Biblestudy: Acts (Part Seventeen)

Acts 15-16 The Imprisonment and Release of Paul and Silas
#BS-AC17
John W. Ritenbaugh (1932-2023)
Given 17-Jan-89; 58 minutes

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We are going to go on to Acts the 16th chapter tonight and this chapter does not have anything in it of the magnitude of what was in chapter 15, so we are going to be able to move a good bit faster here.

With the council over, it became necessary then to send people out to spread the word regarding the decisions that were made at the council, and this was entrusted to Paul and Barnabas and Silas and Judas.

Well, as they went out on their way, they went to Antioch and the apostle Paul there made the decision that he wanted to go back and visit the churches that they had visited before. And a contention arose between them, that is between Paul and Barnabas. Barnabas wanted to take Mark with them once again. The apostle Paul did not want to do that, and the contention became so great between them they actually divided up and Paul went with Silas, and Barnabas took Mark with him. Nobody knows exactly what the contention was over. Nobody knows for sure why Mark left them.

There are speculations that it is possible that Mark left because he disagreed with the teaching the apostle Paul was giving to the Gentiles whenever they went into Asia Minor and into Cyprus. The other time, perhaps he disagreed with things regarding circumcision, some of the things that were discussed there in Acts the 15th chapter. There is a speculation that it was Mark who came back to Jerusalem and really kind of stirred things up. Nobody knows for sure, but whatever it was Mark left and then Paul apparently felt that he could no longer trust Mark. He felt that apparently that they would get out on the road again and Mark would get upset about something and he would bug off and Paul would be left without a companion.

Well, as it turned out, it did not turn out that way at all. Whatever it was that Mark was upset about apparently was in the background, and there was growth on his part, and later on we have the apostle Paul writing and saying that Mark was valuable to him. Paul accepted him back after Mark proved himself, maybe after Mark apologized to Paul. I do not know. We just do not know what went on there. But at any rate, they did get back together again and he became very valuable to the apostle Paul.

In a way, it shows the way that God makes good out of bad. We can look back on that and say, "Well, that should have never occurred." And indeed, if we are looking at it idealistically, it never should have occurred. There never should have been that kind of sharp feeling and that kind of strong feeling between them that would cause a breakup of a pretty good team. But it did occur, showing that these men were very human, and they had their problems that they needed to overcome. But the good thing is that, instead of having one team, now God had two teams. So the work was actually doubled. Now He had Barnabas and Mark and He had Paul and Silas. Both of them apparently very fine teams, and they went out and did their work amongst the people. And so rather than having one, it was now two.

Let us get on into chapter 16.

Acts 16:1 Then he came to Derby and to Lystra.

Now we had already gone through these cities before in chapters 13 and 14, and Paul is going back there to see how things are going, to see if the people are growing. We are back in the area now, especially Lystra, where Paul and Barnabas were called gods and then stoned whenever they rejected the acclamation.

Acts 16:1 And behold, a certain disciple was there, named Timothy, the son of a certain Jewish woman who believed, but his father was Greek.

So we have a question here: why was she married to a Gentile man? Just understanding the general Jewish prejudice, very strong feelings that they had about such a thing. Why was this done? Why was it permitted? Why did such a thing ever occur? Well, all we can do is speculate. There is a lot of little things like this for which there are no answers to. You know, no good solid answer. It could have been that there were hardly any Jews around. If she was ever going to be married she would have to be married to a Gentile. Maybe they had the idea that being married to a Gentile was better than no marriage at all. Widowhood was considered to be something that was really a curse. You know, to be a widow or maybe bachelor or whatever, and to die childless was something that they did not want to face. So it would be better to do that.

Then again, on the other hand, maybe she was not a religious Jew, maybe her father was not a religious Jew. They were Jews racially, but they did not give a hoot about what went on in Jerusalem. I mean, that is a possibility too. I do not think that we should look at all Jews as being stereotyped as being religious, devout, you know, bowing down at every opportunity and really following strictly all the regulations of the scribes, the Pharisees, and gods besides.

Is it possible that the Jews then were no different from the Jews today? I think it is highly possible they were exactly the same. How many of you have told me you have a Jewish boss or a Jewish fellow worker, or there is somebody married into the family, and they eat pork, and they eat shrimp, and they keep Christmas, and they keep Easter, and they do everything like everybody else does. You would never know they were a Jew. Well, maybe Timothy's mother, Eunice, came from a family like that.

But at any rate, we find that Timothy, his mother, and his grandmother, every one of them were converted. I did write down a scripture on that. It is in II Timothy. You do not have to turn to it. I will just go there.

II Timothy 1:5 [Paul is writing to Timothy, and he says] When I call to remembrance the genuine faith that is in you, which dwelt first in your grandmother Lois. . .

Apparently she was the first one converted. I should have looked this up. Is Lois a Hebrew name or a Gentile name? Maybe Lois was the Gentile father's mother. That would be interesting.

II Timothy 1:5 . . . and your mother Eunice, and I am persuaded is in you also [Timothy].

Now I think one of the things that does show is the value of godly forebears. And we are going to get to something a little bit later here in the chapter that I think is rather eye-opening in regard to this. Something I have never noticed before, but once you see it, it is so obvious. But at any rate, here was Timothy, who had some godly forebears and apparently they were all converted just about the same time. First, Lois, then apparently Eunice, and then came Timothy.

Acts 16:2-3 He was well spoken of by the brethren who were at Lystra and Iconium. Paul wanted to have him go on with him. And he took him and circumcised him because of the Jews who were in that region, for they all knew that his father was a Greek.

To me, the most important thing about this verse is something that it does not say, but rather something that is implied. Here we have just gone through in Acts 15, apparently one of the greatest decisions the first century church ever arrived at, and it involves circumcision. Now circumcision, of course, was put for a much larger body of regulations, but it was the thing that stood out. And they decided, well, circumcision was unnecessary. But you see, this is the way you have got to look at God's law. God's law is eternal. I do not care whether it is a ritual. I do not care whether it has been set aside or whether we call it done away or whatever, we are still to live by it. Nothing that ever comes out of the mouth of God is bad, see? You do not want to ever give God's law any kind of connotation like that. And to do something like circumcision is not wrong.

We are going to find out later that the apostle Paul went in and he made sacrifices. He cut his hair as a man would do at the end of a vow. And he was letting you and me know that there is nothing wrong with those things. They are not necessary, they do not need to be done, but do not ever get the idea that there is something about them that is dirty. And we can learn from them excellent spiritual principles that are contained within their intent, even though we are not required to actually do them.

So here, when it was in the best interest of everybody concerned, especially the best interests of the church, and maybe might even save Timothy's life, God says, "Hey fella, you better get circumcised." Because they were going to do what? They were going to go into synagogues, they were going to come into contact with Jews, and they had to have everything possible working for them because they knew those Jews were going to be antagonistic. They would then have a fellow here who was half Gentile, who was not adverse to the law.

Acts 16:4 And as they went through the cities, they delivered to them the decrees to keep [what the council in Acts 15 decided], which were determined by the apostles and elders at Jerusalem.

You can see that the apostle Paul had no desire to flout his liberty within the law. He did not want to cause any unnecessary offense. And especially, he did not want to do this, which in turn, if he did it, would bring unnecessary persecution.

Acts 16:5-6 So the churches were strengthened in faith, and increased in number daily. Now when they had gone through Phrygia and the region of Galatia, . . .

All these are on that southern border of what is today Turkey. You can kind of picture that in your mind. They were following that road that went through there.

Acts 16:6-8 . . . they were forbidden by the Holy Spirit to preach the word in Asia. After they had come to Mysia, they tried to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit did not permit them. And so passing by Mysia, they came down to Troas.

Now we do not know, it is another one of those unanswered questions. The question would be: what stopped the apostle Paul? How did he know that the Spirit forbid it or hindered them or whatever? But we do not know. All we know is that every time he tried to turn inland and go north or northeast, some other direction other than west following that road that eventually got over to Mysia and Troas, every time he tried to turn away from that, something would happen and he would be forced back to that general direction. It could have been weather, it could have been news of robbers, it could have been persecution. It could have been all kinds of things. Maybe he had restless nights and dreams or whatever. Every time he tried to go in a direction other than the one that was gradually heading in, northwest toward Macedonia and Greece, he was somehow stopped.

I see I wrote myself a note here when I originally made this out and I forgot to bring a commentary. I was going to read something to you from Tyndall's commentary on this verse regarding Galatia. There are two Galatia's that we are dealing with here in the area of Asia Minor. The commentators, the researchers just simply call it a northern Galatia or a southern Galatia. And quite a controversy in some quarters as to whether the apostle Paul was preaching and teaching in southern Galatia or northern Galatia.

The church's position is that it was southern Galatia that the apostle Paul was involved in and it seemed as though every time he turned in the direction to go toward northern Galicia, which would have been off the road that I am just talking about, he seemed to have been hindered.

At any rate, this period of time that we are talking about here right now covers a period from roughly 49 AD to sometime between 52 and 56. Now there is four years there, but it is one of those things that nobody can really put a handle on. Somewhere in that period of time, this second missionary journey, as it is called, begins here in chapter 16 and goes on through until he gets back into Jerusalem again. But it covers about a four or five year period. And incidentally, Troas is in the northwest corner of present-day Turkey, if you can picture that.

Acts 16:9-10 [while they were there] A vision appeared to Paul in the night. And a man of Macedonia stood and pleaded with him, saying, "Come over to Macedonia and help us." Now after he had seen the vision, immediately we sought to go to Macedonia, concluding that the Lord had called us to preach the gospel to them.

This was probably what was in God's mind and the reason why he was not permitted to go into other areas. God had ideas that the gospel was going to get into Europe, and that this is the direction in which it was going to go in. It was going to come up through the south into Macedonia.

Now, I do not know how the apostle Paul knew that this was a Macedonian in his dream. Maybe they wore a special kind of clothing that would indicate it. Maybe they had facial features or something that would indicate to him. At any rate, he did not doubt that it was a Macedonian. But what we are looking at here is a major turning point, a big step.

Mr. Armstrong felt that the time that this occurred was 50 AD. It was one time cycle after the beginning of the preaching of the gospel by the church, one 19-year cycle. It began in 30 AD and got to Macedonia into Europe in 50 AD. He related that to the preaching of the gospel by himself in this era of the church, which began the first Sunday of January 1934 and we went on Radio Luxembourg in Europe the first week in January. I do not know whether it was exactly the same day, the first week in January 1953, it was exactly 19 years, at least to the week after Mr. Armstrong began preaching. He felt that there was at least some parallel that again the gospel went into Europe 19 years after, in this case, it was revived.

Acts 16:11 Therefore, sailing from Troas, we ran a straight course to Samothrace, . . .

Samothrace was an island that was partway in between Turkey and Macedonia. If you have ever done any reading in Greek mythology, this island's name turns up every once in a while because it was from here that Poseidon, the Greek god of water, earthquakes, and horses (I think it was), that he surveyed his kingdom there in Troy, so you could look down on the plains of Troy from Samothrace.

But at any rate, they made it to there. It was pretty good sailing. It was about 35 miles, and they made pretty good time.

Acts 16:12 . . . and from there they went to Philippi, which is the foremost city of that part of Macedonia, a colony. And we were staying in that city for some days.

There is one thing that I need to interject, it popped up in verse 11. It says, "Therefore, sailing from Troas, we . . ." Now that we seems to indicate that it was in Troas that Luke joined with the apostle Paul and that everything up to this point were things that were recounted to him by others. That Paul told him things and Barnabas told him things, whoever his source material was (probably quite a number of people), and you will find that he uses the third person up to there. The "they" approach. But now it is we. And if you are careful in reading like this, just taking a note of the pronouns, you will find that every time Luke was not there he took away the first person and inserted the third person. So he apparently joined the apostle Paul and his party in Troas.

That leads to another question. Where was Luke converted? When was Luke converted? Was Luke in in Lystra? Was Luke in Derby? Was Luke converted at some time in the apostle Paul's early ministry, maybe when he was preaching from Cilicia, when Paul was there? That is, when Paul was in Tarsus for nine years that we were talking about. Was Luke converted there? Or was Luke just converted in Troas when Paul was on his way through and he hopped on the boat and went with him. That does not sound likely. But the indication would seem to be that Luke had been converted for a little while and that the apostle Paul, then, coming through there with Silas, maybe they contacted him and Luke then went along with them.

So then they went to Neapolis and from there to Philippi. Neapolis is again kind of the seaport city for Philippi. Philippi was the main city in that area. It was not the capital of Macedonia, but it was a main city in that area. They went quite a distance there, from Troas to Neapolis is 125 miles. A little bit of a journey there. And Philippi was 10 miles northwest of Neapolis.

Now Philippi was an important city but mostly as a result of a strategic location. It sat astride the main roads. It was on a fertile plain, an agricultural center mostly, and it was a Roman city. It was in Macedonia, but it was a Roman city. Apparently the reason why it was a Roman city, and again nobody knows why, but there was a very large number of discharged Roman soldiers there. You know, when they left the service, when they retired, for some reason a lot of them ended up in Philippi. Nobody knows why but it was through land grants and maybe the offering of freedom, if these people would leave the army when they were discharged and go live in Philippi and sort of represent Rome there and fill the city up with Romans, make the area more Roman and more secure, they offered them land or gave them their freedom. That is a possibility, but there were a large number of Romans there. So here we are in a Macedonian area, but it is basically a Roman city.

Now, something happened there. I do not know whether you are interested in it or not. But when Julius Caesar was killed by Brutus and Cassius, they fled. Well, guess where they fled to? For some reason they went to Philippi. But that is where they met their end because the supporters of Julius Caesar (it turned out to be Mark Antony and Octavian), caught up with Brutus and Cassius there, and that was the end of Brutus and Cassius. It was in Philippi that that occurred.

I brought this out about Rome because it was in Philippi that the apostle Paul is going to have his first contact with what would be a Roman culture and getting the experience of preaching the gospel to these people and finding out pretty much kind of what their reaction to it is going to be. So I am sure that it helped him whenever he eventually got into more Roman situations. But it was a good place to start. I think God was leading this whole thing and sort of trying things out in the hinterland first before you get to the really big time.

Acts 16:13 And on the Sabbath day we went out of the city to a riverside where prayer was customarily made; and we sat down and spoke to the women who met there.

This verse gives an indication that there was a very small colony of Jews there, probably hardly any at all. I believe that it was by regulation that they had to have at least 10 men to form a synagogue. There is no indication that there was a synagogue there, so it is indicative that there were not even 10 Jewish men there.

Now we begin to see even more that he is going to be confronted with outright pagans, Romans. So he went on the Sabbath day, instead of going to a synagogue (apparently was not any), went out of the city to the riverside where prayer was customarily made. We sat down (Luke with him), and spoke to the women who met there.

Acts 16:12 Now a certain woman named Lydia heard us. She was a seller of purple from the city of Thyatira, and she worshiped God. The Lord opened her heart to heed the things spoken by Paul.

Again, nobody knows who this Lydian lady was. But she was the first convert in Europe. And it is from such small beginnings that great works grow. That principle that Mr. Armstrong said that anytime God begins something working through a human being, it always has the smallest of beginnings. That way, God is glorified, and we understand then that the person, the human did not do it, but God working through the human did it.

Now, Luke shows very clearly that the conversion came about as a result of God opening her heart. Or God worked it. She was not convinced by a clever argument. I do not mean that Paul did not reason with her. She was convicted, convinced, as a result of God opening her heart.

Acts 16:15 And when she and her household were baptized, she begged us, saying, "If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come to my house and stay." So she constrained [persuaded] us.

Sometimes the hospitality of these people that I read of in the Bible is amazing.

I do not think that it necessarily indicates when it says that she was baptized, that she was baptized immediately upon hearing what Paul had to say. I am sure that there was more personal counsel and talking with her. But she was baptized reasonably quick, certainly a lot quicker than most of the baptisms that we have today take place. The average amount of time, from what I understand, from the time a person begins listening to the program until they are finally baptized is usually in the neighborhood of about two years today. You talk about being hard-headed! We must really be something. I do not know whether we are hardheaded or whether we are just so distracted. We have so many things buzzing around our heads, so many things to do, so many things that we think we have to do, that we cannot concentrate long enough, meditate, take time to sit down and do things like these people did and think things through, and they arrived at conviction and the decision here a lot quicker than than we did.

But at any rate, she opened her house to the apostle Paul that quickly. The man was practically a stranger, but yet she opened her house to him, apparently without any kind of fear at all that he was going to rob her blind or beat her or rape her, mug her, or anything like that. She trusted him and also seems to have almost kind of . . . well, it says she begged him to stay with her.

Acts 16:16-17 Now it happened as we went to prayer, that a certain slave girl possessed with a spirit of divination met us, who brought her masters much profit by fortune-telling. This girl followed Paul and us, and cried out, saying, "These men are servants of the Most High God, who proclaim to us the way of salvation."

I want to stop there for just a second. This, where it says she was possessed with a spirit of divination. In the Greek, it says (this is an interpretation, this word divination), a pythian spirit. A pythian is an outgrowth or a form of the word python. You know what a python is, it is a snake that wraps itself around you and squeezes you until you cannot breathe, and thus it kills it. But this word came from Greek mythology. It came from the snake, the python, that was supposed to have guarded Mount Parnassus, which was where the oracle and temple of Apollo was.

I am saying this only because I want you to understand how much, let us say, demonology, how much mythology, how many words there are, common words that we use fairly frequently in our language, that have come straight out of the most horrible of sources. We are using the names of the month and the names of the days of the week, all of those things have pagan connotations to them.

Here we have a young woman, or a slave girl anyway, with the spirit of divination and she has a pythian spirit. This thing develops out into a demon possessed person who had the ability to either speak through the girl or what we would call today to be ventriloquism. You see, the ability to throw one's voice. Now that is kind of interesting too. What is ventriloquism? It is one speaking through another. You see, that thing has its associations in demonism. And that is what happened here. They immediately thought that it was the python, a pythian spirit, a python speaking through the girl. And this girl did have a gift, a gift that was given by the demon and that gift was an ability to do some foretelling, a spirit of divination.

Now this demon knew who Silas and Paul were. The girl did not know. She did not have the foggiest idea. Her owners did not know. They did not have the foggiest idea at all either. Paul had only been there a short time. The news had not gotten around yet. Yet the demon knew that they were servants of the Most High God, and that demon knew that they were there preaching the gospel of the Kingdom of God.

Normally, I do not think that a person like the apostle Paul would mind a bit of advertising to kind of clear the way. There are indications that Jesus used the apostles in this way, that He would send them before He would go into a city, and they would clear the way for Him, advertising that He was coming, make sure that if He needed any halls, any area in which to speak, so that when He got there, His time was not wasted in any way. They made the very best use of time.

But this woman's announcement of whom they were was not pleasant at all. The indication is from the Greek that she was screeching this. It was not pleasant. The voice of the demon was not a pleasant, soothing affair but it was the kind of thing that attracted crowds in a bad way. It was a nuisance and a distraction. And apparently she was screeching this thing out even as they were talking, and it was getting more attention than the message. It says in verse 18,

Acts 16:18-20 And this she did for many days. But Paul, greatly annoyed, turned and said to the spirit, "I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her." And he came out that very hour. But when her master saw that their hope of profit was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace to the authorities. And they brought them to the magistrates, and said, "These men, being Jews, exceedingly trouble our city."

What Paul did for that young woman, actually freeing her from the bondage of that demon, was not appreciated by her masters at all because they saw their profit going right out the door.

It is interesting that the "we" disappears here. Where did Luke go? That is another thing we have no answers for. Did he run when the disturbance came? Was he off doing something else when this occurred? Again, it is one of those things that we do not know.

At any rate, they seized Paul and Silas, dragged them into the marketplace, and they brought them to the magistrates, and said, "These men, being Jews, exceedingly trouble our city." The charge against them was disturbing the peace.

Acts 16:21-23 and they teach customs which are not lawful for us, being Romans, to receive or observe." [That is the preaching or the promoting of an illegal cult. That sounds familiar.] Then the multitude rose up together against them; and the magistrates tore off their clothes and commanded them to be beaten with rods. And when they had laid many stripes on them, . . .

Who knows how many? The Jews had a regulation. It could be 40 less 1, 39 stripes. I do not know whether the Gentiles had any regulation like that. I am sure that they did not do it just with a little switch. They probably had something like broom handles that they beat them with. They were rods of some kind. This was normally done by people that are called lictors. Whenever Jesus was scourged, lictors did that. It was a profession. And in His case, the straps that they beat him with were embedded with bits of metal so that it would dig into the flesh and make a good job of tearing it up, make sure that they inflicted a very great deal of damage. In fact, it is recorded in writings that very many people did not survive the beating. It was such a shock, such a trauma to the system.

Now here they were beaten with rods. Apparently a lictor did it, but it was not done with the straps, it was only done with the rods, and that would have been bad enough.

Acts 16:23-24 And when they had laid many stripes on them, they threw them into prison, commanding the jailer to keep them securely. Having received such a charge, he put them into the inner prison and fastened their feet in the stocks.

It seems to me that that is what we would call today a cruel and unusual punishment. All these guys were doing was standing out there preaching and the charge that was made against them was totally false. They were not disturbing the peace. The woman was disturbing the peace, and then whenever her owners raised a rile, it was they that were disturbing the peace. Everything about this was totally unfair. There apparently was no questioning. They were just simply brought, they were railroaded into a prison, and after a beating, put in stocks and put in the inner part of the prison where you would put the worst criminals. Murderers, robbers, rapists, seditious people.

Acts 16:25-28 But at midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them. [I will tell you, how is that for spunk and spirit! They did not seem to be down on themselves, did not seem to be down on God.] 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 chains were loosed. The keeper of the prison, awaking from sleep and seeing the prison doors open, supposing the prisoners had fled, drew his sword and was about to kill himself. But Paul called with a loud voice saying, "Do yourself no harm, for we are all here."

By Roman law, a guard who allowed an escape had to suffer the same fate as the man that he allowed to escape. Apparently the scuttlebutt was Paul and Silas were going to be put to death. Otherwise, why would the jailer attempt to kill himself? Maybe he thought that killing himself was better than undergoing the embarrassment and pain of the beating. Now if that was so, then it gives you some kind of an indication of what a terrible beating Paul and Silas took, because the jailer certainly did not want to go through with it. He would have rather faced death instead.

It really begins to give you a bit of respect for Paul and Silas. Here they take this terrible beating. They were probably black and blue, practically everywhere in their body, yet there they are singing and praying. They apparently were doing it loud enough that others were able to be aware that it was going on.

The praying, the singing, the earthquake, the opening the doors, the loosing of the chains, all of those were vindications that these men indeed were God's servants. Now it is going to have quite an impact on the mind of the jailer.

Acts 16:29-30 Then he called for a light, ran in, and fell down trembling before Paul and Silas. And he brought them out and said, "Sirs, what must I do to be saved?"

I have no doubt that the jailer knew why Paul and Silas were there is that they were preaching the way of salvation. I am sure that was explained to the jailer as part of his responsibility of understanding why these men were in prison. Now that plus all of these occurrences, the praying, the singing, the earthquake, and all of those things motivated the man because they were vindications that indeed these people were exactly what they were called. These are the servants of God.

Acts 16:31 So they said [here is their answer], "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household."

That is a woefully misunderstood phrase. Because if we just took that at face value, one would think that that is all there is to salvation, all that a person has to do to be saved. There is a lot more to it than that. And what this is indicating here; belief indicates trust and committal. It is not just a matter of having or giving intellectual assent to the fact of Jesus as Lord and Jesus as Savior. But it implies also trusting and commitment as well. You know baptism implies commitment. All these things are tied together.

You see, Jesus is Savior to those to whom He is Lord. You have to understand that. If He is your Lord, He is your boss. If He is your boss, it means that you are obeying Him. That goes part and parcel along with the belief. Intellectual assent all by itself is not enough, as the Bible makes very clear in other cases, and I am sure that this was explained to the jailer. It was not just a matter of saying, yes, I believe. The apostle Paul would have been unfair to the man if he had not explained those things to him. It is just that everything that Paul said to the man is not here.

Now it says,

Acts 16:31-33 "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household." Then they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. [You see, it went further than that. They expounded on these things.] And he [the jailer] took them the same hour of the night and washed their stripes. And immediately he and all his family were baptized.

It is interesting that he tended the apostle Paul before he was baptized. So he did receive fuller instructions. It was not only the evangelizing of the man, but there was also pastoral care involved in this, so that he was well prepared for the baptism. So he did what he could to assuage their wounds, and that indicates a change of heart because before this was the same man who put them in stocks. Now here he is cleaning their wounds. And then he took them back to prison.

Before I go on to verse 35, the thing that I mentioned earlier that I thought was so interesting here has appeared twice in this chapter. And that is, it says in verse 15, "And when she and her household were baptized." And then it appears again here in verse 31. "So they said, 'Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household.'" Well, the interesting thing that, I felt anyway, that I had never noticed before, involves this thing about the salvation of the household.

Now it does not mean that these people are saved on the basis of the faith or the conversion of the one who was originally converted. In the first case, the case of Lydia, or in the second case, the Philippian jailer. But what it does indicate very clearly is that when God opens salvation to one person, husband or wife, he is also making it available to the other. They still have to make a choice but it is available to them. Not only that, we find added to this in I Corinthians 7 that it is not only available to the other mate, it is also available to the children.

I Corinthians 7:12-14 But to the rest I, not the Lord, say: If a brother has a wife who does not believe, and she is willing to live with him, let him not divorce her. And a woman who has a husband who does not believe, if he is willing to live with her, let her not divorce him. For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, . . .

That person goes into a special category. They are set apart, salvation is available to them. All they have to do is want it and ask for it. God may have not had that person, let us say, originally in mind, if I can put it in those terms, when He made the calling. But He does not deny them access to Him for salvation.

I Corinthians 7:14 The unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband; otherwise your children would be unclean, but now they are holy.

It is available to them too. God is not restraining them. Since God does not change, I do not see why that is not also applicable in this 20th century. But if He has offered it to you, He has also offered it to your mate. Your mate can reject it.

I Peter 3:1-2 Wives, likewise, be submissive to your own husbands, that even if some do not obey the word, they, without a word, may be won by the conduct of the wives, when they observe your chaste conduct accompanied by fear.

God is not keeping them from being saved. He is not keeping them from being converted. It is up to them. That is very interesting.

Acts 16:35-37 And when it was day, the magistrates sent the officers, saying, "Let those men go." So the keeper of the prison reported these words to Paul, saying, "The magistrates have sent to let you go. Now therefore depart, and go in peace." But Paul said to them, "They have beaten us openly, uncondemned. . .

They were never convicted of anything. The charge was made, but there was no trial. There was no hearing.

Acts 16:37 Paul said to them, "They have beaten us openly, uncondemned Romans [uh oh], and have thrown us into prison. And now do they put us out secretly? No indeed! Let them come themselves and get us out.

Now Paul, by doing this, accomplished three things. It first of all provided a measure of protection for local Christians, you see, people who were converted. If Paul had just left prison because they had said it, then the local officials, the council or whatever, they would have felt that they could push the people around any old way that they felt like it and that these people were not going to resist.

The second thing it did, it also provided a measure of protection for any other evangelists who might come through the area and undoubtedly more came after the apostle Paul and Silas. And the third thing was it corrected the local authorities so that they would not be so apt to just rush to judgment without ever even asking these people whether or not they were Romans.

Acts 16:38-39 And the officers told these words to the magistrates, and they were afraid when they heard that they were Romans. [Remember, this was a Roman city.] Then they came and pleaded with them and brought them out, and asked them—

"Please get out of here." That was a serious offense. Because even if that was a Roman governor that was over that city, it was illegal for him to do that to another Roman, let alone somebody of another nation. It was illegal for him to kill, to scourge, to torture, condemn, or put in bonds—you could not even put them in bonds—a Roman citizen who appealed to the people and presented himself before Caesar.

That law had existed from 509 BC. They should have known it. Here we are talking here about roughly 50 AD. That law had been enforced over 550 years. A Roman's only allegiance was to Rome and when he traveled in a foreign area, even though it was ruled by Rome, he was not in any way subject to any local law unless he chose to do so. I mean, it was diplomatic immunity in spades. You did not even have to be a diplomat. All you had to do was be a Roman and you had immunity everywhere. Even against Romans.

So this was a serious offense and that is why, when Paul claimed his Roman citizenship there in Jerusalem, boy, they backed off right away and provided him passage to Rome. These fellows were in trouble. And they were very fortunate that Paul and Silas were not of a mind to press an accusation against them.

Acts 16:40 So they went out of the prison and entered the house of Lydia; and when they had seen the brethren, they encouraged them and departed.

Luke has still not reentered the story. We do not know where he is. The feeling is that he stayed in Philippi, and he was the one who pastored the church until Timothy was sent back there a little bit later, and then he rejoined the apostle Paul a little bit later on his journeys.

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