Paul and Silas in Prison
Notes
Transcript
Setting Up the First European Church
Setting Up the First European Church
The Place of Philippi
Little is known about 1st Century Rome.
Pictures of Philippi: Piece of Rome Abroad. Roman culture. No synagogue?
Paul A. Hartog“Although many translations of Acts 16:12 describe Philippi as “the leading city of the district of Macedonia,” recent scholarship has favored the suggested reading of “a city of the first district of Macedonia” (UBS 4 / NA 27; Hemer, Book of Acts in the Setting of Hellenistic History, 113–14).
Roman forum, Roman baths, temples, and the remnants of several Christian churches
First-Century Discoveries:
a public speaking rostrum flanked by two monuments and fountains
a large rectangular forum
a palaestra (including an exercise field, amphitheatre, and latrine complex)
stoa porticoes
a city library
various other buildings
street pavement and drainage.
4th Century: Seven Churches, 4th-7th Century
Big Picture: I Corinthians 1:23
Maps
We preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles,
Spent the last few chapters talking about how the Gospel is a stumbling block to Jews:
How do we understand the Law/Prophets in light of Jesus?
But Paul ran into the issue of the Gospel coming across as foolish to the Greeks.
Foolish=Moron. Appears moronic to the Greeks.
Doesn’t Make Sense in to this World
Gospel Frustrates
Young Girl
“slave girl who had a spirit of divination”
John Stott:
Fortune Teller of sorts. “SPIRIT OF DIVINATION”= “a spirit of python”
Reference the snake that guarded the tempe of Apollo.
Believers: Apollo spoke from the snake through the women to predict the future.
Doubters: ventriloquists
“She had a spirit of Python…”
Exploited to make money!
She was obsessed with Paul and his crew… “These men are servants of the Most HIgh God who proclaim to you the way of salvation!”
Feels like she would be on Paul’s side!
Far from Soapbox Preacher.
Appears to actually be controlled somehow by this ‘spirit of python.’
So Paul becomes beyond perturbed at this point, and tells the evil spirit to scram!
But this supernatural healing comes at great physical cost!!
Exploited by ‘owners’/LIT: “lords”
Reaction was immediate: Dragged them into the center of town and came up with this accusation:
“Gone out”= exit of the demon AND exit of income.
F. F. Bruce: “When Paul exorcized the spirit that possessed her, he exorcized their source of income as well.”
“Disturbed our city and introduced… customs which is not allowed to us Romans to adopt and practise.’
The whole crowd attacks them, tore their clothes off, and were beaten with rods.
Thrown in jail and fasted their feet!
Point:
Foolishness to the Greeks!
Liberation led to imprisonment.
Philippi is like:
Don’t mess with our culture.
Don’t mess with our tradition!
Don’t mess with our religion!
Don’t mess with our slaves!
They had the freedom they wanted:
Wealthy from a famous gold mine nearby.
Freedom from what’s called the ius italicum: tax exemptions, protected by Roman Law. Someone quote, “Basically Rome away from Rome.”
How do people respond to the Gospel today?
Don’t mess with our culture, tradition, don’t mess with people we exploit!
We like our wealth and freedom!
World isn’t looking for the kind of liberation Paul offered.
If the Gospel liberates the exploited, the rich will get frustrated!
Evangelism in this culture would be been super difficult!
Even the liberating power of the Gospel led to just frustration, and imprisonment!
Gospel Liberates
Let’s focus more on how the Gospel liberates in this story...
So naked and beaten, Paul and Silas find themselves in the clink...
What do they do?
Groan and moan??
No! They pray and sing!
And then an earthquake shakes their shackles off and opens the door to the prison!
The jailor, who was probably a retired Roman soldier or army vet sees the doors and decides to end his life there and then...
Better end things now than face the punishment ahead...
Paul cries out: “DON’T HARM YOURSELF! WE’RE ALL HERE!”
Jailor: “What must I do to be saved?”
What did he mean by that statement?
Saved as in? What must I do to inherent eternal life?
OR, “How do you propose I get out of this mess!?” Nothing can save me!
But then Paul says it straight. You want to know how to get saved! You want an eternal sense of safety? You want to be liberated from this crazy life??
“Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.”
Amazing, right!
He invites Paul and Silas over to preach the gospel to his household...
Beautiful imagery:
He washes their wounds.
And he and his family were baptized.
Chrysostom’s words, “He washed and was washed, he washed them from their stripes, and was himself washed from his sins” (Homilies on Acts 36).
v. 34: Then he brought them up into his house and set food before them. And he rejoiced along with his entire household that he had believed in God.
Beautiful moment of hospitality:
IRONY:
Soldier was the one who was held captive. He was the one who needed liberating.
Experiences JOY=I wonder if this Jailor was the reason why JOY was such a big theme in Paul’s letter to the Philippians!
He experienced what we have articulated in our mission statement:
“Make disciples who discover the JOY of belonging to Jesus!”
Things seem to now be trending in the right direction...
Not quite...
Seems impossible, but the Gospel can liberate even the most difficult of converts!
Giving people hope when they have no hope!
At his whits end, he was thrown a life-line?
How am I supposed to find salvation apart from the impending doom I’m going to face!
Gospel Protects
But what brought such joy for the jailer and his family just brought more frustration for the City.
Most likely Paul and Silas came back to jail with the jailer in morning.
v. 35: “When it was day...”
So the assumption I guess is that Paul and Silas are back in jail and the magistrate sent a delegation party to release Paul and Silas… “They learned their lesson.”
But Paul and Silas aren’t going to be pons here. They’re not going to be exploited here, taken advantage of to make a public point about civil disobedience!
Paul’s like, “Y’all messed up! I’m a Roman citizen! You just want to sweep this under the rug? I don’t think so!”
38 The police reported these words to the magistrates, and they were afraid when they heard that they were Roman citizens. 39 So they came and apologized to them. And they took them out and asked them to leave the city. 40 So they went out of the prison and visited Lydia. And when they had seen the brothers, they encouraged them and departed.
Just as they enjoyed the freedoms of Rome, so did Paul as a Roman Citizen!
So they were afraid!
Paul took the blow, he remained silent about it until the opportune time came to throw down his citizen card!
Peterson:
Toga: Gown… When they stripped him they would have noticed that!
Diploma: Small wooden card which would have included his citizenship.
Dumb and Dumber: “It’s okay, I’m a limo driver.”
“Flogging us was a bad idea!”
I could get y’all in big trouble!
And so they were afraid of Paul...
Why did Paul do this?
To protect this new Gospel Community in a city that believed the Gospel was moronic! He used his Roman Citizenship as leverage to protect the citizenship of these new believers in the Kingdom of God!
William Larkin: “Providing a peaceful environment for the fledgling church is more important to him than pursuing personal peace (compare 9:31).”
Ben Witherington III: “‘It was vital for Paul to find a venue where Christians could meet in this Roman colony, for he was promulgating a foreign religion, and one not clearly licit, especially if it was distinguished from Judaism. Lydia’s providing of a meeting place was thus crucial to the existence and growth of Christianity in this place.’”
And so that leads us to the final point:
Gospel Unites!
Because the Gospel would seem moronic to the Greeks/Romans, how important is the unity of the church??
Gospel Unites
Writing this book while he was travelling? Gal 3:28: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”
Jesus work on the cross placed everyone on the same page!
Stott Reflects on the Following People Liberated in Philippi:
Lydia: Crazy Rich Asian!
Originally from Asia minor.
Foreign
Wealthy
Control over his household.
Slave Girl: Poor exploited fortune teller
Totally out of control: Exploited by her ‘Lords’
Jailor: Low vocation male
Dragged to the agora. Marketplace and center of public life.
Brought before the strategoi (two praetors).
II Corinthians 11, Paul mentions three flogging. This may have been the first of three.
Lessons about UNITY from Philippians
Philippians 1:27-28 “27 Only let your manner of life [Andrew Clarke quoting Bruce Winter: 'live as citizens'.] be worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the gospel, 28 and not frightened in anything by your opponents.”
Philippians 2:3 “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.”
Phil 3:20 “But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.”
“citizenship” (πολίτευμα, politeuma)
Gospel Frustrates because it is weird! It’s a message that doesn’t resonate!
Church’s accommodation of the Culture
Theology
Ecclesiology
World is the one who is actually stuck!
Their frustration with the Gospel is because they’re in prison!
Image
Dungeon: “Basilica A”
William Wilberforce:
Anti-slavery politician in England.
“If there is no passionate love for Christ at the center of everything, we will only jingle and jangle our way across the world, merely making a noise as we go.”