Mission Supported – Acts 16:16-34

A text – Acts 16:16-34

¹⁶ One day as we were going to the place of prayer, we met a female slave who had a spirit of divination and brought her owners a great deal of money by fortune-telling. ¹⁷ While she followed Paul and us, she would cry out, “These men are slaves of the Most High God, who proclaim to you the way of salvation.” ¹⁸ She kept doing this for many days. But Paul, very much annoyed, turned and said to the spirit, “I order you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.” And it came out that very hour.

¹⁹ But when her owners saw that their hope of making money was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace before the authorities. ²⁰ When they had brought them before the magistrates, they said, “These men, these Jews, are disturbing our city ²¹ and are advocating customs that are not lawful for us, being Romans, to adopt or observe.” ²² The crowd joined in attacking them, and the magistrates had them stripped of their clothing and ordered them to be beaten with rods. ²³ After they had given them a severe flogging, they threw them into prison and ordered the jailer to keep them securely. ²⁴ Following these instructions, he put them in the innermost cell and fastened their feet in the stocks.

²⁵ About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them. ²⁶ Suddenly there was an earthquake so violent that the foundations of the prison were shaken, and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone’s chains were unfastened. ²⁷ When the jailer woke up and saw the prison doors wide open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, since he supposed that the prisoners had escaped. ²⁸ But Paul shouted in a loud voice, “Do not harm yourself, for we are all here.” ²⁹ The jailer called for lights, and rushing in, he fell down trembling before Paul and Silas. ³⁰ Then he brought them outside and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” ³¹ They answered, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.” ³² They spoke the word of the Lord^[c] to him and to all who were in his house. ³³ At the same hour of the night he took them and washed their wounds; then he and his entire family were baptized without delay. ³⁴ He brought them up into the house and set food before them, and he and his entire household rejoiced that he had become a believer in God.

A reflection:

Last week’s story from Acts found Paul and Silas arriving in Philippi in response to a vision Paul had received. Philippi, a bustling new town full of ex-Roman soldiers and commerce and liveliness, had no synagogue, so Paul and Silas found the local prayer spot near the river, meeting Lydia, a willing convert and then their gracious hostess. Silas’s account has the missionaries returning to the riverside place of prayer perhaps daily and repeatedly encountering a slave who had a spirit of divination that allowed her to tell fortunes. She would point them out and “advertise” for them, which annoyed Paul, so he exorcised the spirit. We might wonder why. Was Paul cantankerous? Did he not want to be associated with spirits? Was he intent on relying on the Holy Spirit and no other? We don’t know. But silencing the slave woman’s gift made trouble, and after much ado, Paul and Silas ended up in prison. The rest of the story you can read: they are arrested and put into prison.

An earthquake interrupted Paul and Silas’s singing songs of praise to the Lord, and it loosened their bonds and unlocked all the doors in the dark of night but did not result in death or destruction. Paul and Silas remained in their cell and reassured the jailer, who was saved from losing his prisoners and his job, and also saved for eternal life by believing in the Lord, he and his whole family. Once again the Lord had placed Paul and Silas in the right location to bear witness to the power of God, and another entire Philippian household was saved. The jailer took the two men home, clean their wounds, and hosted them. Now there were two families in Philippi who believed. The new church there continued under Lydia’s care, and Paul and Silas would travel on to new mission fields.

What should we make of this story set in the city of Philippi? Where did your imagination get caught? I noticed that in the dark prison depths Paul and Silas are singing hymns of praise to the Lord, not laments. I also noticed that it’s not just Lydia and the jailer who become believers but their whole households, and they each host the missionaries out of gratitude, providing some support for the missionary effort Paul and Silas have put in. If God sends us into mission, God has hosts and supports in mind from the start.

A prayer:

Lord God, Thank you for loving us. Thank you for the mission journeys of Paul that are there for us to read and learn from. Help us to know that, if you have work in mind for us, you will not abandon us without support. Amen.