Greetings

Greetings, everyone, and welcome to Monday’s edition of EDiBS! God’s rich peace to you in our Lord Jesus Christ, and thanks for being with me today as we take time together to make God’s Word a priority in our lives. Our study time today takes us right back to Acts 16, where we’ll continue to look at the apostle Paul, Silas, and their extraordinary prison experience. Let’s pray.

Prayer 

Lord Jesus, we ask that you would bless our time in your Word today, and that through it you would help us to grow in our faith and gain an ever firmer grasp on what we believe and why. Thank you for this chance to study together with so many fellow brothers and sisters in the faith. In your precious name we pray, amen. 

Getting Started 

As we get started today, Paul and Silas, beaten and thrown into prison by the authorities, are in dire straits. We’d never know it, however, by their activity. Our focus: a whole lot of shaking going on – in more ways than one.

Acts 16:25-30 

25About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them. 26Suddenly 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. 27The 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. 28But Paul shouted, "Don't harm yourself! We are all here!" 29The jailer called for lights, rushed in and fell trembling before Paul and Silas. 30He then brought them out and asked, "Sirs, what must I do to be saved?" 

As a California native, I’ve been through my share of earthquakes. My first memories of being shaken are from the 1971 San Fernando quake. I was 4 years old then, but I still remember my bed bouncing and jerking around my room room early in the morning, and a big lamp tumbling off of the dresser. Some of you will remember that the San Fernando quake, which we also call the Sylmar quake, was the inspiration for the movie called “Earthquake,” which came out in 1974. There was the Coalinga earthquake of 1983, which I remember from news reports. The Whittier quake in 1987 knocked me off my feet while I was showering in my college dorm room. And then there was the 1989 Loma Prieta quake during the World Series between the Oakland A’s and the San Francisco Giants. You baseball fans might remember that as the first Series sweep since 1976, but I remember it because the earthquake trapped my brother in the coastal city of Santa Cruz when the building he was working in collapsed. You get used to earthquakes, and usually they’re fairly innocuous. But you learn very quickly never to take their power for granted, and you never cease to be amazed when the big ones come, the ground ruptures and shifts, and everything from buildings to roads to the very fabric of people’s lives can turn to rubble in a few seconds’ time. 

In today’s reading, we have an earthquake, don’t we: a violent one which shakes the foundations of the prison where Paul and Silas are housed, throws open the doors to the cells, and looses all the prisoners’ chains. It’s nothing short of astounding, and we should understand that an earthquake can easily do all those things, including ripping chains from their wall anchors, leaving people bound by them suddenly free. But we need to understand that this is also nothing short of supernaturally miraculous, because the Lord has orchestrated this event. And far from turning lives to rubble as a result of this violent shaking, this will instead be a catalyst God uses to redeem the lives of many. Let’s take a few minutes to note all the things coming into play here in the text. 

To start, we should back up just a bit and remember how it is that Paul and Silas have come to be here in the first place, and also what condition they’re in. Having been seized by the owners of the slave girl from whom Paul has cast out a demon, Paul and Silas have been dragged before the magistrates of the city who, encouraged by an unruly crowd, have had the two severely beaten and placed in stocks. We should note here the severity of the wounds now being suffered by our two missionaries. In Jewish legal tradition, there was a maximum number of blows that could be delivered when beating a person, but the Romans had no such limit. Scholar F.F. Bruce tells us that according to the common practice of the day, Paul and Silas would have been relentlessly beaten, literally within an inch of their lives. Paul would even mention this later in his ministry. Writing of his sufferings for Christ to the Corinthians, he wrote in 2 Corinthians 11, “I have worked much harder, been in prison more frequently, been flogged more severely, and been exposed to death again and again.” 

Yet it’s in this very condition that we find Paul and Silas today doing something extraordinary: rather than cursing their captors, they are worshipping Christ. Instead of screaming in their pain and persecution, they are singing hymns to God and praying. Not only that, but the Scriptures tell us that as they are worshipping before the Lord, the other prisoners are listening to them. It must be such a foreign sound to them…a sound of hope and of joy completely antithetical to their surroundings and their situations. It’s in this extraordinary, preparatory setting that God brings the earthquake, and what we see coming in the aftermath is a shake-up that goes far beyond the tumbling of brick, stone and iron. Our passage ends today where we’ll pick things up next time: with the jailer, about to kill himself over the escape of the prisoners, entreated by Paul not to harm himself because everyone is still there. What a curious happening — or more properly, what a curious non-happening! 

Wrapping Up 

As we wrap things up for the day, following this most fortuitous quaking of the earth, why don’t Paul and Silas lead their fellow inmates in a mass escape? Why don’t they see this supernatural deliverance from the Lord as an opportunity to go free? Why don’t we observe mass pandemonium and a frantic dash into the darkness of the night? We don’t see these things first of all because God is still in control of the moment, orchestrating this event for His divine purposes. We don’t see these things because secondly, in their Holy Spirit-given spiritual discernment Paul and Silas see a greater redemptive purpose being set up for them to facilitate. God wants people to be free, certainly – but this night, through this particular event, there will be a completely different kind of freedom brought to a certain man and his family that will have long-standing implications reaching far beyond this one miraculous moment in time. That’s an important concept to grasp as we close today, and we’ll talk about it more when we come back together tomorrow. God’s peace, everyone, and I’ll look forward to being with you then. Take care!