When the Jailhouse Rocked
The Conversion of the Philippian Jailer
Acts 16:20-33
By Dave Redick

Perhaps one of the reasons churches are so inclined to make their worship services a big, entertaining production today in order to attract people is that we, for the most part, lack the kind of courage that was attracting these hardened sinners in this hell-hole prison!

"During the first few moments there was remarkably little alarm. Earth tremors were common enough in Mexico City. The previous weekend most capitalinos had endured a moderate earthquake without bothering to leave their beds. But the upheaval that week was different: downtown buildings began to vibrate wildly, their walls and girders groaning from the stress. Metal lampposts swayed and bent like rubber in their sockets in the shuddering streets. Telephone and electrical wires snapped, windows shattered and huge chunks of concrete smashed murderously onto the pavement below. Underground gas lines ruptured in large areas of the city, some erupting in geyser-like flames.

"Like thousands of other residents, Teresa Mendoza raced from her home in a panic. ‘It was absolutely dark from the dust and the smoke,’ she later recalled. ‘Everybody was crying - men, women and children. They were saying it's the end of the world.’"(1)

That quote, taken from a NEWSWEEK MAGAZINE article back in 1985, captured just a portion of the terror experienced by those who went through the Mexico City Earthquake which left 30,000 people homeless and thousands more dead.

We refer to them as "natural disasters" or "acts of God." Earthquakes, if they hit too close, can alter your life forever.

The Philippian quake, described by Luke in Acts 16, was no exception. Its impact altered several lives forever.

In Acts 16, Luke focuses on the effects of the quake in a particular location - a jailhouse - where two missionaries were locked in stocks because they had interrupted the cash flow of some local fortune-tellers by throwing a demon out of a young girl.

While the earthquake in Philippi that night certainly rocked the jailhouse, there were some other things that rocked it as well - things that can still rock all kinds of places today and cause similar effects. What shook the jailhouse that night besides the quake will not register on the Richter Scale. It was the impact of the actions of two men, filled with the Holy Spirit of God, who cared more for the work of their Lord than they did the continuance of their lives.

We're going to consider the earthquake story that is told in Acts 16:16-34. Please join me there in your Bible.

As the dust settles on Luke's description of the effects of this quake, I'd like to suggest that it wasn't the only thing that rocked the house that night. I see at least three other things that shook the place up. Each one changed the lives of some of the people present - forever.

The courage shown by Paul and Silas that night was as rare in their day as it is in ours.

Let's read it again:

Where in our modern world you will find a reaction like that to such mistreatment?

What were these guys singing about? Don’t tell me they were just doing what comes "naturally." What comes "naturally" in such a situation is not singing praises to God. What comes "naturally" is cursing. If not cursing, it's withdrawing, vowing never to get involved with helping another person because the cost is just too high. "We'd have been better off," such a person thinks, "to have never butted in. Next time, we'll mind our own business and keep our mouths shut! They can go to hell if they want to."

No, they weren't doing what comes naturally. They were doing what comes hard. They were doing what takes courage. They were openly, through their singing, in spite of their hurting, declaring their stubborn trust in God's care and providence for them!

In a generation that thinks it takes "courage" to get out of bed on Sunday morning and come an air-conditioned church building, where will you find a reaction like this one? In an age like ours where many think it takes courage to admit to a fellow worker that you're a believer, where do you find such courage as exhibited by Paul and Silas?

This kind of courage shakes things up, even among a house full of hardened criminals because it's so odd - so unnatural! Luke tells us in verse 25 that "the prisoners were listening to them." I don't think it's because they sounded like Stephen Curtis Chapman. It wasn't the concert quality of their music that attracted a small crowd of listeners in this jail and got the place rocking.

Perhaps one of the reasons churches are so inclined to make their worship services a big, entertaining production today in order to attract people is that we, for the most part, lack the kind of courage that was attracting these hardened sinners in this hell-hole prison!

When our actions in our every day living stand out no more than the actions of the lost world around us, do we really wonder why they don't beat a path to our door? No, I'm not saying that such courage will change the multitudes. The multitudes walked away from the courage of Jesus Himself. But here and there are good and honest hearts that will be changed when they see something real - something that isn't choreographed for the camera or rehearsed in the studio. It just does what it does because that is the way it is.

Some folks think courage means having no fear. Because of their erroneous definition, they unintentionally bar courage from their lives. Courage isn't the lack of fear. Courage is moving on and doing what is right in spite of fear.

"Do not fear those who kill the body, but are unable to kill the soul," Jesus said in Matthew 10:28, "but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell."

The issue isn't the lack of fear. It's the sense to know what to fear most!

Courage rocked the jailhouse that night. It really shook the lives of those prisoners. It could rock our homes, our churches, and our world today as well.

Why was the jailer going to kill himself? It seems strange to us, but it fits perfectly into the military law of that era. A soldier who let a prisoner escape was executed, usually by some method that made his case a spectacle and thus, a deterrent. If you recall the time in Acts 12 where the angel of the Lord freed Peter from prison, Herod executed the soldiers who were charged with his escape.

This man rushed in, and even in the darkness, quickly assessed the situation, and immediately realized his predicament. Obviously, the prisoners had escaped, given such an opportunity. He didn't even need to look into the cells. Luke records in verse 26 that "all the doors were opened, and everyone's chains were unfastened."

There was only one way out for him - suicide. With perhaps a quick thought of his family sleeping peacefully at home, maybe another about the irony of it all ending this way, he drew his sword and was preparing to plunge it into his own chest.

Put yourself in the sandals of Paul and Silas. They are falsely accused. They've been locked in stocks half the night after being beaten without a trial. This jailer has roughed them up. It says in verse 24, the jailer "threw them into the inner prison." Suddenly their stocks are split open, their chains are broken, the door of their cell is open, and they are free to run to safety. They could even consider it the Lord's will. Hey, it looked like the Lord's will! They could be out into the night and away from this town to safety in less than an hour. Who wouldn't run under such circumstances? But they didn't leave. They, along with the other prisoners, stayed right there. Isn’t that strange?

I tell you, something had shaken the jail that night, and it wasn't just the earthquake!

Though unregistered on any Richter scale, the second tremor was unleashed on that house.

Verse 28 says, "But Paul cried out with a loud voice, 'Do yourself no harm, for we are all here!'"

What? You're all here? That's impossible! Prisoners don't pass up a free opportunity to escape!

Had Paul and Silas been silent for just another minute or two, they could have walked out of that jail and stepped over the body of the only remaining obstacle between them and freedom. But they didn’t do it. This man had a soul, too. He needed Jesus in his life just like they did. Just like the other prisoners did. So they stayed. At the risk of being misunderstood again and maybe beaten again, or perhaps incarcerated indefinitely, they stayed.

That's compassion! That's caring! That's putting others before self. Such compassion has a powerful impact on people. It changed a jailer's heart. It stopped escaping prisoners in their tracks. Compassion rocked the house!

In his book, THE YOKE OF CHRIST, Elton Trueblood quotes a letter from a schoolgirl who speaks of the cost of caring. She writes, "I've been thinking much this year about the importance of caring…I've often realized that it takes courage to care. Caring is dangerous. It leaves you open to hurt and to looking like a fool. And perhaps it's because they have been hurt so often that people are afraid to care. You can't die if you're not alive… I have found many places in my own life where I keep a secret store of indifference as a sort of self-protection."

That's a penetrating insight - "a secret store of indifference as a sort of self-protection." Indifference is the antidote for compassion. Many maintain a great store of it. Yet we Christians are to care about others, because Christ cared about us. We are to show compassion on others even though they don't deserve it, because God has shown compassion on us, even though we have never deserved it.

Carefully cultivate indifference and your life will be no different than the lives of unbelievers around you. Square up with it, start caring, run the risk of being hurt, and suddenly things will start rocking around you.

Can I guarantee that it will happen that way? There are no guarantees. That’s why it’s risky. You just do it because God asks you to do it. Let Him take care of the impact.

Before we leave this issue, I want to clarify something. Because this incident and some others described in Acts contain a supernatural event (in the case the earthquake), we may be inclined to discount them as being irrelevant to us today since we seldom if ever see the miraculous - but think again.

Was it the miracle of the earthquake or the courage and compassion of Paul and Silas that rocked the jailers life? I suggest to you that it wasn’t the miracle. The quake many not have looked like a miracle from the vantage of the jailer. Besides, at the conclusion of the earthquake, all the man was ready to do was kill himself. It was only after Paul and Silas’ compassion in the face of their mistreatment that he inquired about salvation. Reading this account twenty centuries later, we can see the miraculous in the timing of the quake, but that wasn’t evident to the jailer. To him it was simply a bad turn of fate.

Then, as now, it was the extraordinary behavior of God’s people in the face of adversity that impacted the lives of those around them. The miracles, for the most part, simply set up the opportunity for God to showcase His people.

So, when I say that courage and compassion rocked the jail that night, understand that is what happened! The same potential is with us today, whether God intervenes with a miracle or not.

How much did this jailer know about Christ before things started rocking? We aren't told. It's possible he knew nothing about the Lord until he saw Him in Paul and Silas. Once he had seen Him there, though, there was no going back.

That is so often the way it happens! People know nothing of our Christ until they see Him in us. If what they see is real, they find Him hard to resist!

Wouldn't it be great if people came to us that way? Perhaps if our lives shook things up more than they do, it might become that way.

Those today, who discount the necessity of repentance, baptism, and commitment, love this verse. They love to quote it, never mentioning what is above and below it. They love to say, "All you need to do is believe."

Yet James tells us that even the demons believe… and shudder.(2) He tells us that a man is not saved by faith alone.(3)

Was it enough for this man to simply believe in Christ? If it was, then why did Paul do what is stated in the next two verses?

Apparently there is more to it than just mental agreement that God exists and Jesus is His Son.

What do you suppose Paul told the jailer as he "spoke the word of the Lord to him together with all his household?"

If he told him what he told others, he told him he must make up his mind to turn away from his sinning and begin living to please God. I suspect he told him Jesus' words about being "faithful until death and I will give you the crown of life."(4) I know he told him to be baptized, because that's what it says he did in verse 33.

Why do men distort the Bible’s teachings about salvation? I suppose there are many reasons. I suspect one of the big ones is this: It is prime strategy for Satan to get people to feel religious and do religious things and think they are saved, all the while, not complying with what God commands and going to hell! He would love to have millions of people like that! Actually, he does.

From time to time you'll see them at a funeral. No, you don't actually see them. They're in the box. You know they were scoundrels and blasphemers and notorious sinners, right up until the end. They never changed. They never gave any indication of a desire to live for God. But the preacher stands there and, because someone somewhere in the past, remembers that the deceased one time said he believed in God, though he never did anything about it, he's now in heaven singing with the angels! And everyone feels so good! And no one is challenged to look at their lives. And they follow him to hell!

Do you want to shake things up? Do you want to get things rocking? Talk about real conversion to a group of people who put their stock in the modern "faith only" doctrine. I guarantee there won't be a person in the crowd who isn't shaken. They may shake you! But there will be a few honest hearts who, like the jailer, will hear what you say and you will have rocked their world enough for them to see the need to obey.

True conversion shook the house that night. The tremor went right through the jailer and into his family. And I cannot help but believe that it also shook some of those prisoners who saw this whole thing and didn't run. I know there is no way to say for sure, but it wouldn't surprise me if, one day in heaven, one of us runs across some guy who, when we ask him how he found the Lord, will tell us this story. "I was in a jail in Philippi in the first century, and these two men were brought in and locked in stocks, and they started singing… It was the strangest thing we ever heard… and there was this earthquake, and things really started rocking…"

In the days following the great San Francisco Earthquake the papers would read, "503 Confirmed Dead in S.F. Quake." Because of that grim statistic, it remains the single worst earthquake disaster in U.S. history.

If there were a newspaper in heaven, what do you suppose it would say the day following the Philippian earthquake? I imagine it would say something like, "Twelve (or whatever number was included in the jailers household) Saved in Philippian Quake."

I highly suspect heaven gauges earthquakes on the basis of lives saved. That’s certainly the way Luke reports it. Shouldn’t we look at it that way, too? Isn’t that what it’s all about? Isn’t that why God leaves us here?

Each of us has opportunities as we go through this life to model either the Spirit of Christ in our lives or the spirit of the world. The one we choose to live out will be what determines the eternal destinies of at least some of the people around us. Let’s live for Him!

Footnotes: Use your "back" button to return to your place.

1. Newsweek, September 30, 1985
2. James 2:19
3. James 3:24
4. Revelation 2:10

Dave Redick is Minister of the Hwy 20 Church of Christ in Sweet Home, Oregon and Editor of The Preacher's Study. He may be reached at pstudysupport@comcast.net.

Copyright © 1996-2008 by The Preacher's Study. Permission is granted to subscribers to use this document in total or in sermon preparation in the context of the local congregation only. Publishing it in a book, on the Internet, or anyplace beyond the local congregation is prohibited.

All Scripture quotations and references are from the New American Standard Version unless otherwise stated.

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