Acts 16:22-34
Chapter 16
After inflicting many blows on them, they threw them into prison, instructing the jailer to guard them securely.
Upon receiving these instructions, he threw them into the inner cell and fastened their feet in the stocks.
Around midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening.
Suddenly, a severe earthquake shook the place, causing the prison to rock to its foundations. Immediately, all the doors swung open, and the chains of all the prisoners fell off.
The jailer woke up to see the prison gates wide open. Thinking that the prisoners had escaped, he drew his sword to kill himself,
but Paul shouted to him:
“Don’t hurt yourself! We’re still here.”
The jailer asked for a light, then rushed in and fell at the feet of Paul and Silas.
After he had freed the other prisoners, he led them out and asked:
“Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”
They answered:
“Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you, and your household, will be saved.”
Then they shared the word of God with him and his entire household.
Even at that hour of the night, the jailer cared for them and washed their wounds; he and his whole household were baptized immediately.
He took them to his house, prepared a meal for them, and joyfully celebrated his newfound faith in God with his whole household.
Commentaries
Imprisoned and Freed.
The reason for Paul and his companions’ imprisonment was their encounter with a slave girl who brought her masters a lot of profit through divination and other forms of magic. She annoyed the missionaries with supposed compliments. Paul invoked the name of Jesus, and the slave girl was freed. The violent, illegal retaliation by the masters did not take long. The authorities intervened and, after a harsh beating, imprisoned the missionaries. Here, Luke uses his storytelling skills to craft a fictionalized account of the rescue in which Paul follows in Peter’s footsteps (12:1-19).