Acts 16:35-40 (NIV)
When it was daylight, the magistrates sent their officers to the jailer with the order: “Release those men.” The jailer told Paul, “The magistrates have ordered that you and Silas be released. Now you can leave. Go in peace.”
But 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.”
The officers reported this to the magistrates, and when they heard that Paul and Silas were Roman citizens, they were alarmed. They came to appease them and escorted them from the prison, requesting them to leave the city. After 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 city officials had acted hastily in the case of Paul and Silas. They had assumed that they were “just Jews” from Judea. It never once entered their minds that these two men could be Roman citizens, so they beat them and imprisoned them without due process, despite their protestations.
Now that it was daylight, the city officials, confident that they had taught these troublemakers a lesson, ordered that they be released. They figured that they would both leave town immediately with their tails between their legs and never come back.
But Paul was already indignant at the way they had been abused and not afforded the due process that was the right of every citizen. And Paul was not the kind of person to take that kind of affront lying down!
Paul was not trying to overthrow rightful authority, but he believed that those authorities needed to be taught a lesson, to be shown how they themselves had violated Roman law and were themselves subject to severe punishment because of it. He wasn’t going to turn them in, but he did want them to understand the dangerous ground that they were on.
So, he told the officers who had come with his release to tell their superiors what they had done: beaten and imprisoned two Roman citizens without even a trial. His demand was simple: the superiors themselves had to come to the jail and escort them out in person.
The officials were alarmed at this information, and so were their superiors, who went to the prison at once, full of apologies. Their whole tone was changed. Instead of making demands of Paul and Silas, they politely requested that they leave town “for their own safety.”
Paul’s point had been made. He let the officials know that they would indeed leave, but that they had to go and get their stuff and say their goodbyes first. They went back to Lydia’s house, their home base in Philippi, encouraged the Church members that were there, gathered their belongings, and headed west, further into Macedonia.
Father, Paul’s example shows that, even when we have been severely wronged, even persecuted, there is no call for revenge. Paul made his point very clearly to the officials, and then obeyed their mandate to leave town. He could have done them a great deal of harm and been well within his rights, but he didn’t. He helped them to see their wrong, and then left. That’s a good model for us to keep in mind. Thank You, Lord. Amen.
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