Today's Daily Lesson comes from Acts chapter 16 verses 25 through 39a:
25 About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them, 26 and suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken. And immediately all the doors were opened, and everyone's bonds were unfastened. 27 When the jailer woke and saw that the prison doors were open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, supposing that the prisoners had escaped. 28 But Paul cried with a loud voice, “Do not harm yourself, for we are all here.” 29 And the jailer called for lights and rushed in, and trembling with fear he fell down before Paul and Silas. 30 Then he brought them out and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” 31 And they said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.” 32 And they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. 33 And he took them the same hour of the night and washed their wounds; and he was baptized at once, he and all his family. 34 Then he brought them up into his house and set food before them. And he rejoiced along with his entire household that he had believed in God.
35 But when it was day, the magistrates sent the police, saying, “Let those men go.” 36 And the jailer reported these words to Paul, saying, “The magistrates have sent to let you go. Therefore come out now and go in peace.” 37 But Paul said to them, “They have beaten us publicly, uncondemned, men who are Roman citizens, and have thrown us into prison; and do they now throw us out secretly? No! Let them come themselves and take us out.” 38 The police reported these words to the magistrates, and they were afraid when they heard that they were Roman citizens. 39 So they came and apologized to them.
Paul and Silas were in the city of Philippi preaching the Gospel when they were unlawfully detained, beaten, and imprisoned by the authorities. The charge was a racialized one. "These Jews," the authorities said, "are troublemakers." Once jailed, however, Paul and Silas did not cease their witness. They prayed and sang while the other prisoners listened on in the cells.
Suddenly there was an earthquake, a great shaking which rocked the very foundation of the judicial and penal system there in Philippi. Everyone in the prison had their shackles freed. At that moment there might well have been a jail break, or a riot. The jailer was about to take his own for fear of what would be done to him. But Paul called out to him, “Do not harm yourself, for we are all here.” Why the other prisoners did not harm or kill the jailer can only be explained by the fact of Paul's and Silas's preaching. The other disciples had a heard the message of the Gospel that all lives matter -- even the jailer's. The jailer called for lights. All the prisoners were still there. None attacked him. Trembling with fear, the jailer fell down. "What must I do to be saved?" he asked. Soon he and his whole household had been saved -- in more than one way.
But the disciples were not done. There was still the matter of justice to be addressed. The magistrates, conscious of their unlawful action, asked that Paul and Silas go on and not come back. But release from jail was not enough for Paul and Silas. They had been unjustifiably detained, harassed, abused, and imprisoned. Their civil had been violated and their procedural rights had been denied. To go away without saying anything would only perpetuate the unjust system, whose very foundation needed to be shaken. So Paul and Silas refused to just be dismissed and go on home. They chose instead to demonstrate, to make a public statement, and to demand from the city a formal apology and redress. In other words, they demanded that the system's flaws be acknowledged and that procedural justice be instituted. They did this not for themselves, but for the city and for its people.
And in doing so, they saved yet even more -- prisoners, jailer, jailer's household, and now magistrates. In fact, I guess you could say, they saved the whole city and all it's people.
I wonder if this story has anything to say to us today?
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