Acts 16:16-24--Paul and Silas in Prison

Acts 16:16-24
English Standard Version

Paul and Silas in Prison
16 As we were going to the place of prayer, we were met by a slave girl who had a spirit of divination and brought her owners much gain by fortune-telling. 17 She followed Paul and us, crying out, “These men are servants of the Most High God, who proclaim to you the way of salvation.” 18 And this she kept doing for many days. Paul, having become greatly annoyed, turned and said to the spirit, “I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.” And it came out that very hour.

​19 But when her owners saw that their hope of gain was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace before the rulers. 20 And when they had brought them to the magistrates, they said, “These men are Jews, and they are disturbing our city. 21 They advocate customs that are not lawful for us as Romans to accept or practice.” 22 The crowd joined in attacking them, and the magistrates tore the garments off them and gave orders to beat them with rods. 23 And when they had inflicted many blows upon them, they threw them into prison, ordering the jailer to keep them safely. 24 Having received this order, he put them into the inner prison and fastened their feet in the stocks.

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We see Paul and Silas returning to the same place of prayer where they met last week and found Lydia.  This time however, they ran into a demon-possessed slave girl along the way.  The spirit within her was a spirit of divination (being able to tell people their fortunes).  Did the demon really know the future?  No, but the demon had observed many things and had great strength, and of course the demons had influence over those that they controlled so that it could appear that their prophecies were being fulfilled.  The demon recognized Paul and Silas as being God's representatives and the slave girl followed them saying, “These men are servants of the Most High God, who proclaim to you the way of salvation.”

There was nothing wrong with the words that the demonized slave-girl was saying, but Paul and Silas didn't need the testimony of demons influencing their message.  It was not the intent of the demon to get people to follow after them, but instead to cause suspicion about their message, for they knew of the spirit that resided in this girl and that it was of the devil, so people assumed that the demon was speaking lies (for that is the devil's native tongue) and would not believe Paul and Silas.

The slave girl did this for many days so that finally Paul was greatly annoyed and commanded the demon to come out of her in the name of Jesus Christ.  This upset the slave-girls owners for she no longer had the spirit of divination in her which was a means of financial gain for them, as people paid them to have their fortunes told.  Now the slave-girl was of practically no value to them, and they went to the magistrates of the city complaining that Paul and Silas were Jews who were "disturbing the city" and were thee to "advocate customs that are not lawful for us as Romans to accept or practice."

​Because there was a mob that was formed, the magistrates did not give them due process with a trial, but they instead beat them and sent them to jail to appease the crowds (we'll see later that this was illegal for the magistrates to do because all of the men in Paul's party here were Roman citizens, not merely Jews, which gave them right under the Roman law, including the right to a trial before any such punishment was applied).  The text even tells us that the magistrates threw them in prison for their own safety as the crowds would not be allowed into the prison to do harm to the prisoners.  So, they prison guards kept them securely in the inner-most part of the prison to hold them for trial, but they were kept in stocks (probably so that they could not move their arms or legs).  This is not the typical treatment that any regular prisoner would get--that is the kind of punishment you would expect from an unruly prisoner who needed to be made an example of.  In all this, Paul and Silas made the best of where they were at and they will share the gospel with their fellow prisoners and with their jailer.  We'll talk about this specifically next time.