Acts. 15:1 - 16:5.  Permanent lessons -  Fellowship: an issue of Christian love
Acts 16:6-17:15  The Mission in Macedonia
Acts 16: 11-40 -  The mission in Philippi
Acts.  16:16-18  -  An anonymous slave girl
Acts. 16:19-40  -  The Roman gaoler   
Acts 16:6-17:15 -  The unifying power of the gospel

It was one thing to secure the gospel from corruption; it was another to preserve the church from fragmentation. Paul was resolutely unwilling to compromise `the truth of the gospel' (Gal.2:14). He resisted the Judaizers, rebuked Peter publicly, and wrote a passionate appeal to the Galatians (e.g. Gal.1:6-9; 3:1-5; 5:2-6). At the same time, he was extremely anxious to maintain Jewish-Gentile solidarity in the one body of Christ. So how could he unite the church without compromising the gospel, or defend the integrity of the gospel without sacrificing the unity of the church? His answer reveals the greatness of his mind and heart.  

Once the theological principle was firmly established, that salvation is by grace alone, and that circumcision was not required but neutral, he was prepared to adjust his practical policies. He made two notable concessions, both for the same conciliatory reason. First, he accepted the four cultural abstentions proposed by the Jewish leaders to Gentile converts, because Moses was widely read and preached, and this Gentile restraint would ease Jewish consciences and facilitate Jewish-Gentile social intercourse. Secondly, he circumcised Timothy (he who had just been fulminating against circumcision!), out of consideration for the Jews who would be offended if he remained uncircumcised.

Some commentators have been so astonished by the apparent discrepancy between Paul the inflexible, who opposed circumcision, and Paul the flexible who circumcised Timothy, that they have pronounced them irreconcilable. This was the main reason why F.C.Baur wrote: `the Paul of the Acts is manifestly quite a different person from the Paul of the Epistles'. But the fact is that the discrepancy is found within the Acts narrative itself. Besides, Paul's concessions in Acts 15 and 16 are entirely in keeping with the conciliatory teaching of his letters. He urged Christians with a `strong' (or educated) conscience not to violate the consciences of the `weak' (or over-scrupulous). A strong conscience gives us liberty of behaviour, but we should limit our liberty out of love for the weak (e.g. Rom.14 and 1 Cor. 8. Again, though free, Paul was willing to make himself a slave to others. To those under the law he was prepared to become like one under the law, in order to win those under the law (1 Cor. 9:19-20). Was that not exactly what he was doing when he circumcised Timothy, as also when some years later he accepted James' proposal in Jerusalem that he join in certain Jewish purification rites (21:17-26)?

We may say, then, that the Jerusalem Council secured a double victory - a victory of truth in confirming the gospel of grace, and a victory of love in preserving the fellowship by sensitive concessions to conscientious Jewish scruples. As Luther put it, Paul was strong in faith, and soft in love. So, `as concerning faith we ought to be invincible, and more hard, if it might be, than the adamant stone; but as touching charity, we ought to be soft, and more flexible than the reed or leaf that is shaken with the wind, and ready to yield to everything'. Or as John Newton once said during a meeting of the Eclectic Society in 1799, `Paul was a reed in non-essentials, - an iron pillar in essentials'. 

Acts 16:6-17:15  The Mission in Macedonia

The most notable feature of Paul's second missionary expedition, which Luke narrates in these chapters, is that during it the good seed of the gospel was now for the first time planted  in European soil. Of course there was in those days no line of demarcation between `Asia' and `Europe', and the missionaries sailing across the northern part of the Aegean Sea were conscious of travelling only from one province to another, not from one continent to another, since both shores of the Aegean belonged to the Roman Empire. Nevertheless, I agree with Campbell Morgan who wrote: `That invasion of Europe was not in the mind of Paul, but it is evidently in the mind of the Spirit'. With the benefit of hindsight, knowing that Europe became the first Christian continent and was until fairly recently the main base for missionary outreach to the rest of the world, we can see what an epoch-making development this was. It was from Europe that in due course the gospel fanned out to the great continents of Africa, Asia, North America, Latin America and Oceania, and so reached the ends of the earth. 

What Paul and his companions were conscious of doing was to establish new churches in three Roman provinces during the second missionary journey, which they had not penetrated during the first. In the first they had concentrated exclusively on Cyprus and Galatia; in the second they reached  Macedonia and Achaia, the provinces of northern and southern Greece respectively, and they just touched the province of Asia by visiting Ephesus, promising to return during their next journey. Moreover, in each case the missionaries included the capital city in their itinerary - Thessalonica being Macedonia's capital, Corinth being Achaia's, and Ephesus being Asia's. In addition, to each of the churches in these capital cities Paul was later to write, namely his letters to the Thessalonians, the Corinthians and the Ephesians. In this chapter we focus on his mission to Macedonian, which involved visits to three principal Macedonian cities, Philippi, Thessalonica and Berea.

How, then, did the missionaries come to reach Europe? Paul had set out from Syrian Antioch, again commended by the church to God's grace, not primarily in order to plant new churches, but to nurture and strengthen those planted several years previously during his first expedition. The verb translated `visit' in 15:36 (*episkeptomai*) is linked with *episkope*, pastoral oversight, and is used of visiting the sick (Mat. 25:36,43) and of looking after widows and orphans (Jas. 1:27). Paul was more than a pioneer missionary; he was concerned to see churches and believers grow into maturity. So he and his  companions spent some time in Derbe and Lystra, and then in Iconium and Pisidian Antioch, which is probably what Luke meant by *the region of Phrygia and Galatia*, namely `the Phrygian region of the province of Galatia'. It is very instructive to see how God guided them in their next moves. (vv.6-10). 

Pisidian Antioch, the centre of the Phrygian region, was also very close to the border of the province of Asia. It was natural, therefore, that the missionaries' eyes should look south-west along the *via Sebaste* which led to Colosse (about 150 miles) and then to the coast of Ephesus (almost as many miles beyond). In fact, they seem to have travelled some way along this road, but in some undefined way were prevented by the Holy Spirit *from preaching the word in the province of Asia* (6). With the south-westerly route blocked, they turned north, until they reached *the border of Mysia*, which was not a Roman administrative region but an old name for much of Asia Minor's north-westerly bulge. Here they tried to continue north and enter Bithynia, the province situated on the southern shore of the Black Sea, including towns like Nicea and Nicomedia. But again, in some way which Luke does not explain, *the Spirit of Jesus would not allow them to* (7). It has been conjectured from the fact that Peter later wrote to the Christian dispersion in these parts including Asia and Bithynia (1 Pet.1:1), that Paul was kept from evangelizing there in order to make way for Peter. But how the Holy Spirit did his preventive work on these two occasions we can only guess. It may have been through giving the missionaries a strong, united inward impression, or through some outward circumstance like illness, Jewish opposition or legal ban, or through the utterance of a Christian prophet, perhaps Silas himself (15:32). At all events, having come from the east, and having found the south-westerly and northerly roads obstructed, the only direction left open to them was north-west. So they went `through' Mysia (JB) or *passed by* it, which could mean either that they `neglected' it, in the sense that they did not stop to evangelize there, or that they `skirted' it (NEB), because there was no main road straight through its territory to the coast. Whichever precise route they took, they arrived in the Aegean port of *Troas* (8), close to the Hellespont, which we call the Dardanelles. They had come a long way, in fact all the way from the south-east to the north-west extremities of Asia Minor, and by a strangely circuitous route. They must have been in a state of considerable perplexity, wondering what God's plan and purpose were, for so far their guidance had been almost entirely negative. Only now did they receive a positive lead. 

One night in Troas Paul had a dream or vision in which he saw *a man of Macedonia standing and begging him* in some posture of appeal, perhaps beckoning, and heard him saying, `*Come over to Macedonia [across the Aegean Sea} and help us*'(9). William Barclay made the improbable suggestion that the man in the dream was Alexander the Great, partly because `the district was permeated with memories of Alexander'  and partly because Alexander's aim had been to `marry the east to the west' and so make one world, while Paul's vision was to make `one world for Christ'. Sir William Ramsay argued that Macedonian was Luke, whom Paul had just met in Troas, possibly consulting him as a doctor. It is likely that Luke had some personal connection with Philippi, and certain that he was in Troas at the time, since in the next verse (10) he begins the first of the `we-sections' by which, quietly but deliberately, he draws attention to his presence at the time. The identification of the Macedonian with Luke is entirely conjectural, however, and Ramsay admitted that some would regard it as `moonstruck fancy'. 

What we do know is that the following morning Paul told his companions the vision, that together they discussed its meaning and implications, and that they concluded that God had called them to preach the gospel to the Macedonians. So they *got ready at once to leave for Macedonia*.(10). A.T.Pierson in his *The Acts of the Holy Spirit* drew attention to what he called `the double guidance of the apostle and his companions', namely, `on the one hand *prohibition and restraint*, on the other *permission and constraint*. They are forbidden in one direction , invited in another; one way the Spirit says "go not"; the other he calls "come".' Pierson went on to give some later examples from the history of missions of this same `double guidance':

Livingstone tried to go to China, but God sent him to Africa instead. Before him, Carey planned to go to Polynesia in the South Seas, but God guided him to India. Judson went to India first, but was driven on to Burma. We too in our day, Pierson concludes, `need to trust him for guidance and rejoice equally in his restraints and constraints'. 

Some importance principles of divine guidance are, in fact, exemplified in the experience of Paul and his companions. God led them by a combination of factors, over a period of time, ending when they pondered their meaning together. First came the double prohibition, somehow barring their way into both Asia and Bithynia, and leading them to Troas, whose harbour faced west to Macedonia. This was followed by the night vision calling to Paul for help. These circumstances were the basis for their discussion, as they asked themselves and each other what these things indicated. They then put two and two together, the negative (the block to Asia and Bithynia) and the positive (the appeal to Macedonia), and concluded that through these various experiences God was calling them to go over to Macedonia to `help', that is, to preach the gospel there. From this we may learn that usually God's guidance is not negative only but also positive (some doors close, others open); not circumstantial only, but also rational (thinking about our situation); not personal only, but also corporate (a sharing of the data with others, so that we can mull over them together and reach a common mind). Indeed the verb *symbibazo* in verse 10, translated `assuredly gathering' (AV), `concluding' (RSV, NIV, NEB) and `convinced' (JBP, JB), means literally to `bring together', to `put together in one's mind' (GT), and so to infer something from a variety of data.

On another sabbath, when Paul and his friends were going to *the place of prayer*, they were *met by a slave girl*, who evidently stood in their way. Luke tells two things about her. First, she *had a spirit by which she predicted the future*, or, literally she had `a spirit of a python' or `a python spirit'. The reference is to  the snake of classical mythology which guarded the temple of Apollo and the Delphic oracle at Mount Parnassus. Apollo was thought to be embodied in the snake and to inspire `pythonesses', his female devotees, with clairvoyance, although other people thought of them as ventriloquists. Luke does not commit himself to these superstitions, but he does regard the slave girl as possessed by an evil spirit. The second thing he tells us is that as a slave she was exploited by her owners, for whom she made a lot of money by *fortune-telling* (16). As Paul and his friends continued their walk, the girl followed them screaming: `*There men are servants of the Most High God*' (a term for the Supreme Being which was applied by Jews to Yahweh and by Greeks to Zeus), `*who are telling you the way to be saved*' (17). Since salvation was a popular topic of conversation in those days, even if it meant different things to different people, it is not in the least strange that the girl should have hailed the missionaries as teachers of `the way of salvation'. Nor is it strange that the evil spirit should have cried out in recognition of God's messengers, for Luke has documented the same thing during the public ministry of Jesus (Lk.4:33-34, 41; 8:27-28). But why should a demon engage in evangelism? Perhaps the ulterior motive was to discredit the gospel by associating it in people's minds with the occult.     The girl's shrieks continued *for many days* until *finally* Paul was provoked to take action. He was *troubled*, Luke says, which certainly means that he was deeply `disturbed' (BAGD). The verb *diaponeomai* could be translated `annoyed'(RSV), but it is gratuitous to say that Paul had `a burst of irritation' (JBP) or `lost his temper' (JP). It is better to understand that he was `grieved' (AV), indeed indignant, because of the poor girl's condition, and also dismayed by this inappropriate and unwelcome kind of publicity. His distress led him to turn round and command the evil spirit in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her, which it immediately did (18). Although Luke does not explicitly refer to either her conversion or to her baptism, the fact that her deliverance took place between the conversions of Lydia and the gaoler leads readers to infer that she too became a member of the Philippian church.  

Acts. 16:19-40  -  The Roman gaoler 

The deliverance of the slave girl was too much for her owners, however, who realized that, if the evil spirit had gone out of her (*exelthen), their hope of making money was gone*, or had `gone out' too (*exelthen*). The repetition of the verb is surely deliberate. As F.F. Bruce comments: `When Paul exorcized the spirit that possessed her, he exorcized their source of income as well.' Their fury had some very unpleasant consequences for the missionaries, especially for Paul and Silas (vv.19-40).

Luke's account of what happened in Philippi accurately reflects the situation in a Roman colony. The slave owners dragged Paul and Silas into the *agora*, which was not only *the market place* but the centre of the city's public life (19). They then brought them before the *strategoi*, that is, the two *praetors* who acted as magistrates in a Roman colony. The charge was that *these men are Jews* who `...disturb our city and introduce...customs which it is not allowed to us Romans to adopt and practice'. The accusations of causing a riot and introducing an alien religion were serious. `Officially the Roman citizen may not practice any alien cult that has not received the public sanction of the state, but customarily he might do so as long as his cult did not otherwise offend against the laws and usages of Roman life, i.e. so long as it did not involve political or social crimes' (20-21). The slave owners were very clever. They not only concealed the real reason for their anger, which was economic, but also presented their legal charge against the missionaries `in terms that appealed to the latent anti-Semitism of the people ("these men are Jews") and their racial pride ("us Romans")' and so `ignited the flames of bigotry'.

The crowd then *joined in the attack against Paul and  Silas*, and the praetors ordered their lictors to strip and beat them publicly (22). It was a severe flogging, perhaps the first of the three Paul later mentioned (2 Cor.11:23, 25), and it was followed by their being *thrown into prison*, with an instruction to the gaoler to keep them under close guard (23).  He therefore confined them *in the inner cell and in the stocks* (24). It is wonderful that in such pain, with lacerated backs and aching limbs, Paul and Silas at *about midnight* were *praying and singing hymns to God*. Not groans but songs came from their mouths. Instead of cursing men, they blessed God. No wonder *the other prisoners were listening to them* (25).

Then suddenly the prison's foundations were shaken by *such a violent earthquake that all the prison doors flew open*, the prisoner's chains *came loose* (26), and the gaoler *woke up*. Seeing the prison doors open, and imagining that the inmates had escaped, he was about to commit suicide (27), because he would have been held responsible, when Paul shouted to him not to harm himself because the prisoners were all there (28). Haenchen refers to this whole episode as `a nest of improbabilities', and so indeed it must appear to those who approach it with sceptical  presupposition. But the eye of faith, which believes in a gracious, sovereign God, sees probabilities instead, as he works all things together for good, in this case the conversion of the gaoler and the release of the missionaries. Convicted of sin, the gaoler *fell trembling before Paul and Silas* and asked what he had to do to be saved (19-30). Perhaps he had heard of the slave girl shouting about `the way to be saved', or perhaps he was simply expressing the longing of his heart. In either case the missionaries first gave him a straight answer, that he must trust personally in the Lord Jesus and he would be saved, with his household (31), and then *spoke the word of the Lord* to him and his household, opening up the way of salvation more fully (32). He not only believed but repented also. And as a token of his penitence, there and then he *washed their wounds*, and immediately afterwards *he and all his family were baptised*, perhaps in a well or fountain in the prison courtyard, or perhaps using the same bowl from which he had cleaned their wounds (33).

Thus, as Chrysostom pointed out, the washing was reciprocal: `he washed them and was washed; those (sc. the imprisoned missionaries) he washed from their stripes, himself was washed from his sins.' The baptised family now welcomed Paul and Silas into their home, just as Lydia had done into hers, *and set a meal before them*. And the celebratory feast was but an external expression of the inward joy which *the whole famly* experienced, *because they had come to believe in God* (34).

Early in the morning, the praetors sent their lictors to the gaoler with the order to release Paul and Silas (35), and the gaoler passed the messages to the prisoners. No doubt the authorities thought that a public flogging and a night in gaol were a sufficient punishment, and hoped that the prisoners had learned their lesson and would leave quietly. But Paul reacted differently. He claimed for himself and Silas their rights as Roman citizens. Perhaps they had done so before the agora, and had been either not heard or not believed. But now a grave injustice had been done to them. For `according to the text of the *lex Julia...,* the Roman citizen might not be beaten or bound by a magistrate *adversus provocationem* or by any other person in any circumstances', let alone untried and uncondemned. The citizen had only to say *civis Romanus sum* and he would be immune to punishment; heavy penalties were prescribed for those who violated these citizenship privileges. So Paul replied to the officers:

*They beat us publicly without a trial, even though we are Roman citizens, and threw us into prison. And now do they want to get rid of us quietly?'*. `push us out on the quiet' (JP) or `smuggle us out privately' (NEB). *No! Let them come themselves to us in person and escort us out*' (37). `Paul seems to have been responsible', writes A.N. Triton, `for the first recorded "sit-in". He refused to move until the authorities came and apologized... He wanted to compel the authorities to recognize and to fulfil their God-appointed task. This may have been very important for the freedom of the church he left behind.'

When the lictors reported back, the praetors *were alarmed* (38), came to the prison to apologize, and *escorted them from the prison*, as they had demanded, though at the same time, no doubt for the sake of public order, *requesting them to leave the city* (39). This Paul and Silas did, having first returned to *Lydia's house*, in order to meet the church members, encourage them and say goodbye. *Then they left* (40), though without Luke (20:5), satisfied that they had been vindicated and that their mission had been cleared of illegality.  

Acts 16:6-17:15 -  The unifying power of the gospel

 It would be hard to image a more disparate group than the business woman, the slave girl and the gaoler. Racially, socially and psychologically they were worlds apart. Yet all three were changed by the same gospel and were welcomed into the same church.

Take their different *national* origins first. Philippi was a very cosmopolitan city, having been Greek before it was Roman, and sitting astride the great east-west *Via Egnatia*. Lydia was an Asiatic, not perhaps in our sense of the word, but in the sense that she came from Asia Minor. She was an immigrant in Philippi, not a native. The slave girl was presumably Greek and a resident. She could have been a foreigner, since slaves were imported from everywhere, but there is nothing in the story to indicate this. The gaoler was probably like most gaolers at that time a retired soldier or army veteran, and, like all officials in the legal administration of a Roman colony, he was doubtless a Roman himself. Each of the three had been brought up in a different national culture. True, they were already united politically by the Roman Empire, but now in Jesus Christ they found a deeper unity still.

Or take their different *social* backgrounds. Lydia is likely to have been a wealthy woman, who had made her money in what we jocularly call `the rag trade'. She certainly had a large enough house to accommodate the four missionaries in addition to her own household (15). The slave girl came from the opposite end of the social spectrum. You could not sink much lower in public estimation than to be a female slave. She owned nothing, not even herself. She had no possessions, rights, liberty or life of her own. Even the money she earned by fortune-telling went straight into her masters' pockets. Then the gaoler was socially half-way between the two women. Although he had a responsible post in the local prison, he was still only a subordinate official in government service. One might say that he belonged to the respectable middle class. Yet these three were foundation members of the Philippian church, admitted into it on the same terms with no distinction. The head of a Jewish household would use the same prayer every morning, giving thanks that God had not made him a Gentile, a woman or a slave. But here were representatives of these three despised categories redeemed and united in Christ. For truly, as Paul had recently written to the Galatians: `There is nether Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.' (Gal. 3:28).

Thirdly, consider their different *personal* needs. Lydia could be said to have had an intellectual need. At least the point Luke makes about her is that, as she `kept listening' (14, literally), the Lord opened her heart, meaning really her mind, to attend to what Paul was saying, just as he had opened the minds of the disciples to understand the Scriptures (Lk. 24:45). Perhaps she was first a disenchanted oriental, and was then attracted to Judaism. But still she was not satisfied. The slave girl had a psychological need. True, she had an evil spirit which needed to be exorcised, but being possessed, then as now, can have terrible psychological consequences. She had lost her identity, her individuality, as a human being. If socially she belonged as a slave to her masters, psychologically she belonged to the spirit which controlled her. She was in double bondage. But in finding Christ (for I think Luke means us to understand that she was converted as well as delivered), she found herself. She became an integrated person again. As for the gaoler, we could say that his need was moral. At least, we know that his conscience had been to some degree aroused, since he cried out to know how to be saved. The needs of human beings do not change much with the changing years, but Jesus Christ can meet them and fulfil our aspirations.

It is wonderful to observe in Philippi both the universal appeal of the gospel (that it could reach such a wide diversity of people) and its unifying effect (that it could bind them together in God's family). Of course the gospel also divides a community, because some reject it, but it unifies those who accept it. It is touching to see that Luke ends his Philippian narrative with a reference to `the brothers'( 40). The wealthy business woman, the exploited slave girl and the rough Roman gaoler had been brought into a brotherly or sisterly relationship with each other and with the rest of the church's members. True, they experienced some tensions, and in his later Letter to the Philippians Paul had to exhort them to `stand firm in one spirit', and to be `like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose' (Phil. 1:27: 2:2). Nevertheless they all belonged to the one fellowship of Christ. We too, who live in an era of social disintegration, need to exhibit the unifying power of the gospel.