conversion of the nations is spoken of in the Old Testament as their rejoicing, Psa 67:4; Psa 96:11. For, believing, we rejoice with joy unspeakable, and full of glory. Believing in Christ is rejoicing in Christ. [3.] He signified his joy to all about him. Out of the abundance of the joy in his heart, his mouth spoke to the glory of God, and their encouragement who believed in God too. Those who have themselves tasted the comforts of religion should do what they can to bring others to the taste of them. One cheerful Christian should make many.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv19–34 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, 20, 21, 23, 24, 25, 28, 30, 31, 33, 34 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 vv19–34 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 vv19, 22, 25, 29, 31 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 vv19–34 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, 24, 26, 33 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 vv19–34 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 vv19–34 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 vv19–34 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 vv19–34 (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, 20, 21, 22, 24, 25, 26, 27, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34 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 vv19, 26, 27, 29, 30, 32 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.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain On v29 Chapter 12
Chapter 12
ST. PAUL IN MACEDONIA.
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Act_16:29-31; Act_17:1-2; Act_17:10
TROAS was at this time the termination of St. Pauls Asiatic travels. He had passed diagonally right through Asia Minor, following the great Roman roads which determined his line of march. From Troas he proceeded to Philippi, and for exactly the same reason. All the great roads formed under the emperors down to the time of Constantine the Great led to Rome. When the seat of empire was moved to Constantinople, all the Asiatic roads converged upon that city; but in St. Pauls day Rome was the worlds centre of attraction, and thither the highways all tended. This fact explains St. Pauls movements. The Egnatian road was one of the great channels of communication established for State purposes by Rome, and this road ran from Neapolis, where St. Paul landed, through Philippi on to Dyrrachium, a port on the Adriatic, whence the traveller took ship to Brundusium, the modern Brindisi, and thence reached Rome. What a striking commentary we find in this simple fact upon the words of St. Paul Gal_4:4 : "When the fulness of the time came God sent forth His Son." Roman dominion involved much suffering and war and bloodshed, but it secured the network of communication, the internal peace, and the steady, regular government which now covered Europe as well as Asia, and thus for the first time in the worlds history rendered the diffusion of the Gospel possible, as St. Pauls example here shows. The voyage from Troas to Neapolis was taken by the Apostle after the usual fashion of the time. Neapolis was the port of Philippi, whence it is distant some eight miles. Travellers from the East to Rome always landed there, and then took the Egnatian Road which started from Neapolis. If they were official persons they could use the public postal service, post-houses being established at a distance of six miles from one another, where relays of horses were kept at the public expense, to carry persons travelling on the imperial service. Paul and Silas, Timothy and Luke, must, however, have travelled on foot along the Egnatian Road from Neapolis to Philippi, which was their first objective point, according to St. Pauls usual policy, of attacking large and important centres of population, and then leaving the sacred leaven to work out into the surrounding mass of paganism. Philippi amply rewarded the wisdom of his plan, and the Philippian Church became noted for its zeal, its faith, its activity, among the Churches which owed their origin to the Apostle, as we learn from the Epistles addressed to the Corinthians and to the Philippians themselves a short time after the foundation of the Philippian Church.
Now let us look at the circumstances under which that foundation was laid. To understand them we must go back upon the course of history. Philippi was a city built by King Philip, the father of Alexander the Great. After the conquest of Macedonia by the Romans, it became famous as the scene of the great battle between Brutus and Cassius on the one hand, and Mark Antony and Augustus on the other, which decided the fate of the empire and influenced the course of the worlds history as few other battles have done. At the time of St. Pauls visit the memory of that battle was fresh, and the outward and visible signs thereof were to be seen on every side, as indeed some of them are still to be seen, the triumphal arches, for instance, erected in memory of the victory and the mound or rampart of earth raised by Brutus to hinder the advance of the opposing forces. But these things had for the holy travellers a very slight interest, as their hearts were set upon a mightier conflict and a nobler war far than any ever before waged upon earths surface. There is no mention made in the sacred narrative of the memories connected with the place, and yet St. Luke, as an honest writer setting down facts of which he had formed an important part, lets slip some expressions which involve and throw us back upon the history of the place for an, explanation, showing how impossible it is to grasp the full force and meaning of the sacred writers unless we strive to read the Bible with the eyes of the people who lived at the time and for whom it was written. St. Luke calls Philippi "a city of Macedonia, the first of the district, a colony." Now this means that in that time it was situated in the Roman province of Macedonia, that it was either the capital of the division of Macedonia, in which it was situated, Macedonia being subdivided into four distinct divisions which were kept perfectly separate, or else that it was the first city the traveller met upon entering Macedonia from Asia, and further that it was a Roman colony, and thus possessed peculiar privileges. When we read in the Bible of colonies we must not understand the word in our modern sense. Colonies were then simply transcripts of the original city whence they had come. Roman colonies were miniatures or copies of Rome itself transplanted into the provinces, and ruling as such amid the conquered races where they were placed. They served a twofold purpose. They acted as garrisons to restrain the turbulence of the neighbouring tribes; and if we study Roman geography carefully we shall find that they were always placed in neighbourhoods where their military importance is plainly manifest; and further still, they were used as convenient places to locate the veteran soldiers of Italy who had served their time, where they were rewarded with grants of land, and were utilising at the same time the skill and experience in military matters which they had gained, for the general benefit of the State.
Augustus made Philippi into a colony, erecting a triumphal arch to celebrate his victory over Brutus, and placing there a large settlement of his veterans who secured for him this important outpost. The colonies which were thus dispersed along the military frontier, as we should put it in modern language, were specially privileged. All the settlers were Roman citizens, and the government of the colony was like that of the mother city itself, in the hands of two magistrates, called in Greek Strategoi, or in Latin Praetors, who ruled according to the laws of the Twelve Tables and after Roman methods, though perhaps all the neighbouring cities were still using their ancient laws and customs handed down from times long prior to the Roman Conquest. The details given us by St. Luke are in the strictest accordance in all these respects with the facts which we know independently concerning the history and political status of Philippi.
St. Paul and his companions arrived in Philippi in the early part of the week. He was by this time a thoroughly experienced traveller. Five years later, when writing his Second Epistle to Corinth, he tells us that he had been already three times shipwrecked; so that, unless peculiarly unfortunate, he must have already made extended and repeated sea voyages, though up to the present we have only heard of the journeys from Antioch to Cyprus, from Cyprus to Perga, and from Attalia back to Antioch. A two days voyage across the fresh and rolling waters of the Mediterranean, followed by a steep climb over the mountain Pangaeus which intervenes between Philippi and its port Neapolis, made, however, a rest of a day or two very acceptable to the Apostle and his friends. St. Paul never expected too much from his own body, or from the bodies of his companions; and though he knew the work of a worlds salvation was pressing, yet he could take and enjoy a well-earned holiday from time to time. There was nothing in St. Paul of that eternal fussiness which we at times see in people of strong imaginations but weak self-control, who, realising the awful amount of woe and wickedness in the world, can never be at rest even for a little. The men of God remained quiet therefore {Act_16:12-13} till the Sabbath Day, when, after their usual custom, they sought out in the early morning the Jewish place of worship, where St. Paul always first proclaimed the gospel. The Jewish colony resident at Philippi must have been a very small one. The Rabbinical rule was that where ten wise men existed there a synagogue might be established. There cannot therefore have been ten learned, respectable, and substantial Jews in Philippi competent to act as a local sanhedrin or court. Where, however, the Jews could not establish a synagogue, they did not live without any external expression of religion. They knew how easily neglect of public worship is followed by practical atheism, as we often see. Men may say indeed that God can be realised, and can be worshipped anywhere, - a very great truth and a very precious one for those who are unavoidably cut off from the public worship of the Most High; but a truth which has no application to those who wilfully cut themselves off from that worship which has the covenanted promise of His presence. It is not a good sign for the young men of this generation that so many of them utterly neglect public worship; for as surely as men act so, then present neglect will be followed by a total forgetfulness of the Eternal, and by a disregard of the laws which He has established amongst men. The Jews at Philippi did not follow this example; when they could not establish a synagogue they set apart an oratory or Place of Prayer, whither they resorted on the Sabbath Day to honour the God of their fathers, and to keep alive in their childrens hearts the memory of His laws and doings.
The original name of Philippi was Crenides, or Place of Streams. Beside one of these streams the Jews had placed their oratory, and there St. Paul preached his first sermon in Europe and gained Lydia, his first European convert, a Jewess by blood, a woman of Thyatira in Asia Minor by birth, of Philippi in Macedonia by residence, and a dyer in purple by trade. The congregation of women assembled at that oratory must have been a very small one. When Philippi did not afford a sufficient Jewish population for the erection of a synagogue such as was found among the smaller towns of Asia Minor, and such as we shall in the course of the present tour find to have existed at towns and cities of no great size in Greece and Macedonia, then we may be sure that the female population, who assembled that Sabbath morning to pray and listen to the Scriptures, must have been a small one. But St. Paul and his companions had learned already one great secret of the true evangelists life. They never despised a congregation because of its smallness. I have read somewhere in the writings of St. Francis de Sales, Bishop of Geneva, a remark bearing on this point. De Sales was an extreme Roman Catholic, and his mind was injured and his mental views perverted in many respects by the peculiar training he thus received. But still he was in many respects a very saintly man, and his writings embody much that is good for every one. In one of his letters which I have read he deals with this very point, and speaks of the importance of small congregations, first, because they have no tendency to feed the preachers pride, but rather help to keep him humble; and secondly, because some of the most effective and fruitful sermons have been preached to extremely small congregations, two or three persons at most, some one of whom has afterwards turned out to be a most vigorous soldier of the Cross of Christ. The most effective sermon perhaps that ever was preached was that delivered to Saul of Tarsus when to him alone came the voice, "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me?" And here again, in the Philippian Oratory, the congregation was but a small one, yet the Apostle despised it not. He and his companions bent all their powers to the work, threw their whole hearts into it, and as the result the Lord rewarded their earnest, thorough, faithful service as He rewards such service in every department of lifes action. The Lord opened the heart of Lydia so that she attended to the apostolic teaching, and she and all her household when duly instructed became baptised disciples of Jesus of Nazareth.
This was an important incident in the history of the Philippian Church, and was attended by far-reaching results. Lydia herself, like so many others of Gods most eminent saints, disappears at once and for ever from the scene. But her conversion was a fruitful one. St. Paul and his friends continued quietly but regularly working and teaching at the oratory. Lydia would seem to have been a widow, and must have been a woman of some position in the little community; for she was able to entertain the Apostle and his company as soon as she embraced the faith and felt its exceeding preciousness. When inviting them, too, she uses the language of a woman independent of all other control. "If ye have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come into my house and abide there," are words with the tone of one who as a widow owned no superior, and whose will was law within her own household; as well as the language of a woman who felt that the gospel she had embraced demanded and deserved the consecration to its service of all her worldly possessions. Previously to this conversion St. Paul had lived in hired lodgings, but now he moved to Lydias residence, abiding there, and thence regularly worshipping at the Jewish oratory. The presence of these Jewish strangers soon attracted attention. Their teaching too got noised abroad, exaggerated doubtless and distorted after the manner of popular reports. And the crowd were ready to be suspicious of all Eastern foreigners. The settlers in the colony of Philippi belonged to the rural population of Italy, who, after the manner of countrified folk of every generation, were a good way behind, for good or ill, their city brethren. The excavations made at Philippi have brought to light the fact that the colonists there were worshippers of the primitive Italian rustic gods, specially of the god Silvanus, eschewing the fashionable Greek deities, Jupiter, Juno, Venus, Diana, Apollo, and such like. A temple of Silvanus was erected at Philippi for the hardy Italian veterans, and numerous inscriptions have been found and have been duly described by the French Mission in Macedonia to which we have already referred, telling of the building of the temple and of the persons who contributed towards it. These simple Western soldiers were easily prejudiced against the Eastern strangers by reports spread concerning their doctrines, and specially concerning the Jewish King, of whose kingdom they were the heralds. Political considerations were at once raised. We can scarcely now realise the suspicions which must have been roused against the early preachers of Christianity by the very language they used. Their sacramental language concerning the body and blood of Christ, the language of Christian love and union which they used, designating themselves brethren and sisters, caused for more than two centuries the dissemination of the most frightful rumours concerning the horrible nature of Christian love-feasts. They were accused of cannibalism and of the most degraded and immoral practices; and when we take up the Apologists of the second century, Justin Martyr and such like, we shall find that the efforts of these men are largely directed to the refutation of such dreadful charges. And as it was in morals so was it too in politics. The sacred and religious language of the Christians caused them to be suspected of designs hostile to the Roman Government. The apostles preached about a King who ruled the kingdom of God. Now the Romans abhorred the very name and title of king, which they associated with the cruel acts of the early tyrants who reigned in the times of Romes fabulous antiquity. The hostility to the title was so great that, though the Roman people endured a despotism worse and more crushing at the hands of the Caesars, they never would allow them to assume the title of kings, but simply called them emperors, imperators or commanders of the army, a name which to their ears connoted nothing savouring of the kingly office, though for moderns the title of emperor expresses the kingly office and much more. The colonists in Philippi, being Italians, would feel these prejudices in their full force. Easterns indeed would have had no objection to the title of king, as we see from the cry raised by the mob of Jerusalem when they cried in reference to Christs claim, "We have no king but Caesar." But the rough and rude Roman veterans, when they heard vague reports of St. Pauls teaching to the Jews who met at the oratory by the river-side, quite naturally mistook the nature of his doctrine, and thought that he was simply a political agitator organising a revolt against imperial authority. An incident which then occurred fanned the sleeping embers into a flame. There was a female slave the property of some crafty men who by her means traded on the simplicity of the colonists. She was possessed with a spirit of divination. What the nature of this spirit was we have not the means of now determining. Some would resolve it into mere epilepsy, but such an explanation is not consistent with St. Pauls action and words. He addressed the spirit, "I charge thee in the name of Jesus Christ to Come out of her." And the spirit, we are told, came out that very hour. The simple fact is that psychology is at the best a very obscure science, and the mysteries of the soul a very puzzling region, even under the Christian dispensation and surrounded by the spiritual blessings of the kingdom of God. But paganism was the kingdom of Satan, where he ruled with a power and freedom he no longer enjoys, and we can form no conception of the frightful disturbances Satanic agency may have raised amid the dark places of the human spirit. Without attempting explanations therefore, which must be insufficient, I am content to accept the statement of the sacred writer, who was an eye-witness of the cure, that the spirit of divination, the spirit of Python, as the original puts it, yielded obedience to the invocation of the sacred Name which is above every name, leaving the damsels inner nature once more calm and at union within itself. This was the signal for a riot. The slave-owners recognised that their hopes of gain had fled. They were not willing to confess that these despised Jews possessed a power transcending far that which dwelt in the human instrument who had served their covetous purposes. They may have heard, it may be, of the tumults excited about this same time by the Jews at Rome and of their expulsion from the capital by the decree of the Emperor, so the owners of the slave-girl and the mob of the city dragged the Apostles before the local Duumvirs and accused them of like disturbances: "These men, being Jews, do exceedingly trouble our city, and set forth customs which it is not lawful for us to receive or to observe, being Romans." The accusation was sufficient. No proof was demanded, no time for protest allowed. The magistrates with their own hands dragged the clothes off the backs of the Apostles, and they were flogged at once by the lictors or sergeants, as our translation calls them, in attendance upon the Duumvirs, who then despatched their victims to the common prison. Here a question may be raised, Why did not St. Paul save himself by protesting that he was a Roman citizen, as he did subsequently at Jerusalem when he was about to be similarly treated? Several explanations occur. The colonists were Italians and spoke Latin. St. Paul spoke Hebrew and Greek, and though he may have known Latin too, his Latin may not have been understood by these rough Roman soldiers: The mob again was excited, and when a mob gets excited it is but very little its members attend to an unfortunate prisoners words. We know too, not only from St. Pauls own words, but from the testimony of Cicero himself, in his celebrated oration against Verres, that in remote districts this claim was often disregarded, even when urged by Italians, and much more when made by despised Jews. St. Paul tells us in 2Co_11:25, that he received three Roman floggings notwithstanding his Roman citizenship, and though the Philippian magistrates were afraid when they heard next day of the illegal violence of which they had been guilty, the mob, who could not be held accountable, probably took right good care that St. Pauls protest never reached the official ears to which it was addressed. These considerations sufficiently account for the omission of any notice of a protest on the Apostles part. He simply had not the opportunity, and then when the tumultuous scene was over Paul and Silas were hurried off to the common dungeon, where they were secured in the stocks and thrust into the innermost prison as notorious and scandalous offenders.
No ill-treatment could, however, destroy that secret source of joy and peace which St. Paul possessed in his loved Masters conscious presence. "I take pleasure in weaknesses, in injuries, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christs sake," is his own triumphant expression when looking back a few years later over the way by which the Lord had led him, and therefore at midnight the astonished prisoners heard the inner dungeon ringing with unwonted songs of praise raised by the Jewish strangers. An earthquake, too, lent its terrors to the strange scene, shaking the prison to its foundations and loosing the staples to which the prisoners chains were fastened. The jailer, roused from sleep, and seeing the prison doors opened wide, would have committed suicide were it not for Pauls restraining and authoritative voice; and then the astonished official, who must have heard the strange rumours to which the words of the demoniac alluded-"These men are the servants of the Most High God, which proclaim unto you the way of salvation"-rushed into the presence of the Apostles, crying out in words which have ever since been famous, "Sirs, what must I do to be Saved?" to which the equally famous answer was given, " Believe on the Lord Jesus, and thou shalt be saved, thou and thy house." The jailor then took the Apostles, bathed their bruised bodies, set food before them, gathered his household to listen to the glad tidings, which they received so rapidly and grasped so thoroughly that they were at once baptised and enabled to rejoice with that deep spiritual joy which an experimental knowledge of God always confers. The jailor, feeling for the first time in his life the peace which passeth all understanding, realised the truth which St. Augustine afterwards embodied in the immortal words: "Thou, O God, hast formed us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless till they find rest in Thee."
Let us look for a little at the question of the jailer and the answer of the Apostle. They are words very often used, and very often misused. The jailer, when he rushed into St. Pauls presence crying out "What must I do to be saved?" was certainly not the type of a conscience-stricken sinner, convinced of his own sin and spiritual danger, as men sometimes regard him. He was simply in a state of fright and astonishment. He had heard that these Jewish prisoners committed to him were preaching about some salvation which they had to offer. The earthquake seemed to him the expression of some deitys wrath at their harsh treatment, and so in his terror he desires to know what he must do to be saved from this wrath. His words were notable, but they were not Christian words, for he had yet much to learn of the nature of sin and the nature of the salvation from it which the Apostles were preaching. The Philippian jailor was a specimen of those who are saved violently and by fear. Terror forced him into communion with the Apostles, broke down the barriers which hindered the approach of the Word, and then the power of the Holy Ghost, working through St. Paul, effected the remainder, opening his eyes to the true character of salvation and his own profound need of it. St. Pauls words have been misunderstood. I have heard them addressed to a Christian congregation and explained as meaning that the jailor had nothing to do but just realise Christ Jesus as his Saviour, whereupon he was perfect and complete so far as the spiritual life was concerned; and then they were applied to the congregation present as teaching that, as it was with the jailor, so was it with all Christians; they have simply to believe as he did, and then they have nothing more to do-a kind of teaching which infallibly produces antinomian results. Such an explanation ignores the fact that there is a great difference between the jailor, who was not a Christian in any sense and knew nothing about Christ when he flung himself at St. Pauls feet, and a Christian congregation, who know about Christ and believe in Him. But this explanation is still more erroneous. It misrepresents what St. Paul meant and what his hearers understood him to mean. What did any ordinary Jew or any ordinary pagan with whom St. Paul came in contact understand him to mean when he said, "Believe on the Lord Jesus, and thou shalt be saved"? They first had to ask him who Jesus Christ was, whence He had come, what He had taught, what were the obligations of His religion. St. Paul had to open out to them the nature of sin and salvation, and to explain the obligation and blessing of the sacrament of baptism as well as the necessity of bodily holiness and purity. The initial sacrament of baptism must have held a foremost place in that midnight colloquy or conference concerning Christian truth. St. Paul was not the man to perform a rite of which his converts understood nothing, and to which they could attach no meaning. "Believe on the Lord Jesus" involved repentance and contrition and submission to Christian truth, and these things involved the exposition of Christian truth, history, doctrines, and duties.
This text, "Believe on the Lord Jesus, and thou shalt be saved," is often quoted in one-sided and narrow teaching to show that man has nothing to do to be saved. Of course in one sense this is perfectly true. We can do nothing meritoriously towards salvation; from first to last our salvation is all of Gods free grace; but then, viewing the matter from the human side, we have much to do to be saved. We have to repent, to seek God for ourselves, to realise Christ and His laws in our life, to seek after that holiness without which no man shall see the Lord. There were two different types of men who at different times addressed practically the same inquiry to the Apostles. They were both outside the Church, and they were both seekers blindly after God. The Jews on the day of Pentecost said, "Brethren, what shall we do?" and Peter replied, "Repent ye, and be baptised, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, unto the remission of your sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost." Such was apostolic teaching to the Jews of Jerusalem. The jailor demanded, "What must I do to be saved?" and St. Paul replied, "Believe on the Lord Jesus, and thou shalt be saved." Such was apostolic teaching to an ignorant pagan at Philippi; more concise than the Jerusalem answer, but meaning the same thing, and involving precisely the same doctrines in the hands of such a great master of the spiritual life as was the Apostle of the Gentiles.
The remainder of the story is soon told. When the morning came there came quiet reflection with it as far as the magistrates were concerned. They became conscious of their illegal conduct, and they sent their lictors to order the release of the Apostles. St. Paul now stood upon his rights. His protest had been disregarded by the mob. He now claimed his rights as a Roman citizen. "They have beaten us publicly, uncondemned men, that are Romans, and have cast us into prison; and do they now cast us out privily? Nay, verily; but let them come themselves and bring us out." These are St. Pauls words, and they are brave, and at the same time wise words. They were brave words because it took a strong man to send back such an answer to magistrates who had treated him so outrageously only the day before. They were wise words, for they give us an apostles interpretation of our Lords language in the Sermon upon the Mount concerning the nonresistance of evil, and shows us that in St. Pauls estimation Christs law did not bind a man to tolerate foul injustice. Such toleration, in fact, is very wrong if it can be helped; because it is simply an encouragement to the wicked doers to treat others in the same scandalous manner. Toleration of outrage and injustice is unfair and uncharitable towards others, if they can be lawfully redressed or at least apologised for. It is a Christian mans duty to bring public evil-doers and tyrants, instruments of unrighteousness like these Duumvirs of Philippi, to their senses, not for his own sake, but in order that he may prevent the exercise of similar cruelties against he weaker brethren. We may be sure that the spirited action of St. Paul, compelling these provincial magnates to humble themselves before the despised strangers, must have had a very wholesome effect in restraining them from similar violence during the rest of their term of office.
Such was St. Pauls stay at Philippi. It lasted a considerable time, and made its mark, as a flourishing Church was established there, to which he addressed an Epistle when he lay the first time a captive at Rome. This Epistle naturally forms a most interesting commentary on the notices of the Philippian visit in the Acts of the Apostles, a point which is worked out at large in Bishop Lightfoots Commentary on Philippians and in Paleys "Horae Paulinae." The careful student of Holy Writ will find that St. Pauls letter and St. Lukes narrative when compared illuminate one another in a wondrous manner. We cannot afford space to draw out this comparison in detail, and it is the less necessary to do so as Dr. Lightfoots writings are so generally accessible. Let us, however, notice one point in this Epistle to the Philippians, which was written about the same time (a few months previously, in fact) as the Acts of the Apostles. It corroborates the Acts as to the circumstances under which the Church of Philippi was founded. St. Paul in the Epistle refers again and again to the persecutions and afflictions of the Philippian Church, and implies that he was a fellow-sufferer with them. St. Paul dwells on this in the beginning of the Epistle in words whose force cannot be understood unless we grasp this fact. In the sixth verse of the first chapter he expresses himself as "Confident of this very thing, that He which began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Jesus Christ: even as it is right for me to be thus minded on behalf of you all, because I have you in my heart, inasmuch as, both in my bonds and in the defence and confirmation, of the gospel, ye all are partakers with me of grace." St. Paul speaks of the Philippians as personally acquainted with chains and sufferings and prison-houses for Christs sake, and regards these things as a proof of Gods grace vouchsafed not only to the Apostle, but also to the Philippians; for St. Paul was living at that high level when he could view bonds and trials and persecutions as marks of the Divine love. In the twenty-eighth verse of the same chapter he exhorts them to be in no wise "affrighted by the adversaries," and in the next two describes them as persons to whom "it hath been granted in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on Him, but also to suffer in His behalf: having the same conflict which ye saw in me, and now hear to be in me," words which can only refer to the violence and afflictions which they witnessed as practised against himself, and which they were now themselves suffering in turn. While to complete St. Pauls references we notice that in an Epistle written some five years later than his first visit to Philippi he expressly refers to the persecutions which the Philippian Church in common with all the Macedonian Churches seems to have suffered from the Very beginning. In 2Co_8:1-2, he writes: "Moreover, brethren, we make known to you the grace of God which hath been given in the Churches of Macedonia; how that in much proof of affliction the abundance of their joy and their deep poverty abounded unto the riches of their liberality." Now all these passages put together confirm for us what the Acts expressly affirms, that from the very outset of their Christian career the Philippian Church had endured the greatest trials, and experienced a fellowship in the Apostles sufferings. And surely we may see in the character of the Philippian Epistle something eminently characteristic of this experience! It has been remarked that the Philippian Epistle is the only Epistle addressed to a Church in which there is no trace of blame or reproof. Temptation and trial and chastisement had there worked their appointed purpose. The Philippian Church had been baptised in blood, and grounded in afflictions, and purified by the cleansing fires of persecution, and consequently the tried Church gathered itself closer to its Divine Lord, and was perfected above all others in His likeness, and profited above all others in the Divine life.
After the terrible experience of Philippi Paul and Silas passed on to other towns of the same province of Macedonia. The Apostle, however, when quitting Philippi to do the same evangelistic work, breaking up the ground in other towns after the manner of a pioneer, did not leave the Church of Philippi devoid of wisest pastoral care. It is most likely, as Dr. Lightfoot points out in the Introduction to his Commentary on Philippians, that St. Luke was left behind to consolidate the work which had been thus begun by such a noble company. Then Paul and Silas and Timotheus proceeded to Thessalonica, one hundred miles west, the capital of the province, where the proconsul resided, and where was a considerable Jewish population, as we see, not only from the fact that a synagogue is expressly said to have existed there, but also because the Jews were able to excite the city pagan mob against the Apostles and drag them before the local magistrates. St. Paul at Philippi had for the first time experienced a purely pagan persecution. He had indeed previously suffered at the hands of the heathen at Lystra, but they were urged on by the Jews. At Philippi he gained his first glimpse of that long vista of purely Gentile persecution through which the Church had to pass till Christianity seated itself in the person of Constantine on the throne of the Caesars. But as soon as he got to Thessalonica he again experienced the undying hostility of his Jewish fellow-country-men using for their wicked purposes the baser portion of the city rabble. St. Paul remained three weeks in Thessalonica teaching privately and publicly the gospel message, without experiencing any Jewish opposition. It is an interesting fact that to this day St. Pauls visit to Thessalonica is remembered, and in one of the local mosques, which was formerly the Church of Sancta Sophia, a marble pulpit is shown, said to have been the very one occupied by the Apostle, while in the surrounding plains trees and groves are pointed out as marking spots where he tarried for a time. The Jews were at last, however, roused to opposition, possibly because of St. Pauls success among the Gentiles, who received his doctrines with such avidity that there believed "of the devout Greeks a great multitude, and of the chief women not a few." In Thessalonica, as elsewhere, the spirit of religions selfishness, desiring to have gospel promises and a Messiah all to themselves, was the ruin of the Jewish people. The Jews therefore, assisted by the pagans, assaulted the residence of Jason, with whom St. Paul and his friends were staying. They missed the Apostles themselves, but they seized Jason and some of the apostolic band, or at least some of their converts whom they found in Jasons house, and brought them before the town magistrates, who, acting under the eye of the resident proconsul, did not lend themselves to any irregular proceedings like the Philippian praetors. A charge of treason was formally brought against the prisoners: "These all act contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another King, one Jesus"; in the words of which charge we get a glimpse of the leading topic upon which the Apostles insisted. Jesus Christ, the crucified, risen, glorified King and Head of His people, was the great subject of St. Pauls teaching as it struck the heathen. The Thessalonian magistrates acted very fairly. They. entered the charge, which was a serious one m the eye of Roman law. Bail was then taken for the accused and they were set free. The Apostles, however, escaped arrest, and the local brethren determined that they should incur no danger; so while the accused remained to stand their trial, Paul and Silas and Timotheus were despatched to Beroea, where they were for a time welcomed, and free discussion permitted in the synagogue concerning the truths taught by the Evangelists. After a time, however, tidings having reached Thessalonica, agents were despatched to Beroea, who stirring up the Jewish residents, St. Paul was despatched in charge of some trusty messengers, who guided the steps of the hunted servant of God to the city of Athens. We see the physical infirmities of St. Paul, the difficulties he had to contend with, hinted at in the fourteenth and fifteenth verses of the seventeenth chapter. "Then immediately the brethren sent forth Paul," and "They that conducted Paul brought him to Athens," words which give us a glimpse of his fearfully defective eyesight. His enemies might be pressing upon him and danger might be imminent, but he could make no unaided effort to save himself. He depended upon the kindly help of others that he might escape his untiring foes and find his way to a place of safety.
Thus ended St. Pauls first visit to Thessalonica so far as the Acts of the Apostles is concerned; but we have interesting light thrown upon it from an Epistle which St. Paul himself wrote to the Thessalonians soon after his departure from amongst them. A comparison of First Thessalonians with the text of the Acts will furnish the careful student with much information concerning the circumstances of that notable visit, just as we have seen that the text of the Philippian Epistle throws light upon his doings at Philippi. The Thessalonian Epistles are more helpful even than the Philippians in this respect, because they were written only a few months after St. Pauls visit to Thessalonica, while years elapsed, eight or ten at least, before the Philippian Epistle was indited. First Thessalonians shows us, for instance, that St. Pauls visit to Thessalonica lasted a considerable time. In the Acts we read of his discussing in the synagogue three Sabbath days, and then it would appear as if the riot was raised which drove him to Beroea and Athens. The impression left on our minds by St. Lukes narrative is that St. Pauls labours were almost entirely concentrated upon the Jews in Thessalonica, and that he bestowed very little attention indeed upon the pagans. The Epistle corrects this impression. When we read the first chapter of First Thessalonians we see that it was almost altogether a Church of converted idolaters, not of converted Jews. St. Paul speaks of the Thessalonians as having turned from idols to serve the living God; he refers to the instructions on various points like the resurrection, the ascension, the second coming of Christ, which he had imparted, and describes their faith and works as celebrated throughout all Macedonia and Achaia. A large and flourishing church like that, composed of former pagans, could not have been founded in the course of three weeks, during which time St. Pauls attention was principally bestowed on the Jewish residents. Then too, when we turn to Php_4:16, we find that St. Paul stayed long enough in Thessalonica to receive no less than two remittances of money from the brethren at Philippi to sustain himself and his brethren. His whole attention too was not bestowed upon mission work; he spent his days and nights in manual labour. In the ninth verse of the second chapter of First Thessalonians he reminds them of the fact that he supported himself in their city, "For ye remember, brethren, our labour and travail: working night and day, that we might not burden any of you, we preached unto you the Gospel of God." When we realise these things we shall feel that the Apostle must have spent at least a couple of months in Thessalonica. It was perhaps his tremendous success among the heathen which so stirred up the passions of the town mob as enabled the Jews to instigate them to raise the riot, they themselves keeping all the while in the background. St. Paul, in First Thessalonians, describes the riots raised against the Christians as being the immediate work of the pagans: "Ye, brethren, became imitators of the Churches of God which are in Judaea in Christ Jesus. For ye also suffered the same things of your own countrymen as they did of the Jews"; a statement which is quite consistent with the theory that the persecution was originally inspired by the Jews. But we cannot further pursue this interesting line of inquiry which has been thoroughly worked out by Mr. Lewin in vol. 2 Ch 11, by Conybeare and Howson in ch. 9, and by Archdeacon Farrar, as well as by Dr. Salmon in his "Introduction to the New Testament," ch. 20. The careful student will find in all these works most interesting light reflected back upon the Acts from the apostolic letters, and will see how thoroughly the Epistles, which were much the earlier documents, confirm the independent account of St. Luke, writing at a subsequent period.
Before we terminate this chapter we desire to call attention to one other point where the investigations of modern travel have helped to illustrate the genuineness of the Acts of the Apostles. It has been the contention of the rationalistic party that the Acts was a composition of the second century, worked up by a clever forger out of the materials at his command. There are various lines of proof by which this theory can be refuted, but none appeal so forcibly to ordinary men as the minute accuracy which marks it when describing the towns of Asia Minor and Macedonia. Macedonia is a notable case. We have already pointed out how the Acts gives their proper title to the magistrates of Philippi and recognises its peculiar constitution as a colony. Thessalonica forms an interesting contrast to Philippi. Thessalonica was a free city like Antioch in Syria, Tarsus, and Athens, and therefore, though the residence of the proconsul who ruled the province of Macedonia, was governed by its own ancient magistrates and its own ancient laws without any interference on the part of the proconsul. St. Luke makes a marked distinction between Philippi and Thessalonica. At Philippi the Apostles were brought before the praetors, at Thessalonica they were brought before the politarchs, a title strange to classical antiquity, but which has been found upon a triumphal arch which existed till a few years ago across the main street of the modern city of Thessalonica. That arch has now disappeared; but the fragments containing the inscription were fortunately preserved and have been now placed in the British Museum, where they form a precious relic proving the genuineness of the sacred narrative.
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
B. W. Johnson 1891 · Public Domain On vv19, 25 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 vv19, 24, 27, 34 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 vv19, 30, 32 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 vv19–34 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, 25, 30, 31 (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 vv19, 25, 29 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 vv19, 22, 25, 27, 29, 32 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 vv19, 22, 25, 26, 27, 29, 31 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.