Alicia's Bible Blog
Acts 16:35-40. The day after Paul and Silas spent the night converting and dining with their jailer, the magistrates of the city send word that they are to be released. The jailer tells them to go in peace, but Paul refuses, saying "They have beaten us publicly, uncondemned men who are Roman citizens, and have thrown us into prison; and do they now cast us out secretly? No! Let them come themselves and take us out." The magistrates become worried on hearing that Paul and Silas are Roman citizens, so they come and apologize and take them out of prison, asking them to leave the city. Paul and Silas go and visit Lydia, exhort the brethren, and depart Philippi.
Paul is so brazen in demanding an apology! He teaches us a good lesson here - we should not let worldly powers rob us of our dignity as children of God. The worldly powers can beat us, imprison us, even kill us, but they cannot take our dignity unless we let them. And we shouldn't let them, not because of our own pride, but to give glory to God.
God created us with love and is working through each one of us. If we are mistreated for His sake, so be it, He promised us no less, but that does not take away the fact that we are His beloved children. So if those who have mistreated us have second thoughts and try to sweep their misdeeds under the rug, we should not let them. We should wait for a heartfelt apology acknowledging our dignity. We are even better than Roman citizens - we are citizens of the Kingdom of God!
Often our enemies will not even think of us again after "throwing us in prison" or cutting us off. We should not hold onto a grudge in this case, but just get on joyfully with our lives and our mission. But we should "shake the dust." as it were. from these relationships unless and until we receive an apology. Otherwise, we are allowing ourselves to be demeaned and setting a standard of bad treatment for ourselves and other believers.
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Edit: On 3/13/23 I removed "(bonus: they hate that!)" after "just get on joyfully with our lives and our mission" because I realized that was un-Christian of me. I apologize!
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