Sermon Tone Analysis

This is Mother’s Day…that one day a year when we are suppose to honor our Mom’s with all of the stuff that we should be honoring them with everyday.

There is a bonus this Mother’s Day…our son Tyler and his wife Betsy are here for a couple of days from Vancouver.

Happy Mother’ Day…after the service on the way out there will be a carnation for all Mom’s of all kinds.

If you are visiting with us today, after the service head to “The Well.”

It’s at the back of the church, we’d like to put a welcome gift into your hands.

Paul and Silas, Tried and Tested.

We need to be together...

Jill spent a few minutes talking about our upcoming launch of our small group ministry.

We are beginning this summer with a “turbo group” a group that will be made up of group facilitators.

Who makes a good facilitator?

Men, women, couples, singles, old, young and in-between… In a word ANYONE!

The only requirement is that you value living in relationship with others.

Like Jill said last week…we want 8-10 volunteers but we are not above “volun-told”

Paul, Silas, Timothy and Luke were once again outside of the city finding a place to pray

Paul and the other missionaries were once again outside of the city finding a place to pray

Paul and the other missionaries were once again outside of the city finding a place to pray

They are doing what missionaries do, they are talking with others about Jesus and his redemption.

This week a “Fortune Telling Slave Girl” Literally she knew about the future.

This girl was being used by her owners to line their pockets…they were charging others to use this girl to tell the future.

It’s understandable that history has treated this young woman as a prostitute.

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Paul and boys were in an area that was devoid of “God” or Yahweh worship.

Zeus, the Sun God and the current Emperor would have been called “savior”

This girl would simply have drawn the wrong kind of attention…and they did draw this kind of attention, creating confusion for Gentiles in the area

It wasn’t the truth she was talking about that Paul was reacting to…it was the constant, insistent way that she was doing it.

I think there is a principle to live by there...

Our message may be RIGHT ON, like this girl...

Our method may in fact ANNOY the very people that we want to hear it.

Last week I challenged you to in your community, in your profession, in families, to wave the flag of Christ in a mighty fashion.

Don’t be that guy or girl that is annoying.

What you want to hear is Grace, Mercy, a future, a fellowship, an eternal relationship

What drives us away is Judgement, condemnation, beating someone over the head with scripture, nonacceptance and no respect.

Like so many things in the ancient world as it is in our world today.

The motivation for a decision was MONEY!

Such is the case here

Their motivation for money…blinded them.

And Paul and Silas would pay a heavy price for that.

One cannot be careful here to maintain an “above reproach” attitude regarding money.

It is especially that I as your Pastor am very diligent in NOT involving myself in the records concerning giving.

Philippi was given its name by Philip of Macedon in the 4th century BC.

After about two centuries as a Greek colony, it became part of the Roman Empire, and towards the end of the first century BC it was made a Roman colony and settled with numerous veterans.

Luke also knows that the province of Macedonia had been divided into four districts, and calls Philippi the leading city of that district of Macedonia.

Other scholars translate ‘a leading city of the district of Macedonia’, while yet others suggest a conjectural emendation of the text, which then reads ‘a city of the first district of Macedonia’.

Whichever is correct, Luke is expressing pride in what was probably his own city.

In this city the missionary team stayed for several days (12), indeed almost certainly several weeks.

During this period of mission there must have been many converts.

But Luke selects only three for mention, not (it seems) because they were particularly notable in themselves, but because they demonstrate how God breaks down dividing barriers and can unite in Christ people of very different kinds.

The owners of the slave girl after realizing their income stream was gone, turned their anger on Paul and Silas.

On another sabbath, when Paul and his friends were going to the place of prayer, they were met by a slave girl, who evidently stood in their way.

Luke tells us two things about her.

First, she had a spirit by which she predicted the future, or, literally, she had ‘a spirit of a python’ or ‘a python spirit’.

The reference is to the snake of classical mythology which guarded the temple of Apollo and the Delphic oracle at Mount Parnassus.

Apollo was thought to be embodied in the snake and to inspire ‘pythonesses’, his female devotees, with clairvoyance, although other people thought of them as ventriloquists.

Luke does not commit himself to these superstitions, but he does regard the slave girl as possessed by an evil spirit.

The second thing he tells us is that as a slave she was exploited by her owners, for whom she made a lot of money by fortune-telling (16).

As Paul and his friends continued their walk, the girl followed them screaming: ‘These men are servants of the Most High God’ (a term for the Supreme Being which was applied by Jews to Yahweh and by Greeks to Zeus), ‘who are telling you the way to be saved’ (17).

Since salvation was a popular topic of conversation in those days, even if it meant different things to different people, it is not in the least strange that the girl should have hailed the missionaries as teachers of ‘the way of salvation’.

Nor is it strange that the evil spirit should have cried out in recognition of God’s messengers, for Luke has documented the same thing during the public ministry of Jesus.

But why should a demon engage in evangelism?

Perhaps the ulterior motive was to discredit the gospel by associating it in people’s minds with the occult.

The girl’s shrieks continued for many days until finally Paul was provoked to take action.

He was troubled, Luke says, which certainly means that he was deeply ‘disturbed’ (BAGD).

The verb diaponeomai could be translated ‘annoyed’ (RSV), but it is gratuitous to say that Paul had ‘a burst of irritation’ (JBP) or ‘lost his temper’ (JB).

It is better to understand that he was ‘grieved’ (AV), indeed indignant, because of the poor girl’s condition, and also dismayed by this inappropriate and unwelcome kind of publicity.

His distress led him to turn round and command the evil spirit in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her, which it immediately did (18).

Although Luke does not explicitly refer to either her conversion or her baptism, the fact that her deliverance took place between the conversions of Lydia and the gaoler leads readers to infer that she too became a member of the Philippian church.

After being stripped, beaten, flogged and thrown in jail by the magistrates.

The court, because it was ruled by magistrates must have heard about the miracles that had freed Paul, this follower of Christ.

Paul also unexplictedly did NOT invoke his Roman citizenship, this would have freed them

Paul and Silas were placed in an inner cell and the jailer told to “guard them carefully.”

The guards put them in stocks.

Acts 16

Paul and Silas were singing and praying then

Acts 16

Just by accident, by complete chance, because no one could have control of earth to “make the earth quake” right?

The doors flew open, the chains were all released.

How did Paul and Silas convince all of the prisoners to stay put after this miracle and not escape and run away… that discussion has been lost to history.

It must have been quite the sales job.

I thought I could sell ice cubes to Eskimos this was a “sell job.”

I think the jailer thought this might happen…when it did, he had decided to end his life instead of face the magistrate who would have ended his life for him.

Before he could, Paul stepped in and said, “Don’t harm yourself we are all here.”

But “No”… that was not the end of the story for this jailer, but our God is a God of second and 16th and 96th and 14 million second chances.

The result..

This belief alone…impossible as it may sound, is a reality if you call of the name of Lord

Romans 10.9-

This calloused man, who had beaten and flogged them, now bathes the wounds which he had inflicted (v.

33), is baptized along with his believing family and ‘set a meal before them’ (v.

34).

This calloused man, who had beaten and flogged them, now bathes the wounds which he had inflicted (v.

33), is baptized along with his believing family and ‘set a meal before them’ (v.

34).

This calloused man, who had beaten and flogged them, now bathes the wounds which he had inflicted (v.

33), is baptized along with his believing family and ‘set a meal before them’ (v.

34).

What a remarkable day for that household.

Did Paul see the end of this story while he was being beaten, flogged, jailed… I think not.

We don’t know the end of the chapter of our story when we are in the midst of it.

We just have to keep walking and know that given the worst of circumstances,

I have told the story about my friend Jack Butcher before but it is worth retelling...

Jack was a F-104 pilot in Vietnam.

He was shot down over Laos.

He was captured and found himself imprisoned in some of the worst accommodations the North Vietnamese had to offer for two years.

Here is part of his award citation

The President of the United States takes pleasure in presenting the Silver Star to Captain Jack Butcher United States Air Force, for gallantry and intrepidity in action while a Prisoner of War in North Vietnam.