Paul and the Jailkeeper

We saw how Paul evangelized Lydia in the last lesson, and today we’re going to look at how Paul evangelized another person from the same city as Lydia. Paul and Silas evangelized the Roman jailkeeper of Philippi. And what a story it is! It’s dramatic, heart-warming, but most of all, it’s a structured story.

The story of the Philippian jailer has a very defined chronology, and that helps us greatly in our interpretation of how a person gets saved. Luke gives an account of the salvation of the Philippian jailer and includes a chronology the reader can trace. He presents an order according to a sequence of events.

If we want to understand what effective Spirit-inspired evangelism looks like, we need to pay close attention to the words SO, AND, and THEN. To track the order of events, note the particles SO, AND, and THEN (capitalized in the passage below) and that will reveal the order in which evangelism should be carried out.

The Philippian jailer passage also reveals that baptism is an integral part of believing in the Gospel. If you don’t see Scripture that way yet, then you’ll see it that way once you read this passage carefully. Believing is synonymous with getting baptized in this passage and in all of the New Testament.

We know this because the passage wraps up with the declaration that the jailer and his family had believed in God. The account is a demonstration of what it means to obey the command to believe.

Paul and Silas start their conversation with the jailer immediately after having proven the depth of their hope in God because they had cheerfully suffered unjust imprisonment and abuse for Jesus' name. The authorities had them thrown into jail for preaching the Gospel, and instead of complaining, they spent the night worshipping and praising God.

On top of that, the two missionaries demonstrated a love and concern for the jailer greater than their love and concern for themselves by declaring:

Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household (Acts 16:25).

The Text in Chronological Order

Now, that's a summary, but let’s perform a reading. Let's do a focused reading of the text now. If we do, we will be sure not to miss any of the details.

It says:

1. SO they [Paul and Silas] said, ‘Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, AND you will be saved, you and your household.’

2. THEN they spoke the Word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house.

3. AND he took them the same hour of the night AND washed their stripes.

4. AND immediately he and all his family were baptized.

5. NOW WHEN he had brought them into his house, he set food before them.

6. AND he rejoiced, having believed in God with all his household (Acts 16:31-34; NKJV).

From Paul's command to believe to the part that reads that the jailer 'rejoiced, having believed,' we can follow the clearly-defined chronology of the jailer's salvation experience. The Holy Spirit inspired nine connecting words to make it easy to follow the chronology of events, so let's zoom in on them.

If you focus on the nine connecting words ‘SO… AND… THEN… AND… AND… AND… NOW WHEN… AND’ then the sequence of events becomes clear. Here are the events:

1. Paul commanded that the jailer should believe in Jesus.

2. Paul and Silas spoke the Word of God to the jailer’s family.

3. The jailer demonstrated the fruit of repentance (by cleansing Paul and Silas’ wounds)

4. The jailer and his family got baptized.

5. The jailer opened his home to Christian fellowship.

6. The jailer rejoiced because he had believed.

Only by hearing the Gospel, repenting, getting baptized, and opening their hearts to Christian fellowship do people get saved.

Paul, having establish that the basis for salvation was faith in Jesus, waited to see the jailer manifest such a faith. And he did. The jailer did actually manifest his faith, and he exercised faith in Jesus, as we all should.

So, the entire series of actions taken by the jailer and his family were acts of obedience to the command: ‘Believe… and you will be saved.’ Only by means of faith acting through baptism does God grant salvation to a person like the Philippian jailer.

What Must I Do?

The portion of Scripture we just read above begins with the jailer already repentant. The passage starts when he was already prepared to commit suicide. He was a wreck and was extremely troubled. He recognized his failure as a man, recognized that he was a sinner, and that's what inspired him to pop the famous question:

Sirs, what must I do to be saved? (Acts 16:30)

The unforgettable response of Paul was this:

Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved… (Acts 16:31)

So, belief is the key to salvation. That's the crux of the passage. But what exactly does it mean to believe? What must a person do to manifest a sincere, true, and saving faith? The answer to that question is in the passage. It’s right in front of us.

The rest of the passage demonstrates what true belief looks like. In fact, the author, Luke, is very careful to specifically outline the steps by which salvation came to the household of the Philippian jailer.

Luke highlights the ABCs of salvation, according to three actions the jailer’s family took after they heard the Gospel:

A. they repented

B. they were baptized

C. they opened their home

These three activities were the proof that the jailer had believed in God with his whole household. Even today, if a person hears the doctrine of the Apostles and responds through repentance, baptism, and fellowship with God’s people—that is tantamount to saving faith!

These three signs indicate that authentic salvation has come. Be familiar with them: repentance, baptism, and fellowship. These are the signs of saving faith.

Receiving Jesus

Part C, the part in which the family of the jailer opened their home might seem out of place on a list of saving actions, but it’s not out of place. It's the initial step of fellowship and you could call it “receiving Jesus” if you wish. Indeed, we see the fulfillment of Jesus’ famous words about how to “receive him” in the story of the jailkeeper and his family.

Contemplate what Jesus meant when he said this:

Truly, truly, I say to you, he who receives whomever I send receives me… (John 13:20; NASB)

In similar fashion, Jesus also said to the men he sent out:

He who receives you receives me… (Matthew 10:40; NASB)

Notice how these verses prove that the modern Evangelical Church has completely missed the idea of what it means to “receive Jesus.” The Scriptures do say (as Evangelicals reiterate in almost every altar call) that those who "receive Christ" will have eternal life. The Scriptures (see John 1, below) do tell us what it means to become a child of God. It means that we get a new birth. It means that we are “born again.”

That’s what the Scriptures say here:

... as many as received him, to them he gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in his name, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God (John 1:11-13; NASB).

That’s a fantastic truth from the Bible: 'As many as received Jesus, to them Jesus gave the right to become children of God.' But "receiving Jesus" is not mutually exclusive from baptism. In fact, it encompasses baptism if the example of the Philippian jailer means anything! And it does.

We know that if we “receive him” we become children of God. But we also know by the preponderance of evidence in the Scriptures that to be become a child of God, you must be born of the Holy Spirit. And we also know from the Scriptures that if you will be born of the Spirit, you must first be baptized in water!

Receive the Messengers

Do you see how the second part of John 1:11-13 clarifies the first? It says that people who are “born of God” are the same people who have “received” Christ. So, you "receive Christ" when you are born again.

The purpose of John in writing the verses of John 1 is not to guide the Church to think that a prayer to “receive Jesus in their heart” saves. Rather, his purpose is to demonstrate to us to what a real salvation experience is—and we can go to any example, including the example of the jailer and his family to see how the principles of John 1 play out. Let's use the Philippian jailer's example to understand what it means to “receive Jesus.”

The jailer and his family members were born again because, as you’ve seen, they received the messengers Jesus sent to them. They received them into the most intimate area of their lives—their home. That believing family opened themselves to Christian fellowship. So, they experienced repentance, faith, baptism, and fellowship. Thus, they were saved!

The person who receives Jesus’ messengers, receives Jesus. The man who allows the Church into his home, receives Christ into his heart. And that’s because Christ sends his Church out in representation of himself. Just like a wife who goes shopping to carry out the wishes of her husband, the Church goes out in representation of Christ. It has an outward focus, not an inward one. The members of the Body of Christ are Christ’s emissaries.

Again, let’s hear what Jesus said about the Church’s ministry, a ministry which functions in a way that's parallel to his:

Truly, truly, I say to you, he who receives whomever I send receives me; and he who receives me receives him who sent me (John 13:20; NASB).

We know that Jesus sent us, but who is the one who sent Jesus? God Himself, the Father. And that means that we are part of a chain. We are one link in the strong chain connecting people to God.

The human connection to God is possible only through Jesus. And it’s also possible only through us. We must play our role. We must go! As Jesus commanded:

Go, and make disciples… (Matthew 28:19)

A Cup of Cold Water

The jailer demonstrated the fruit of repentance by washing the wounds of Paul and Silas. With that action, the jailer received those whom Jesus sent, so that means the jailer received Jesus!

Pastors would do well to teach the Philippian jailer story for what it is: a demonstration of what it means to receive Christ. Let’s reflect upon what Jesus said in Matthew 10:

The one who receives you receives me… whoever gives one of these little ones just a cup of cold water to drink in the name of a disciple, truly I say to you, he shall by no means lose his reward (Matthew 10:40-42; NASB).

Only after getting baptized and receiving Christians into their home may someone rejoice in having obtained salvation. This jailer and his household had true saving faith. Prior to his conversion, the jailer would never have eaten with the apostles. In fact, when he first met Paul and Silas, this is what he did:

... he put them in the inner cell and fastened their feet in the stocks (Acts 16:24).

In other words, he locked up the emissaries of Jesus in a high-security jailcell.

Prior to baptism, the jailer followed the laws of the Roman Empire. But after baptism, he followed the law of love. He became a citizen of the Kingdom of God. He counted the Roman Empire as worthless, and became the subject of the Eternal Empire—God’s!

The Brink of Suicide

The Philippian jailer was on the brink of suicide just a few moments prior to his conversion. But why? Let’s look at what it says in the Bible. It describes a supernatural earthquake and the potential loss of all prisoners from the jail!

It says:

The jailer woke up, and when he saw the prison doors open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself because he thought the prisoners had escaped (Acts 16:27).

So, the Philippian jailer had his sword in his hands to kill himself. He thought that he had failed at his job, and his job was the most important things to him. But then he discovered that Paul had kept the prisoners in their cells. He came into contact with Paul, a man who lived for a higher purpose, and the jailer was amazed at his faith. He promptly determined that he would do much better dying with Jesus in baptism than dying by suicide.

Prior to believing in Jesus, the jailer would have died for Rome and he would have killed for Rome. But upon experiencing the love that Paul and Silas had for him, he was confronted with the reality that God loved him.

The jailer had met two Kingdom citizens. Seeing the superiority of their devotion to God's Kingdom, the jailer was strengthened to put his devotion to Rome in a distant second place in his life. The Hope of the Kingdom was born within him. As 1 Peter 1:3 says, God 'caused the jailer to be born again to a living Hope.'

The jailer abandoned his worldly ambitions to gain a heavenly prize. And that’s when he decided to listen to the Gospel. Once he and his family heard it, he knew that the only way forward was for him and his family to die with Christ in baptism.

Truly Believing in Jesus

So, baptism brought the jailer the peace he sought. Notice how only after the jailer was baptized, did he rejoice. Salvation is not complete until we are baptized. In addition, until a convert has opened their home to fellowship, and they have received the messengers of Jesus into their private sphere, they still are not complete. But since the jailer did that too, he was made complete in Christ.

This passage concludes by stating that the jailer, his wife, and their kids rejoiced having believed in God. But that belief was only manifested through the jailer’s baptism and openness to Christian fellowship. Only by serving food to the men who preached the Gospel to him in his house, was the jailer’s change of heart evidenced. He “got saved” because he:

• demonstrated repentance

• got baptized

• and opened his home

  
  

  

And so, the promise of the apostles was fulfilled: ‘Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved—you and your household’ (Acts 16:31). Magnificently, the jailer obtained that great salvation, and it was something for him and his family to rejoice over! He was free from the power of sin and could rejoice in the Hope of Eternal Life.