Acts 16

STUDY TWENTY: THE SECOND MISSION TRIP – ACTS 15:36 – 16:40

In Acts 15:36 – 41 Luke tells us of a strong disagreement between Paul and Barnabas about whether or not to take John Mark with them on a second mission trip to the towns they had preached in previously. Mark had ‘deserted’ them on the first trip (Acts 13:13), and that was before the opposition had become life-threatening. Perhaps it was the potential for more dangerous opposition that made Paul refuse to take Mark. Barnabas took Mark with him, going to Cyprus; Paul, taking Silas, travelled north by land through Syria and Cilicia, strengthening the churches there, before moving to the towns where he and Barnabas had evangelised and taught on the first journey. His mission had the backing of the church in Antioch (Syria).

This is the last we read about Barnabas and John/Mark in Acts. But we read about them later in Paul’s letters:

Barnabas: 1Corinthians 9:6; Galatians 2:1, 9, 13; and Colossians 4:10.

Mark: 2Timothy 4:11, where Paul told Timothy to ‘Get Mark and bring him with you, because he is helpful to me in my ministry.’ Colossians 4:10 and Philemon 24, where Mark is included with Paul (who is in prison) in sending greetings to the Colossians and Philemon.

A. INTRODUCING TIMOTHY – ACTS 16:1 – 5

Having strengthened the churches in Syria and Cilicia, Paul came to Derbe and Lystra – cities where he had previously established churches. Lystra was the city where he had been left for dead, having been stoned because of the opposition of Jews from Iconium and Pisidian Antioch (Acts 14:8 – 20). This is the city where, because of their miraculous healing of a lame man, Paul and Barnabas had been assumed to be gods.

But in this unlikely place there was a young disciple (believer) called Timothy.

What do you learn about Timothy, and what Paul thought about him, from these verses?
16:1

16:2

1Timothy 1:2; 2Timothy 1:2

2Timothy 1:5

2Timothy 1:6

2Timothy 3:10, 11

2Timothy 3:15

Because Timothy’s father was a Greek, Timothy was not circumcised. With Timothy as part of the mission team, this would have been a stumbling block to the Jews who lived in that area, preventing them from listening to the good news about Jesus Christ and his grace. So Paul circumcised him before they left Lystra.

On the surface, it would seem that Paul had double standards, or couldn’t quite make up his mind about circumcision. In Galatians 2:1 – 5 Paul tells us how, when he and Barnabas had taken Titus (who was uncircumcised) to Jerusalem with them, the believers there did not make Titus get circumcised, even though he was a Greek.

On the one hand, Paul circumcised Timothy – in order to ensure minimum obstacles to the conversion of the Jews to whom they would be speaking. Paul was thinking of Jews who were not believers in Christ, and who needed to hear the Gospel. Timothy’s uncircumcised state would have made them shut their ears to the gospel.

On the other hand, Paul, Barnabas and Titus went to Jerusalem to meet with Christian Jews. Paul knew that many Christian Jews in Jerusalem and Judea had been trying to make Gentile Christians undergo the ritual of Jewish circumcision, and considered it necessary for salvation. In this situation the gospel of grace was being challenged. In not circumcising Titus, Paul and Barnabas made a public affirmation that we are saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.

Though Paul acted differently in these two circumstances, in both cases the gospel was at stake: either the hearing of the Gospel, or the preservation of the gospel.

Read these verses to help you to understand Paul’s mindset:
1 Corinthians 9:19 – 23

B. THE JOURNEY CONTINUED – Acts 16:4 – 10

Journeying on from Lystra, as they travelled from town to town –

They ‘delivered the decisions reached by the apostles and elders in Jerusalem for them to obey’. This means they passed on the instructions to abstain from sexual immorality, food offered to idols, blood, and food that had been strangled.

The churches were strengthened.

More people were added to the churches.

Their journey took them into territory where they had not been previously – throughout the region of Phrygia and Galatia (both Roman provinces). We assume that they preached the gospel there and that people came to faith in Christ, but Luke doesn’t say so.

B.1 The Holy Spirit intervenes – 16:6 – 8
At two points, when Paul and his companions were following their normal practice of moving on from one town or city to another, God (the Holy Spirit) in some way blocked their movement – he ‘kept’ them ‘from preaching the word in the province of Asia’ (Asia was a Roman province in what we now call Turkey), and ‘would not allow them’ enter Bithynia (another Roman province).

Luke does not tell us how God blocked them. Whether it was a miraculous intervention, or simply a number circumstances that occurred that made such travel impossible, we do not know. But we do know that the ‘Spirit of Jesus’ interrupted their plans, preventing them from doing what they had set themselves to do on this mission trip.

What does this teach you about…
God’s ability and authority to interfere with your plans?

The confidence/trust you can have that God will interfere if there’s something else he wants you to do?

The attitude you should have when things don’t go as you had planned?

The value/importance of being flexible enough to change your plans?

But they still kept moving, arriving at last at Troas, on the coast of the Aegean Sea.

B.2 Supernatural guidance – 16:9 – 10
At this point, while they were in Troas, Paul ‘had a vision of a man of Macedonia standing and begging him “Come over to Macedonia and help us.”’ So, concluding that God had called them to preach the gospel in Macedonia, they immediately got ready to leave for Macedonia.

Just as God had given Peter the vision of the sheet full of all sorts of animals, telling him to eat them (repeated three times), to prepare him to make the proper response to the messengers sent by Cornelius, so here God gave Paul a vision of the man from Macedonia and his call for help. Both of these involved significant advances in the spread of the gospel.

We have already seen that God did not always, or even often, give such supernatural guidance; nor is there any evidence that that kind of guidance was sought or expected. But when it came, it was recognised and obeyed.

Peter had a commission to be a witness of all that Jesus Christ had said and done. Paul had a commission as an apostle to the Gentiles. Both of them set about fulfilling their commissions, without any sense of needing divine guidance for each specific move.

We have seen in Acts:

That individual apostles, and others, were guided by decisions made by the group of apostles and elders in Jerusalem.
That Paul and Barnabas were subject to the directions of the elders of the church in Antioch (Syria).
That circumstances, including danger, caused some of their movements from one town to another.
That, on a few occasions, supernatural direction/guidance was given.

What we have not seen in Acts, although it often happens today, was:

The apostles and other believers seeking God’s guidance at every (or any?) point of decision.
Believers getting stressed because they were afraid of making a wrong decision.
Believers worrying that they will miss out on God’s best if they do not find out what ‘his will for their lives’ is.

There in Troas, having been in some way blocked by God from going to other provinces to preach the gospel, they had come to the end of the road. Beyond Troas was the Aegean Sea. And that was when they needed to know what to do and where to go. And that was what God told them. Whether or not they would have gone anyway, we will never know. What we do know is that God got them where he wanted them.

There are many things said today about ‘finding the will of God for your life’ that simply cannot be supported from the book of Acts.

For further discussion about ‘the will of God’ go to this study on 'guidance', and this one on 'your will be done' in the Lord's Prayer.

C. LYDIA – ACTS 16:11 – 15

Philippi was a Roman colony and an important city in the area. It would seem that not many Jews lived in Philippi, as there was no synagogue. [Ten adult male Jews were required to form a synagogue.] There were, however, a number of women who met together for prayer on the Sabbath. One of these was Lydia, a Gentile woman from Thyatira in the Roman province of ‘Asia’ to the east of the Aegean Sea. This was one of the provinces that God had blocked Paul from preaching the word (16:6). But here, in Philippi, a woman from that region is about to hear the message of God’s grace.

Read 16:13 – 15.
What do you discover about Lydia from verse 14a?

What do you learn about her religion?

What did Paul and his companions do when they came to the place of prayer?

What happened to her before she responded to Paul’s message?

Who else believed?

How did they demonstrate that they had believed in Jesus Christ?

Among the woman gathered by the river for prayer on the Jewish Sabbath, was Lydia, a ‘God-fearer’ – a Gentile woman who had embraced the God of Israel, the living God. Although God had prevented Paul taking the gospel to her home province, he brought the gospel to her. But that is not the only thing he did. Luke tells us that ‘the Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul’s message’ – verse 14.

Here we have again, as we had in Acts 13:48, a reference to God’s involvement in a person getting saved. Without his involvement, no one would be saved.

What did Jesus say about this in these verses?
Matthew 11:27

John 3:3

John 3:8

John 6:44, 65

Jesus knew, and Paul knew, that the human heart and mind is so ignorant of God, so alienated from God, so hostile to God, that unless God does something, to open our individual minds and to soften our individual hearts we will remain forever in our dark ignorance of him, forever unable to see his great love for us in the death of his son.

Paul, Silas, Timothy, Luke – they could all have preached about Jesus Christ and his death all day, day after day, and it would have made no difference, it would have had no saving impact, unless God had opened Lydia’s heart to respond.

What do these verses say about this essential role of God in saving a person?
John 16:7 – 11

Acts 2:47b

Romans 8:28 – 30

1Corinthians 12:3

2Corinthians 4:4 – 6

Ephesians 1:4 – 10

Although it may feel like an insult to our personal pride, and although we may object that it seems to us to be ‘unfair’, this active involvement of God in our individual salvation is critical. Without it, we would not respond to the message. Without it, no one would get saved. Without it, the death of Christ would accomplish nothing.

Rather than get upset about it, let us consider this: even though, in our debates with others or in our arguments with God about the supposed unfairness of it, we may express our objection to God’s role in getting us saved, in our prayers we acknowledge his role – we pray, often long and hard, that he will do something to get our friends and relatives saved – because, deep down, we know that it was God who brought us to himself. It was God who enabled us to truly confess that ‘Jesus Christ is Lord.’

[Note that we are dealing here with a trinitarian synergy: Specifically, God the Father sent the Son. Specifically, God the Son died for us. Specifically, God the Holy Spirit enables us to see, to believe, to respond. But not one member of the Trinity acts in isolation from the other; all are involved in the actions of the others. Each of these actions is essential for our salvation. If anyone is saved, they are saved because of the combined, synergistic work of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. We can only stand in awe, amazed at all God has done to rescue us individually from our terrible dark, lostness, to get us home, to make us his children, restored for now and forever into the relationship with himself for which he created us.]

D. IN PRISON – ACTS 16:16 – 40

Paul and his team spent quite a while in Philippi, preaching the gospel. During that time, ‘for many days’, they were followed around by a slave girl who had a spirit which enabled her to predict the future. Just as the evil spirits recognized who Jesus was, so this evil spirit knew who the mission team were – ‘servants of the Most High God’, and the significance of the message they preached – ‘they are telling you the way to be saved.’ The girl kept on saying these things as she followed them around.

Answer these questions:
How did Paul feel about this?

Who did Paul address – the girl or the spirit?

How did he deal with the Spirit?

What is similar in these reports about Jesus and evil spirits?
Mark 1:23 – 26

Mark 5:6 – 8

Suggest why Paul was ‘troubled’ by the girl’s behaviour:

D.1 The outcome – Acts 16:19 – 40
In casting out the evil spirit Paul had unintentionally destroyed a money-making business, immediately incurring the anger of those who owned the slave girl; without the spirit, the girl would not be able to predict the future. (Although their public accusations of Paul and Silas were focused on their message, their real problem was the loss of financial profit. We will see a similar incident in chapter 19, in Ephesus.)

Seized, hauled before the magistrates, wrongly accused, stripped and beaten, severely flogged, thrown into the innermost cell in the prison, and locked in stocks, under close guard, Paul and Silas were still praying and singing hymns to God at midnight (verses 19 – 25). They were not doing so quietly in their hearts, but in voices that were heard by the other prisoners.

When Paul wrote in Romans 8:28 that ‘in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose’, he was writing, not from just an academic theology of suffering, but from a knowledge of God’s sovereign power and authority that was demonstrated time and again through the years of his ministry.

From Acts 16:16 – 34, list the bad things that happened, and the good that came as a result of all those things combined:

When we think about it, God, in his sovereign power and authority, went to very extreme lengths to get the Philippian jailor and his household saved. Take away any one of all the negative things, and the story would not have ended the way it did. God was working his purpose out …through the slave-girl’s evil spirit, through Paul’s concern at her on-going statement, through the anger of her owners and their false accusations, through the magistrates’ unlawful public beating of the evangelists, through their imprisonment under careful guard, through the earthquake (which he himself sent), through the jailor’s near suicide …and his gut-wrenching cry ‘Sirs, what must I do to be saved?’ …

Bloodied, bruised, beaten, hungry, possibly still naked, and with voices most likely hoarse from singing to God and praying half the night, Paul and Silas told him the gospel in the shortest, simplest, yet deepest, answer possible: ‘Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved’. That is all it takes. That is all they needed to say in the immediate urgency of the moment. Then they taught him, and the others in his house, ‘the word of the Lord’.

Luke tells us what happened next – ‘at that hour of the night’:

The jailor took Paul and Silas and washed their wounds.
Immediately after that, he and all his family were baptized.
He took Paul and Silas into his house and fed them.
He was filled with joy because he had come to believe in God – he and his whole family.

D.2 A difficulty with this report
The baptism of these new believers raises a difficulty for Christians who insist that (1) baptism must be by full immersion, and (2) that baptism is necessary as a public declaration/confession of faith in Jesus Christ. Albert Barnes comments:

‘This was done straightway; that is, immediately. As it is altogether improbable that either in his house or in the prison there would be water sufficient for immersing them, there is every reason to suppose that this was performed in some other mode. All the circumstances lead us to suppose that it was not by immersion. It was at the dead of night; in a prison; amidst much agitation; and was evidently performed in haste.’

That the early church baptised by other means where immersion was not possible, is evident in The Didache, Chapter Seven:

‘And concerning baptism, baptize this way: Having first said all these things, baptize into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Matthew 28:19 in living water. But if you have not living water, baptize into other water; and if you can not in cold, in warm. But if you have not either, pour out water thrice upon the head into the name of Father and Son and Holy Spirit.’

D.3 Believing in Jesus is believing in God
Did you notice as you read through this story that Paul had said ‘believe in the Lord Jesus’ and that the jailor ‘was filled with joy because he had come to believe in God’?

There is a very important truth in this seeming difference, a truth that Jesus taught several times, and that John included in his gospel: that believing in Jesus is believing in God.

What did Jesus say about this?
John 8:19

John 10:30

John 12:44, 45

John 13:20

John 14:6 – 9

Believing in Jesus Christ is believing in the one, true, living God; it is casting aside all previous ideas about who God is and what God is like, and in a final way coming home to our Creator. Hence, the fulness of joy of the Philippian jailor – through believing in Jesus Christ he had come to believe in God.

D.4 Leaving Philippi – Acts 16:35 – 40
Luke brings his report about Philippi to a close by telling us how Paul and Silas were released from jail, and how they were escorted out by the magistrates because Paul mentioned their Roman citizenship, which made their arrest and imprisonment without a trial illegal by Roman law. Required to leave the city, they first met with the believers in Lydia’s house and encouraged them. Note that by this time the group of believers included men – Luke refers to encouraging ‘the brothers’.