SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 4/25/2018
8:59 AM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-2 “Persecution”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Acts
16:19-24
Message of the
verses: “19 But when her masters saw
that their hope of profit was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them
into the market place before the authorities, 20 and when they had brought them
to the chief magistrates, they said, "These men are throwing our city into
confusion, being Jews, 21 and are proclaiming customs which it is not lawful
for us to accept or to observe, being Romans." 22 The crowd rose up
together against them, and the chief magistrates tore their robes off them and
proceeded to order them to be beaten with rods. 23 When they had struck them
with many blows, they threw them into prison, commanding the jailer to guard
them securely; 24 and he, having received such a command, threw them into the
inner prison and fastened their feet in the stocks.”
As we begin this SD we see the charges that were brought
against Paul and Silas “"These men are throwing our city into confusion, being Jews.” What I notice in this section is the
highlighted part “being Jews.” I
remember that when we began this section of Paul and his missionary team going
into Philippi that there were not enough Jewish men in that city to form a
Synagogue, and this kind of makes me wonder if the Jews were really not
welcomed there. At any rate what we see
here is Anti-Semitism. John MacArthur
writes that this “was not a modern phenomenon but has its orgins in
antiquity. At about this time, Emperor
Claudius issued an order expelling the Jews from Rome (Acts 18:2). This anti-Semitism may explain why only Paul
and Silas were apprehended, since Luke was a Gentile and Timothy a
half-Gentile.”
The charges that were brought against Paul and Silas were
technically true, “proclaiming customs which it is not lawful for us to accept
or to observe, being Romans.’” The law
being discussed, although rarely enforced, was that Romans could not practice
any religion that was not sanctioned by the state. That may be the charge, and it may be technically
true, but the real reason for the charges had to do with money, and the men who
were taking advantage of this demon-possessed woman must have had friends in
high places to get done what we see happening here. One thing for sure is that Paul and Silas and
the rest of the missionary team were not causing mass confusion in the city of
Philippi. Like I said it is all about
the money, and so even though the charges of causing mass confusion were false
the reaction stirred up the crowd and they mindlessly “rose up together against”
these two missionaries.
We know what a mob can do to a weak leader as Pilate was
a weak leader, who caused the crowd to sway what he really wanted and should
have done in the case of Jesus, and so it was the same with Paul and Silas as
the next thing we see is they were stripped and beaten with rods. Two things caused this money and hatred for
the Jews. The magistrates had the “policemen”
beat Paul and Silas with rods that they carried, which ironically were the symbol
of Roman law and justice. According to 2
Corinthians 11:25 Paul had been beaten with rods three times, and this was
probably the first time, however I am not positive as not everyone is mentioned
in Scripture.
We see that they were beaten many blows, and then they
were thrown into prison after this merciless unlawful beating, as they were
both Roman citizens which we will talk about later. After being beaten and thrown into prison we
can be sure that the one in charge of the prison was not going to take any
chance to have them escape, and so he put them into the safest place, in the
inner prison and fastened their feet in stocks.
They were as safe as they could be as far as not getting out on their
own. However the authorities at Philippi
were soon to learn that no prison can hold those whom God wants released.
We have mentioned that this was a satanic inspired
persecution, and this persecution did not affect Paul and Silas as he thought
it would, as we will see in our next section which will be called Praise. When Paul wrote to the Philippians later on
the theme of the letter is joy. I
mentioned that our Pastor is just beginning a series on this letter to the
Philippians and his definition, and he calls it an ongoing definition as later
on in the series there may be things added to it, but so far this is what he has
come up with in his description of joy: “Joy
is a positive emotion that is rooted in our confidence that our good God is in
sovereign control of the circumstances of our lives for our good and His glory,
enabling us to praise Him!” We will see
that Paul and Silas certainly had this kind of joy as they were beaten and
unlawfully put into prison.
Spiritual meaning
for my life today: I desire to have
the kind of joy that Paul and Silas had during this period of time in his life.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Continue to listen to the series on Joy from
our Pastor in order to learn more about joy so that I can be better at living
it out in my life each day.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
question: “Timbrel” (Exodus 15:20).
Today’s Bible
question: “Who reported the Corinthian
contentions to Paul?”
Answer in our next SD.
4/25/2018 10:00 AM
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