Paul’s Civil Rights – Acts 16:35-40

I have yet to find anyone who can positively explain why the magistrates of Philippi wanted to release Paul.

Let’s review the facts of the case:

In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, Paul commanded a demon to depart from a professional soothsayer.

The woman’s masters then caught Paul and Silas and literally dragged them before the magistrates.

The mob was incited against them when their accusers started ranting and raving about Jewish customs and Roman laws.

Without hearing a word of defense from Paul or Silas, the magistrates ordered their serjeants to begin beating them.

After laying many stripes on them, they were given over to the jailor with orders to make sure that they could not escape.

He then cast them into the inner prison, and locked their feet into the stocks.

Later that night, after a violent earthquake had shaken the city out of its sleep,

At the break of day those magistrates sent word to the jailor to release the prisoners.

Enjoying his new salvation, the jailor was over-joyed to be able to tell his new Christian friends that they could go back to Lydia’s house in peace.

But the matter ran deeper than he first realized.

Before we get to the matter of Paul’s civil rights, I have to wonder about the order to release him.

What do you suppose prompted the change of mind?

It appeared the day before, that the magistrates had every intention of prosecuting Paul and Silas to the full extent of the law.

After a very severe beating, the jailor was told to make sure that they were “kept safely” – very securely.

The magistrates wanted to make sure that these prisoners weren’t going anywhere.

So why did they change their minds?

Some commentators suggest that they had subsequently learned that Paul was a Roman citizen.

I suppose that Lydia, Timothy or Luke could have gotten that information to the court,

But it doesn’t appear that this information was available until Paul told them.

Some people think that the magistrates had just been showing off for their constituents the day before,

And now that the furor had subsided there wasn’t any reason to keep the prisoners.

Again, that just doesn’t seem reasonable, considering the severity of their earlier behavior.

Others suggest that during the night the consciences of the magistrates simply came alive.

What they had done was illegal and inhumane and they were bothered by the fact.

Some go so far as to say that the Holy Spirit convicted those men of their sins against Paul and Silas.

To some degree, I think that this was true.

But the most logical explanation has to have something to do with the earthquake.

It has certainly not been uncommon for superstitious people to think that when the ground shakes the gods must be angry.

And perhaps there were legends or superstitions which declared when this happened there must have been some sort of injustice which provoked that divine anger.

This might have terrified the magistrates,

Or maybe the woman’s masters had a change of mind when they felt the quake,

So they dropped the charges against the missionaries.

The Holy Spirit has not chosen to give us the cause for the change in mind,

But He definitely made it a point to tell us about the results of it all.

It ALMOST seems out of character, or even sinful, for Paul to make such a fuss about this now.

If he hadn’t quarreled about his rights before, why go to the trouble now?

It sounds as if Paul and Silas wanted to get even with their attackers.

But accusing the magistrates of mistreatment certainly isn’t going to remove their scars or ease their pain.

So why did Paul bring up the subject of his Roman citizenship now that the crime had been committed?

As I studied the subject, it occurred to me that there was a very good reason.

Let’s think about Rome’s laws, Paul’s civil rights and Paul’s use of his rights.

First, Roman law.

At the height of its glory, Rome was as complex and powerful in its world as the United State is in its.

But the Romans ruled with a heavy hand and there were innumerable inequities and abuses.

Some good things about the Roman Empire in Paul’s day can not be denied.

For example, with the ascendancy of Caesar Augustus,

And conclusion of the civil wars between Augustus, Brutus, Cassias and the others,

The world, from Britain to the Euphrates River, felt a sense of peace and calm that it hadn’t enjoyed since the days of Alexander the Great.

It has been called the “Pax Romana.”

It wasn’t that the people of Europe were necessarily pleased to be under the iron fist of Roman rule,

But because Rome was so strong, the petty internal conflicts and civil wars came to an end for a while.

And by the way, with the combination of the Greek culture and the Roman Empire, the world was made ready for the spreading of the Gospel.

Throughout its empire, Rome designated certain cities as Roman colonies,

Granting them rights and privileges that made its citizen happy to be under Rome.

Among some of the personal blessings, which I’ll get to in just a moment,

Colonies were exempt from some of the taxes and tributes that other cites and provinces had to pay.

When Luke 2 says, “And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed.”

Verse 2 tells us that the actual taxation came “when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.”

Mary and Joseph had to go to Bethlehem to be properly enrolled for taxes which were upcoming,

But Paul’s family in Tarsus, a Roman colony, and the people of Philippi, although they were similarly enrolled, were not taxed, because they were citizens of colonies.

By the way, in later years as various emperors struggled to maintain their powers, more and more cities were declared to be colonies, and as a result the privileges of citizenship in those cities became less privileged.

Eventually citizenship became virtually universal and such things as tax exemption came to an end.

Eventually too, the right to appeal to Caesar was not honoured, and cases were delegated to lesser judges.

Of course, the various forms and levels of government in cities which became colonies changed somewhat.

Whatever Greek or heathen rulers there had been were changed to the Roman style.

For example, there were the magistrates, or praetors.

These people were elected local officials who ranked below the consuls and proconsuls.

Consuls were appointed by the senate in Rome or by the Emperor in certain special cases.

The magistrates were somewhat like a combination of judges and city council members, listening to civil complaints and fixing problems.

When magistrates found really serious matters, or there were questions about their decisions, the matters were forwarded to someone called the judex.

The serjeants, who are mentioned in this chapter are elsewhere called “lictors.”

That is a Greek word which literally speaks about those who “carry the rod.”

These men had a variety of responsibilities which included beatings and whippings.

And when the serjeants weren’t DIRECTLY bullying people, they SYMBOLICALLY bullied them.

Wherever the magistrates went these serjeants went with them carrying something called the “fasces.”

In some societies, like that of Britain, for example, there is often a man who carries the royal mace.

The mace is a large ornamental or ceremonial staff, usually covered with precious metals & gems.

But it needs to be remembered that before it was ornamental,

The mace was a war club with a spiked or metal head, used to crush armor or people’s skulls.

The fasces that were carried by the serjeants were axes, wrapped in bundles of sticks but with the blade protruding.

The serjeants and their fasces told everyone that these men and their magistrates meant business.

They were responsible for keeping the public peace at the street level.

It was quite natural for the masters of the demon-possessed woman to bring Paul to these magistrates.

And generally speaking when the magistrates knew the citizens of their communities, they could judge between townspeople without much trouble.

But when strangers came along, they usually took the side of their own citizens.

They made sure that the public peace was preserved.

But Paul had legal rights.

Although he was not from Philippi, he had been born in another Roman colony.

As we said a couple weeks ago, every colony was an extension of Rome.

And that meant that the citizen of one colony was a citizen of Rome.

Wherever Rome ruled, the citizens of any of its colonies had Roman rights.

In Acts 21 we shall see that Paul is going to be back in Jerusalem.

There will be some confusion and the Jews will try to kill Paul for thinking he had desecrated the temple.

But the Romans, whose job it is to maintain the peace, will rush in and rescue him.

“And all the city was moved, and the people ran together: and they took Paul, and drew him out of the temple: and forthwith the doors were shut.

And as they went about to kill him, tidings came unto the chief captain of the band, that all Jerusalem was in an uproar.

Who immediately took soldiers and centurions, and ran down unto them: and when they saw the chief captain and the soldiers, they left beating of Paul.

Then the chief captain came near, and took him, and commanded him to be bound with two chains; and demanded who he was, and what he had done.”

After the Jews scream their charges against him, Paul will be allowed to speak.

But when he makes a reference to Gentiles, the crowd will get really ugly again, and the Roman centurion will have to take matters into his own hands.

“The chief captain commanded him to be brought into the castle, and bade that he should be examined by scourging; that he might know wherefore they cried so against him.

And as they bound him with thongs, Paul said unto the centurion that stood by, Is it lawful for you to scourge a man that is a Roman, and uncondemned?

When the centurion heard that, he went and told the chief captain, saying, Take heed what thou doest: for this man is a Roman.

Then the chief captain came, and said unto him, Tell me, art thou a Roman? He said, Yea.

And the chief captain answered, With a great sum obtained I this freedom. And Paul said, But I was free born.

Then straightway they departed from him which should have examined him: and the chief captain also was afraid, after he knew that he was a Roman, and because he had bound him.”

As a Roman citizen Paul well knew the laws of Rome.

He had learned his civics lessons back in junior high school.

The VALERIAN LAW declared that every Roman citizen had a right to a fair trial.

It forbade magistrates from handcuffing citizens and it virtually eliminated capital punishment.

It made Paul’s beating illegal, his imprisonment illegal, and the stocks illegal.

This wasn’t true for everyone, but it was true for all Roman citizens.

In addition to the Valarian law, the PORCIAN LAW reiterated these principles and gave to any citizen charged with a serious offence the right to a trial in Rome before Caesar.

The illegality of the magistrates was further exacerbated in their condemning and punishing Paul and Silas without given them an opportunity to defend themselves.

They had jumped to the conclusion that since they were foreign Jews, they couldn’t possibly have the rights of citizens.

Because of what they did, those magistrates could probably have been jailed themselves, if not summarily executed.

So Paul had every right to raise the subject of his rights.

But why did Paul wait until after his beating, and after the order to release him, to bring it up?

Some might argue that during the uproar, no one would have stopped to hear his claim or to investigate it.

In fact, for Paul have to claimed his rights at that time might have endangered his life even more.

If someone who was not a Roman citizen claimed citizenship, and it was proved that he was lying, then he would have had no rights at all and the ax would have been laid to the root of his neck.

The fasces were not merely ornamental.

If Paul had claimed his citizenship in the midst of the fracas, it might have been thought that he was only trying to get out of trouble, and he might have been instantly executed.

Of course that would have been completely illegal, but dead is dead whether legal or not.

But I don’t think that was what made him hold his tongue.

Perhaps the Lord Jesus can shed some light on this:

What did the Lord mean in the Sermon on the Mount when he said,

“Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth:

But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil:

But whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.”

Some people interpret Jesus’ words to mean that Christians are to do nothing to defend themselves.

Some people think that we are to take every beating and every imprisonment in silence.

But that is not exactly the case.

During our Lord’s trial before the High Priest,

“Jesus answered him, I spake openly to the world; I ever taught in the synagogue, and in the temple, whither the Jews always resort; and in secret have I said nothing.

Why askest thou me? ask them which heard me, what I have said unto them: behold, they know what I said. And when he had thus spoken, one of the officers which stood by struck Jesus with the palm of his hand, saying, Answerest thou the high priest so? Jesus answered him, If I have spoken evil, bear witness of the evil: but if well, why smitest thou me?”

Of course the omnipotent God could have stopped that hand before it struck him.

And he could have instantly killed that man for striking him.

But He didn’t.

What He did do, was to make a point regarding justice.

The Lord Jesus had done nothing wrong and therefore shouldn’t have been slapped.

But for the sake of future slappings, He pointed out the injustice of what had just happened.

Earlier in that same chapter, John 18, when the mob came to take the Lord,

“Jesus therefore, knowing all things that should come upon him, went forth, and said unto them, Whom seek ye?

They answered him, Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus saith unto them, I am he. And Judas also, which betrayed him, stood with them.

As soon then as he had said unto them, I am he, they went backward, and fell to the ground.

Then asked he them again, Whom seek ye? And they said, Jesus of Nazareth.

Jesus answered, I have told you that I am he: if therefore ye seek me, let these go their way.”

Notice that Jesus defended the liberty and rights of his disciples, but he permitted Himself to be arrested.

I realize that it was necessary for Jesus to be arrested or He couldn’t have completed the work of our redemption.

But I think that it’s also true that He might have behaved in exactly the same way, even if this was not leading up to His crucifixion.

One reason that I say that is because I see something similar in Paul’s reaction to these magistrates.

“But Paul said unto them, They have beaten us openly uncondemned, being Romans, and have cast us into prison; and now do they thrust us out privily? nay verily; but let them come themselves and fetch us out.”

When Paul said, “I demand that the magistrates come and publically release us,”

It was not a matter of PERSONAL HONOUR, but rather of PUBLIC JUSTICE.

There was a tiny mission in Philippi with brand new Christians.

There would be some very hard days ahead for them with various kinds of overt and covert persecution.

Paul was not thinking of himself, but of them, when he demanded a public apology.

He wasn’t thinking about the magistrates and their embarrassment; he was thinking about the future of the gospel in this community.

He didn’t care if he was beaten, jailed, stoned or even killed, if these things were what the Lord wanted,

But he wanted the gospel to have every liberty afforded to it under Roman law.

His personal liberties meant little to him, but gospel liberty meant everything.

In fact, I think that this explains the last two verses in this chapter as well:

“And they came and besought them, and brought them out, and desired them to depart out of the city.

And they went out of the prison, and entered into the house of Lydia:

And when they had seen the brethren, they comforted them, and departed.”

There was no lawful reason to demand that the missionaries leave Philippi.

But if Paul felt that for him to stay would put Lydia and the other believers in danger, that would explain his departure.

It was all about the gospel and prospects for the evangelization of the city.

If the general populous was so furious with the missionaries that the city would be in a uproar, then it was best for them to leave.

It wasn’t the command or request of the magistrates which prompted Paul and Silas to move on, it was for the sake of work.

The point is, the next time that you think that your rights have been violated, stop and consider:

But for the grace of God, we should have no rights at all.

And if our concern is for ourselves more than for the glory of Lord then there is sin creeping into our lives.

Our rights are not nearly as important as the glory of our Saviour.

We need to be slow to uplift ourselves and to defend ourselves.

Sometimes turning the other cheek is exactly what we are supposed to do.

We need to be quick to do what we can to glorify the Lord, even if it requires the suspending of our civil rights.