Yet Another Prison Break

 

Chapter 16        

This chapter begins a new stage of the mission of the apostles. After the meeting in Jerusalem, in which everyone agreed that the Gentiles would not be held to the same standards as Jews regarding the law of Moses, the apostles are sent out to resume their work. There is some shuffling of personnel – Barnabas partners with John Mark, and Paul takes Silas with him back to Derbe and Lystra.

Here Paul takes on another partner in ministry – Timothy – who will play an important role in Paul’s work – as evidenced by Paul’s own writings. It may seem surprising that Paul insists Timothy be circumcised before joining his team. Given the consensus reached in the previous chapter, one might ask why. Most likely, it had to do with Timothy’s eclectic upbringing.

Timothy was the son of a Jewish mother and a Greek father. No doubt, his Greek father would have seen no reason for his son to undergo the rite of circumcision. Yet, in Paul’s eyes, Timothy is a Jew because of his mother. And the Apostolic council never said that Jewish Christians did not need to be circumcised. Most likely, Paul wanted to avoid being the subject of criticism and being summoned up to Jerusalem again.

Once they get that squared away, they begin their missionary travels together. Again, Luke makes it clear to the reader that the Holy Spirit is in charge. The men are forbidden by the Spirit to speak in Asia. The Spirit does not allow them to pass into Bithinya. They keep going, farther and farther westward, until they are in the port city of Troas, on the Aegean Sea. If we follow their travels on a map of the region, we see that they are being gently pushed in a particular direction – toward Macedonia.

“Come over to Macedonia and help us,” Paul hears in a dream, and so they go.

Macedonia was a Roman province in the northern region of the Greek peninsula. Thessalonika was the capital city, and Philippi was also in this region. Paul and his team went straight to Philippi. On the Jewish sabbath day they went out looking for the place of prayer. Evidently, the Jewish community in Philippi was not large enough for a synagogue, but there was a spot near the river where believers would congregate. Here we meet Lydia.

Lydia, interestingly, shares the name of the district in which she lived. The district of Lydia was the center of the production of purple dye. Purple cloth was a luxury item because of the difficulty in making the dye. This woman Lydia is a dealer in purple cloth, so she is probably a woman of some consequence. She is also, apparently, unmarried and the head of her own household. She invites the missionaries to stay at her home and they accept.  

Now the main action of the chapter begins. There is a slave girl with a “spirit of divination,” whose owners make a tidy profit by renting her out as a fortune-teller. She begins following the missionaries and loudly announcing that they serve the Most High God and bring a message of salvation. What she says is true. But for whatever reason, it annoys Paul. So he heals her of her affliction. It seems an unusual reason to heal her – not out of compassion but out of annoyance. But it is good for everyone involved – except, that is, for her owners. Now their income source is gone. Needless to say, they are not happy for her. Needless to say, they are angry and they bring charges against the men.

This story finds parallels throughout Luke’s writing. There are the two episodes earlier in Acts where the apostles encounter magicians (see Chapters 8 and 13) – which serve to show the ways in which the gospel differs from magic. And there is also a slightly different parallel in Luke’s gospel: the story of the Gerasene Demoniac (Luke 8). In this story, Jesus enters the land of the Gerasenes (a Gentile region) and encounters a man possessed by demons who lives well apart from polite society. In negotiating the exorcism of the demons, they are transferred from the man into a herd of pigs. The pigs then rush into the lake and drown. Oddly, the townspeople do not seem happy for this man, who is now in possession of his right mind. Instead they are afraid. Perhaps they are distressed because they have lost an entire herd of pigs. They ask Jesus to leave. As in the story of the slave girl, it reveals how people may value profit over human life.

As a result of his good deed, Paul and his team are jailed, which leads to another prison break – this time by earthquake. When he sees the prison doors open, the guard prepares to kill himself – because, remember what happens to prison guards who fail to hold on to their prisoners? See Chapter 12. But Paul, perhaps anticipating such a thing, keeps everyone still and assures the guard that all is well. This is enough to turn the guard into a believer.

This chapter gives us much to ponder on the matter of freedom and the value of human life. There is the girl following Paul and the others. Jesus can, and does, free her from the spirit that controls her, but she is still a slave. Is there some sense in which she is now free even though a slave?

Likewise, Paul and the others are imprisoned for their actions, chained to their cell. But, is there a sense in which the freedom of their spirits is of greater consequence than the chains that bind them? Yes! Because their prayers literally break those chains.

And how about the jailer? He is free, in the conventional sense of the word, until he sees the prison bars broken. He knows then he will pay with his life. But wait – the gospel saves him, because the prisoners remain in custody – by their own free will – and he becomes a believer.

And how about Lydia? For a woman of the first century Roman Empire, she seems to enjoy a good bit of freedom.

Questions for Reflection:

·        As William Willimon writes, “there is freedom and then there is freedom.” Even in a free society, there are things that we may become slaves to: unfulfilling jobs, grades, debt, social conventions, addiction. Where, in your life, do you need Jesus to free you?

·        What do the stories of the slave girl and the jailer say about how the gospel of Jesus values human life, compared to how the world does?