16:22
“The crowd joined in the attack ...” We sometimes labour under the misapprehension that people will naturally see the sense and goodness of the gospel. This is not so. We will get a very fickle response. Sometimes they will be supportive, this will happen when God moves the heart of a people, or changes the heart of a people, opening their eyes to the truth. But at other times they will be easily swayed by the arguments of evil men, as happened here. The authorities also joined in, ordering that Paul and Silas be beaten.
16:23,24
They were severely flogged, and then thrown into prison. The jailer was commanded to guard them carefully. In light of what was going to happen, Luke is at pains to stress that his account is not just a fanciful way of saying the guard was a bit lax and so they escaped. No, they were properly jailed and their release was a miracle from God. so they were put in the inner cell, and their feet were put in stocks. So Paul and Silas were securely imprisoned with no natural means of escape.
16:25
We now get to the part where the miracle takes place. The conditions would be far from pleasant, yet Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, they were putting Jesus’ words in Matt 5:11,12 into practice. The other prisoners were listening to them. We are not told what their reaction was!
No comments:
Post a Comment