Acts 16:30

Acts 16:30. And brought them out, and said. From the inner prison where they were confined, probably into the court of the prison, and there he asked that celebrated question which has formed the text of so many an earnest and impassioned exhortation in such varied language during some seventeen or eighteen centuries.

Sirs, what must I do to be saved? Hackett, in an admirable and exhaustive note, thus discusses the difficulties which surround this famous question: The answer of the apostles in the next verse shows with what meaning the jailor proposed this question. It cannot refer to any fear of punishment from the magistrates; for he had now ascertained that the prisoners were all safe, and that he was in no danger from that source. Besides, had he felt exposed to any such danger, he must have known that Paul and Silas had no power to protect him; it would have been useless to come to them for assistance. The question in the other sense appears abrupt, it is true; but we are to remember that Luke has recorded only parts of the transaction. The unwritten history would perhaps justify some such view of the circumstances as this. The jailor is suddenly aroused from sleep by the noise of the earthquake; he sees the doors of the prison open; the thought instantly seizes him, the prisoners have fled. He knows the rigour of the Roman law, and is on the point of anticipating his doom by self-murder. But the friendly voice of Paul recalls his presence of mind. His thoughts take at once a new direction. He is aware that these men claim to be the servants of God, that they profess to teach the way of salvation. It would be nothing strange if during the several days or weeks that Paul and Silas had been at Philippi, he had heard the gospel from their own lips, had been one among those at the river-side or in the market whom they had warned of their danger, and urged to repent and lay hold of the mercy offered to them in the name of Christ. And now suddenly an event had taken place, which convinces him in a moment that the things which he has heard are realities; it was the last argument, perhaps, which he needed to give certainty to a mind already inquiring, hesitating. He comes trembling, therefore, before Paul and Silas, and asks them to tell him again more fully what he must do to be saved?'