Citizens - Acts 16:35-40

Silas, Paul and the jailer have all had quite an unexpected and emotional night, so it’s probably at least a little bit surprising when “the magistrates sent the serjeants, saying, Let those men go.” Let’s just remember that Paul and Silas were placed in the inner most, darkest part of the prison where men are put to die, they probably didn’t expect the sudden turn around of attitudes. Additionally, this abrupt change of heart by the magistrates begs the question, why did God shake the prison open if he knew that they were going to be released the next morning anyway? I think that the obvious answer to this question is that the conversion of the jailer was important and couldn’t have gone down any other way. With the news of dismissing the charges against Silas and Paul, the serjeant tells them, “the magistrates have sent to let you go: now therefore depart, and go in peace.”

Apparently this is Rome’s way of saying, “please leave and don’t come back,” so if the jails would have remained shut the night before, then the jailer would have just kicked them out of the city the next morning and never would have been converted. We also have to remember that the jailer would have been a higher ranking Roman official, proud, confident, and probably stubborn, that’s how you ran a successful prison back then. The chances of this man humbling himself enough to listen to the message of the apostles without any type of divine intervention are probably small. God knew that this man was ready for the gospel and also what would need to happen before he would be open to the message of foreign subjects. This is a good example of how God uses miracles that help us personally come to him, and conversely, how he reserves the right to perform such depending on our individual needs.
But now Paul drops a bomb on the serjeant saying, “They have beaten us openly uncondemned, being Romans, and have cast us into prison; and now do they thrust us out privily? Nay, verily; but let them come themselves and fetch us out.” The IM explains that according to Roman law, Roman citizens could not be beaten or expelled from a city without “first receiving a trial.” Apparently it was fine to do to Roman subjects, but not to Roman citizens, which is crazy to me. Paul must have known the law, and known that what the people of the city were doing was wrong according to that law.
Now, he could have said something and probably have been spared the pain of whipping and imprisonment, but he almost certainly would have been tried and exiled from the city. Either Paul had thought this through beforehand and realized that by allowing himself to be whipped and imprisoned, once his Roman citizenship came to light, the people of the city would have owed him one. Or the Spirit had told Paul to hold his tongue while all this was happening until the right moment, and to his credit Paul obeyed, despite not knowing the reason and was tortured.
Instead of being tried and told to leave the city, by enduring the mistreatment, he now had the upper hand. Upon learning that at least Paul and perhaps Silas were Roman citizens, “the magistrates… feared… and they came and besought them, and brought them out, and desired them to depart out of the city.” There must have been some sort of protocol in place for ensuring that the people being unfairly treated weren’t Roman citizens, maybe Paul and Silas looked different enough so that people just assumed that they were subjects of Rome instead of citizens. But the fact that Paul and Silas were punished in such a manner means that there would have been some sort of overlooking of protocol, meaning that the magistrates could have been in big trouble with Rome themselves. So they probably would have gone out of their way to appease Paul and Silas at this point.
Paul and Silas were the organizers of the Church in Philippi, so all their followers would have known what had happened, so even though Paul and Silas did leave the city shortly there after, those same magistrates would have known that the church members knew what had happened. The IM comments, “he magistrates feared when they heard (that Paul was a Roman citizen.) However, the way Paul dealt with being beaten, imprisoned, and put in stocks may have benefitted the Church in Philippi. It is likely that following Paul’s mistreatment, embarrassed Roman officials took care not to mistreat Church members. The branch of the Church in Philippi grew to become one of the strongest branches of the early Church, one for which Paul had particular affection.”
Surely there would have been some sort of breach of protocol while punishing Paul in Philippi, that’s why the magistrates weren’t aware of Paul’s citizenship status. Paul could have screamed out this information, making them stop and rethink their strategy. But the point is, because Paul endured silently, and even cheerfully as was demonstrated by the singing and praising God in the prison, the gospel thrived after his departure. It’s important to note that it doesn’t really matter is Paul figured all this out while it was happening, or if the Spirit told him to hold his peace for some unknown purpose. What is important is that Paul endured intense suffering for the purpose of the gospel, and his efforts were consecrated both for himself and for the people who accepted the gospel in Philippi.