Sermon from February 22, 2004
Christopher Dawson, a Christian historian of the 20th century said this about Paul’s mission to Philippi. “St. Paul’s passage from Troy in Asia Minor to Philippi on the European mainland did more to shape the future of European culture and European history than anything recorded by the great historians of his day – because it took place ‘underneath the surface’” (quoted in First Things, Feb. ’04, 21). No story is told more masterfully than the story of this passage from Troy to the city of Philippi in Acts 16.

The Jerusalem apostles, according to Acts 15, had declared in favor of a Christianity unencumbered by ancient Jewish rituals. Paul set out on his second missionary journey with a free hand to evangelize both Jew and Gentile and to incorporate Gentiles into the Church because of their faith in Jesus and their baptism into His name.

As we saw last week, he would set out on this journey without Barnabas. Barnabas saw value in John Mark that Paul did not see. Since Paul refused to allow John to journey with him, he and Barnabas agreed that he would travel with Silas and Barnabas with John Mark. Paul returns to familiar places as his first stop and discovers his most promising protégé.

Christianity Goes to Europe
He came to Derbe and then to Lystra, where a disciple named Timothy lived, whose mother was a Jewess and a believer, but whose father was a Greek. The brothers at Lystra and Iconium spoke well of him. Then, Paul must have stunned those who knew what he had just gone through at the Jerusalem Council. Paul wanted to take him along on the journey, so he circumcised him because of the Jews who lived in that area, for they all knew that his father was a Greek.

Paul had fought tooth and nail against the necessity of circumcision, and now he initiates it. According to Luke, Paul did it for political reasons: he circumcised him because of the Jews who lived in that area, for they all knew that his father was a Greek. Paul himself later offered a more theological reason for his unexpected action. To the Jews I became a Jew, in order to win Jews (1 Cor. 9:20). We must never become so cynical that we forget that some behavior is right all the time, and some behavior is wrong all the time. We must never become so naïve that we forget that some behavior is right some time and wrong at other times. Let those who have ears to hear discern well.

As they traveled from town to town, they delivered the decisions reached by the apostles and elders in Jerusalem for the people to obey. So the churches were strengthened in the faith and grew daily in numbers. Paul honored the Jerusalem Council by delivering their encyclical to the churches he had founded. And in verse four Luke mentions the apostles in Jerusalem for the last time in the book of Acts. It is not disrespect; he simply has another story to tell, and they no longer play a role in it.

Verse 6-8 report a series of divinely structured frustrations. Paul and his companions traveled throughout the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been kept by the Holy Spirit from preaching the word in the province of Asia. When they came to the border of Mysia, they tried to enter Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus would not allow them to. So they passed by Mysia and went down to Troas, the site of ancient Troy, glorified by Homer in The Iliad. There Paul had a vision.

During the night Paul had a vision of a man of Macedonia standing and begging him, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” After Paul had seen the vision, we got ready at once to leave for Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them. Macedonia, the birthplace of Alexander the Great; Macedonia, European soil.

Verse 11 says, From Troas we put out to sea and sailed straight for Samothrace, and the next day on to Neapolis. I don’t mean to burden you with details, but here in verses 10-11, for the first time, the preposition changes from they to We. Who was we? Most likely, it means that Luke himself joined up with Paul, Barnabas and Timothy. He will come and go from the remainder of the story. There are actually four sections in the last 13 chapters of Acts where Luke is present. For now he says in verse 12, From there we traveled to Philippi, a Roman colony and the leading city of that district of Macedonia. And we stayed there several days.

In the City of Philippi
On the Sabbath we went outside the city gate to the river, where we expected to find a place of prayer. Not a synagogue but a place of prayer, because there were too few Jews in Philippi to justify a synagogue. And not only no synagogue, but no men. That did not deter Paul. We sat down and began to speak to the women who had gathered there. One of those listening was a woman named Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth, a business woman, from the city of Thyatira, who was a worshiper of God – one of those Gentiles attracted to Judaism, who formed a strategic audience for Paul everywhere he went. The Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul's message. She became a follower of Christ, as did the members of her household.

Then, something unusual happened. When she and the members of her household were baptized, she invited us to her home. “If you consider me a believer in the Lord," she said, "come and stay at my house.” And she persuaded us. There was no impropriety about going to her house, but staying overnight in a woman’s house at her invitation might have been unthinkable in Judea. Welcome to the social liberties of the Gentile world.

Up till now, Paul has experienced hostility mostly at the hands of his fellow Jews. That was about to change. Verses 16-18: Once when we were going to the place of prayer, we were met by a slave girl who had a spirit by which she predicted the future. She earned a great deal of money for her owners by fortune-telling. This girl 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." She kept this up for many days.

The rest of verse 18 reports an exorcism. Finally Paul became so troubled 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. Verse 19 points to the practical consequences of the exorcism, and verse 20 reveals anti-Semitism, Roman style.

When the owners of the slave girl realized that their hope of making money was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace to face the authorities. They brought them before the magistrates and said, “These men are Jews, and are throwing our city into an uproar by advocating customs unlawful for us Romans to accept or practice.”

Loss of revenue and a convenient scapegoat excused some brutal and (as we shall see) illegal treatment of Paul and Silas. The crowd joined in the attack against Paul and Silas, and the magistrates ordered them to be stripped and beaten. After they had been severely flogged, they were thrown into prison, and the jailer was commanded to guard them carefully. Upon receiving such orders, he put them in the inner cell and fastened their feet in the stocks.

Whiners will not take kindly to verse 25. About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them. They had been flogged and their wounds left untreated, and their feet were fastened in stocks. And what did they do? At midnight they prayed and sang hymns. If anything sets Christians in the first century apart from American Christians, it is their ability to rejoice in their sufferings and at their sufferings.

Years later, Paul wrote his warmest and most personal letter to the Church at Philippi. He said to them two remarkable statements. In Philippians 1:29-30 he wrote about suffering as a privilege. It has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for him, since you are going through the same struggle you saw I had, and which we just read about in verse 25. And the second remarkable statement calls on the Philippian Church to imitate Silas and him in their dungeon joy. Philippians 4:4: Rejoice in the lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!

Meanwhile, back in the Philippian jailhouse, verse 26 says, Suddenly there was such a violent earthquake that the foundations of the prison were shaken. At once all the prison doors flew open, and everybody's chains came loose. Does this remind you of what happened to Peter in Acts 12? I haven’t commented on it, but Luke seems deliberately to have reported events in Paul’s ministry that mirrored events in Peter’s. Maybe it was his way of affirming Paul’s status as an apostle on a par with Peter.

As earthquakes will do, this one woke everyone up. 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. You may remember from Acts twelve that Herod had the jailers executed, who were on duty when an angel delivered Peter from the city jail. The Philippian jailer imagined the worst for himself.

But Paul shouted, “Don't harm yourself! We are all here!”

With that reassurance the Philippian jailer turned his attention from his responsibilities to the authorities of Philippi to his responsibilities to a much higher authority. The jailer called for lights, rushed in and fell trembling before Paul and Silas. He then brought them out and asked, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”

We don’t know for sure what he had heard Paul and Silas say about salvation. But if Acts 17:31 offers any indication, we can understand his question. “God has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead.” The jailer was asking what he had to do to be saved on the great Day of Judgment to come. The answer is classic.

Verse 31: They replied, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved – you and your household.” Then they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all the others in his house.

It is hard for us in good circumstances to remember how close to the edge we live. A breakdown in health, loss of job and income, child at risk, threat of attack from an enemy, natural disaster such as hurricane or earthquake, abandonment by those you trust, and awareness of jeopardy before your Creator remind us how close to the edge we live and how much we may need salvation. Christian faith speaks of the acts of God by which He offers salvation to His human creation.

Very likely, the Philippian jailer experienced his need for salvation as a need to come through the great Day of Judgment to come. Safe passage through that ordeal centers on Jesus Christ. So, Paul called upon him to adhere to Jesus Christ so that when the Day of Judgment came, he would not stand alone. Christ would be there for him.

What Paul said to the Philippian jailer, I say to you. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and on the great Day of Judgment He will guide you safely through that ordeal. Give evidence of your belief. Be baptized. Join the people of Christ in this or another congregation. Don’t wait another day.

The Philippian jailer gave some other immediate tangible evidence of his faith in Jesus. Verses 33-34: At that hour of the night the jailer took them and washed their wounds; then immediately he and all his family were baptized. 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 family.

Apparently, the jailer also took Paul and Silas back to jail, and a remarkable exchange took place. When it was daylight, the magistrates sent their officers to the jailer with the order: “Release those men.”

The jailer told Paul, “The magistrates have ordered that you and Silas be released. Now you can leave. Go in peace.”

But Paul said to the officers: “They beat us publicly without a trial, even though we are Roman citizens, and threw us into prison.” That was illegal. “And now do they want to get rid of us quietly? No! Let them come themselves and escort us out.” The officers reported this to the magistrates, and when they heard that Paul and Silas were Roman citizens, they were alarmed. They came cap in hand to appease them and escorted them from the prison, requesting them to leave the city.

Paul was willing to use every arrow in his quiver. Whatever Paul’s motives, Luke recorded it for posterity so as to establish the fact that being a Christian made no difference in the protection given by Roman law. It all illustrates wonderfully what it means to be wise as serpents and harmless as doves. But verse 40 tells us where Paul’s heart really was. After Paul and Silas came out of the prison, they went to Lydia's house, where they met with the brothers and encouraged them. Then they left.

The Pastoral Center of Gravity
Writing to the Philippian Church many years later, Paul would say, I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy . . . I have you in my heart . . . God can testify how I long for all of you with the affection of Jesus Christ. A reading of the Philippian letter reveals a deep mutual affection between Paul and the Philippian Church. No doctrinal aberrations and no moral failures marred that affection.

That’s how I feel about you. I can’t do it while I am speaking to you, but on a communion Sunday, as the deacons pass the bread and the cup, I will often look up along each row and remember each person’s story and give God thanks that He would have permitted my life to be intertwined with yours.

And it all happens beneath the surface, below the radar, where, as Philippians 2:13 puts it, God . . . works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose, as surely as He was at work in guiding Paul to the European continent and to the transformation of European civilization. What is He at work in us to accomplish?