God Goes to Jail in Philippi
Author: Stan Guthrie
September 09, 2026
This article continues our series on the founding of the church in Philippi, during Paul’s Second Missionary Journey (AD 49–52). This information, I hope, will help prepare us for the Adult Sunday School, beginning on September 13: Discover the Greatest Life You’ll Ever Live: A Journey Through Philippians. Earlier installments will be found in the blog.
The Apostle Paul had done everything the Lord asked.
Responding to the nighttime vision of the man from Macedonia (Acts 16:9–10), Paul and his three companions crossed the Aegean and made their way to Philippi (Acts 16:11–12), a leading Roman city. Following his usual missionary strategy of going “to the Jew first,” Paul sought out a Jewish place of prayer and saw Lydia, a wealthy Gentile believer in Israel’s God, come to faith (Acts 16:13–15) by the river.
Then, facing spiritual harassment day after day from a demonized slave girl, the Apostle finally cast the spirit out (Acts 16:16–18), showing the superiority of Christ over the so-called gods of Greece.
But while the slave girl had been delivered from Satan’s power, the devil didn’t give up. The slave owners, suddenly seeing “that their hope of gain was gone,”* … seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace before the rulers” (Acts 16:19). They accused them of being Jews and “disturbing our city” with illegal customs that could neither be practiced nor even accepted (Acts 16:19–21). When demons are afoot, antisemitism is near the surface, whether in the first century or the twenty-first.
The charge of advocating foreign customs and disturbing the city would be particularly dangerous in this Roman colony, where loyalty to Caesar and public order were prized above all. Of course, Paul and Silas were innocent. The impetus for this missionary journey, after all, was to share the decision of the Jerusalem Council, which held that Gentiles who received Christ did not have to follow Jewish law (Acts 15:1–35). They, like Christ’s Jewish disciples, would be saved by grace through faith (Acts 15:9–11).
But legal niceties were not on the minds of the furious slave owners. The quickly forming mob dragged Paul and Silas before the magistrates, who ordered that their clothes be torn off and they be beaten with rods (Acts 16:22–23a). Their nakedness not only was intended to cause shame, but to inflict maximal pain from the “many blows” they received.
Then, without trial or conviction, the Apostle and Silas—one of the leading men from the church in Jerusalem (Acts 15:22)—were thrown into the maximum-security “inner prison.” The jailer fastened their feet in stocks, designed to inflict excruciating pain at the slightest movement (Acts 16:23a–24). In all this, their unjust abuse echoed what the Romans had done to their Lord.
So did Paul and Silas complain? Did they murmur, even a little, at God for leading them into this situation after they had faithfully followed his call? Did they call down God’s judgment? They did none of the things that you or I might have done. Instead, they worshiped.
Here’s what Acts 16:25a says: “About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God.” What were they singing? Luke, an eyewitness, doesn’t say. But one of the hymns certainly could have been Psalm 66:
Bless our God, O peoples;
let the sound of his praise be heard,
who has kept our soul among the living
and has not let our feet slip.
For you, O God, have tested us;
you have tried us as silver is tried.
You brought us into the net;
you laid a crushing burden on our backs;
you let men ride over our heads;
we went through fire and through water;
yet you have brought us out to a place of abundance.
…
Blessed be God,
because he has not rejected my prayer
or removed his steadfast love from me!
This Psalm fits their situation perfectly. It features a call to the nations to worship; trust amid testing; deliverance after trial. And note that the missionaries weren’t spiritually flexing for the men around them. Paul and Silas were singing and praying “to God.” No wonder that Luke adds at the end of verse 25: “the prisoners were listening to them.” No one was sleeping that night. In a world where naked power was worshiped, a greater power had arrived—the love of God, even for prisoners.
Then a sudden, “great earthquake” shook the foundations, opening all the doors and unlocking the prisoners’ bonds (Acts 16:26). Before we dismiss this detail as just another Greek (or Christian) myth, consider that Philippi was situated in a well-known earthquake zone. A massive quake struck Philippi around AD 400–420, destroying the city’s forum and basilicas. Eventually, later quakes led to Philippi’s abandonment. Luke, a careful “historian of the first rank,” was simply reporting what happened.
And yet, to the shock of the jailer, not one prisoner had taken advantage of this golden opportunity to escape (Acts 16:27–28). They were evidently all too busy listening to Paul and Silas, hearing about their awesome God. And what a relief for the jailer!
One moment he thought his life was forfeit, and drew his sword to kill himself and save his Roman masters the trouble. The next, he escorted the seemingly powerless missionaries out and fell down before them, asking, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” It was a massive reversal of roles.
They answered simply, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household” (Acts 16:31). The message of grace in Jerusalem, Antioch, and by the river was the same message in a Philippian jail.
Thus, the jailer, probably a member of the city’s middle class, joins upper-class Lydia (and probably the former slave girl) as a member of Philippi’s fledgling church. He shows a transformed heart by taking Paul and Silas from the jail, washing their wounds, being baptized with his family, and feeding the prisoners in his own house (Acts 16:32–34).
Roman citizens Paul and Silas were released the next morning (with an apology from the magistrates) and asked to leave the city. Before doing so, however, they brought the ministry in Philippi full circle, visiting Lydia and seeing the other new Christians (Acts 16:35–40).
No doubt there were prayers and songs of praise on their lips as they went.
Stan Guthrie is Director of Outreach and Mobilization for New Covenant Church in Naperville, Illinois.
*The girl’s owners had been reaping a financial windfall from her ability—imparted by a demon—to tell the future. Divination from her “spirit of python” could cost customers a full denarius—a day’s wage for a laborer. Such slaves commanded between 1,500 and 4,000 denarii on the open market, so it’s not surprising that more than one slave owner had a financial stake in her continued fortune telling. It was a kind of first-century investment club.
Image: The Philippian jail today, from https://www.johnsanidopoulos.com/2018/06/the-prison-of-apostles-paul-and-silas.html.
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