The Warlike Place

Acts 16:25–26

And at midnight Paul and Silas prayed, and sang praises unto God: and the prisoners heard them. And suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken: and immediately all the doors were opened, and every one’s bands were loosed.

Philippi. Hitchcock: «warlike; a lover of horses.» A Roman military colony, named after Philip of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great. But Easton preserves an older name: before Philip renamed it, the city was called Crenides — «the fountain», the springs. Beneath the warlike place, water. Everything about Philippi was martial. Its citizens were proud Romans. Its garrison was visible. Its identity was conquest.

And it is here, in the warlike place, that the gospel first takes root in Europe. Not in Athens, the seat of philosophy. Not in Corinth, the hub of commerce. In a military colony. The first European convert is a woman named Lydia — a seller of purple, from Thyatira — «whose heart the Lord opened» (Acts 16:14). The warlike place yields not to siege but to an opened heart.

Then the war becomes literal. Paul and Silas are beaten with rods, thrown into the inner prison, and their feet fastened in the stocks (Acts 16:23–24). The warlike place does what warlike places do: it strikes. And what the small one does in response is what defines the whole chapter.

At midnight — the darkest hour, the deepest point of the night — Paul and Silas «prayed, and sang praises unto God: and the prisoners heard them» (Acts 16:25). This verse has thirty-six cross-references in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, more than almost any verse in Acts. They reach into the Psalms: «I will bless the LORD at all times» (Psalm 34:1). «In the night his song shall be with me» (Psalm 42:8). «At midnight I will rise to give thanks unto thee» (Psalm 119:62). And into James: «Is any merry? Let him sing psalms» (James 5:13). Paul and Silas — the small one and the woody one, the vessel and the fuel — are not merely enduring the warlike place. They are worshipping in it. And the prisoners hear.

Then the earthquake. The Greek word is seismos (G4578) — and the phrase Luke uses, seismos megas egeneto (a great earthquake occurred), is identical to Matthew 28:2 — the earthquake at Christ’s resurrection. In both scenes: a great earthquake, doors opened, guards terrified, the imprisoned revealed alive. The Philippian prison mirrors the empty tomb. The foundations of the prison shake. Every door opens. Every chain falls. And the jailer, assuming the prisoners have escaped, draws his sword to kill himself (Acts 16:27). But Paul cries out: «Do thyself no harm: for we are all here» (Acts 16:28). The small one, who could have walked free, stays. The prisoners, who could have fled, stay. The earthquake opened the doors; the worship kept them there.

The jailer falls down before Paul and Silas and asks the question that rings through the centuries: «Sirs, what must I do to be saved?» (Acts 16:30). Out of the warlike place, a soul.

And here is the connection that turns a good story into a thread of gold: years later, from a different prison — a Roman one — Paul writes a letter back to this warlike city. The letter to the Philippians. And listen to what he tells them:

«Only let your conversation be as it becometh the gospel of Christ: that whether I come and see you, or else be absent, I may hear of your affairs, that ye stand fast in one spirit» (Philippians 1:27). Stand fast. Military language for a military city. Then: «I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me» (Philippians 4:13). And: «my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus» (Philippians 4:19). And, most remarkably: «Rejoice in the Lord alway: and again I say, Rejoice» (Philippians 4:4). Written from prison. To a city where he was first imprisoned. The man who sang at midnight in Philippi tells the Philippians to rejoice from a Roman cell.

And there is one more word Paul uses for the Philippians that reaches back to the beginning of our story and forward to its end. He calls them: «my brethren dearly beloved and longed for, my joy and crown» (Philippians 4:1). The word is stephanos (G4735) — the same word as Stephen’s name, the same word Paul will use in his final letter for the crown of righteousness. The warlike church is his crown. The people born in the prison earthquake, baptised in the midnight praise, are the ones he calls his stephanos. The crown thread does not sleep in the middle chapters. It runs quietly through Philippi, waiting for Rome.

One more name from the Philippian letter deserves mention. Paul writes of Epaphroditus — Epaphroditos (G1891), whose name Strong’s traces to epi (upon, devoted to) and Aphroditē — literally, «devoted to Aphrodite.» A man named for the pagan goddess of love — who came from Philippi to minister to Paul in prison and «was sick nigh unto death: but God had mercy on him» (Philippians 2:27). Paul sends him back with the instruction: «Receive him therefore in the Lord with all gladness; and hold such in reputation: because for the work of Christ he was nigh unto death, not regarding his life» (Philippians 2:29–30). The lovely one nearly died carrying love between the warlike city and the prisoner. Even the names of the messengers match the story.

The warlike city receives the letter of supernatural joy in chains. The city’s name prophesied its character. And the letter Paul wrote to it answered that character with something the warlike place had never seen: praise in the darkness, and doors that open from the inside.