Acts 16

Paul goes from Derbe to Lystra where he meets Timothy. Timothy is a follower of Jesus and has a Jewish mother who is a believer and a father who is Greek. Timothy is well spoken of and Paul wants to take him along. Paul decides to circumcise Timothy because of some of the Jews in the area. He had recently come across a number of arguments saying that you must be circumcised in order to be saved. Though he knows this is untrue, perhaps he realized it may have been getting in the way of telling others the good news about Jesus. Regardless, Timothy is now circumcised and they travel together.

For some reason, Paul is restrained from preaching the word in certain places. This restraint is coming from the Holy Spirit. He then has a vision to go to Macedonia, so that is where they go. They go from Troas to Samothrace, then to Neapolis. They then go to Philippi, which is a leading city of the district of Macedonia. Typically Paul goes to the synagogue on the Sabbath to preach the gospel, but this Sabbath he went to the river, expecting a place to pray. This implies that there wasn't a synagogue in that city. However, he meets Lydia, tells her about Jesus, she believes and is baptized.

Lydia is a seller of purple, which was very expensive in those days. This implies that Lydia is quite well off financially, and she invites them to stay at her house. The group travel around the city preaching the gospel, but there is a female slave following them around all the time. This lady is known for fortune-telling, which is how she brings in a lot of money for her owners. However, she continuously follows Paul and Silas proclaiming them to be servants of the Most High God. You can imagine how this could get annoying after a while, so eventually Paul commands the spirit to come out of her in the name of Jesus Christ. So, the spirit leaves her.

Now, this lady possessed by an evil spirit is speaking the truth, so how is this wrong? First of all, it's obviously annoying, which is what caused Paul to eventually cast the spirit out of her. In addition, looking at Jesus we see how he wouldn't let those possessed by evil spirits to speak. Those evil spirits would speak the truth about Jesus, saying that he is the Son of God. However, it wasn't the correct time for him to reveal himself. In addition, having ones possessed by spirits agree with you might hinder your reputation. Like, if the "bad guys" are saying one thing about you, one may be less inclined to believe that because it is being said by the "bad guys".

Anyway, back to the story, the owners find their slave without a spirit. This causes her to be unable to perform her fortune-telling, putting a hindrance on the income they were receiving from this slave girl. These people drag Paul and Silas to the authorities where they eventually get them thrown into jail.

This is not a hindrance to Paul and Silas, who are found singing and praying while they are in jail. Then, an earthquake causes the prison doors to open and everyone's chains to come loose. If prisoners escape, usually the person in charge would be held responsible and probably killed. So, when the jailer realized what happened, he was about to kill himself. However, Paul stops him and reveals to him that nobody has escaped yet. The jailer asks how to be saved and they tell him about Jesus. The jailer washed their wounds and the jailer along with his household was baptized.

The next day, those who threw Paul and Silas in jail order the jailer to release them, but Paul refuses because they were publically humiliated and now are secretly being released. They also make it known that Paul is a Roman citizen, causing those who threw Paul in jail to become alarmed. They were then escorted and released from jail.