When our children were young and curious about conversation between me and my wife, I would sometimes begin to venture into a topic that might be inappropriate for the girls, and Raye Jeanne would look at me and say, “Little pitchers have big ears…” It was her way of saying, “Be careful what you say that the children don’t hear something they shouldn’t.”
The girls were curious (actually, they still are curious) to know and have some inside information about what Mom and Dad know and are thinking. And they are no different than the bulk of mankind. People listen to what is said to evaluate consistency and integrity. And that affords believers a great opportunity, as Paul and Silas learned in Acts 16.
This missionary pair had been wrongfully beaten and imprisoned (vv. 19-23) and then fastened into stocks. This was apparently the first of Paul’s three beatings with rods (2 Cor. 11:25). His back would likely have been flayed open by the beatings leaving him with open sores that would receive no bandaging or antibiotics and that after successive beatings and time would likely have left him with severe scarring and stiffness.
Despite their mistreatment, the uniform response of Paul and Silas was a verbalized praise of God in song. Not only were they singing in response to their pain, but their songs were intentional articulations of praise. They were not unlike Peter and the apostles who rejoiced “that they had been considered worthy to suffer shame for His name” (Acts 5:41).
We have in these examples reminders that our joy is not dependent on our circumstances. We can rejoice in every circumstance (1 Thess. 5:16-18; Phil. 4:4) and we can trust that God is sovereignly ordering circumstances to accomplish His good in our lives (Rom. 8:28; Js. 1:2-4). We don’t have to lose heart when we suffer debilitating events (2 Cor. 4:16-18).
But notice something else that happened in this event: “the prisoners were listening to them” (v. 25). And those prisoners likely had to be thinking something like, “they just experienced what we have also experienced, but they aren’t hostile and angry…why are they singing?”
The unjust suffering of Paul and Silas became the platform for them to declare the truth of Christ to both the prisoners and the jailer and his family. Apart from the injustice they endured, they wouldn’t have been in jail and they wouldn’t have had the opportunity to demonstrate such a remarkably different response to the beating and imprisonment. Their suffering became the venue for the gospel when they responded with Christlike quietness (1 Pt. 2:21ff).
They suffered. They sang. And the world listened.
There is a pattern there for us to consider as we think about our own testimony to the world. Could it be that God also designs suffering and injustice for us to demonstrate contentment and joy in Christ so the world can ask us a reason for the hope that is within us? And could it be that at times our gospel ineffectiveness is because our responses to injustice are no different than the world?
Words of Grace 