Stephanus the Jailer

By David Drury from Acts 16:11-40

 

Script

 

Ø      Scripture reading of Acts 16:11-40 – then fade to black

Ø      Stephanus enters stage right to center with red 1^st century roman jailer clothing and a large leather belt.  A Roman short sword and large ring with multiple keys attached swings from his belt.

Ø      Lights fade in from blackout: Stephanus is standing center stage gripping and looking at the sword in his belt.

 

Stephanus:

 

I loved my city!

 

We all love it.  The Egnatian Way runs right through our town, the absolutely key road which links the east with the west.  We are not some simple conquered corner of the Roman Empire – we pride ourselves as being a full-fledged kolwnia established by Octavius.  Our people are as often Roman veterans as not.  We consider our city to be a miniature of Rome itself!  We have impressive walls, a majestic marketplace forum where our city justice is carried out, and the Via Egnatia brings all manner of people and things right by my place of work in the center of the city.  My prison!

 

I loved my prison!

 

It was my solid prison that made our city feel secure.  It is built into a small rise in the earth right on the Via Egnatia.  We processed all those brought to us in the vestibule entryway.  Rome must have it’s paperwork on each prisoner.  Sometimes a transfer is involved to a larger prison in the West – and we sent the documents with them.  But the real purpose is to know how many prisoners we had.  The beautiful Pax Romana—Roman Peace—puts me in final responsibility of these criminals.  If I had ever lost an important prisoner—I would have paid for the loss with my life.  But I had never had an escape.  It was impossible to escape from my prison. 

 

Beyond the vestibule is large main gate secured by lowering a large beam across it.  On the left past this gate is a large holding cell for our minor criminals and individual cells on the right for those with an extended stay at the prison.  At the end of this hallway there was an inner gate.  Beyond here we kept our enemies of the state.  Anyone beyond this gate is a grave risk to the city and its security.  Only I had the keys to this inner gate.  I could have given keys to others in order to feed and help these prisoners – but they would not be responsible for them with their lives… I was.  So I spent much of my time at the prison.  I felt alone much of the time – with the weight of responsibility hanging from my belt.  But I didn’t mind much, I welcomed the responsibility–and I loved my prison.

 

Because I loved my job!

With my prison right on the main road, people passed by it all the time.  When I arrived in the morning to check on the night shift of guards and the changeover I spent a few hours standing out front.  Those heading out to the marketplace, the proud magistrates and brutal Roman guards heading to the forum passed by my post daily.  They greeted me with nods of assurance knowing that all was safe.  Those that might harm them were locked up behind me.  I had never lost a prisoner due to escape or guard neglect or other mischief.  Some would even thank me as they passed, saying “All of Philippi feels secure because of you, Stephanus.  Keep up the good work.”  Children that ran by always looked at the keys on my belt, point and whispered.  I played the menacing Jailer role well to them—puffing out my chest and putting a hand on the hilt of my sword.  They wondered aloud with tense titters about the mysteries I have locked up – foreign and frightful.  My job was to make the city feel safe.  I was very good at my job!

 

And I loved my home!

My wife and I built a cozy home on the hill above the prison.  This was so very convenient for me, as I could check in on the prisoners and my guards on duty whenever I wanted – but I could still spend time relaxing with my boys at my side, secure that I was doing my job, overlooking my solid prison that made the people feel safe, seeing out into my beautiful city of Philippi!  The city, the guards and my family, looked to me, Stephanus, to keep them safe.  I loved it!

 

But I hated the Jews!

One of the things many of our people have loved about living here is the small population of other kinds of people.  Many cities in the empire are a collection of random races and faiths.  In particular we were glad to have very few Jews in our town.  They don’t even have enough men to form a synagogue here.  The recent decision of Emperor Claudius expelling Jews from Rome seemed like a good idea to our town too.  So we made it clear to visiting Jews that this is all they would be doing: visiting.  The few out of Towner women that converted to Judiasm had to meet one mile outside of the city in a generic prayer shelter by the river Gargites.  A widow named Lydia was the unofficial leader of this pack of Jews.  She was wealthy and influential in our town – which disturbed many.  But she couldn’t be touched or driven from town as easily as the other Jews.  Many of the women converts, like Euodia and Syntyche, worked for Lydia making the royal purple cloths she sold to everyone from rich Roman travelers heading back to Rome, or the magistrates themselves.  On more than one occasion a passerby from the West would ask for directions to purchase some of “Lydia’s Purple.”  It was reputed to be the best in the region. 

 

But one day everything changed the safe feeling. 

Four travelers showed up in town that had landed in Neopolis.  These men came from the East – and after asking around in town for the Synagogue which we didn’t have, they were directed to the river prayer area.  There they met Lydia and her little band of converted women.  Reports streamed back into the city that day about the four foreign men preaching all day at the river.  They took turns teaching about their Jewish faith – and some new doctrine involving a Jew we Romans had crucified in Jerusalem.  We heard that Lydia and her group were quickly converted to this sect of Judaism.  Whatever it was, we didn’t care – it was bad news.  Four men with a crowd of women could quickly convert six other men, some were saying, hinting that we might have a synagogue if we were not careful.  But they had done nothing illegal as of yet, and so we spent a few days in uneasy peace with these men in our midst.

 

I saw the men walking through the streets shortly thereafter.  The leader of the group seemed to be the thin one with the black hair.  Even from across the Via Egnatia I could tell he was intelligent.  His eyes flashed about the street looking for people willing to talk to him.  Everyone that started a conversation with him and his 3 friends seemed to get sucked into a long interesting discourse, bringing them one step closer to joining the group, we feared.

 

Then along came the slave girl.

Several businessmen in our town had part ownership of a slave girl with some special abilities.  Some said she could tell the future.  Some said she could speak with another voice that was not hers, as though she was some ventriloquist dummy.  Her owners made a great deal of Roman coin off this ability.  Many of us thought it unfortunate, however, since the girl lived in rags while her owners profited.  This prescient slave girl began to follow this Paul and his fellows around town.  She would cry out, “These men are servants of the Supreme Being—the Most High God, and are telling you the way to be saved.”  This obviously blew the cover of these men recruiting for their sect.  Most of us thought it was kind of funny.

 

I didn’t see it happen, but perhaps 100 people did.

After a few days of the slave girl following this lot through the streets the one named Paul stopped right in the middle of the street.  He showed his irritation and said, “In the name of Jesus Christ I command you to come out of her.”  I hadn’t heard that name before—but I learned later that it was the man we crucified in Jerusalem that somehow still led this Jewish sect.  From that point on the slave girl was like any other girl.  She no longer spoke in the other voice.  She saw no more of the future than I did.  It was amazing.  At first I was kind of happy about it.  The poor girl could have a life now.  But the owners felt differently.  Their income from the slave was cut off.  She was worthless to them now.

 

They hired some men and went hunting for the foursome. 

They found Paul and one of the other men, Silas, and dragged them to the Marketplace Forum and called for the Magistrates to hear their complaint.  I happened to be in the Marketplace that day looking for new supplies for the prison.  I saw everything that happened from this point on.

 

Paul had already been dragged and dirtied along the way.  He looked like he had received a few gut punches already.

 

Once the Proud Magistrates came out with their processional entourage the businessmen who owned the slave girl launched into a well-reasoned speech.  I can remember it word for word.

 

“These men, being Jews, are exceedingly troubling to our beloved city.  They are advocating customs which it is not lawful for us to accept or observe, being Romans!”

 

The speech merely brought out into the open the general feeling of everyone in town.  Later on, I realized that the owners were merely feeding off of our patriotic racism – but at the time I too was caught up in the uproar.  The crowd began shouting so many other charges at these two men that the Magistrates summarily commanded the Roman Guards to strip and beat them with rods.  Right there in the middle of the forum courtyard two brutally huge guards grabbed Paul’s tunic and pulled in both directions from the neck.  I was standing behind him and gasped when I saw the scars and bruises already on his back.  Seeing so many prisoners over the years I could recognize those bruises and scars.  This man was no stranger to being beaten and stoned.  At first I thought: it figures, he must have been raising the rabble in cities all over the empire.  But as they turned him around and bent him over a short post, I saw his eyes and his lips.  Calmly, he was praying to his deity.  I had seen many men pray in this position, but rarely one who knew what was coming as he obviously did.  But he never said a word to his accusers, judges or the bullies that began to beat him senselessly.  He seemed to be close to dying – as if he was giving his life up.

 

But as bloodied as he was, he didn’t die.  As they started in on the one named Silas, I left the forum, in my head I was telling myself that I needed to ready the stocks in the inner cell of my prison for this Paul, who no doubt would be in my keeping that night.  In my chest I simply couldn’t watch another of these men beaten who reacted so different to all others in their plight.

 

My dutiful prison guards were already preparing things in the vestibule for the news was spreading throughout the town.  I unlocked the inner gate and ordered two sets of leg stocks pulled from storage and washed to remove the blood from the last prisoners so unfortunate to be placed in them.  I didn’t love this part of the job – but those the magistrates consider most dangerous to the city I must give the most attention and security to.  I needed to put aside my reservations.  Even slaves were afforded the right in our laws to defend themselves from accusations, but these men were beaten without even that vestige of justice.  On the one hand that stripped them of the dignity the Pax Romana was to give every man.  On the other hand perhaps the magistrates were right, and these men were dangerous enough to our way of life to cast aside our bureaucracy!

 

There was an approaching noise in the streets so I and my guards knew the beaten prisoners were being dragged to us.  We all lined up outside of the prison.  I again played the menacing Jailer role as well as I could—puffing out my chest and putting a hand on the hilt of my sword.  My men copied my stance.  But I was starting to get a headache.  Why don’t I love my job right now, I thought.  What’s wrong with me?

 

When they arrived I moved into the vestibule and sat down at my desk.  The Roman Guards yanked both men to my table.  Silas looked to the ceiling and was softly crying with shaking shoulders.  One of his eyes was swollen shut and I imagine it hurt to just cry, not to mention his bloody back.  Paul looked right at me with those intelligent eyes.  For a split second I half-expected him to strike up a conversation with me like he had with so many in the streets the past few days.  I hesitated, then he filled the silence with, “I am Paul of Tarsus… He is my brother in the Way, Silas.”

 

Then I was thinking about how these men needed to be cleaned up out behind the prison and their massive wounds bandaged before they were locked up.   I convincingly looked down to my paperwork as one of the magistrates entered with a private guard.  In order to maintain authority in my own prison I hastily wrote down the names of the prisoners while barking out orders to my men, “Guards: take these men – bind them in stocks back in the inner prison and I will lock the inner gate myself.”  As they took them off I rose, taking my keys off my belt and said, “They will be kept secure under stock and lock here, my lord.  What should I mark as their charge and how long is their sentence, sir?”  “Stephanus,” the magistrate said without looking at me, “They are treasonous to our city and are to be locked up indefinitely until further notice.  And I need not remind you that you guard these men under the penalty of your life.”  And with that he turned and the roman guards filed out behind him.

 

We got busy with the security.  Both men were in agonizing pain from their wounds.  I worried that my men had clumsily locked them into the stocks… their blood had greased the floor around them and made it difficult for me to double-check.  But they were secure.  That’s when I felt the headache again.  As I closed the inner gate and locked it tight, Paul looked up at me with those intelligent and now painful eyes, and began to softly sing a song.

 

WHAT?  Singing?  Now my headache was nearly unbearable.  This made no sense.  I walked back to my desk all while he was singing…

 

“He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High
will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.”

Then the other man somehow joined in…

 

“I will say of the LORD, "He is my refuge and my fortress,
my God, in whom I trust."

 

When they had finished this song you could hear a pin drop in the prison.  My few other prisoners had come to the front of their cells to look toward the inner prison instead of the light of the entrance like they usually did.  They were fascinated, even comforted by this singing.

 

And then the one named Paul began to pray to his Deity.  He asked that their situation would be a witness for their cause.  He praised their Deity not only for sparing their lives—but, get this, for giving them the opportunity to “share in the suffering of their Lord.”

Now the headache was getting really bad.  I commanded one of my guards to head up to my house and tell my wife that I wasn’t coming home – but would stand with the overnight guard because of the new prisoners.  I remembered that there were two other men from this foursome of outsiders.  They could be funded by that Lydia for some kind of escape attempt.  Not on my watch!

 

But the singing and praying didn’t stop.  Every once in a while a moan would join the song, or a cry would be covered by the prayers… they were in true pain.  These men were either nuts or something else I had never seen.  At first I was intrigued, and actually went back to inner gate to watch them.

 

Paul was praying for Silas when I walked up.  Because his eyes were closed, he didn’t see me approach.  I had never heard a teacher so intelligent with his words yet so caring for his brother.  He prayed for each of Silas’ wounds by name.  Silas smiled as he did so.

 

Then Silas began another psalm, and Paul joined in.

 

I was so torn in this moment.  For the first time in my life, I thought that the men behind those bars were far freer than I ever was on the outside.  I knew they had something I didn’t.  It scared me to death.

 

The prayers and the songs didn’t stop, and neither did the headache.  After ensuring that my evening shift of guards was set, I went to my desk, kicked my feet up and started to doze.  My two new prisoners sang me to sleep – and as I drifted off I suspected that was true of everyone else in the prison too… but couldn’t help it.

Ø      Long pause

 

Then, still with a headache, at midnight: BANG the huge cross beam that secured the outer gate was blown off its hinges and slammed against the floor, nearly landing on one of my guards sitting on the floor.  My table, chair, my roof, my walls were all shaking violently… I was disoriented, afraid.  I thought I would lose my life from the roof caving in.  The oil lamps were all out now, and I heard the screeching sound of iron against granite.  The bars on each cell were being twisted and broken by the quake.  I saw the moonlight through the front door and ran for it, but I was slammed to the ground by another shift, and hit my head on the step.  I was out.  Blackness.

 

Ø      Long pause

 

Ironically, when I awoke the headache was gone.  But I was terrified.  The moonlight shone through the dust and I could tell the worst of it was over.  But I could just see the bars of every cell wide open all the way to the inner gate, which lay on the floor in pieces.

 

Oh no!

 

Two of my guards were unconscious by the broken gate.  The dust looked disturbed by the entrance.  The prisoners were all gone!  I knew it.

 

I couldn’t take it.  After all these years, I would die at the hands of the proud magistrates.  Those men prayed to their Deity and they were free… but I have been condemned.  I realized how sinful I had been, how prideful.  In so many ways I deserved the death I was going to receive for losing these important prisoners.  I briefly thought of my family – but thought more of the shame my public execution would cause them.  Like the Stoic Romans taught, I thought a more honorable death in this case of failure, for me and my sons, would come at my own hands.

 

I unsheathed my sword and closed my eyes and wondered, “Oh Deity of those men who sang songs and prayed in the face of death and pain… if you have caused this miracle today, I know I deserve this death.  Have mercy on me on the other side.”

 

The tip of the sword was sharp.  I made sure it always was.  I heaved back to do the deed.

 

“Stop!  Don’t harm yourself!”  It was a voice coming from a thin figure walking up the moonlit hallway.  “We are all here!”  Faces began to peek out from the cells.

 

When those intelligent eyes caught the moonlight it connected for me.  These men not only had something I had never seen—they knew someone I had never known.  In a moment I remembered the slave girl… perhaps she did know the future.  What was it she said?  “These men are servants of the Supreme Being—the Most High God, and are telling you the way to be saved.”

 

I dropped the sword, ran and fell at Paul’s feet, “Oh sir!  What must I do to be saved?  What must I do to be saved?”  Sobbing, it’s all I could say, “What must I do to be saved?”

 

Paul explained who Jesus Christ was that very instant.  All I had to do was believe in the Lord Jesus and not only I but my whole family would be saved.

 

I took Paul and Silas up to my home.  The quake had knocked things off shelves but no one was harmed.  I washed their wounds and wrapped them up in cloths; while they cleansed me with the Word of God – The Story of all stories and I had never had someone tell it to me.  And when I was finished they wrapped me up in their arms and prayed for me.  Right then and there they baptized me and my household.  We were fully and completely won over to Jesus.

 

After a meal and a rest, I took Paul and Silas to the prison and put them back in their cell.  They had no interest in a premature release.

 

First thing in the morning, with the town in disarray from the quake, messengers from the terrified and no longer proud magistrates came to my prison and told me to release the two prisoners.  I gleefully came to Paul and Silas and relayed the message.

 

Paul’s eyes pierced out to the messengers, and then flickered at me intelligently for a second: “They beat us publicly without a trial, even though we are Roman citizens, and threw us into prison.  And now they want to get rid of us quietly?  No!  Let them come themselves and escort us out!”

 

I smirked, he had them!  None of us had any clue that they were Roman Citizens.  It wasn’t Paul or Silas or even me in danger of Justice now – it was the Magistrates who had broken the laws we hold so dear – the Lex Poscia... if Paul wanted to he could take this case all the way to Caesar!

 

The Magistrates came so quickly you would have thought them errand boys!  They were stuttering and jittery… and ironically begged Paul and Silas to leave town quietly and not make anything more of it.  They knew the town would turn against THEM if this were to get out.

 

And on that day, escorted kindly by the very magistrates that were their enemies… I watched Paul and Silas walk out of my prison and after saying goodbye, out of town to cause trouble and spread Christ somewhere else for sure.

 

The two other friends of Paul and Silas stayed behind and established our church.  Luke and Timothy.  And I became the first man saved and the first deacon of the followers of the Way of Jesus Christ in Philippi.  The Way of salvation.  My salvation.

 

But were it not for the worship & prayer in community that those two men showed in that bloody prison… in their state of pain… I would not have seen the light.

 

I still love my city!  I loved my prison and my old job.  I still love my home.  It sits atop a wrecked prison that I point out to people while starting conversations in the streets. 

 

I love and loved all those things.  But more than anything now, I love my Jesus!

 

Ø      Quick blackout – Stephanus exits stage left

Ø      House lights up, short piano outro, dismissal slide on screen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Small Group Questions

1.       How well did you know Acts 16 and the Philippian Jailer before the message on this story at church Sunday?

2.       Go around the room and have each person read 2-3 verses of Acts 16:16-40.

3.       What of this passage or the message at church speaks to you most directly?

4.       How have you felt like the Jailer did in the past or present?

5.       How would you like to become more like Paul and Silas in the way they responded to hard times?

6.       Brainstorm ideas on how we can be a witness to those around us through worship.

7.       Brainstorm ideas for how we can be a witness to those around us through prayer.

 

 

“One Man’s Adventure Story” by David Drury was presented on 18 July 2004 as part 7 in the series Adventure Stories at SLWC.

 

 

 

©2004 David Drury

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