Read: Acts 16:25-40
About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them. (v. 25)
A book I prize greatly is simply titled Conversions, and it tells the story of 50 different people who have been converted to the Christian faith. Augustine of Hippo is on that list, as is Sojourner Truth, C. S. Lewis, and Dorothy Day. I read and reread (and read again) their stories and pray that the Lord will do again in our day.
Today’s passage contains several conversion stories including the most notable being perhaps the conversion of the Philippian jailor. Paul and Silas are singing and praying, locked in a filthy jail cell when God caused an earthquake that released every prisoner except the jailor himself. Rushing into the prison he asks Paul and Silas the most important question any one of us could ever ask: “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”
It thrills me over and over again that there’s an answer to that question: “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household” (v. 31). It’s so simple, but it’s not easy. It requires us to surrender control of our lives and, to quote C. S. Lewis, “Nothing that you have not given away will ever be really yours. Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead . . . Look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in.”
As you pray, turn your heart and your life over to God and ask him to give you boldness to share the faith with someone else.
Dr. Timothy Brown is the Henry Bast Professor of Preaching and President Emeritus at Western Theological Seminary where he served from 1995-2021. Tim continues to actively coach and encourage former students and pastors who seek help in their preaching life and he has become a certified public school substitute teacher so that he can continue investing in the lives of young people. He is married to Nancy and together they have three children and ten grandchildren.
