A Work in Progress Bible Commentary
By: Chip Crush

ACTS
CHAPTER 16

With this chapter, we begin Paul’s second missionary journey (late 49 AD), on which Silas accompanied him. They picked up Timothy in Lystra (Asia) and Luke in Troas, near Greece. Let’s take a look.

1)      V1-11 – 1He came to Derbe and then to Lystra, where a disciple named Timothy lived, whose mother was a Jewess and a believer, but whose father was a Greek. 2The brothers at Lystra and Iconium spoke well of him. 3Paul wanted to take him along on the journey, so he circumcised him because of the Jews who lived in that area, for they all knew that his father was a Greek. 4As they traveled from town to town, they delivered the decisions reached by the apostles and elders in Jerusalem for the people to obey. 5So the churches were strengthened in the faith and grew daily in numbers. 6Paul and his companions traveled throughout the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been kept by the Holy Spirit from preaching the word in the province of Asia. 7When they came to the border of Mysia, they tried to enter Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus would not allow them to. 8So they passed by Mysia and went down to Troas. 9During the night Paul had a vision of a man of Macedonia standing and begging him, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” 10After Paul had seen the vision, we got ready at once to leave for Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them. 11From Troas we put out to sea and sailed straight for Samothrace, and the next day on to Neapolis.

Leaving Antioch in late 49 AD, Paul and Silas traveled to Tarsus, strengthening the churches along the way in Syria and Cilicia, and then on to Derbe and Lystra. In Lystra, they added Timothy to their team; Timothy appears to have been clearly called to this ministry (1 Timothy 4:14; 2 Timothy 1:6), and became Paul’s frequent traveling companion, fellow laborer in spreading the gospel, and protégé (Acts 16:1; 1 Timothy 1:2, 4:14). Though naturally diffident in temperament, Timothy would never misrepresent Paul (Philippians 2:19-22). But surprisingly – given Paul’s conclusions on the circumcision issue in Acts and Galatians – though not inconsistently, “because of the Jews” (Acts 16:3), Paul had Timothy circumcised. Timothy, unlike Titus, who was not circumcised, was not a Gentile Christian; and although to the Gentiles he appeared to be a Jewish Christian, he wasn’t authentically Jewish because of his Greek father, who likely refused to allow him the Jewish rite of circumcision that his mother, Eunice, would have appreciated. This must have been a stigma of sorts to the young man, perhaps contributing to his timid nature. Therefore, Paul’s decision to circumcise Timothy in order to legitimize his standing among Jews for the sake of his future ministerial efforts, and perhaps even for the sake of his own confidence in ministry. Bruce also considers it to have been “an object lesson for the Gentile Christians in those places (Asia Minor) of the difference between circumcision as an act of legal obedience, undertaken by people like themselves who were under no such obligation, and circumcision as a practical and religiously neutral expedient adopted in a most exceptional case.” This move, therefore, was completely in line with Paul’s principles, both in becoming all things to all men in order to win some (1 Corinthians 9:22), and in the truth that neither circumcision nor uncircumcision matters (Galatians 5:6; 6:15). Freedom in Christ certainly didn’t demand Timothy’s circumcision, but neither did it prohibit it, especially since it was entirely voluntary and for the sake of improving his ability to minister effectively.

Heading through the Phrygian and Galatic region, where Iconium, and Pisidan Antioch lay, the three missionaries, says Acts 16:6-7, were “forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia,” and “the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them” to enter the province of Bithynia (1 Peter 1:1). Perhaps an inward sense of inhibition motivated them to head for the Asia Minor port city of Troas. Troas was an important free city in the Roman Empire, and Acts 20:5-12 reveals that there was a church there – Eutychus fell out of the window during Paul’s late night lesson here – though no detail on its formation or founding is given. Luke joined the group in Troas, and in response to a vision Paul had of a man in Macedonia calling him over (Acts 16:8-9), they immediately traversed the somewhat tenuous sea voyage to Neapolis (Acts 16:10-11) in only one day. (Acts 20:6 notes that the reverse trip took 5 days.) Neapolis was the port of Philippi, which was 10 miles inland along the Roman Via Egnatia, the Roman military road that connected the Aegean Sea and Bosporus Strait with the Adriatic Sea (eastern and western Greece).

2)     V12-24 12From there we traveled to Philippi, a Roman colony and the leading city of that district of Macedonia. And we stayed there several days. 13On the Sabbath we went outside the city gate to the river, where we expected to find a place of prayer. We sat down and began to speak to the women who had gathered there. 14One of those listening was a woman named Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth from the city of Thyatira, who was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul’s message. 15When she and the members of her household were baptized, she invited us to her home. “If you consider me a believer in the Lord,” she said, “come and stay at my house.” And she persuaded us. 16Once when we were going to the place of prayer, we were met by a slave girl who had a spirit by which she predicted the future. She earned a great deal of money for her owners by fortune-telling. 17This girl followed Paul and the rest of us, shouting, “These men are servants of the Most High God, who are telling you the way to be saved.” 18She kept this up for many days. Finally Paul became so troubled that he turned around and said to the spirit, “In the name of Jesus Christ I command you to come out of her!” At that moment the spirit left her. 19When the owners of the slave girl realized that their hope of making money was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace to face the authorities. 20They brought them before the magistrates and said, “These men are Jews, and are throwing our city into an uproar 21by advocating customs unlawful for us Romans to accept or practice.” 22The crowd joined in the attack against Paul and Silas, and the magistrates ordered them to be stripped and beaten. 23After they had been severely flogged, they were thrown into prison, and the jailer was commanded to guard them carefully. 24Upon receiving such orders, he put them in the inner cell and fastened their feet in the stocks.

Macedonia had been divided into four districts in 167 BC, and Philippi, a Roman colony, was in – but not the capital of – the first district. There was no synagogue in this small town, as there apparently weren’t at least ten Jewish males to constitute one (Qumran’s Essenes engaged in this practice). But outside the city, on the banks of the Gangites River, there was an unofficial place of worship where God-fearing Gentiles gathered to recite Jewish prayers. The four missionaries preached the gospel here, and the Lord opened the heart of a woman named Lydia, who heard Paul’s preaching and responded in faith. She was promptly baptized along with her entire household (Acts 16:12-15), and became the hostess not only of the missionaries during the remainder of their stay but also of the church that formed in Philippi (Acts 16:40). Lydia was a wealthy woman from Thyatira (Revelation 1:11; 2:18-24), where there was a Jewish settlement and where she likely became a God-fearer.

Also while in Philippi, Paul exorcised a spirit of divination from a slave girl (Acts 16:16-18), which made her owners angry that they lost the ability to make more money from the slave’s divination and incited them against the Jewish Christian evangelists. They accused them of proselytizing, which was strongly discouraged in Roman colonies though not technically illegal. Paul and Silas were arrested, stripped, beaten with rods, flogged, and imprisoned (Acts 16:19-24). Luke and Timothy were apparently exempted since they weren’t Jewish, an interesting detail which we will examine shortly.

3)     V25-34 – 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?” 31They replied, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved – you and your household.” 32Then they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all the others in his house. 33At that hour of the night the jailer took them and washed their wounds; then immediately he and all his family were baptized. 34The jailer brought them into his house and set a meal before them; he was filled with joy because he had come to believe in God – he and his whole family.

That night, Paul and Silas prayed and sung hymns of praise, and an earthquake shook the prison. When the shackles miraculously fell off and the prison doors miraculously opened, Paul and Silas saved the jailer from killing himself out of fear of the consequences (Acts 16:25-35). They preached the gospel to him and his household, baptized them, and received care from him.

4)     V35-40 – 35When it was daylight, the magistrates sent their officers to the jailer with the order: “Release those men.” 36The jailer told Paul, “The magistrates have ordered that you and Silas be released. Now you can leave. Go in peace.” 37But Paul said 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? No! Let them come themselves and escort us out.” 38The officers reported this to the magistrates, and when they heard that Paul and Silas were Roman citizens, they were alarmed. 39They came to appease them and escorted them from the prison, requesting them to leave the city. 40After Paul and Silas came out of the prison, they went to Lydia’s house, where they met with the brothers and encouraged them. Then they left.

The next morning, they were released from prison, but they appealed for an apology, since they were Roman citizens, and, after encouraging Lydia and the young church gathered in her home, they were escorted peaceably from the city. It appears that Luke stayed in Philippi (Acts 16:17; 20:5-6; Philippians 4:3), perhaps to guard the young church until Paul returned, as the other three missionaries passed through the cities of Amphipolis and Apollonia enroute to Thessalonica (Acts 17:1).



Bible text from Gospelcom.net.  Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society.

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