Acts 16:25-34 meaning

In Acts 16:25-34, we see the aftermath of Paul’s imprisonment and how God works good out of a bad circumstance. 

Paul and Silas have been jailed in Philippi after rousing the anger of some local men. Paul cast a demon out of a slave-girl who was formerly making her masters money from her fortune-telling. Now she was healed, and unprofitable to her masters. The masters dragged Paul and Silas before the chief magistrates of Philippi and accused them of spreading chaos by teaching unlawful Jewish customs. Paul and Silas were beaten and imprisoned.

Here we see Paul and Silas handle a terrible situation with the love of God filling their intentions and actions. Most men would be filled with anger, fear, and self-pity after having been stripped, beaten many times with rods, and having their feet locked in stocks inside a dark prison—all while having done nothing to deserve it. Paul and Silas probably thought they would be executed at some point, or jailed for a lengthy amount of time. 

Though in physical pain from the beatings and the stocks on their feet, Paul and Silas are “struck down, but not destroyed” (2 Corinthians 4:8-10). They praise God that they should suffer for the sake of the gospel:

But about midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns of praise to God, and the prisoners were listening to them (v. 25).

The way Luke describes the scene, that the prisoners were listening to them, makes it sound as though the prisoners did not mind the praying and singing. They did not tell Paul and Silas to be quiet. Paul and Silas were probably praying out loud, and the hymns which they were singing were certainly for all to hear. Even so late, even though it was about midnight, the other prisoners in the Philippian jail were listening to these Jewish men pray for strength and sing songs of praise to their God. 

It must have been a puzzling but beautiful testimony to see such faith and joy in the midst of the worst circumstance. It probably encouraged and comforted the other prisoners.

After allowing their suffering, God comes to the rescue of His servants. God answers Paul and Silas’s prayers by shaking the prison:

and suddenly there came a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison house were shaken; and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone’s chains were unfastened (v. 26). 

With no warning, suddenly, God sends a great earthquake. It shakes the foundations of the prison house so violently that immediately everything is displaced. The doors are opened, which seems like a natural possibility from a great earthquake, but the fact that everyone’s chains are unfastened is far more miraculous and a result of divine intervention. 

This great earthquake wakes the Philippian jailer:

When the jailer awoke and saw the prison doors opened, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, supposing that the prisoners had escaped (v. 27). 

The jailer awoke and rushes to check on his prisoners. His house was probably attached to the prison. In his alarm, the jailer only notices the opened prison doors. The prison was likely pitch black, and he and perhaps a guard carried torches to inspect the scene. 

Earlier in Acts, the Apostle Peter was imprisoned, and an angel set him free while the guards slept (Acts 12:6-11). The next day, King Herod had the guards executed for failing to guard the prisoner (Acts 12:18-19). This jailer fears the same punishment. Jumping to that conclusion and supposing that the prisoners had escaped, he decides to avoid a brutal death at the hands of others, and chooses to end himself quickly then and there. As soon as he drew his sword to do the terrible, despairing deed, Paul shouts for him to stop:

But Paul cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Do not harm yourself, for we are all here!” (v. 28).

Paul guesses the reason why the jailer is suicidal, and does not want him to slay himself. Though this man had locked his feet in painful stocks earlier that night, Paul feels nothing but mercy for the jailer. From the perspective of Christ, we are to love other people as image-bearers of God (Luke 6:27-28, 1 Timothy 2:1-2). Paul’s whole purpose in Philippi is to tell the Philippians that they can be saved from sin, from darkness, from death. We might take this as a direct application of Paul’s admonition to love one’s enemies (Romans 12:19-21). 

From the darkness of the prison cell, Paul cried out with a loud voice and spoke words to save this jailer from choosing something he could never take back, something that would harm him forever. Do not harm yourself, Paul shouts, for we are all here! No prisoner has tried to escape, despite their chains falling off their arms and legs. Despite the doors opening for them to go wherever they pleased. They have not gone anywhere. 

And he, the jailer, called for lights and rushed in, and trembling with fear he fell down before Paul and Silas, and after he brought them out, he said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” (v. 29-30).

This is a dramatic and interesting turn of events. The jailer’s reaction goes beyond feeling relief. He has been awakened, not just by the earthquake, but by God’s calling. The jailer could have easily thought, “I am a lucky jailer,” put everyone back in their chains, locked the doors, and gone back to bed. Since none have escaped, he has no reason to fear punishment from his superiors. 

But this is not how he reacts at all. Rather, he associates the earthquake with these Jewish prisoners. He probably heard Paul and Silas praying and singing before he fell asleep earlier that night. He might have heard about them casting the demon out of the slave girl. He knows that powers beyond him are in support of these men. Their God is clearly in control. As far as the jailer can tell, their God seems to be displeased that they have been locked up. 

Had he or any other man been in that situation, they would have run for the doors and escaped. But these Jewish prisoners are there, and express concern for his own wellbeing. Any other man might have held his tongue, watching from the shadows and letting his enemy jailer slay himself, so that escape would be even easier. 

But Paul had cried out for the jailer to not harm himself. Paul was not trying to escape. Paul had saved the jailer’s life. The love of God is in these Jewish men, and this jailer sees that they are living with a different outlook on life than anyone he has ever met. Even the other prisoners have not escaped, probably due to Paul and Silas’s righteous example. 

The jailer called for lights to see the way to these men, and rushed in to their cell. He was trembling with fear as he fell down before Paul and Silas. 

With the fear of God in him, the jailer takes Paul and Silas into private custody. He has a question on his mind. It may be that he knows these men are preachers who have claimed to be teaching how to be saved from sin and judgment. This experience has brought this question to the jailer’s mind. He was woken in the middle of the night by an earthquake. He was filled with such an intense fear of failure that he was prepared to take his own life. 

But now, seeing that these men who were arrested are good men who care about him despite the fact that he is their jailer, the jailer wants to know what message is so important that these Jewish preachers travelled over 900 miles from Syria to tell the Philippians. God is speaking to the jailer, and the jailer is willing to listen. So, after he brought Paul and Silas out of their cell, he said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”

Paul and Silas tell him the gospel:
They said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household” (v. 31).

The gospel in its simplest expression is exactly what Paul and Silas say in verse 31: Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved. They explain that if the jailer and his household put their trust in the Lord Jesus, they will be saved. Earlier, when Lydia believed and was baptized, Luke singled her out, but added also that her entire household was baptized with her, which implies that they also believed. 

Whoever her household entailed, whether servants, or elderly parents, or children, or whoever, they also believed in the Lord Jesus. The Apostles and evangelists did not baptize people who did not believe. We see this here too, that it is not that the jailer and his household will be saved if the jailer alone believes on their behalf. 

Rather, Paul and Silas are taken into the jailer’s house where they spoke the word of the Lord to him together with all who were in his house (v. 32). All people who were in the jailer’s house got to hear the word of the Lord—the good news about Jesus Christ. They all believed on their own. 

It is much the same case as with the first Gentile who believed in Jesus—Cornelius the centurion. Cornelius knew that the Apostle Peter was coming to his house to give him the word of the Lord, a message from God. With excitement, Cornelius gathered his family and friends into his house, so that they could hear the good news from God. Cornelius and all who were in his house believed that day as well, and were filled with the Holy Spirit (Acts 10:24, 33, 44-48). 

Paul and Silas were given the opportunity to explain the gospel not only to this jailer, but to his household. He took them out of the prison and into his house to take care of them, as was alluded to earlier and is fully described in the coming verses. And in the jailer’s house, his family, servants, whoever was in his house that night, heard the word of the Lord: Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved.

Luke is probably summarizing what Paul and Silas taught. They probably did lead with the phrase, Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household, but were then taken into the jailer’s house where they could properly teach at length the entirety of the gospel. Who the Lord Jesus was, and what the Philippians would be saved from, and what they would be saved to if they believed in Jesus. 

The book of Acts contains many recorded sermons given by Paul and Peter. Some are recorded in greater detail than others, but we know that the Apostles were teaching the same gospel every time, so we can reasonably guess that Paul and Silas gave a more thorough presentation of the gospel to this Philippian household than what is written here. 

As Roman-Greek Gentiles, they would need it explained to them that their gods were not real, that God alone is the God of all, created all, and had sent His Son as promised to Israel to die for the sins of the entire world, was raised back to life, and calls all people to trust in Him for forgiveness and everlasting life. We will see Luke record a more extended gospel presentation by Paul while in Athens in the next chapter. But it seems here Luke only records the action-aspect of the gospel: Believe on the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved.

The response of faith is immediate. The jailer and his household do not need persuasion. They, like Lydia earlier, seem to have the Lord open their hearts to respond to the things spoken by Paul (Acts 16:14). 

The events of this night are somewhat muddled together the way Luke presents it, but they seem to be taking place all within that very hour of the night, which was about midnight (v. 25) when the earthquake struck. Upon finding Paul and Silas still in their cell, the jailer then brought them out, apparently into his house, because they spoke the word of the Lord to him together with all who were in his house subsequent to their being brought out of the prison. 

But it is in verse 34 that Luke tells us that the jailer brought them into his house, yet in the previous verse 33 he told us that the jailer took them that very hour of the night and washed their wounds, before the jailer was baptized, he and all his household (v. 33). 

So the order of events probably was that the jailer took Paul and Silas into his house right away, they preached the gospel, the jailer and his household believed, and then the jailer washed Paul and Silas’s wounds from when they had been beaten the day before. Then, after the washing, the jailer and all his household are baptized. All of this occurred at that very hour of the night.

There is a pleasant poetry to this sequence, that the jailer first washes the mistreated men of their physical wounds, so that they can then wash him and his household in the symbolic washing of their spirits in baptism. The jailer and his household are immersed into physical water, showing a spiritual change and truth: that they have died to sin and the world and their old identity, and are raised out of the water into the new resurrected life of trusting and following Jesus Christ the Son of God. 

What follows is also beautiful and healing. The man who had been their captor locking them in chains in the deepest cell of the prison at the beginning of the night was now their Christian brother washing their wounds in his own house and preparing dinner for them:

And he brought them into his house and set food before them, and rejoiced greatly, having believed in God with his whole household (v. 34).

They eat food in the jailer’s house while he rejoiced greatly about his new life in Christ. He had believed in God with his whole household, his life had changed, the Holy Spirit now filled him and those he loved. Only an hour before, he had been prepared to kill himself in despair, and now he was serving food to his former prisoners and was overflowing with joy that he had been saved from darkness and death by the Lord Jesus.