Acts, 15:36-16:15
Vern Peterman · Jun 5, 2005
Acts (2005), No. 22
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/48262327186268

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Okay, now we're looking at Acts 15.36 through 16.15, spanning a couple of chapters here. But just to keep ourselves in context here, here's Paul and Barnabas kind of setting the course for what we typically call Paul's second missionary journey. And here's Paul and Barnabas finding themselves split in paths because Paul says, I'm not going out with John Mark again.

He flaked out on us the last time. So we got that. They go through the cities in the middle of Asia Minor that they had previously gone through. So anyway, I left you last week with these questions. Remember there's this disagreement between Paul and Barnabas, right? How should we view the disagreement between Paul and Barnabas at the end of Acts 15? Was one or both of them in sin when they made this decision? Now, are you volunteering an answer?

No. Okay. Stretching. All right. They parted ways from here, and yet they seemed to maintain a relationship in the years that followed. We have evidence from several different passages. Paul's talking about Barnabas continually. And in the end, here's 2 Timothy 4.11, here's Paul's last letter, and it may have been within as close as days of the end of his life. Paul asks for John Mark, while Silas seemed to disappear from the scripture even before the end of Acts. What do you think is happening there? What are we to make of this disagreement between Paul and Barnabas over bringing John Mark onto the second journey? How do we deal with that? Okay, yeah, that John Mark was restored. Pardon? Yeah, this is, I think, important to look at is what's the big picture in Scripture? Yeah, good point, Tom.

Peter is an example. We look at Peter, if you were to cut Peter's story off at the end of the Gospels and say, well, that's the last we heard of Peter. What would you think of Peter? You'd think this guy, you know, he's flaked out bad. As a matter of fact, if you were to cut it off even before that a little bit and cut off the time when Jesus spoke to him at the shores of the Sea of Galilee, you'd even think worse of him. But the reality is, what we see is a longer term picture that shows Peter being restored.

We also, as we mentioned last week, see Barnabas being a fellow who kind of does some front-end work for the underdog, so to speak. He came in and stood for Paul when Paul was, I'm sure, very questionable among the apostles. So here's Barnabas again standing for this fellow John Mark and putting him, from any evidence that we have from the rest of Scripture, putting him in a position of restoration and being willing to kind of take a stand and work alongside John Mark.

So yeah, that's I think an important perspective to keep in mind. Thanks, Tom. Other thoughts here? What about, do we have any other perspectives on this disagreement between Paul and Barnabas? I think maybe what Paul was thinking is he didn't really have time to take on another guy and have a kind of vision.

Ah, okay. Yeah, right. In other words, part of what you look at, what does Paul encounter as he goes on these missionary journeys? Everybody just loves him to death, right? No. He runs into a lot of trouble. He doesn't, in the midst of that, also need to have somebody bailing on him. So that may be one reason. Yeah, right. Other thoughts on that?

The leaner Paul was, the more he could operate, rather than having somebody to bring up to par. Yes, he was looking at John Mark as, if he sticks around, he's high maintenance. If he sticks around, there's a whole lot of potential work to put into this guy. So if he leaves, I've got some trouble, and if he stays, I've got a lot of work and a lot of drag on me.

Ah, yes, they have two missionary teams. What we find in Acts is that because Luke is focusing on Paul's ministry, that that is the part that we got the information on. But Barnabas and John Mark apparently went out as well, And we don't know exactly what took place other than to know that Paul maintained a relationship with Barnabas. We also know from Paul's writings that John Mark was indeed someone who was restored, and at the end, here's his last book, last chapter, he says, send John Mark, 2 Timothy, send John Mark, he's useful. How about that? That's cool. That's neat. Okay.

Yeah, I think it's one of these things, you look at it, if we were to look at it kind of zeroing in on the problem, we'll say, well, this is just a problem and that's all it is. But if you look at it in the big picture, what appeared to be a conflict was instead something that worked out doubly well for all involved. So that's kind of an interesting thing to look at, isn't it? Do we have a problem? Yes. Does that mean it's all bad? No. The Lord's going to use it still. Okay, let's look at the second question there.

Was the miraculous guidance given to Paul? Now, remember what happened is Paul was thinking, hey, I'll head north or I'll head west from here and stay kind of on this piece of land that we now call Turkey. And the Lord in both directions said, no, not here, not there, and then gave, after two negative statements, a positive statement, I want you to go to Macedonia. It meant crossing over to what started off as a ministry in Philippi. But here was miraculous revelation as to particular guidance.

And we brought up the point previously that the Lord indeed has a will for us, but the primary aspect of God's will is not pick the right path through the maze. We also pointed out that when the Lord has a specific direction He wants us to take, that He makes it clear, that the Lord is not sitting there laying, if you have a choice before you and the decision is not clear as to which one to choose, it may very well be, if the Lord has not revealed something already in Scripture, that the Lord is saying, I am not particular as to which one you pick. You can pick one or the other, and because I have not spoken, that's telling you make a good choice and you can depend on me whichever one you choose. How about that? So we don't need to worry if I miss God's will because I've missed the fork in the road. Anyway, we get to this picture here in the second question.

Was the miraculous guidance given to Paul and his companions here in the early verses of Acts 16 a sample of a larger and more typical pattern of miraculous guidance or was it as exceptional as appears over the 30 years? In other words, Did he get miraculous guidance all the time, and this is just one of the rare instances we found it, and know about it, or was the miraculous guidance more atypical, and this is a singular instance? So, how do you see that? I think it definitely stands out in the whole movement of Christianity. Well, yeah, because here Paul is called over for the first time, essentially, to the European continent. Right? Because otherwise he was not planning on going over to the European continent. Yeah, certainly.

But what do you see though, is this miraculous guidance, should we expect that that's typical as Christians? Should we expect at every point miraculous guidance, or is miraculous guidance, guidance that is particular, I want you to go here versus there, is that going to be exceptional in the Christian life? Which one? Yes? No? What's that? Atypical. Why would miraculous guidance be atypical? Why would that be the exception rather than the everyday event?

Yeah, we have the Old Testament and New Testament scriptures to guide us. And a lot of people will say, well, why doesn't God tell me what he wants? Well, you know, does this help? You know, the Lord has laid out so many things that yes, we have the guidance of God's Word. And so that tells us in great effect what is God's will. As we I think we're going to bring it up here this morning, if we didn't last week.

The Thessalonians, right next to Philippi, Paul writes, this is the will of God, your sanctification. Now notice, he didn't say this is the will of God, that you go here and you turn left, and you go into this door. God is not wringing his hands, pacing the floors of heaven, thinking, oh, I hope they buy the blue Chevy and not the yellow one! See, God is not horrifically concerned about those incidental fork in the road so much as He's looking at, and ultimately, we're going to be your predestined, so, oh no, am I in the white jacket of predestination? Predestined to be conformed to the image of the Son.

That does not mean that every little jot and tittle the Lord is either dictating down to the finest detail or playing a game with you, saying, gee, I wonder if they'll guess the right path, because if they don't, then I'll really get them. The other thing is that it makes a big difference should we put our attention upon examining His Word where He's laid out so many things, or should we go around looking for voices all the time? And some people do. A parallel question to that that I could ask is even when the gift of tongues was a valid gift, was it something that they just did all the time and we only have some samplings of it? Only one epistle ever mentions it.

Or was it something that was exceptional? When Peter, speaking to the leaders in Jerusalem, was talking about what happened with the Gentiles, he said, what happened with the Gentiles about ten years after it happened to the Jews, what happened to the Gentiles is like what happened to us at the beginning. He didn't say like what has been happening to us since the beginning, but he pointed back to an event roughly a decade earlier and said it was like back then. So that right there says, is this typical or is this an unusual event?

Kind of a parallel comment. Let's look at the third question here. Why is it that it was okay for Paul to circumcise Timothy in Acts 16.3, while when Paul wrote to the churches in Galatia, which may even include the city where Timothy was from, he argued strongly against their being circumcised, especially in chapters 2 and 6. Is Paul talking out of both sides of his mouth?

Here, the first thing he does, I mean, before Timothy leaves town, circumcises them, and then he turns around and writes to those churches. Aren't those things wonderful? He writes to these churches and says, you know, if you even so much as be circumcised, you're falling from grace. So what's the truth here? Has Paul got a problem? What's the deal? Alright, let's think about this. Here's Timothy. Is Timothy Jew or Gentile?

Half and half. Jewish mother or father? Jewish mother and grandmother, but Greek father. And the Greek father had not seen to it that Timothy was circumcised, so it seems that that's something he either didn't care about, at a minimum, or maybe even have been opposed to. Timothy, now as an adult, is in a different position. The Greek father didn't see to it that Timothy was circumcised. Paul mentions that the mother and grandmother taught Timothy the Old Testament scriptures, but not the father.

So the father is at least neutral on this issue, if not possibly antagonistic. We don't know, but at least neutral. Okay, so here's one instance. Timothy is at least half-Jew and Jew on his mother's side. What other clarifying points do we have here? What else is going to help us understand this apparent conflict? Yes, that's right. And among Jews, that's actually the test. It's not the father, it's the mother. That's the carrier of lineage. Any other thoughts there? Ah, yes. Yes. Good point.

As we go through the book of Acts, we notice that Paul starts off at the synagogues. He goes to the Gentiles after that if he ends up wearing out his welcome, so to speak, at the synagogue. So yeah, that's one point. He is going to target the synagogues, and what are the people the synagogues going to be looking at? Eligibility, yeah.

Is this Timothy guy that's alongside Paul, is he standing by this stuff? So yes, that's going to be another point. One of the other things Paul says, to the Jews I become as a Jew, and to the Gentiles as a Gentile. Paul is concerned that he not place a stumbling block in front of any particular group. And so with Timothy, he says, look, because your mother is Jewish, let's have you circumcised.

Titus, what does he do? Does he have Titus circumcised too? What happens there? Titus not. As a matter of fact, we're going to see later on in Acts, that a riot develops in Jerusalem because the word gets out that they at least thought that Paul had taken Titus past these doors of the inner temple area, where they have signs at each of the doors, and we found at least one of those signs among the rubble that the Romans dumped off the edge of the Temple Mount, warning that if any Gentile goes past these doors, they have themselves to blame if death follows. So, it's rumored that Titus is brought past those doors with the warning sign and a riot breaks out. Paul had not circumcised Titus because Titus was not a Jew. He was a Gentile through and through. Tom? Well, it kind of reminds you of the role of the warning signs before you got to the wall in Berlin. Did you hear about CERN? Yes. It's this warning sign about passing.

And the distinction that Paul's making, of course here, he circumcises Timothy because Timothy has a Jewish mother. He does not circumcise Titus because Titus is Gentile through and through. Let's take a look here. Now, let's go on. You've got Acts 16, 16-40. That's the handout for today. Paul, at this point in time, they're in Philippi. Let me bring up a couple of overheads here. Here's the one map, and we distributed this map, oh, it's over a month ago now, I think. Hopefully you have access. If you don't, at least here's the path.

Notice that he starts off heading out of Jerusalem, goes through Antioch, where they had been before, and then heads up through Tarsus, through the Cilician Gates there, which is basically a narrow, windy canyon just outside of Tarsus. Great place for pirates, by the way. And then heads over to Derbe, Iconium, Lystra, and Antioch. That's actually Pisidian Antioch.

He heads through those cities, which are places in the middle of what we now call Turkey, where he'd been before. And remember, this is his third time through. First time, it was evangelism. Second time through, appoint elders. Third time through now, and what's he doing?

He's bringing to them the message that they got from the Jerusalem Council, where they said, we're not loading the law on the Gentiles. We're not going to stack that on their backs. Peter's told them, you know, we've never been able to bear this. How should we load it on them? And Peter keeps coming across clearly that salvation is by faith. Therefore, keeping of the law should not be required of these. Okay?

He heads off, and notice he's initially thinking, I'll head west to Ephesus, or I'll head north there to Bithynia. And the Lord says, nope, not there, not there. But instead, here. And that's where he heads off, through Troas. Got a quick photo shot there of Troas, which is a port city heading off towards Philippi. So there he heads off to Philippi. Let me do a switch on the slides here. And for all you historians, Troas indexed the children on the very front side of Troas. OK, here's kind of the view from up on the side of the hill of Philippi.

Here's the Ignatian Way. That's the Roman road that went right through it. And all they did is they said, you know, that's a great foundation for a road. Let's just pave it. And that's what they did. So that's the Ignatian Way. They now just paved it and it runs right through the middle of Philippi.

Up here they have the pagan temples, temples and sanctuaries, different ones. And then here is the Forum. This is the forum or marketplace where Paul and Silas were beaten with rods. And we have over here the gymnasium and bathhouse. Over here was the marketplace office. The Romans, with Latin, would call it a forum. The Greeks would call it an agora. But that was the same idea.

This is the center of town. This is where things happen. This is where somebody is to be beaten. That's where they're beaten. This is where we have various kinds of public activities taking place. So that's what you see right there. So that was the place where Paul and Silas were. All right. Now, getting back to the scene here.

What they encounter as they're trying to evangelize is they're hounded, harassed, by this girl who, as our English translations say, has a spirit of divination, divining, that is, telling the future. It's interesting, that's actually not a translation. That's an interpretation. Because the Greek actually says that she has a python spirit. Now you may think, what on earth? Python? I thought that was a snake. Yes, that's exactly what it is.

They called the priestesses of Apollo Pythia. And so this gal was carrying on kind of a priestess activity that they would have at the temple of Apollo. And she would go about telling people's fortunes as a part of her participation with this Python spirit, if you will. that Apollo fought the Python at the gate of the underworld, so the Greek mythology goes. So anyway, that's literally what's in here, a Python spirit. She was a Pythia, one of Apollo's priestesses.

Now, so she goes around, and interestingly enough, she behaves in some degree similar to how the demons at the demoniac of, you know, Gerasa, the Gadarene or Gerasene demoniac, as you hear it pronounced differently. Remember Jesus in Mark 5 comes up off the boat, he's off the shore, and this demoniac man comes up to him and doesn't start denouncing him. Instead, the demons start saying, you know, you are the son of the Most High God. And so what we see here is the same brash announcement.

Now one other little secret, these Pythia, these women that had a python spirit, they would speak in what we would kind of call ventriloquist type action. The Greek description is that they would speak from their stomach. and it was a low guttural sound. So here's this woman speaking with a kind of a low guttural voice. It was sort of projected out of her stomach, shrieking about Paul being one who is telling of the Most High God. I tell you, that's really nice to have around when you're trying to share the gospel, right?

So that's why after a while of this, Paul turns to her and unlike the exorcisms of the culture, the exorcisms of the culture you'd go through all kinds of rituals and special procedures that you'd go through, it was a long strung out thing, he just says, come out of here, bang, right there. So that was in contrast to the culture. There wasn't any time for anybody to kind of, you know, warn anybody, hey, he's going to do this, or, you know, look out, look at what he's doing to your slave girl, because she was a slave girl.

Instead, just bang, it happened. Now, the owners find out about this. They may have been around, but the whole thing happened so quickly, it's like they're just in shock. Now, notice something. Not just an owner, but multiple owners. This gal may have been expensive to buy. She may have been costly to the point where several different people had to put their money together to get her with this special ability. What just happened to it? It's gone. As a matter of fact, our translations kind of smooth out the English a little bit. The Greek says that the prophet left with the spirit, basically. When the spirit left, so did the prophet, okay?

And so these guys, they're just stunned. Hey, we made a big investment. We don't know how much that these guys had put into this thing. They may have really sunk themselves to buy this girl, put money together, several of them saying, hey, we'll get this back.

No. They just, the spirit left, their prophet's gone too. They're, to use a modern terminology, they're freaking out. So they don't know what to do. They don't know how to get a spirit back into somebody. So they go complaining to the Roman authorities.

The way it was in Philippi, there were two Roman officials. These were the magistrates and you'd go to this pair of guys that would be there at the forum area and you'd make your complaint and they would handle things with whatever had to take place. Philippi was a very Roman city. Dr. Luke, as he's writing this, says of all the places that Paul went, this was a Roman colony.

And so here's these Roman officials, and here are these Jews coming. They cast the spirit out of this gal. These guys have lost their opportunity for money-making. And so the Roman officials hear, hey, these guys are Jews. I've got some Roman citizens here complaining. people that have been here a while, I know these guys, these visitors that have just come, I don't know who they are, but they're Jews, and they just caught these guys to be really upset.

So without asking any questions, they go and order these rod men beat these guys. Now, one of the things you've got to know, this isn't a little, you know, whack, whack, spank, spank, spank kind of thing. We have other accounts. Cicero was one, for example, who wrote an account. If you got beat by one of these guys, you're at risk of death. One fellow, the first thing they did is smash a rod across his face and then start beating him. And his face was just a mess. And they'd start beating him until he was dead.

So when the order came for Paul and Pilate to be beaten, this was no small thing. The fellow who did this, the term was a lictor, and I wonder, I've got to check this out, have you ever heard of somebody getting a licking? I wonder if there's a connection there, I'd like to check that out, but anyway. So here, they give them the beating, and Paul and Barnabas, Paul and Silas, are now ordered to be in prison.

Now, prisons in those days were not nice. They typically were down low. We have a picture on the second page of one of the places that may be Paul's prison. It's debated, so I won't say that it categorically is, but may be the place that's Paul's prison. What they would do is they would have a prison and then they would have the inner prison.

The inner prison was a place Sanitation was actually, how do I describe it, repulsive. Sanitation was repulsive. The fellow who last went, who last was locked up there, was not cleaned up after. And you're locked in, in that same wooden place, covered with whatever, stone place rather, covered with whatever it's covered with. And that's it. Whatever biological problems that guy had, you're now stuck with them.

So, Paul and Silas, they're going to sit there for hours complaining, right? What are they doing instead? Praying and singing. Praying and singing. Here they are in the worst part of the prison. Praying and singing. Their feet are in stalks. And basically what those are is they would have a kind of a pipe or bar that would come across and then they would have these kind of teeth that would come down like the teeth in the comb with enough space for legs. And so they just put some legs out there and they'd put this bar down and lock it down. And so anyway, they've got this bar across their ankles and they're locked in on this thing.

It stinks to high heaven. There is no padding on the seat. You cannot get loose. We don't know about this particular instances, but some of these were also back in a hole about the size of a dishwasher. So they would have you leaned over like this in a hole in the side of the rock about the size of a dishwasher. You're leaned over and your feet are locked in on these stocks. That's your position and it stinks to high heaven. That's where Paul and Silas prayed and sang. till midnight.

And the indication was they weren't planning on stopping when an earthquake took place. And so then the earthquake takes place. One of the things is this is an area that we know now is prone to lots of earthquakes. Things just get shaken up badly. The geologists have studied it and big seismic area. So this earthquake takes place, that's probably nothing unusual, and also have things broken loose in terms of prison gates and things like that. I mean, all the things you're counting on to hold this thing solid, they're all getting shaken.

And so basically these prisoners are, if they want, able to be set free. The jailer comes in because his order is, look, you take care of this prison, make sure nobody gets loose, and if they do, you'll be in trouble. Some studies have shown failure to do something like that is probably a 40 or 50% risk of death by some statistics of different cases. They were at liberty to go as far as to put him to death for having any prisoners get loose. So what does the jailer do?

He's pulling out his sword and he's at his end. But interestingly, he asked Paul and Silas What must I do to be saved? Now, why do you think he'd ask them that question? Why would he ask that question? He's not been at home eating while this is going on. He's there because he knows he's got to make sure these guys stay there.

They're under orders. You know, you make sure that guy stays there. Absolutely. No questions or exceptions. So they're under orders to keep these guys. But here's the jailer. He's been listening to Paul and Silas. Ordinarily, they hear either silence or a complaint. Instead, these guys are praying and singing. And what are they singing about? They've not been singing Yankee Doodle. They've been singing the gospel. And so the question, Paul, in saying, we're all here, and the jailer, he's at his end, because this is a threatening situation, but he's been listening.

What must I do to be saved? And Paul cuts to the chase, because this isn't the time to say, okay, I've got about a three-hour dissertation here, can you hang on a minute? He cuts to the chase and says, what's the basics of what this guy needs to hear? That's what he boils it down to. And so he answers him briefly.

Bare bones, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you'll be saved. That's the bare bones gospel. You've heard us sing about Jesus being raised from the dead. You've heard about him being crucified. That Jesus that we've been singing about, that's the one. That's the one in whom you have to believe. That's it. The jailer. Ah! Fantastic!

Not only are these guys not running around and taking off, Any other prisoner would have. But these guys bring me some wonderful news. And so the jailer believes, and the jailer's household believes, Paul and Silas are taken, and the jailer has the wounds washed, because he's got them. They've got them. And then the whole household is saved. Now, on through the night, because this is not one of those nights where you sleep, right? On through the night, Finally, dawn comes.

Interestingly, these fellows who previously had said, hey, beat these guys and put them in prison and make sure they don't get out, they're at the early hours saying, hey, get these guys out of here. And Paul says, well, let them come and release us because they just beat Roman citizens without a trial.

Now these guys are alarmed. Why? The jailer was threatened with severe penalty if any of the prisoners got loose. A penalty was possibly death. Similar for beating a Roman citizen without trial. So these guys go from, you know, hey, put them in jail, beat them up, we don't care, to, oh no, are we in deep yogurt? And so here's where you get the impasse.

They know that if Paul and Silas can prove their Roman citizenships, that they are in deep trouble, possibly loss of life. But they also know that since Paul and Silas are out of town, they may have difficulty proving their Roman citizenship. You have to have the right documentation and they give you a special medal that would indicate, yes, you do have Roman citizenship. If you did not have those, you couldn't prove them. For Paul and Silas to falsely claim that they were Roman citizens was a serious penalty on them. So people didn't do it casually. But the problem is Paul and Silas, being far away from home, may not have had the documentation. So the impasse was, we're both in potential trouble here. This could be a lot of trouble to resolve. You just leave. And so Paul and Silas said, yeah, we'll leave. But first they went over to Lydia's place and gathered the church together. So far as is quite clear, Lydia and her household are believers. The jailer and his household are believers. There may be others as well. Why do we think there might be others who are believers as well besides those that we know of?

What indications might we have? Okay, some prisoners may have responded that we don't have specific record of. Okay, good. Other inputs or pieces of information that would give us at least the possibility for other believers? Pardon? Okay, later on indicating that there were other believers, and how did that come about? It may well indicate other believers were there even at that early stage. Okay, yeah, Josiah. Ah, out by the river. This is where they first went. Perhaps others were responsive. Yeah. By the way, what we've seen only about Paul and Silas here, who else is there in Philippi? Who did Paul take with him that he circumcised? Timothy is there. And he's not been mentioned here, but he's with them.

And who was writing this account that wrote We and Us? Luke. So Dr. Luke is also there. They may also have been involved. Because remember, the focus here is on Paul and Silas because of the slave girl and the activities surrounding that. Dr. Luke and Timothy are not just sitting around sipping colas at the Forum. They also are involved, but that's not recorded. So you've got other things happening there.

It may also be, it's not clear from the text, did the slave girl become a believer? Could be. Could be. So anyway, there are numerous instances here where you see other potential and at least implications that point to other believers gathering at Lydia's house before they depart here. Are we doing okay? Alright. Oh yeah. Oh yeah, Pepsi hadn't come along.

So, real interestingly, at this point in time, we find, you know, we and us, mentioned real quickly in chapter 16, Dr. Luke writes 12 times with those pronouns, we and us, and then all of a sudden, that drops out. So the implication being that Paul may have left Dr. Luke at least there back in Philippi. It isn't until chapter 20 that we find Dr. Luke writing with we and us again.

So he may have stayed along for a while to, for example, help teach those who have been evangelized, things of that sort. So anyway, that's some indication. Let's take a look at some of these questions that we have before us. Question one, was it unethical, and these are questions, by the way, for you to think about, not necessarily the answer here this morning.

Was it unethical for Paul to have destroyed the income and asset value of the slave girl for the owners by sending the spirit out of her? You see, this was financially devastating to them. They were obviously profoundly upset with what took place. Was it inconsiderate for Paul to do this? Was it rather rude? Possibly for him to have cast the spirit of divination, this python spirit, out of the girl?

Think about that. Why or why not? Second question we have there. Here's another ethical question. Was it right for Paul and Silas to pray and sing into the night? Apparently, up to midnight, given that there were other prisoners in the same prison, along with the jailer.

This is really disruptive, isn't it? I mean, if you did this at any hotel or motel, they'd be exceedingly upset, right? So, was it wrong for Paul and Silas to do this? Was that something that they said, oh, no, we can't do this. We can't be singing these songs up till midnight like this. So, anyway, think about that. Was that something that they shouldn't have done? What would have been the impact on the jailer and on the prisoners if they had not done so? Think about that.

Or the third question. What about Paul's presentation of the gospel? Was it a little too short? Was it adequate? Why? Would anything else have gone on prior to the earthquake that might have had an impact on what Paul needed to say then? So, think about those three questions. Any questions you have or comments on this passage? We've gone through, as we do here, we're passing through quickly. We could hover over, in some cases, for weeks on one verse if we wanted to, but haven't the time for it. Any comments or questions that you have right now? Yes? No? Okay.

Lord, as we look at this, it is wonderful to see how here you led Paul and his companions miraculously to this place in Philippi, and one of the first things that happens is they get in deep trouble and are seriously wounded by the beatings that they receive.

And yet, that's precisely where you led them. And Lord, that's a valuable insight for us to have here this morning. that because something bad happens doesn't necessarily mean that we're out of your will. It may be exactly what you have in mind. And so we look to you this morning. We thank you for the lesson before us and lessons in life, even lessons in song. And thank you for what you've revealed for our benefit because you love us. In Jesus' name, Amen.