Then he called for a light, and sprang in, and came trembling, and fell down before Paul and Silas, and brought them out, and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved? Acts 16:29-30 KJV
On first reading the story in the book of Acts of Paul and Silas singing in their cell at midnight, we might come away with the idea that the climactic moment was the earthquake which God sent. But the biggest event that night wasn’t a geological one, and here are three important details that tell us why. First, the jailer must have been listening in while Paul and Silas were singing and praying. Because when he comes running in the first question he asks is not, “What is going on?” but instead he cries out, “What must I do to be saved?” Paul and Silas had hoped that the prisoners would respond to their message. Little did they know that the jailer was listening too! The second detail rarely mentioned is that the jailer took Paul and Silas somewhere in the middle of the night to wash their wounds and be baptized. We don’t know the exact location, though possibly it was the river which ran through Philippi. This jailer’s response to the gospel was no hesitant walk down to an altar while music is quietly played. Instead, He took a huge risk leaving his duties at the jail while the prisoners sat unshackled, and the doors lay in ruins from the earthquake. But what he wanted most of all was to wash the wounds of those men who had been beaten the day before and for them to baptize him. The most important detail of this story: is not the songs or the earthquake but the jailer’s baptism by torchlight at midnight. Paul and Silas didn’t tell them to wait for a six-week class on Christianity and baptism. Instead, they followed through on the very reason that God had sent them to Philippi, by spreading the Gospel of Jesus with the very people they thought least likely to listen!
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