Note: What follows here is a historical fiction based on the events of Acts 15-16, prepared for Calvary Monterey's Worship Night.
Before that fateful meeting in Jerusalem, I had not yet laid eyes on Paul. But his legend—a Pharisee and master teacher who had repented and followed Christ—had only grown with his reach throughout the empire. Word back home was that people from the nations were running to Jesus with rapidity, all from this man's work. The death, burial, and resurrection of the Jewish Messiah was believed by thousands of Gentiles through his faithful preaching. I had come to admire this weapon in the mighty hand of God. Peter had opened the door to the nations, but Paul kept running through it.
And Paul arrived in Jerusalem with Barnabas, I had never seen more resolute men. With all requisite humility and deference, they stood firm in the gospel they preached throughout the world. They regaled us with stories of God's Spirit breaking out on people far from God (and far from Jerusalem). They told us the doctrines they had preached and the Scriptural sources for those doctrines.
Articulate. Strong. And so full of love. Those men man wanted nothing more than to see Christ proclaimed everywhere and anywhere he had not yet been declared.
So, after Peter and James weighed in, it came as no surprise that all of us in Jerusalem concluded that God was not asking the Gentiles to act like Jews—and neither should we. The leaders sent Paul and Barnabas back to all the infant churches they'd started to deliver the good news that the gospel was for every tribe, nation, and tongue.
And because the church felt it wise to send eyewitnesses, I was chosen to go with them. It was the highlight of my life to go from city to city, church to church, watching Paul and Barnabas encourage the saints—and I joined them. The Spirit came upon me multiple times and I prophesied strengthening words to these new churches. I'd not known Gentiles before, but now, like Paul, I am in love with God's people.
Nothing could have prepared me for the absolute joy of joining God's work. How can I describe the absolute majesty of the God of the universe using my hands, my feet, my mouth—my entire body—for his glory? I had never known a feeling like this; I had never before been such a close partner with God.
So when Paul decided to head out in a new direction without Barnabas and chose me to join him, I was ecstatic. This was a wave I would undoubtedly ride. When I heard Jesus had risen from the dead, when I turned to him and began to follow him, I did not know where he would lead. I had no idea it would be so good. He had infused my life with meaning, purpose, and mission. I was on the front edge of the expansion of his kingdom, involved in saving thousands and thousands for Christ, reaching the nations for Jesus. Life was at an all-time high, and I felt I was the most fortunate of men.
One of our early destinations as a missions team was the region just north of Greece. I didn't expect to venture across the Aegean Sea into a place so steeped in Roman and Greek culture, but the Spirit would not allow us to go elsewhere, and Paul received a vision of a man from that region inviting us to come help them. So we set sail and found ourselves in Philippi, a Roman colony teeming with Gentiles.
And the same Spirit who empowered us back east helped us on this new western front. It started on the outskirts of town. The Jewish community was so small in Philippi that they had no synagogue and instead met at a public riverside outside the city gates. There, Paul preached to a handful of people, and businesswoman named Lydia responded. God had opened her heart, and after being baptized, she invited us to make her home our headquarters. Thanking God for Lydia's hospitality, we spent the next few days in quiet prayer, readying ourselves for this new work in Philippi. Given everything I'd just witnessed in the months leading up to this moment, I knew our good, good Father would amaze us with more of his grace.
One morning, as we walked through the city to our place of prayer, a fortune-telling slave girl with an evil spirit began following Paul and crying aloud about us to the people in town. Everyone knew this girl—her fortune-telling schemes had brought significant revenue to her masters—and Paul became agitated when she called out after us day after day, so he turned and rebuked the evil spirit, driving it out of this girl. She was free, delivered, and in her right mind.
My eyes were fixed on this newly delivered young woman. Her crazed eyes were replaced with peace and joy—she had been changed. I couldn't wait to speak with her about the joy of Jesus, but as I stepped toward her, I was grabbed and struck and bound before being dragged to the public square. The girl's owners knew she would never tell another fortune, that she was free of their clutches and her demonic oppressor, and that their hope of profit was gone, and they seethed in rage against us. Paul had confronted the powers of hell, and now hell was breaking loose on us.
The accusations flew, and so did their fists. Between the blows, I could hear them charge us with treason. These Roman citizens had come to believe we were a cancer to the empire, and as their rods rained down on my back, I could only cry for mercy. For a short moment I thought about Paul: as our main speaker and the culprit in the girl's deliverance, he was likely being beaten much worse than me. But that thought faded as the beatings increased, and after I blacked out from a club to the head, I awoke to the news that we were being delivered to the local jailer. He wasted no time in taking us, broken and pulverized, down to the inner dungeon, fastening our feet in stocks.
I was in shock. The wave I had been riding had crashed down upon me. The people of Philippi had not listened. The vision Paul received had led us straight into a dungeon. If I was disoriented during the beatings, I was traumatized now. As day gave way to night, a darkness descended upon my soul.
But as disorientation came upon me, I heard a voice in the dark. Paul invited me to join him in prayer. The same resolute and determined man I'd met in Jerusalem was chained next to me in this prison. His prayers of quiet confidence and unwavering praise began to echo off the stone walls and into my heart. Soon, God's Spirit intermixed with mine, and I started praying alongside my beloved brother, and our prayers began to transform into songs to God. I thought of all the times God promised his people would sing a new song—I must be singing one of them.
How could such gladness and goodness and grace and mercy and power be felt in such darkness? How could such chaos and calamity and pain turn into such joy? How could such death turn into resurrection?
It was then that I remembered the words of our Lord. They had been told to me time and time again. After preaching his most famous sermon, Jesus said that hearing and doing his word was like a man who built his house on the rock. When storms came, his house stood because of its firm foundation. Paul and I were on Jesus' mission, doing Jesus' will, trusting in Jesus' promises. Our lives were built on the rock—and the storm could not destroy us.
As if to fortify that message, as we prayed and praised, at midnight a great earthquake struck. The foundations of the prison were shaken, all the doors were opened, and all our bonds were unfastened. But we did not run. Instead, with our feet set free, we ran again the the race Christ had asked us to run and began preaching the gospel to the jailer. His heart had been opened by our songs—and by evening time, everyone in his home had trusted Christ. Yes, our bodies were set free, but our physical freedom could not compare to the freedom of the soul this man now had in Christ. And, once again, my joy had returned.
Rain came, wind blew, but my house was built on Christ. In that prison, I was safe with my Lord. He is my firm foundation, the rock on which I stand. When everything around me was shaken, I had never been more glad.