other · 50 · Philippi
The trouble started commercially: Paul cast a spirit out of a slave girl whose owners made money from her fortune-telling, and they dragged him and Silas to the magistrates on a charge of disturbing the city. The two were beaten with rods and put in the inner prison with their feet in the stocks. About midnight they were praying and singing hymns and the prisoners were listening, and the earthquake came and opened every door and unfastened every chain. The jailer drew his sword to kill himself, was stopped, washed their wounds and was baptised with his whole household before morning. Then the magistrates sent word to let them go quietly, and Paul refused to be let go quietly — they have beaten us publicly, uncondemned, men who are Roman citizens, and now they want to put us out secretly? Let them come themselves. It is the first time in Acts he uses his citizenship, and they came.
To be rid of them quietly, after the owners of a fortune-telling slave lost their income.
The jailer's household baptised before dawn, and a magistrate made to apologise in person.