Acts 16:23 - 25 After they had been severely flogged, they were thrown into prison,
and the jailer was commanded to guard them carefully. Upon receiving such
orders, he put them in the inner cell and fastened their feet in the stocks.
About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the
other prisoners were listening to them. (NIV)
After being beaten, we find Paul and Silas in jail, with their feet in stocks, singing
and praying. Looking at this snippet of Paul's life and ministry from our
present day perspective, there is an unreality about this scene. Here is what is
unreal about this scene...following Christ and His directives is what got Paul
and Silas into trouble in the first place! In a worldly sense, what Paul and
Silas did in their persecution made no sense. It made no worldly sense then and
it makes no worldly sense now to sing and pray in persecution. However, many
things in our faith make no worldly sense. Many things in our Christian faith
defy common sense. Many things in our Christian faith go against every kind of
human logic. At its core, our faith goes against the worldly logic of wanting
things for our personal gain. Within the context of our faith, the essence of
worldly logic must sometimes be thrown away in the face of insurmountable odds
over which we seem to have no control. Worldly logic must be seen for what it
is…a set of worldly ideas we put together so the world will make sense to us.
What we must remember is our worldly logic and our worldly ideas are all rooted
in our sinfulness. In your Christian walk, when you sing and pray in your
persecution, you defy common sense and you give the Holy Spirit a chance to do
impossible and improbable things in your life. When you sing and pray in your
persecution, you also give the Holy Spirit a chance to do impossible and
improbable things in the life of others.
