ACTS CHAPTER 16

MAIN THINGS

This chapter is intense. Timothy jumps in with Paul and Silas, but he must have overslept this day or been doing something else because he isn’t mentioned as being arrested. After having God move through them to cast out a demon they are arrested and then “severely flogged”. Do not take that lightly that is referring to the 39 lashes that Jesus suffered. I am deeply challenged by their view of this event, at midnight they were singing and praying to God. WOW!! They were praising the God who allowed them to be beaten for His name. That is a picture of what our faith should be like, because they knew God was about to do something, but even if He wasn’t about to do a miracle He is still worthy of our praise! God began a great work in Philippi and later we see in Paul’s letter that a solid church was established.

QUESTIONS & THOUGHTS

-How would you respond to suffering for Christ?

-Would you ever be willing to stand up for the name of Christ if there were laws against it? Would you ever be able to be convicted of being a Christian?

-How would you have responded to the jailer? He probably wasn’t very nice to Paul and Silas earlier, yet they still shared the gospel with him and spared his life.

-Paul and Silas didn’t appeal to being Roman citizens earlier and this would have spared them the beating. Why do you think they went through with it?