The Jailhouse Rocked
Acts 16:31-33 And they said, “Believe upon the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved and your house. And they declared to him the message of the Lord in the same manner everything to his house. And taking them in that hour of the night, washed from the wounds, and he was baptized and all those of his immediately.
Look who’s coming to dinner? The Philippian jailer went to work that morning, unaware of how his life would be changed by nightfall, him and everyone in his house. Were there daughters and sons-in-law living in the house or sons and daughters-in-law or other children of age? No one knows for sure, but those Greco Romans certainly got an earful. Paul and Silas declared the message of the Lord to that household in the wee hours of the night. The Philippian jailer had seen plenty to be persuaded that Paul and Silas were the real deal. The spirit-fruit produced back at the jail was proof enough that life had something else to offer, something better, and whatever that was, his household needed to hear it as well.
What was this word of the Lord, this message of the Lord, that Paul and Silas shared with them? Jesus’ big message was the original mountain sermon, Twenty Commands to replace the Mosaic Ten, a new wineskin to replace the former one. Those are the life-changing words, the secret to the spirit-fruit that the jailer previously witnessed. The baptism, immersion in water, planted each of these Philippians with the spirit fruit seed, Christ’s very own spiritual characteristics.
I wash your wounds and you wash mine? Paul and Silas enjoyed some real hospitality when the jailer brought them home to clean up their wounds from the earlier beatings that day. In return, the jailer and his family were washed clean of their own wounds, baptized in the name of Jesus to wipe clean every sin, to forgive every transgression from then on into eternity. That night would have been a night to remember. But the next day began a Divine journey, opportunities to produce spirit-fruit from a new vine, the word of the Lord. There was a new wine in Greece, and this particular household had the new wineskin to prove it.
