A Midnight Song in Philippi
The city of Philippi awoke one morning, unaware that change was coming. It was a bustling Gentile metropolis in the Roman colony of Macedonia. Its location along the Egnatian Way was a good stop for commercial trade on the route that connected Europe to Asia.
One of the traders arriving in Philippi was a Gentile businesswoman named Lydia. She had traveled 300 miles north from Thyatira to sell purple fabric, the color of royalty and nobility. She attended a prayer meeting where she heard the apostle Paul preach about the way of salvation through Jesus Christ. The Lord opened her heart; and she was baptized, becoming the first Christian convert in Southeast Europe (Acts 16:13–15). Just as her life was about to change, the truth about God sending His Son, Jesus, was about to change the world.
A Song in the Dark
Another dramatic event in Philippi closely followed. A certain jailer went to work one morning knowing his life depended on how well he guarded his prisoners. If a jailbreak occurred under his watch, he would be executed.
That afternoon, Paul and his ministry partner Silas preached the gospel in Philippi and cast out a spirit of divination from a girl who earned money for businessmen by fortune-telling (vv. 16–18). Enraged, the men dragged Paul and Silas before the magistrates in the marketplace and incited a riot. The magistrates tore Paul’s and Silas’s clothes “and commanded them to be beaten with rods” and cast into prison (vv. 22–23). They charged the jailer to keep Paul and Silas securely, so he dragged them into the inner prison and chained their feet in stocks (vv. 23–24). Then, satisfied, he fell asleep.
After this torture, something astonishing happened: “But at midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them” (v. 25).
Every word of this short verse matters. The words reveal the time (midnight), the people (Paul and Silas), the actions (praying and singing), the audience (God), and even the eavesdroppers (prisoners). The men’s song resulted in an amazing earthquake that shook the foundations of the prison. Simultaneously, the doors opened, the prisoners’ chains were loosed, and the jailer awoke (vv. 26–27). Drawing his sword, he preferred suicide to execution for dereliction of duty. Paul saved his life by proclaiming that no prisoner escaped (v. 28). Shocked, the jailer ran in “and fell down trembling before Paul and Silas” (v. 29). He brought the two men out from the inner cell and exclaimed, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” (v. 30).
Paul and Silas replied, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household” (v. 31). The jailer took them to his own home; and as he washed their wounds, the men explained the word of the Lord to him and his family. They received the word and were baptized (v. 33). Rejoicing and believing with all their hearts, they celebrated and prepared a meal for Paul and Silas (v. 34). The jailer was saved twice: his life from suicide and his soul from hell.
A Command to Sing
I’ve always marveled at Paul’s midnight song. How could anyone sing with a bloody back? How can a body throbbing in stocks and chains think about anything but the pain? How can stench and darkness and filth encourage a song in your heart? Though our lives may rise and fall by how we think, Paul’s reaction to misery is beyond comprehension. What motivated him?
Paul’s overflowing love saturated him with faith for every part of his life. It poured from him like the blood that ran down his back. He endured persecutions, reproaches, and distresses for Christ’s sake because the love of Christ compelled him. He proclaimed, “I will very gladly spend and be spent for your souls; though the more abundantly I love you, the less I am loved” (2 Cor. 12:15). He loved sacrificially, bearing rejection, as Jesus did. Paul’s love for Christ filled him with so much compassion he was willing to exchange his own eternal salvation for the salvation of the Jewish people (Rom. 9:1–5); and his love for the Gentiles drove him to carry the gospel to them at the expense of beatings, shipwrecks, and prison sentences (2 Cor. 11:22–33; Col. 1:25–29). Paul loved the Messiah with all his heart and mind.
Later, he wrote to the Philippians to tell them how to think: “I have learned in whatever state I am, to be content: I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound. Everywhere and in all things I have learned both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” (Phil. 4:11–13, emphasis added). His emphasis on “learning” and “knowing” imply a direct, purposeful demand that believers discipline their thoughts. Thus, spiritual victory grew in his thoughts and ran through his actions. He sang—in jail. In chains. In pain.
Singing? Who would have thought? Paul, of course. He knew the connection between joy and strength because, as a Pharisee, he knew the Torah (the Five Books of Moses) and Tanakh (the Old Testament). He knew King David made demands of himself to sing to the Lord (Ps. 27:6; 30:12; 57:7–11; 61:8; 108:1, 3). He knew the Hebrew Scriptures taught, “The joy of the Lord is your strength” (Neh. 8:10). He knew the hundreds of verses that instructed the Hebrews to rejoice, praise God, and sing. Paul took seriously Scripture’s commands to sing, so he practiced them.
Did he sing Psalm 9:2 that night (“I will be glad and rejoice in You; I will sing praise to Your name, O Most High”)? Did he rejoice over Lydia’s salvation? What songs did the prisoners hear? How I wish I knew. The Bible doesn’t record their response to the prayers and midnight praises. But all these hardened Gentile convicts saw and heard about the love of God through Christ from a Jewish man, a fellow convict who believed the message enough to suffer dearly for it—and still manage to sing about it. Surely his song stirred the prisoners’ hearts, perhaps even enough to turn their affections toward the Savior.
The Power of Music
Beginning with Lydia, the events that took place in Philippi started a Gentile conversion. The marketplace riot advanced the message of salvation among townspeople who shared it, and traders in town on business likely repeated it on returning to their countries. The jailer and his family must have exhibited changed lives as they relayed the event. And Paul himself penned a letter of joy and rejoicing to believers in Philippi that has endured for two millennia.
As a Gentile, I love the apostle Paul because I’m so grateful he obeyed the call to share the gospel with us so we could be saved too. Speaking to the Jewish people in Antioch, he quoted from Isaiah 49:6, saying, “The Lord has commanded us: ‘I have set you as a light to the Gentiles, that you should be for salvation to the ends of the earth’” (Acts 13:47). Paul rejoiced in his sufferings “to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles: which is Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Col. 1:27).
We will all have times of great suffering, but Paul’s midnight song in Philippi teaches us how to respond. I found this to be true during my battle with cancer when favorite Scripture passages set to music comforted me through painful, sleepless nights. I discovered a yielded heart produces a song: “Therefore by Him let us continually offer the sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His name” (Heb. 13:15).
It’s a sacrifice to sing when you hurt, but God’s Word says to speak “to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord” (Eph. 5:19). In the prison of your midnight pain, let Christ’s love compel you to sing a song of praise to God. You never know who may hear, whose life may be encouraged, or how your own world can change.
