Acts 16:16-34
16 Once when we were going to the place of prayer, we were met by a female slave who had a spirit by which she predicted the future. She earned a great deal of money for her owners by fortune-telling. 17 She followed Paul and the rest of us, shouting, “These men are servants of the Most High God, who are telling you the way to be saved.” 18 She kept this up for many days. Finally Paul became so annoyed that he turned around and said to the spirit, “In the name of Jesus Christ I command you to come out of her!” At that moment the spirit left her.
19 When her owners realized that their hope of making money was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace to face the authorities. 20 They brought them before the magistrates and said, “These men are Jews, and are throwing our city into an uproar 21 by advocating customs unlawful for us Romans to accept or practice.”
22 The crowd joined in the attack against Paul and Silas, and the magistrates ordered them to be stripped and beaten with rods. 23 After they had been severely flogged, they were thrown into prison, and the jailer was commanded to guard them carefully. 24 When he received these orders, he put them in the inner cell and fastened their feet in the stocks.
25 About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them. 26 Suddenly there was such a violent earthquake that the foundations of the prison were shaken. At once all the prison doors flew open, and everyone’s chains came loose. 27 The jailer woke up, and when he saw the prison doors open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself because he thought the prisoners had escaped. 28 But Paul shouted, “Don’t harm yourself! We are all here!”
29 The jailer called for lights, rushed in and fell trembling before Paul and Silas. 30 He then brought them out and asked, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”
31 They replied, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved—you and your household.” 32 Then they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all the others in his house. 33 At that hour of the night the jailer took them and washed their wounds; then immediately he and all his household were baptized. 34 The jailer brought them into his house and set a meal before them; he was filled with joy because he had come to believe in God—he and his whole household.
Today’s text picks up right where we left off last week. Paul, Silas, Timothy, and Luke—the author and narrator of this text—are on a missionary journey in the region of Macedonia. They are still in the city of Philippi, where they met Lydia and other women down by the river when they went to pray. Philippi is an interesting city. Philippi was established by Caesar Augustus, the same guy who decreed that all the world would undertake a census in the second chapter of Luke’s first book. Augustus established Philippi as a retirement community for former Roman soldiers. And it was great land, there were precious metals in the hills, and just a short journey from the beach. These former soldiers were surely very loyal to Augustus.
Augustus also makes another important appearance in the Gospels, though he is mentioned by title, not name. When Jesus is asked whether or not it is appropriate to pay taxes, Jesus asks to see a denarius, a silver, Roman coin. Jesus asks, “Whose picture is on the coin?” The answer is “Caesar’s.”
If you look at a denarius from the first century, you will see a picture of Caesar Augustus, along with the words, “Son of God.” That coin, I’ve heard, was minted in Philippi.
The people of Philippi were not only loyal to Augustus, they worshipped him. Granted, Augustus was not as highly regarded as other deities in the Greek pantheon. Others still outranked him. In fact, Augustus was said to be enamored with the Greek god Apollo. Apollo is the Greek god of the sun, of music, of prophesies, truth, and knowledge. Augustus gave Apollo credit for military victory, and built a temple to Apollo in Delphi.
This information is going to be important as we begin to break down today’s scripture, so keep in mind the people of Philippi were loyal to Augustus, and that meant being loyal to the Apollo, the god of among other things prophesies, truth, and knowledge.
A quick overview of what’s going on here may be helpful. Paul and his companions are going around Philippi, teaching about Jesus. They meet a slave girl “who had a spirit by which she predicted the future.” The KJV says it better: “a certain damsel possessed with a spirit of divination met us.” And the paraphrase, the Message, probably says it best: “One day, on our way to the place of prayer, a slave girl ran into us. She was a psychic and, with her fortunetelling, made a lot of money for the people who owned her.”
After meeting Paul, Silas, and others, the girl yells, “These men are servants of the Most High God, who are telling you the way to be saved.” Over, and over, and over.
Eventually, Paul gets tired of this and calls the spirit to leave her. Immediately, the spirit left her. But why didn’t Paul immediately free the girl from this spirit as soon as he met her?
First, I would say that we are never told that the spirit caused her any pain or discomfort. It was a spirit of divinization, a spirit that caused her to tell the future. At least that’s what our English translations tell us. In the Greek we read that she had a Pythian spirit. And since most of us have no idea what a Pythian spirit is, we translate this phrase to say that she had a spirit that could tell the future.
Pythia is the name of the high priestess at the temple of Apollo in Delphi. She was said to be able to not only predict the future, but as a priestess of Apollo, she was a purveyor of truth and knowledge.
Why didn’t Paul immediately heal this girl when he met her? She was great publicity! Not only was she announcing to everyone that Paul and his companions were servants of the Most High God, teaching people how to be saved, she was saying it as a person known to have a Pythian spirit. According to the gentlemen at pulpitfiction.com, “To dispute her truth is to deny the power of Apollo and to negate her Pythian Spirit – yet her proclamation undermines Apollo’s authority by claiming Paul’s God as Most High.”
If you believe that all this girl speaks is truth, in the spirit of Apollo, then you have to believe that Paul’s God is greater than Apollo. Boom.
Now look at what happens when Paul does decide to free her from the Pythian spirit: “‘In the name of Jesus Christ I command you to come out of her!’ At that moment the spirit left her.” (V.18b).
I’ll be honest, I don’t like movies like “The Exorcist” because they really scare me. But what I have seen always requires some sort of battle back and forth between the spirit and the priest doing the exorcism. There’s no battle here, just an immediate healing, which further emphasizes what the girl was saying all along. The God of Paul, Silas, Timothy, and Luke. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The God of you and me is the Most High God!
And remember everything that was happening in Philippi. There was militaristic nationalism and economic exploitation. There was a civic religion, the worship of Caesar as a god. The girl proclaimed our God to be the most high God, and then showed it to be true when the Pythian spirit left her immediately. To quote pulpitfiction.com again, “To cast out the Pythian spirit is to cast out the idolatrous worship of nationalism, militarism, and economic exploitation.”
Alright, back to the text. We see that everyone is excited that this girl has had this spirit removed from her. Nope, her owners were making a killing off her unique skillset, and now their cash cow has gone dry. So they seize Paul and Silas and take them to the magistrates, the judges over the city of Philippi. But you can’t just tell the judges to arrest them because they healed somebody. They didn’t break any laws that I know of. So they make up some charges against the men (V20-21): “These men are Jews, and are throwing our city into an uproar by advocating customs unlawful for us Romans to accept or practice.”
This charge is anti-Semitic, charging the men for simply being Jews. It is xenophobic, claiming that they are outsiders who are bringing their ways and customs into Philippi. The charges made against these missionaries claims that they are guilty of disturbing the peace because they are outsiders. And the irony of that is that these were former Roman soldiers who had moved to Greece to retire. They, too, were outsiders.
Paul and Silas were stripped of their clothes, beaten severely, and imprisoned. They were shackled together and the jailor received special instructions to guard these men closely. I doubt that the city magistrates were thinking this way, but in the book of Acts alone, God had already sprung his disciples out of prison twice, once in Acts 5 and again in chapter 12.
Things don’t look good for Paul and Silas. They are naked, beaten, and chained together with a personal guard watching over them. This is a good reminder that following Jesus doesn’t mean things will always go well for you. In fact, if you keep reading Acts, this is just one of many times following Jesus gets Paul beaten, thrown in prison, or worse. But I love what it says they are doing. In this gloomy situation, Paul and Silas are praying and singing. I get the praying part. When things are going bad, even nominal Christians pray. I love that they are singing. We don’t know what they are singing, but I expect they were singing songs of hope, songs of faith. Maybe even songs of praise.
In situations like this, I think singing is an act of resistance. When we should be sad, when we should be angry, when we should be scared, we can sing. And singing can play a huge role in our attitude and our outlook.
I read an article from Time magazine this week on how singing affects our brains and bodies. One paragraph said this:
The elation [from singing] may come from endorphins, a hormone released by singing, which is associated with feelings of pleasure. Or it might be from oxytocin, another hormone released during singing, which has been found to alleviate anxiety and stress. Oxytocin also enhances feelings of trust and bonding, which may explain why still more studies have found that singing lessens feelings of depression and loneliness. A very recent study even attempts to make the case that “music evolved as a tool of social living,” and that the pleasure that comes from singing together is our evolutionary reward for coming together cooperatively, instead of hiding alone, every cave-dweller for him or herself.
Paul and Silas sing, the grounds shake, and the walls of the prison fall down. As you might expect, the jailor wakes up and sees the prison door wide open. And when he sees this, he draws his sword to kill himself. I don’t know if he is going to kill himself because of the shame of not being able to do his job, or if he knows the magistrates will put him to death for failing to keep the prisoners locked up. Either way, Paul yells out, “Don’t harm yourself! We are all here!”
The text tells us that the jailor calls for the lights, but it would seem to me that the lights go on for the jailor in a different way. He sees these men and believes that they are legit. Then in verse 30 we read, “He then brought them out and asked, ‘Sirs, what must I do to be saved?’”
In his commentary on the book of Acts, NT Wright says we shouldn’t place a modern, evangelical understanding upon the jailor’s question. Being Roman, he wouldn’t have had any concept of heaven and hell. He wasn’t asking how to go to heaven when he died. Wright translates verse 30 a little loosely as, “Gentlemen, will you please tell me how I can get out of this mess?”
Paul and Silas reply with a phrase that has become synonymous with the gospel message: “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved.”
As I like to say, I believe in a big salvation. Just as the jailor’s question was about more than going to heaven when he died, I believe that must of the mess we are in could be fixed if we believe in the Lord Jesus. But that needs a lot of unpacking, and this is where we tie it all together.
Notice that Paul doesn’t just refer to Jesus by name, he gives him a title: Lord. Lord is the title given to one with the greatest power and authority. Webster’s Dictionary defines “lord” as one who “has power and authority over others.” Paul named Jesus as the one to whom our allegiance belongs.
To be saved, to be able to get out of this mess, we must believe that Jesus is Lord.
Here’s the problem. I’ve mentioned many times that our English language doesn’t always capture the full essence of the original Greek. The word “believe” is one of those words that doesn’t quite translate.
Think of it like this. I’ve got a little girl, and right now unicorns seem to be all the rage among her peers. Manufacturers even slap unicorn horns on other stuffed animals to get us to buy them. We have an elephant with a unicorn horn on it at home. I don’t get it.
Here’s the thing, I don’t believe in unicorns. I believe they are imaginary. I also believe a person should look you in the eye when they shake your hand. I believe that the best ice cream in town is at Klines. I don’t believe in aliens, but I believe you have the right to if you so wish.
We sometimes use the word “believe” as a synonym for our opinion or preference. Other times we use it as our assessment of how likely a situation, scenario, or magical creature is. But when Paul says that we are to believe in Jesus as Lord, he isn’t asking for your opinion or preference. He isn’t asking for your assessment of the likelihood of Jesus being real or fake, like a unicorn.
The Greek word we translate here as believe is πιστεύω, pist-yoo-o. Pisteuo has the same root as the word pistis, the word we translate as faith. This isn’t about believing that Jesus is real, like you might believe in unicorns or aliens. The definition for pisteuo is “to be persuaded of, to credit, place confidence in, to trust.”
Therefore, to believe in the Lord Jesus is to trust or put your confidence in Jesus as the one with authority and power. And if Jesus is the one with ultimate authority and power over our lives, then Apollo isn’t. If Jesus has ultimate authority and power over our lives, Caesar doesn’t.
We can go all the way back to the slaver girl who followed Paul and Silas around Philippi, declaring that these men were servants of the most high God, and doing so with a Pythian spirit, which made her tell the truth! The spirit of Apollo made her proclaim the power of Jesus. And when the jailor asked how he could be saved, Paul told him to put his trust in Jesus as the one with true power and authority.
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