'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, 20. And brought them to the magistrates, saying, These men,
being Jews, do exceedingly trouble our city, 21. And teach customs,
which are not lawful for us to receive, neither to observe, being
Romans. 22. And the multitude rose up together against them: and the
magistrates rent off their clothes, and commanded to beat them. 23. And
when they had laid many stripes upon them, they cast them into prison,
charging the jailer to keep them safely: 24. Who, having received such
a charge, thrust them into the inner prison, and made their feet fast
in the stocks. 25. And at midnight Paul and Silas prayed, and sang
praises unto God: and the prisoners heard them. 26. And suddenly there
was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were
shaken: and immediately all the doors were opened, and every one's
bands were loosed. 27. And the keeper of the prison awaking out of his
sleep, and seeing the prison doors open, he drew out his sword, and
would have killed himself, supposing that the prisoners had been fled.
28. But Paul cried with a loud voice, saying, Do thyself no harm: for
we are all here. 29. Then he called for a light, and sprang in, and
came trembling, and fell down before Paul and Silas, 30. And brought
them out, and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved? 31. And they
said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and
thy house. 32. And they spake unto him the word of the Lord, and to all
that were in his house. 33. And he took them the same hour of the
night, and washed their stripes; and was baptized, he and all his,
straightway. 34. And when he had brought them into his house, he set
meat before them, and rejoiced, believing In God with all his
house.'--ACTS xvi. 19-34.
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 be 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?