Obeying the Laws and commands of God are no warranty the world won't remain full of compromises and pain. God will surely require of us actions which He knows will bring sorrow. The spiritual principle is always obey, knowing Christ paid a far higher price. We enter His service by a willingness to accept that price. To accept that price means to embrace the justness of it, and to embrace paying it ourselves, as we take up our own crosses.
The first compromise was in dealing with Timothy. Upon Paul's return to Derbe, then Lystra, Paul found a young disciple who had risen to prominence among the believers there. Timothy's Jewish mother surely taught him the Old Testament, but never pressed him to convert. His Gentile father was well known as a pagan. To the Jews, Timothy was considered a Gentile, but to the pagans, a Jew. His confused identity among the people was a problem. Paul needed his service as a fellow Jew, so had him ritually circumcised, which surely included official conversion to Judaism. This allowed Timothy to fully partake in evangelism to both Jews and Gentiles, a simple choice of expedience.
The letter from the Jerusalem Council was also read to all the congregations Paul and Barnabas had previously planted in the region. It's effect was to sharpen the Christian identity among the mixed religious atmosphere. Clarity of message always serves God's purpose, and He granted the churches continual growth.
Paul and Silas planted more churches in Phrygian cities, which indicates inland Western Turkey today, but was not exactly a Roman mapping term. Luke's use of the term "Galatia" is somewhat confusing, but the point is the missionaries were held back from visiting either the western coast ("Asia") or the northern ("Bithynia"), but ended up at Troas, near the ancient city of Troy. In a night vision, Paul was called to Macedonia. Here, Luke subtly shifts to the first person, indicating he first began traveling with Paul at Troas. They took passage on a ship to the Island of Samothrace, spent the night, then landed at the Port of Neapolis the next day.
A short hike up the slope and inland brought them to Philippi, chief city in one of the four districts of Macedonia, and a Roman colony. That designation made it rather like a virtual island of Roman citizens with privileges matching those back home in Italy. In a city lacking enough Jews to have a synagogue, Paul checked the most likely gathering place, on the river bank outside town where baptism rituals were possible. What they found were mostly women, since their conversion to Judaism was less demanding than for men. We note the Law of Moses granted women a better social standing than most pagan religions. Paul sat down in front of the group, which was customary in synagogues for teaching the Law. Among the audience was a very wealthy woman who believed, named Lydia. She traded in very expensive purple fabric, produced in her home city of Thyatira. She led her entire household in accepting the gospel message, and became the missionaries' hostess.
Regardless of pagan beliefs on the matter, we know from the Old Testament there were from ancient times people who managed to gain some regular contact with demons. These unions often exhibited unusual abilities. One young female slave in Philippi was able to cast fortunes by her demon, certainly with sufficient accuracy to bring in quite a big profit to her masters. When she began following Paul and Silas around town, she spoke the truth. She used the standard pagan term for the Jewish God and said the men knew the way of spiritual security. The problem is when demons speak the truth, they do so without the power of the Holy Spirit, so it becomes a form of blasphemy, gutting the power of Truth. This grated on Paul's nerves, and he felt compelled to deliver the girl from the demon, if only to end the blasphemy. Sadly, a good thing for her was bad for her masters' business.
Jews were permitted to practice their own religion under a Roman grant, but were not permitted to inflict it on others. The charges made by the owners of the slave girl noted these men, whom they took to be Jews, had acted beyond the proper legal limits of their religious freedom. They added accusations about causing social turmoil. By now a crowd had gathered, and quickly turned into a lynch mob. Those appointed by Rome to rule and judge disputes in the city ordered Paul and Silas flogged with the rods carried by the Roman soldiers assigned to these magistrates. Then the magistrates ordered them confined in the prison. The jailer would most likely be a retired Roman military officer, who felt the order warranted putting his prisoners in stocks, which meant a very unpleasant posture.
All night Paul and Silas prayed and sang hymns as the best way to deal with their misery. It gained the ears, and most likely the admiration, of the other prisoners. Earthquakes were common, and this one breached the security of the prison. Rather than suffer the grave indignity and hideous death sentence common for jailers who failed to keep their prisoners, the jailer prepared to fall on his sword. Paul knew this, and called for the man to desist, since no one had escaped. At this point, we discover what God had in mind with all this sorrow, for the jailer asked how he might find the spiritual security all pagans sought. Whatever deity these men served, one which made them sing happily after torture, it was obviously more powerful than all the rest in the Roman religion market.
A jailer was free to handle his charges as he saw fit, as long as he could produce them on command. Having seen these men intended him good, not evil, the rest of the night passed in celebration as the entire household embraced Christ. When with the dawn, the magistrates decided the two Jews had been made sufficient example, they sent the two lictors who beat Paul and Silas to have them released. You might think Paul was getting revenge for the shameful treatment. Instead, it was necessary to impress upon the magistrates, and the whole city, these two men were above reproach, and so were all the other Christians. The rulers hastened to offer an official apology to avoid suffering charges against themselves for violating the rights of Roman citizens: beating them was forbidden, and they were sentenced without a full hearing. Paul and Silas could easily have appealed to Caesar, and the magistrates would be lucky if all the suffered was dismissal. They begged Paul and Silas to leave, but could not order them to depart. So the missionaries went back to the congregation, set things in order, and made a leisurely departure.
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By Ed Hurst
15 August 2009
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