Acts 16:25 - Meaning and Application

Here we see the persecutors’ plans against Paul and Silas completely fail. They meant to frighten the preachers of the gospel, discourage them, and make them grow tired of their work. Instead, we find the two men both courageous and encouraged. They were remarkably calm. Never were poor prisoners more truly cheerful, or less troubled by the rough treatment they had received.

Think about what they had endured. Roman praetors, officials with power over the courts, had rods and axes carried before them as signs of judgment. Paul and Silas had already felt the rods on their backs, and the stripes were very painful. Anyone might have expected them to complain about the rawness and soreness of their backs and shoulders. They also had reason to fear the axe next, since their Master had first been beaten and then crucified, and they might expect the same. Even more, they were in the inner prison, with their feet fastened in stocks that some think also hurt them. Yet at midnight, when they should have been trying to rest, they prayed and sang praises to God.

They prayed together. They asked God to support them and comfort them in their suffering, just as he visited Joseph in prison. They asked that Christ’s comfort would grow as their suffering for him grew. They also prayed that even their chains and stripes would help spread the gospel, and they prayed for their persecutors, asking God to forgive them and change their hearts. This was not during their usual hour of prayer, and it was not in a house of prayer, but in a dungeon. Still, it was a fitting time to pray, and God accepted it. In the dark, and from the depths, we may cry out to God. No place and no time are wrong for prayer if the heart is lifted up to him. Those who suffer together should pray together. If anyone is in trouble, let him pray. No hardship, however great, should keep us from prayer.

They also sang praises to God. We are told to give thanks in everything, and we always have reason to praise if we do not lack a thankful heart. What should take a child of God out of tune for this duty, if a dungeon and stocks do not? They praised God that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for his name. They also praised him because he upheld them so wonderfully under their suffering and gave them such sweet and strong comfort in their souls. They did not only praise God in their hearts, but sang praises aloud, in a psalm, hymn, or spiritual song, whether from David, from another believer, or from their own hearts as the Spirit gave them words. As the afflicted should pray, and so they did, so the cheerful should sing psalms (James 5:13), and they were cheerful in a holy way, so they sang psalms. This shows that singing psalms is a gospel practice and should be used by all good Christians. It is meant not only to express joy in times of victory, but also to ease sorrow in times of trouble. They sang at midnight, following the example of the sweet psalmist of Israel, who said, “At midnight I will rise to give thanks to you” (Psalm 119:62).

We are also told that the prisoners heard them. If they did not hear Paul and Silas pray, they heard them sing praises. This shows how wholehearted they were in singing to God. They sang so loudly that, though they were in the dungeon, the sound went through the prison and even woke the other prisoners, since it was midnight and they were likely asleep. We should sing psalms with all our heart. The saints are told to sing aloud on their beds (Psalm 149:5), and the gospel gives us an even stronger example of people singing aloud in prison and in stocks.

They knew the prisoners would hear them, yet they sang without shame, because they were not ashamed of their Master or his service. If some people say they are afraid their neighbors will hear them sing psalms in their homes, what excuse is that, when others shout out sinful songs without caring who hears them? The other prisoners were made to hear Paul and Silas because they were about to witness the miraculous help God would show them all for Paul and Silas’ sake, when the prison doors were thrown open. Through this uncommon comfort, it was made known that the one Paul and Silas preached was the comfort of Israel. Let prisoners who want to oppose him hear and tremble before him. Let those who are faithful to him hear and rejoice, and take the comfort spoken to the prisoners of hope (Zechariah 9:12).

God also encouraged Paul and Silas in a remarkable way through his direct action for them. There was suddenly a great earthquake, though we are not told how far it spread. It was such a strong shock in that place that the very foundations of the prison were shaken. While the prisoners were listening to Paul and Silas pray and sing, and perhaps mocking them, this earthquake would have filled them with fear and shown them that these men were favored by heaven and approved by God. We have already seen a house of prayer shaken in answer to prayer, as a sign that God accepted it (Acts 4:31). Here, the prison was shaken. The Lord was in these earthquakes to show his anger over the insults done to his servants, to show those who trust in the earth how weak and unstable it is, and to teach people that even if the earth moves, they need not be afraid.

The prison doors were opened, and every prisoner’s chains fell off. Perhaps the prisoners, after hearing Paul and Silas pray and sing, admired them and spoke well of them, saying what the servant girl had said about them, that these men are servants of the living God. To reward and confirm that good opinion, they were included in the miracle and had their bands loosed. Just as God later gave Paul everyone who was with him on the ship (Acts 27:24), he now gave him all who were with him in the prison. In this way, God showed these prisoners, as Grotius notes, that the apostles were a public blessing to mankind. Through the gospel they proclaimed liberty to captives and the opening of the prison doors to those who were bound (Isaiah 61:1). Through them, the chains of souls are also loosed.

The persecutors had meant to stop the gospel’s advance so that no one else would believe it. They hoped to shut down the prayer meeting by the river and keep any more hearts from being opened there. But instead, God made converts in the prison itself. That jail became a meeting place, a sign of the gospel’s victory, and the jailer, their own guard, became a servant of Christ.

It is likely that some, perhaps all, of the prisoners were converted too. The same power that loosed their chains from their bodies was at work to free their souls as well (Job 36:8-10; Psalm 107:14-15). Still, Luke records only the conversion of the jailer. He first feared for his own life, and Paul calmed that fear in Acts 16:27-28.

He woke from sleep, most likely because the earthquake shook him awake, along with the open prison doors and the prisoners’ startled cries in the dark as they found their chains gone. A jailer should not be easy to wake, so even this was fitting. More than that, his waking from sleep picture what was happening in his conscience, which was being roused from spiritual sleep. The gospel calls like this: “Wake up, you who sleep” (Ephesians 5:14), just as Jonah was called to wake up (Jonah 1:6).

He saw the prison doors open and naturally assumed the prisoners had fled. Then he faced the danger he had dreaded. He knew Roman law in such a case, and not long before that law had been carried out against the guards from whose custody Peter escaped (Acts 12:19). The warning was much like the prophet’s words: “Guard this man. If he is missing, your life will pay for his life” (1 Kings 20:39, 1 Kings 20:42). Later Roman lawyers made an exception for escapes by miracle, but the jailer did not know that.

In his panic, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself. He wanted to avoid the harsher death he expected from the authorities, a shameful public death for letting the prisoners go. The magistrates had been very strict with him because of Paul and Silas, so he assumed they would be ruthless if the men escaped. Many philosophers of the time approved of suicide. Seneca even taught it as the last remedy in trouble, and both Stoics and Epicureans were willing to accept it. But Christianity shows itself to be from God by holding us to the purpose of our creation. It teaches us to guard our own lives and to give them up cheerfully when God calls, while firmly resisting our sinful desires.

Paul stopped him from hurting himself in Acts 16:28. He cried out loudly, not only so the man would hear, but so he would pay attention: “Do yourself no harm.” All God’s warnings against sin, and even against the first steps toward sin, have that same aim, “Do yourself no harm.” Do not wrong yourself. Do not ruin yourself. If you do not harm yourself by sin, no one else can truly do the deepest harm. Even in bodily matters, we are warned against sins that damage the body. We are told to hate the sins of our own flesh, but to feed and care for the body properly.

Paul also reassured him that he had nothing to fear about the prisoners. They were all still there. It is strange that none of them ran when the doors were opened and their bonds were broken. But their amazement held them in place, and they knew it was by Paul and Silas’s prayers that they were freed. They would not move unless God moved them. In this way, God showed his power by holding their spirits still as much as by loosing their feet.

The jailer also feared for his soul, and Paul made him calm about that fear too. One worry led to another, and then to a far greater one. Since he was stopped from destroying himself in this world, he began to think about where death would have taken him and what would have happened to him after death. That is a right thought for people who have been pulled back from the edge of destruction, when there was only a step between them and death.

Perhaps the seriousness of the sin he was about to commit helped awaken him too. Whatever the cause, he was thrown into deep alarm. The Spirit of God, who first convicts so that he may later comfort, struck him with fear and shook him. We are not told whether he first shut the prison doors again. Perhaps he forgot about them, as the woman of Samaria forgot her water jar after Christ awakened her conscience. He called for a light at once, rushed into the inner prison, and came trembling to Paul and Silas. When a person has his sins set before him and sees his own evil, he cannot help trembling at the danger he is in.

The jailer could not have gone to a better person than Paul, because Paul had once been in the same condition. He had been a persecutor of good men, just like this jailer, and had put them in prison. When God made him see his sin, he trembled and was amazed too. That is why he could speak so deeply and helpfully to the jailer.

In that fear, he came to Paul and Silas for help. Notice how respectful he was. He called for a light because they were in the dark and because he wanted them to see how distressed he was. Then he fell down before them, as a man overwhelmed by his own guilt and almost crushed by terror. He also fell before them in reverence, sensing the image of God in them and their commission from God. He likely had heard the slave girl say they were servants of the living God, who showed the way of salvation, and he treated them accordingly.

He also fell down to ask pardon for the wrongs he had done them, and to ask what he should do. He gave them a respectful title, “Sirs,” or masters. Just before this, they had been “rogues and villains,” and he had acted as their master. Now the roles were reversed.

Converting grace changes how people speak about good people and good ministers. To those who are deeply aware of sin, even the feet of those who bring good news about Christ are beautiful, even when those feet are shamefully fastened in stocks.

How serious this jailer’s question is: “What must I do to be saved?” First, salvation is now his great concern, and it lies nearest his heart, where before it was far from his thoughts. He is not asking how to get rich, honored, or powerful in the world, but how to be saved.

Second, he does not ask what others must do. He asks about himself: “What must I do?” His own soul is what troubles him. He is saying, “Let others do as they please. Tell me what I must do, what path I should take.”

Third, he is convinced that something must be done, and done by him, for his salvation. He sees that salvation is not automatic, not something that happens on its own. It is something we must strive for, wrestle with, and work at. He is not asking, “What can be done for me?” but, “What shall I do, now that I am in fear and trembling, to work out my salvation?” Paul says something like this in his letter to the Philippians, which may have been written to this jailer’s city, Philippi: “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling” (Philippians 2:12).

Fourth, he is willing to do anything. He is saying, “Tell me what I must do, and I am ready to do it. Show me the right way, even if it is narrow, hard, and uphill, and I will walk it.” Those who are truly convinced of sin and truly concerned for their salvation will submit themselves completely to Jesus Christ. They will give him a blank page and let him write what he wants. They are glad to have Christ on his own terms, indeed on any terms.

Fifth, he wants to know what he should do and asks those who are most likely to tell him. “If you want to ask, ask” (Isaiah 21:12). Those who set their faces toward Zion, the city of God, must ask the way there (Jeremiah 50:5). We cannot discover that way by ourselves. God has made it known in his word, has appointed his ministers to help us search the Scriptures, and has promised his Holy Spirit to those who ask him, to guide them in the way of salvation.

Sixth, he brings them out so he can ask this question, wanting their answer to be given freely, not under pressure. Even though he was their keeper, he asks them with the same freedom that they would give to anyone else. He brings them out of the prison, hoping they will bring him out of something far worse.

They very quickly told him what he must do (Acts 16:31). They were always ready to answer this kind of question. Though they were cold, sore, and sleepy, they did not put him off to some easier time or place. They did not tell him to come next Sabbath by the river meeting place, but acted at once while the iron was hot. God had started to work, and now it was time for them to work together with God.

They did not rebuke him for his rude treatment of them or for going beyond his authority. All of that was forgiven and forgotten. They were just as glad to show him the way to heaven as any friend could be. They did not gloat over him, even though he was trembling. They gave him the same direction they gave to others: “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.” One might expect them to say, “First repent of abusing us.” But they overlook that and pass it by, if he will only believe in Christ.

This is a good example for ministers. They should encourage those who are sorry for sin and meet people who are coming to Christ with kindness. They should not be hard on anyone for wrongs done to them, but should care more for Christ’s honor than their own.

Here is the heart of the whole gospel, the covenant of grace, in a few words: “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, and your household.” Here is the blessing promised. “You will be saved,” not only rescued from eternal ruin, but brought into eternal life and joy. Though you are poor and low in the world, that will not keep you from salvation. Though you are a great sinner, even a persecutor, your serious sins will be forgiven through Christ’s merits. Christ’s grace will soften your hard and bitter heart, so you will not die for your crime or perish in your sins.

Here is the required condition: believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. We must accept the testimony God has given in the gospel about his Son, agree that it is true, and welcome it as fully worthy of trust. We must approve God’s way of reconciling the world to himself through a Mediator, that is, one who stands between God and man. We must receive Christ as he is offered to us, and give ourselves to be ruled, taught, and saved by him.

This is the only way to salvation, and it is a sure way. There is no other way to be saved except through Christ, and no other way to be saved through Christ except by believing in him. We need not fear falling short if we take this way, because it is the way God has chosen, and he is faithful to keep his promise. This is the gospel that is to be preached to every creature: “He who believes will be saved.”

Here is the promise extended to his family: “You will be saved, and your household.” That means God will, in Christ, be a God to him and to his children, as he was to Abraham. Believe, and salvation will come to your house, as in Luke 19:9. The infants in your household will be received into the visible church with you, and so be placed in a good path toward salvation. Those who are grown will have the means of salvation brought to them. No matter how many they are, if they believe in Jesus Christ, they will be saved. All are welcome to Christ on the same terms.

Then they went on to teach him and his family the doctrine of Christ (Acts 16:32). They spoke to him the word of the Lord. As far as we can tell, he was a complete stranger to Christ, so he needed to be told who Jesus is, in order to believe in him (John 9:36). Since the main matter can be set out briefly, they soon told him enough to make his baptism reasonable and fitting.

Christ’s ministers should know the word of the Lord so well, and have it so fully in them, that they can give instruction at once to anyone who wants to hear and receive it, guiding them in the way of salvation. They spoke the word not only to him, but to everyone in his house. Heads of households should make sure that all under their care receive the means of knowledge and grace, and that the word of the Lord is spoken to them. The souls of the poorest servants are as precious as their masters’ souls, and they were bought with the same price.

The jailer and his family were baptized at once. By doing this, they openly took on the name of Christians, accepted Christ’s rule, and entered the privileges of his people, after solemnly declaring, as the Ethiopian official had done, that they believed Jesus Christ is the Son of God. He was baptized, he and all his family, right away. Neither he nor his family asked for more time to decide whether to come under baptism’s commitment, and Paul and Silas did not ask for more time to test their sincerity before baptizing them. The Spirit of grace had already worked such strong faith in them so suddenly that further delay was not needed, and Paul and Silas knew by the Spirit that this was truly God’s work. This, however, does not support rushing baptism in ordinary cases.

After this, the jailer showed great respect to Paul and Silas, as one who could not repay the harm he had done to them, much less the kindness he had received from them. He took them out that same hour of the night and would not let them stay another minute in the inner prison. First, he washed their wounds to cool them and lessen their pain, and to clean away the blood the lashes had drawn. It is likely he used some healing oil or medicine, like the good Samaritan did when he cared for the wounded man by pouring in oil and wine. Next, he brought them into his house, welcomed them into the best room he had, and prepared the best bed he could offer. What had once seemed too good for them now was not good enough. Then he set food before them, whatever his home could provide, and they were welcome to it, because his heart had already welcomed the gospel. They had spoken to him the word of the Lord and given him the bread of life for his soul and his family, and now he felt it only fair that they should share in his earthly goods too (1 Corinthians 9:11). What are houses and tables for, if not to serve God and his people when we have the chance?

Then the jailer’s house heard the sound of joy joined with salvation. There had never been such a truly happy night there before. He rejoiced, believing in God, together with his whole household. No one in the house refused baptism and broke the harmony, but all of them agreed in embracing the gospel, which greatly increased the joy. The words can also mean that he, having believed in God, filled the whole house with joy, going from room to room in gladness. Notice, first, that his faith in Christ is called believing in God, which shows that Christ is God, and that the gospel is meant to bring us to God, not turn us away from him, as when men are told to serve other gods (Deuteronomy 13:2). Second, his faith produced joy. Those who have given themselves to God in Christ have every reason to rejoice. The Ethiopian official, when he was converted, went on his way rejoicing, and here the jailer rejoiced too. In the Old Testament, the turning of the nations is also described as their rejoicing (Psalm 67:4; Psalm 96:11). Believing brings “joy that cannot be fully spoken and is full of glory.” Believing in Christ is rejoicing in Christ.

Third, he shared that joy with everyone around him. Since his heart was full of gladness, his mouth spoke to the glory of God and to encourage others who believed in God. Anyone who has tasted the comfort of true religion should do all they can to help others taste it too. One cheerful Christian can influence many.