Acts 16:19-40
Through out recorded history we read stories of God’s people facing hardship. In fact it often appears that the harder we work for God, the more trials come to us. We see this both through out secular history, and through out the Bible.
In our study in the book of Acts alone we see rampant persecution of the infant church. In chapters four, five, seven, eight, and twelve we read of wide spread persecution. If we look at Acts 8:1 as an example we read that “and all except the apostles were scattered throughout” the land because of persecution. This looks bad for a new religion that is trying to get a foothold in society. However when we get to Acts 11:19-21 we can see the results of this scattering, that is that churches are getting planted in many cities at once instead of just Jerusalem.
A more famous example of this is the story of Joseph from the first book of the Bible called Genesis. Joseph grew up with a well to do family, loved greatly by his parents, and seemed to have it all going for him. That was until his jealous brothers sold him in to slavery. As a slave he worked hard and earned the respect and trust of his master. That was until he was falsely accused and tossed in prison for a long time. Eventually he gets out and rises to power in Egypt, and when his brothers eventually come to him begging forgiveness, he says:
And now, do not be distressed and do not be angry with yourselves for selling me here, because it was to save lives that God sent me ahead of you. 6 For two years now there has been famine in the land, and for the next five years there will not be plowing and reaping. 7But God sent me ahead of you to preserve for you a remnant on earth and to save your lives by a great deliverance.
8 So then, it was not you who sent me here, but God. He made me father to Pharaoh, lord of his entire household and ruler of all Egypt.(Gen 45:5-8, NIV)
In both cases we see that God took what looked really bad to us, and used it for a far greater good then we could have imagined. In Joseph’s case, he was able to save his entire family, and an entire nation, from the famine because he went through what he did. In Acts, the church spread and grew like wildfire partly because of the persecution.
When we look at this weeks text we will begin to see the same things play out. Our text this week opens with a story about a slave girl who is possessed by a demon that seems to give her the ability to predict the future. Paul frees her from this demon’s control, and her masters get extremely upset. Apparently they had been making a lot of money selling her services, probably not unlike a modern day physic at a circus. With the demon gone, the slave girl’s value to them was destroyed.
In Acts 16:19 we have an interesting situation. If we look back to Paul’s beginnings (when he was still called Saul) in Acts 8:3 we will read that as Paul would go from “house to house, he dragged off men and women and put them in prison.” Now in Acts 16:19 we read that “they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace to face the authorities.” This would happen to Paul time and time again. Paul’s past actions are replayed out, this time with him as the victim.
The complaints they raised against Paul and Silas took advantage of the political climate of the time. Luke and Timothy are not mentioned as part of the case, and that appears to be because they were seen as Greeks while Paul and Silas appeared to be Jews. The Roman Emperor at that time had kicked the Jews out of Rome, and Philippi as a Roman colony likely followed suit. It is worthy of note that the real complaints were never presented in the case against them.
In a mockery of justice Paul and Silas are beaten, placed in stocks and tossed in to the inner most section of the local prison. They must have been in extreme pain from the beatings and the stocks they were placed in would not have been designed for comfort, in fact many historians record that they were specifically intended to make the prisoner as uncomfortable as possible. In the face of all this their response is amazing. Instead of begging God to rescue them, or complaining about their predicament, they were singing praises and hymns’ loudly enough that all heard them.
Suddenly there was an earthquake that freed them, and all of the prisoners. This would be amazing in and of itself, but what happens, or rather what does not happen next is more amazing. As far as we can tell only Paul and Silas in the entire prison are Christians, yet when the doors are thrown open no one escapes. In fact Paul will tell the jailer that “We are all here,” (Acts 19:28c) to stop him from committing suicide.
This causes the jailer to come to Paul and ask him how to become a Christian. Now Paul’s response has created some controversy. Paul tells him that if he believes on Christ, that he and his household will be saved. This, and a few other similar passages, has lead some people to believe that if the head of the house gets saved, the rest of the house is covered. This does not fit with the words of Christ, or most of the rest of the Bible that continuously preaches salvation is in individual’s response to the Gospel. If you pull this verse out of its context, it sure looks like there is some concept of “household salvation”, but when read with the rest of its context we see that salvation came to the jailer’s household through the preaching of Paul. In Acts 16:32-33 it is recorded that Paul preached to the jailer’s household, after which the jailer demonstrates a change of heart by his caring for Paul and Silas, then they are baptized. Then in 16:34 we read that the entire family came to “believe in God.” When read in context it becomes apparent that this passage is in agreement with the rest of scripture that salvation is an individual event, and not based on the family that you are a part of. We also must be careful to remember that Luke, the author of Acts, and the other biblical authors, had limited paper to work with and often give us summary statements like Acts 16:31.
As we close chapter sixteen of Acts we can see two major points coming out of the text. The first is that we need to be careful to not have such a narrow view of our circumstances to think that we are going through some hardship for no reason at all. Joseph suffered for many years before he realized why. Stephen was killed in Acts 7, and could not have known that his death would play a part in Paul’s conversion and the eventually massive impact for the kingdom Paul would have. Sometimes we can see right away the reasons, but many times we may never know. It is in those times that you do not know that your faith is tried, tested and proven.
The second point here is to be careful when reading scriptures that we do not read into them what we want to see. Always let the context speak for the meaning of the passage. If you pull just one small piece of scripture you can use it to prove, or disprove, anything you want. When read in context, as we saw this week, the meaning normally becomes clear and then we can know the truth of what is being said. A good rule of thumb is that if one verse (or even a few verses) seems in conflict with many others, it’s normally the one (or few) that need to be reexamined and not the many.
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