Sermon Tone Analysis

Knowing the Mercy of God fills us with Mercy for others

The mercilessness of the rulers

Paul and his team are now in Philippi, a Macedonian city, a Roman Colony.

Through the ministry of Paul and his team we have seen a rich woman and her family converted to a follower of Christ.

We have also seen a slave girl who is demon possessed come and try to hinder the gospel message by omitting important elements of the gospel message.

The demons job was to deflect but Paul put an end to this demons taunts.

This didn’t end well for Paul and Silas because the slave girls owners, were not happy they lost their means of support so they had Paul and Silas arrested on trumpet up charges.

They said nothing about what Paul actually did, which was cleanse the slave girl of a demon, but they instead said this, “these men are throwing our city into confusion, being Jews, and are proclaiming customs which is not lawful for us to accept or to observe, being Romans.”

These were lies by these slave girl owners.

The only real truth here was that Paul and Silas were Jews but even this was a half truth because as we will soon see, they are Roman citizens.

They were not throwing the city into confusion, they were going about freely without any issue until they cast out the demon.

This was said to arouse the magistrates authority because they were there to keep the peace and they didn’t want their city being stirred up, especially by these foreigners, these Jews.

They were preying on their civil allegiances, their religious allegiances, and their legal allegiances.

These men were hucksters and they knew how to use people for their own benefit and this was done to punish Paul because Paul had freed their salve girl from being enslaved to a demon that was controlling her every move and word.

Their lies prevailed because the people and the magistrate became angry.

Mercy filled Reliance

Mercy filled Response

The jailer responds to the mercy of God.

Paul tells Timothy about mercy.

Mercy filled Resolution