Daily Devotional

We don’t know his name. He’s merely identified as “the keeper of the prison.” But his urgent question, asked moments after he’d contemplated suicide, reverberates through the centuries to our time: “What must I do to be saved?” Before answering that question, let’s look at some background to this story.

In vision, Paul had received a plea to share the gospel in Macedonia and support the nascent group of believers there. “Come over to Macedonia and help us” (Acts 16:9). While in the Macedonian city of Philippi, Paul and Silas met and baptized Lydia, a woman who accepted the message. But they also encountered a demon-possessed slave girl whose work made money for her owners.

The girl’s latest message, however, was displeasing to many. Following Paul, she cried out, “These men are the servants of the Most High God, who proclaim to us the way of salvation” (v. 17). After “many days” of this, Paul rebuked the spirit that possessed the young woman and she was set free (v. 18).

Recognizing the loss of income they now faced, the girl’s “masters” dragged the two evangelists before the magistrates, who beat them with rods and commanded them to be jailed. Now we meet the “keeper of the prison,” who places the feet of the emissaries in stocks in the innermost part of the jail (vv. 20– 24).

God had far different plans for Paul, Silas, and the jailer. As the two Christians sang hymns and praised God, an earthquake shook the jail with such force that every prisoner’s bonds were loosed, every jail cell opened. Catastrophic would be too mild a word to describe the jailer’s outlook. He was supposed to keep everyone in place, and now they were gone—or so he thought. Such an inexplicable circumstance could only lead to a grisly execution by his governors, so suicide seemed the only way out.

In the jailer’s darkest hour, Paul’s voice brought light: “Do yourself no harm, for we are all here” (v. 28). God’s power kept the prisoners in their place. Then came the jailer’s plaintive question: “What must I do to be saved?”

The answer was simple, yet complete: “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household” (v. 31).

That promise is just as true today: Believe and you will be saved. What glorious good news!

Reflect: Who do you know that could benefit from being told the good news of salvation? Don’t overlook the most unlikely people around you. God’s power to move hearts is beyond our comprehension.