By: Dale Weckbacher
Text: Acts
16:19-24
Acts 16:19-20
But when her
owners saw that their hope of gain was gone, they seized Paul and Silas
and dragged them into the marketplace before the rulers. 20 And
when they had brought them to the magistrates, they said, “These men are Jews,
and they are disturbing our city.”
(ESV)
Matthew
6:21 reminds us that our heart will be with whatever we treasure in our
lives. While we usually think of treasure
as money or material possessions, it also involves anything we value in our
lives more than God. This pandemic has
taught valuable lessons including how quickly anything we value more than God
in our lives can disappear. The only
thing that will not disappear in one’s life is his or her relationship with
Jesus Christ. Before beginning the study
of the text for this study, I want to invite anyone who has not already done so
to ask Jesus to forgive their sins and have a personal relationship with God by
praying with me now,
Dear Lord Jesus, I know I have sinned (Romans
3:23) and know that the penalty for my sin is death (Romans
6:23). I ask you to forgive me of my
sin and cleanse me as you promise in your Word (1
John 1:9). I believe you died, spent
three days in the grave, and resurrected from the dead, and now declare you
Lord of my life.
The owners of the slave girl
profited from her ability to tell fortunes due to her possession by a spirit of
divination (Acts
16:16), but the casting out of that spirit by Paul and Silas meant the end
of any future gain from her fortune-telling (Acts
16:19). These men so treasured the
profit they gained from using a demon-possessed slave girl that they did not
see the power of God demonstrated in the ministry of Paul and Silas through
casting out the demon. They failed to
see that the same power that raised Christ from the dead dwelt in Paul and
Silas and the value it could have in one’s life (Romans
8:11). These men treasured financial
gain that can quickly disappear and failed to see the power of the Holy Spirit
that leads to eternal life.
So vile was their anger towards
Paul and Silas that they drag them to the marketplace, a place familiar to them
where they believed they had power before the magistrates of the city (Acts
16:19-20). The only thing these men
could accuse Paul and Silas of was disturbing the city. As of this point, the crowd had not begun
attacking Paul and Silas so the only disturbing was the loss of profits these
men could have earned from their slave girl’s continued fortune-telling. The men then go on to tell the magistrates
that Paul and Silas are advocating the practice of customs that are not lawful
for Romans to accept or practice (Acts
16:21). While this passage does not
provide specifics about what practices the men are referring to, we can surmise
that Paul was teaching that Jesus was King and Lord of all (1
Timothy 6:15).
As the crowd becomes agitated,
the Roman magistrates appease them by tearing off Paul’s and Silas’ clothes and
beat them with rods (Acts
16:22). After the beating, the
magistrates have Paul and Silas thrown into prison and order the jailer to keep
them safe. The jailer then places Paul
and Silas in stocks and places them safely in the inner prison (Acts
16:23-24). The magistrates most
likely believed the beating and imprisonment of Paul and Silas meant an end to
any more disruption of the city but God is not done with Paul and Silas and is
about to cause a supernatural disruption in the city (Acts
16:25-26).
The city of Philippi has had an encounter
with God through the ministry of Paul and Silas. For the slave girl, the encounter was freedom
from her possession by a spirit of divination (Acts
16:18). For the slave owners, the
encounter showed them something more powerful than the acquisition of wealth (Acts
16:18-19). The city is about to have
an encounter with God as well through an earthquake causing a massive jailbreak
(Acts
16:25-26).
When one encounters God, there
will be changes in their life. For the
slave girl, the change was the casting out of the spirit of divination that
held her in a spiritual prison. For the
slave owners of the girl, the encounter with God means the elimination of
profits they made from the ability of their slave to tell fortunes using the
spirit of divination possessing her.
Instead of surrender to God after seeing the miracle of the demon
leaving the girl, the slave owners lash out at Paul and Silas in persecution
accusing them of disrupting the city when all that happened was the disruption of
their profits. These men have seen
Godliness in Paul and Silas and the power of God over demonic spirits but
instead, choose to protect their profits by turning Paul and Silas over to the
Roman Magistrates for arrest.
God is real and at work all
around us. Unfortunately, in the
information age, media focuses on the negative and how that affects our lives,
ignoring the good God is doing in the lives of individuals. May we as God’s people not focus on the
negative, causing us to focus on guarding the treasures we have in the world
and instead praise and worship our God, something Paul and Silas are about to
do with miraculous results (Acts
16:25-26). May God bless everyone
reading this post.
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