People in Paul's Life
9 - The Philippian Jailer
The interesting thing about the man we are going to look at in this study is that he is not named. He was an ordinary family man who did a rather mundane job. He looked after the city’s prison.
Before we look at this man, we are going to look at the events that brought about the meeting between him and Paul.
Paul and Silas had been accused of breaking the law by teaching customs that were not approved by the Roman authority. In fact, what they had done was be instrumental in God driving out an evil spirit from a slave girl. The people she worked for realised that their main source of income had been taken from them, so they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the market place and brought them before the magistrates who had them beaten and put in jail. They weren’t just put in jail, the magistrates ordered the jailer to put them in the most secure cell in the prison to make sure they couldn’t escape. They were also further punished by being secured in the stocks.
To the jailer, this was just part of his normal day’s work of making sure those who had been found guilty of doing wrong, served their sentence. What he didn’t know when he carried out the magistrates’ order was that an ordinary working day was going to change into an extraordinary one; one that would change his life completely.
He had done his duties for the day and returned to his house to relax for the evening, content that there should be no problems. At midnight, after he had gone to bed, Paul and Silas were in their cell praising God by praying and singing hymns. We also read that the other prisoners could hear this. Paul and Silas knew they were in that situation because it was part of God’s plan for them, although at this stage it hadn’t been revealed to them what this plan was.
Suddenly there was an earthquake. This wasn’t a slight tremor, but one that was powerful enough to shake the whole building from the foundations up. It caused all the doors to the cells to burst open and the chains holding the prisoners secure to break. This was the beginning of the change in the jailer’s life.
It began with him being woken from his sleep. He changed from being relaxed to being worried. He was responsible to the authorities for keeping the prisoners secure. What would happen to him if they had escaped? He would probably have to pay with his life. Looking back to Acts chapter twelve we read of Peter being freed from prison. Herod blamed the guards for allowing him to escape, and as a result had them put to death. Like Jerusalem, Philippi was part of the Roman Empire, so that same fate could face this jailer.
What did he decide to do? He decided to take the easy way out and end his life there and then. He didn’t want to go through the trauma and humiliation of having to go before the magistrates and be publicly executed. He could see no hope. He could see no future for himself. He decides to end it all by killing himself with his sword.
But God had other plans for the jailer. He caused Paul to step in just in time to save him. He could see what the jailer was about to do, so he shouted to him to stop what he was doing immediately as there was nothing for him to worry about. In fact Paul had to shout because he could see the jailer meant business. He had to stop him in his tracks. Paul then reassured him that no-one had escaped.
The jailer would have known why Paul and Silas were in prison and would have also heard how people’s lives had been changed as a result of their preaching. He also knew that people who were normally locked up in his prison would have escaped given an opportunity like this. But not only were Paul and Silas still there, but so were all the other prisoners because they too had been affected by what they had heard from Paul and Silas. These men had something that he didn’t have and he wanted the same, so what did he do about it?
The first thing he did was to call for lights. As it was midnight, it would be dark and there would be no lights provided in the prison, but the jailer wanted to be sure that what Paul had said was true. He wanted to see for himself that none of the prisoners had escaped, as past experience would have told him that they would have, given the opportunity. Once he had a light, he rushed in. He was panicking because he was scared of what might happen to him. Once he was satisfied that all the prisoners were there, he “fell trembling before Paul and Silas.” He was relieved and thankful, and given a certain amount of hope, at least for the immediate future. He wouldn’t have to be punished and his job was safe, so he would be able to continue providing for his family.
But that wasn’t enough for him. He realised there was more to life and more to hope for than he thought. He had heard that these men preached something that could give him more satisfaction in life in the short term, but there was an eternal future to consider, something that he had not given any thought to in the past.
Paul and Silas preached that there was something following physical death. Jesus preached that “everyone who believes in him (Jesus) may have eternal life” and “shall not perish.” You can read this in John chapter 3 and verses 15 and 16. In verse 36 of this same chapter you also read that John the Baptist preached, “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains in him.”
The jailer would have either heard this preaching of the gospel or had been told about it because of the uproar it had caused in the town. He had now seen that Paul and Silas practiced what they preached. They showed a contentment that he never knew could be possible in someone in the situation they had found themselves in, and he wanted to know more. He wanted to know how he could be saved from experiencing God’s wrath. He wanted what Peter calls, “a living hope” in chapter 1 and verse 3 of his first epistle.
He wanted what these two men had, but he didn’t know how to obtain it. He realised there was only one thing to do and that was to ask. He then brings the prisoners out of the jail because he probably believed the building wasn’t safe nor secure, and then asks one of the most important questions anyone could ask, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” And the answer he was given was the same one Jesus had given: “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved.” He probably didn’t know what this meant, so Paul and Silas explained the truth of the gospel as found in God’s Word. The jailer was like many people who never give a thought to the scriptures until something happens to draw their attention to it. He wanted all the members of his household to hear what this new religion was all about. During this preaching, God opened the hearts of the jailer and his family and they believed. They entered into a new life with Christ.
There was a complete change in his attitude to the prisoners. He washed their wounds; these would be the wounds caused by the public beating they had received and by the chains that were fastened tightly around their arms and legs. He wouldn’t have done this before his conversion, but he had come to realise that this new life he had entered into through faith, needed to show in his life by his actions. As James reminds us, “faith without deeds is dead.” Paul and Silas had become his friends. In fact they were more than that, they were brothers in Christ. You can read this in James chapter 2 and verse 26. Despite it being in the middle of the night, the jailer and his family, who had also responded to the message of salvation, were then baptised.
The jailer’s life would never be the same, “he was filled with joy because he had come to believe in God.” The wonderful thing is, that his family came to believe also, so there was a new household with Christ as its head.
There is an old hymn which goes like this:
What a wonderful change in my life has been wrought
Since Jesus came into my heart!
Has your life changed as a result of Jesus coming in and taking full control?