SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 4/24/2018 9:51 AM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-1
“Persecution”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Acts
16:19-24
Message of the verses: “19 But when her masters saw that their hope of profit was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the market place before the authorities, 20 and when they had brought them to the chief magistrates, they said, "These men are throwing our city into confusion, being Jews, 21 and are proclaiming customs which it is not lawful for us to accept or to observe, being Romans." 22 The crowd rose up together against them, and the chief magistrates tore their robes off them and proceeded to order them to be beaten with rods. 23 When they had struck them with many blows, they threw them into prison, commanding the jailer to guard them securely; 24 and he, having received such a command, threw them into the inner prison and fastened their feet in the stocks.”
As we begin to look at verse nineteen we see that the masters over this woman had no compassion over the fact that she had had the demon removed from her and were now a normal person, and so this actually shows the cruelty of the institution of slavery. Slavery can be a cruel thing as long at the masters over the slaves are cruel people. During the days of the Roman Empire there were many slaves who were doctors or teachers and their masters did not treat them cruelly. If one is a slave of Jesus Christ then there is nothing wrong with that and everything right with that, but the masters over this woman were cruel, looking only for the money that she had made for them. There is another story that is similar to this one and that is from Mark chapter five where we see Jesus casting many demons out of a person and then He allows the demons to go into the pigs that immediately went into the lake and drowned. After that the people there saw that the man was completely normal, and yet they asked Jesus to leave their town, not really caring about the man, only about their loss of money due to the pigs drowning. We read the following in 1 Timothy 6:9-10 “But those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a snare and many foolish and harmful desires which plunge men into ruin and destruction. 10 For the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil, and some by longing for it have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.”
John MacArthur writes “Enraged at the loss of the income
she provided, the girl’s masters ‘seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into
the market place before the authorities.’
That was an interesting turn of events for Paul, who before his
conversion had made a career of ‘dragging off man and women’ to ‘put them in
prison’ (Acts 8:3). The agora (market place) was the central
public square. It functioned not only as
a marketplace, but also
‘as the social center of the
city. Here the unemployed waited for
suitable work, the sick were healed, and the magistrates judged court
cases. In those days, a plaintiff could
drag a defendant into court and ask the judge to pass a verdict (James
2:6). The owners of the slave girl were
acting according to Roman law when they laid their hands on Paul and Silas and
put their grievance before the city authorities. (Simon J. Kistemaker, New Testament Commentary: Acts).’
One more point and that is that Luke, the author of Acts
further describes the authorities as “the chief Magistrates.” “(Stategos; praetor in Latin), Every Roman
colony was governed by two of these men, as was the case at Philippi.” (MacArthur)
Spiritual meaning
for my life today: Being a slave of
Jesus Christ is what all of us believers are and that is actually the best, and
the total opposite of being a slave to sin.
My Steps of Faith for Today:
Continue to trust the Lord to find the
best place for my father-in-law to live out the rest of his life.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
question: “Leviticus.”
Today’s Bible
question: “What musical instrument did
Miriam use after the Red Sea crossing?”
Answer in our next SD.
4/24/2018 10:18 AM
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