The brethren encouraged

Good morning. We're going to be stepping our way through Acts 16, 35 through 40, as Laban had read for us here. Before we do that, though, we want to bring to your attention, we've been in recent weeks, and we'll continue to let you know about this, the Dead Sea Scrolls, which just two days ago began to be displayed in part at the Denver Museum. will continue to be available for those who would like to go see them in through the month of September.

And sometime in the midst of that, they're going to make a change, so different scrolls will be on display. The way they work it out is at no time can you see all of the scrolls. They don't want them to be available for those who might have ill intent. This is an example of the Psalms scroll from Qumran cave 11.

Essentially, the Dead Sea Scrolls from the late 40s on in through the 50s, more and more of them began to be discovered. And this last week, one of the questions that came up was, well, the Denver Museum is a secular outfit and are they going to give me good biblical insights into the Dead Sea Scrolls? And the answer is probably not.

So some of the things, I think, if you go to see them, and I encourage you to do so, there's a few things that you have to be prepared with. One is to get a better biblical insight as to what you're seeing. It's probably good to go prepared. To do that, we're going to continue to offer some things.

There's a handout, a supplement on the cabinet as you exit this room. that will give you some introduction to that. It'll give you some links for videos. And one of the fellows whose names will be featured prominently is a fellow by the name of Randall Price. Dr. Randall Price is an archeologist.

He has completed the excavations at Qumran, which is the capital city of the Essenes. Those are the ones who copied and hid the Dead Sea Scrolls. That's why they are where they are. He is, I would say, the world's foremost authority on the city of Qumran, which is their capital city, so to speak. of the Essenes, the ones who copied and hid the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Dr. Randall Price, as it turns out, is a fellow who is very like-minded with us. He believes that the Bible is inspired for word. He believes in a pre-tribulation rapture and a seven-year coming tribulation period. and followed by a thousand-year millennial reign of Christ. So he is very like-minded with us.

But anyway, he is, I would say, the world's foremost expert on the city of Qumran, having completed the excavations there. He has been appointed by the Israel Antiquities Authority to follow through on finding any possible remaining Dead Sea Scrolls. that might be hidden in caves that have not been explored to date, and other things that are in that vicinity.

So at any rate, we have a handout that you can take a look at as a start. We'll intend to put other things out there. Now, if you go to see the Dead Sea Scrolls, one of the things that you will find is that you'll say, well, I don't read Hebrew. I can't read any of these. And so that may indeed be something that you think about and experience. We've got that covered.

Just see Courtney has Hemingway Hebrew classes just lined up and can take care of you there. And so that you'll be able to read all this just fine and even pronounce it. So anyway, see Courtney if you have any questions about that. But we will have follow-on announcements here, and I'm sure Courtney would be glad to have subsequent seminars and lessons for us.

So anyway, we'll continue on with the book of Acts. And so this is, as you see on the top of your handout, a map showing the travels of Paul on his second missionary journey. He has been, as we've seen in chapter 16, in the last several messages here.

He has been at Philippi, which is the first city that the church was established in Macedonia, which is a Greek-based culture, but the city of Philippi was a Roman colony as well. You have also this map that zeroes in on a portion of the big picture map on Paul's missionary journey. And Philippi is kind of central there and labeled on that map. And so this would be a picture of Philippi among archaeological sites.

It is among the best preserved and in some cases partially restored. And so what you have is the Agora, the marketplace, the forum as it was called in Latin, is right there in front of you in this picture. That is the place where they dragged Paul and Silas. And so that's the exact location. Here would be nearby the theater. The theater has been greatly restored. And so this theater would be a place where they would not only have theatrical presentations and events, but also it would be a place of demonstration of military action and things of that sort.

So this would be one of the places where people would gather commonly in Philippi. As we've gone through chapter 16, we've seen where things started in Philippi where Paul and Silas and Timothy and Luke and very likely others came down to the riverside where the Jews and God-fearing Gentiles would gather there among possibly others.

Lydia became a believer. She was a seller of purple. And being a seller of purple, she would have an upper class home. This would be a typical upper class Roman villa. And we look at it and say, wow, that's quite a place. And yes, it was, especially compared to the way the poor people lived. But at any rate, this would be typical of her house. And so she invited Paul and those with him to stay there at their place and this would be very nice accommodations. This would be another picture of a typical upper-class Roman village to give you an idea where things might have been and how things might have been with where Lydia lived.

So they were going to the place of prayer along the riverside, and it was as they were going, and this had actually been going on probably daily for some weeks, they'd been going there, where the Apostle Paul cast a demon out of a servant girl who, as we had mentioned before, had what was called a python spirit.

Several people have mentioned how they were surprised to hear that. Actually, yes, that was what they would call it, and Dr. Luke used the exact right phrase. She was one who was probably purchased from Delphi, which is a city that we see there on this map on the lower left-hand side. This would be the Oracle at Delphi.

This was the Pythonus Temple, so she very likely was one of those who had a spirit that was expressed here at this temple and then was purchased and brought to Philippi. So after many days, and we mentioned that that very likely means a number of weeks, Paul cast the Python spirit from this The slave girl was free of this python spirit, this evil spirit, but she could no longer tell fortunes. Therefore, her owners were irate, and that probably is an understatement. The owners of the slave girl wanted revenge, and notice they didn't ask for, they weren't expecting to have the slave girl have the spirit restored, but they wanted revenge.

So they dragged Paul and Silas, it's interesting they didn't take Timothy or Luke or any of the rest of them that were with them, but Paul and Silas to this area, this rectangular area that you see in front of you and we saw at a kind of lower elevation earlier, that was the agora, the marketplace or the Latin forum. It was also a place where various kinds of public actions would take place. This is at Philippi the likely location of the Bema or judgment seat area, and this is where they would have the magistrates, and the magistrates would typically have hearings and things of that sort there. So the magistrates, without trial, ordered the lictors to give Paul and Silas a Roman massage.

Now, this was not one that would make you feel good when you were done. And so they beat Paul and Silas with rods. And so these lictors, as they were called, these were the rod beaters. the ones who were very sadistic and very intense at times. We even have descriptions of their beating brought death, so it could be awfully severe. This would be a picture of lictors all dressed up and ready to go. Most of the Roman colonies would have two lictors and two magistrates, and so this shows two of them as typical. So they were cast then into prison also without a trial. This is an entrance to an inner Roman prison. This one happens to be in Rome, but it gives you an idea what that might have looked like.

The lights are a retrofit and so is the ventilation. Typically these inner prisons were dark and stinky. More like that, right? Here would be a depiction of the outside of the prison during daylight, which would have been what it would have been like on the outside at the time that Paul and Silas were put in there. However, inside things will look after they put them in the stocks. This would be the prison with some lights so that you can actually have something to see. But more likely in the prison, even on the outside, things look like that. So you can see all the prisoners smiling, right? Posing for the picture. So this would be the typical thing. When it became dark, it was dark inside. Very dark. During the daytime, it was typically pretty dark as well. Very little lighting and ventilation.

So here's Paul and Silas. It says that they prayed and they sang up until midnight when there was an earthquake. The prisoners inside listened to them, which is very interesting. The prisoners didn't just kind of shine it on. They weren't passively listening to Paul and Silas. They were listening and it was having an impact upon them. Then at midnight, a great earthquake, as Dr. Luke recorded, opened up the prison doors and also broke off the chains and shackles that Paul and the other prisoners had.

They could have left and run out at this opportunity. Instead, we have the Apostle Paul telling the jailer, hey, don't harm yourself. Instead, the jailer turns around and says, what must I do to be saved? The Apostle Paul then tells them, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved and the same applies to you and your household. So the jailer took Paul and Silas back to his home that night, in the middle of the night, and dressed their wounds and gave them something to eat.

So what we come to here is this is about Roman law. One of the things as we look at this passage and the area just before it, understanding this passage is made more clear by an understanding of the culture of Philippi at the time, specifically the law of the Romans since Philippi was a Roman colony within the Roman Empire.

We're going to see the really big difference that it made, but both Paul and Silas were Jews with Roman citizenship. That's a huge difference. Roman citizenship meant special rights for those who had it, and not everyone did. And by the way, generally it was assumed if you were Jewish, you did not have Roman citizenship. So this was an exceptional thing for both Paul and Silas to have Roman citizenship. And I'll talk more about the difference that that makes.

Here's Acts 16.35. Now, when day came, the chief magistrates sent their policemen saying, release those men, right? Typically, there would be two. The two lictors would carry out punishments with these rods as ordered by the two magistrates. They served in the role of policemen. So that term there is referring to the lictors. By the way, this is something that's a little hard for us to imagine.

Unless you are a Roman colony, you didn't have policemen throughout most of the Roman Empire. No policemen. If somebody robbed your house, broke into your house at night, that was your fault. Isn't that amazing? That's just kind of astounding. Whoa, you know? And to get anything back that they stole, it was not only your fault, but you had to sue them, take them to court and sue them to get it back. Right? So typically, what would they do? They would break in, and cause a lot of damage and often try to damage the head of the household. So in this case, these policemen acted on the magistrate's orders. These were the same lictors who had done the beatings.

Something else to keep in mind here, the pagan mindset about earthquakes. So We have in our modern understanding the idea of their earthquake faults. This was something I studied in geology and engineering years ago, and so we have earthquake faults and we understand those fairly well, although there are certainly more things to learn. But in the pagan viewpoint, it was different.

They viewed an earthquake as a severe message from the gods, that the gods were not happy, right? And you had an earthquake because the gods were unhappy, probably unhappy with whatever you just did or didn't do, right? So, Poseidon was seen as the chief god of the earthquakes. That's in the Greek pantheon. The Roman equivalent was Neptune. And so they would see Poseidon, or in the Roman pantheon, Neptune as the chief god of earthquakes.

So to have an earthquake happen, and this is a great earthquake, that's how Dr. Luke recorded it, just hours after Paul and Barnabas were beaten in jail could mean that the gods were not pleased. And that's why you had the earthquake. So now, Though the crowd demanded Paul and Barnabas be beaten, now the crowd's going to come to the magistrates and say, what have you done? You need to undo this and fix it so we don't have any more of these stupid earthquakes. You really displeased the gods. So there's something else. These magistrates are going to see themselves as really in trouble.

They're constrained by Roman law. They were in big trouble with Roman law and how they handled the case in Paul and Silas. They were only beginning to discover how bad their situation was. One, Roman law said that the magistrates were to hold a trial to consider the charges, whether you're a Roman citizen or not.

So the magistrates were put there to hold a trial. Was there a trial in this case? No. So Paul and Silas just on that basis could get these magistrates in big trouble. The magistrates also had no authority to beat Paul and Silas without a trial. And the magistrates found out that Paul and Silas were Roman citizens, which gave them a great additional legal protections.

As we'll see, if you were a Roman citizen, you had to have a trial before any beating or jailing took place. And if someone carried it out without a trial, properly done, whoever was responsible for that could have severe consequences even all the way to the death penalty. So this was a very serious thing the magistrates had done. But one other secret is that the Roman officials often bent the law to the mobs of people, which is apparently what they did here. There are many records of Roman officials, including Roman magistrates, bending the letter of the law to please or avoid displeasing the crowd. Pontius Pilate is an exact example of that.

He multiple times said, I find no fault with Jesus. But what did he eventually do? He eventually condemned Christ to death. Why? Because of the pressure from the crowd. And so Roman law allowed them to do that. So the magistrates in Philippi had bent the law of Rome due to this crowd pressure. It's likely that the crowd following the earthquake was now pressuring the magistrates to let up on Paul and Silas. Get them out of here. The gods are angry with us, and it's going to get worse if you don't get them out of here.

Here's Acts 16.36, And the jailer reported these words to Paul, saying, The chief magistrates have sent to release you. Therefore, come out now and go in peace.

So, the jailer passed along the message. So the jailer is just simply, as he usually did, receiving this message. He got his orders from the magistrates via the policemen, and like we see in the picture, there may have been some written statement to that effect. He passed along the message as he received it from the policemen, and that's what usually would happen.

So he'd say, okay, it's okay for you to go now. The jailer in turn would then tell Paul, the chief magistrates are sent to release you, therefore come out now and go in peace. So one might think that Paul and Silas would simply comply and be happy for, hey, now we're going to get out, right? Not so much.

Here's Acts 16.37.

But Paul said to them, they have beaten us in public without a trial. Men who are Romans, and this is, as we look at this, This is just absolutely going to shock them. This is really going to put them in a panic. And they have thrown us into prison and now they are sending us away secretly? No indeed! But let them come themselves and bring us out.

So, Paul would not simply comply with the order and be relieved and glad to get out. The magistrates had, without legal authority, ordered Paul and Silas to be beaten with rods without a trial. And it gets worse. They followed up their illegal action by having Paul and Silas thrown into prison. And by the way, that was not comfortable.

There are several different possibilities as to how that, you know, having their feet in stocks could have been done. at Pompeii is one place where the prison has been excavated and well-preserved, and there they had a kind of an iron comb that they would force the ankles down into. and by the way those pinched, an iron comb and they put the prisoners feet in those stocks and so they were decidedly uncomfortable. It was intended to be torture. Other places the possibility is that they have, and this could be the case at Philippi, they would have an opening in a rock wall that was about the size of a dishwasher and they would shove the prisoner's tail side into that and then have bars over the front to which they'd attach the feet and the hands. So that's a possibility as well. However they did it, it was never intended to be a nice time. It most certainly was not a Philippian vacation.

So But then Paul revealed that he and Silas were both Roman citizens. So these men who are Romans, that's the term that he used to say we are Roman citizens, to violate a citizenship was a very serious offense. Essentially, you could have up to capital punishment, up to death, for violating the rights of a Roman citizen. Now, we have here, and I have put it on your handout in a slightly different form so that it isn't just a black blob, but a typical wax on wood double tablet as might be used for non-military Roman citizenship certificates such as for Paul and Silas.

So this is kind of surprising. What they would do is they would have this piece of wood and they would carve an indentation in it and pour in wax. Of course in those days it was a beeswax surface. They would then engrave in there the name of the person stating that they had citizenship and then some sort of a seal of an official and that wax certificate then would be kept by the person who held the citizenship.

They would typically not carry it around with them because if it got too hot, guess what would happen? The wax would melt and you'd lose your certificate, right? So they would not carry it around with them. But on the other hand, if you didn't have it with you, claiming falsely that you had Roman citizenship when you did not was also death penalty.

But this would probably be the kind of certificate that Paul and Silas would both have. in order that they be able to claim Roman citizenship. Additionally, there are other ways that people had evidence of Roman citizenship. These would be a bronze, what's called a military diploma. When you had completed your military service, These would be bronze plaques that would be given to the person who had completed their military service, typically age 35, and they would be given various special privileges and things of that sort. Included on this would be, they would be given Roman citizenship as a part of it. So those would be a couple of the kinds of evidences, probably this wax tablet being the one that Paul and Silas would have.

So Paul says, let them come themselves. So due to the nature of the serious violations of Roman law, to punish Paul and Silas, Paul insisted that the magistrates come personally to release them from prison. Paul did not suggest that the magistrates come to let them out. He demanded it. It's imperative in the Greek. So why would Paul insist on the magistrates coming to personally let Paul and Silas out of the Philippian prison?

What do you think? Well, let's talk about that. Here's Acts 16, 38 and 39. The policemen reported these words to the chief magistrates. So these lictors, the ones who had very likely been the ones doing the beating, right? Reported these words to the chief magistrates.

They were afraid when they heard that they were Romans. Why? Because the penalty for doing what they just did could be as serious as you're about to lose your life, right? You're about to be killed because you punished Roman citizens without a proper trial.

So they came and appealed to them. Notice they didn't demand anything. Appealed to them and when they had brought them out, kept begging them at that point to leave the city. You guys, would you please, pretty please, with date sugar on top, would you please get out of the city and make this issue go away for us? That was what they were doing.

So the magistrates were most certainly afraid, They became afraid when they found out that they had ordered Paul and Silas to be beaten and jailed without a trial, especially since they were these Roman citizens. Magistrates were already in trouble for going beyond their legal authority for ordering Paul and Silas to be beaten and jailed without a trial, but to find out that they were Romans, Roman citizens, that made it far, far worse. They were in double trouble. So the magistrates did come to the prison as Paul suggested. They brought Paul and Silas out of the prison personally. These two magistrates appealed to Paul and Silas and begged them is actually just astounding.

But because of the hazard that they were at legally, it's understandable. They did not have authority to have Paul and Silas beaten in jail without a trial. To have done this to Roman citizens was far, far worse and in fact dangerous to them. The magistrates also, there's one more thing, they did not have the authority as magistrates to order Paul and Silas to leave. Right? So what did they do? Instead of saying, you must leave, they said, please. Please leave. They begged them to leave in order to make this issue go away. Here's Act 1640, they went out of the prison and entered the house of Lydia and when they saw the brethren they encouraged them and departed.

Something we're going to see here as we proceed is we've seen earlier in Acts chapter 16 that the author of Acts, Dr. Luke, has written, we or us. Now we're going to see, and it says, and they departed, which means Paul and Silas and Timothy, but Dr. Luke, by every appearance, stayed in Philippi. It is an area not of certainty, but one, Dr. Luke has actually, as we've gone through this chapter, used local terminology.

He appears to be very familiar with things there at Philippi. There was a medical school at Philippi, and there's a possibility that that's where he went to medical school. And he stayed around for some time. It isn't until chapter 20 that we're going to see him on the scene again. So the appearance is that he stayed on there at Philippi for some period of time and then rejoined Paul later.

So the magistrates, after they appealed to Paul and Silas and begged them to leave, Paul and Silas did in fact leave the prison. After that, they went to Lydia's house and met with the new believers in Christ there rather than leave immediately. Imagine some of these believers were perhaps even days old in the Lord. At most, these believers were weeks old in the Lord and not even a number of months old. So they were very young believers. Paul and Silas encouraged the new believers there at Lydia's house.

It was in those days, as we would call it now, a home church or a house church. And we don't know if they went to the riverside and continued to go to the riverside to pray. One of the questions we might ask is, who does this include at this house church? Well, as we have here in the picture, it might include the jailer and his family. As we saw earlier in Acts 16, the jailer and his household had become believers. So it might have included them, certainly Lydia and her household. And that might have actually been a fairly extensive household, including servants and all that.

And so we have that. And we have one more possibility, and that is that the slave girl from whom Paul had cast out a demon may also have been a part of this house church. Isn't that amazing? Isn't it astounding to think about this slave girl who had been demon-possessed and been going around telling fortunes and was actually mocking Paul and Silas as they preached the gospel. This slave girl becoming a believer would be really an amazing thing to see and to see the astounding difference in her life. It says they encouraged the believers. Now think about this. Imagine, here you are, you've become a brand new believer in Christ.

None of them was older than just weeks old in the Lord, and some of them were only days old in the Lord. So this had been a very young church, and now to have Paul and Silas treated the way they were, to be beaten and jailed and all that, To them that was very likely unsettling and disturbing. So Paul and Silas encouraged the young believers that were there. That may also have the implication of exhorting them and comforting them. You think about why would they need to be comforted, these young believers, to see, okay, here's Paul and Silas who are now the ones that have introduced us to the Lord. Now they've gone through a very, very difficult time. and to them it may have been rather startling and shocking. So to encourage them and even bring them along to an understanding that God has a purpose in mind for these trials, that would be an important thing for them to pass along. So after that they did leave Philippi, leaving behind apparently Dr. Luke, possibly others, and certainly those who had become new believers there in Philippi. Now, one of the questions we might ask, why didn't Paul and Silas say something sooner?

Have you ever been in that circumstance? Somebody, you know, why didn't you tell me sooner? Right? And many of us can find ourselves in that circumstance where somebody asked that of us, or we asked that of somebody else. Why didn't you tell me sooner? Yeah, that would have really helped, right? If you had told me sooner.

So why didn't Paul and Silas say something sooner? Perhaps when it looked like things were getting bad, how about if they just started yelling out, We're Roman citizens! We're Roman citizens! That would have stopped things right there, right? Why didn't they do that? Well, we're going to talk about that. That's a very good question. I'm glad you asked it.

So, why not move past all those times of tumult and mob action and avoid the abuse and the pain and discomfort and the injury? Why not just avoid all that? All it would have taken was to yell out, Roman citizens! Roman citizens! We're Romans! And that would have been it. Right? Here's something amazing.

In 2 Corinthians, this was written, by the way, during Paul's third missionary journey, so a little bit after this event that we just looked at, the Apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 11, verses 23 through 27, he starts listing some of the things that he had been through. This instance of being imprisoned, this instance of being beaten with rods, He, by this time, had been through those kinds of things multiple times. And you would have thought, well, heavens, all he has to do every time is to say, I'm a Roman citizen, Roman citizen, and he could have gotten out of all of it. Why didn't he?

Well, that's rather amazing. So it says in 2 Corinthians 11, 23 through 27, in far more labors and far more imprisonments, beaten times without number, often in danger of death, five times I received from the Jews thirty-nine lashes, three times I was beaten with rods. And that includes the one time we just read about. But two other times, and apparently did not at those times yell out, I'm a Roman citizen, Roman citizen, I'm a Roman.

Could he have done that? He most certainly could have, and they'd have stopped right there. We're going to find an instance later on in Acts pretty soon where he does exactly that, but he didn't do it these times. He could have. Now that's really puzzling. Why not?

Paul would often, as he wrote, and certainly as he spoke, write down and claim that he was a Jew, even among the most qualified Jews, even though Jews were often not well regarded. and were assumed to have little or no rights. But he would say, I'm a Jew, repeatedly.

In addition to that, he would also proclaim Christ crucified, which was received with great disdain or even worse. The Roman officials When they announced crucifixion, when they pronounced crucifixion, we're allowed to use alternate terminology because to say that someone was crucified was considered crude language and the governor didn't have to use that language. So he'd use a euphemism to declare someone to be crucified.

Only in rare instances would Paul claim his rights as a Roman citizen. And we're going to see some of those instances as we proceed through Acts. This is the first time that we see it. It's not the last time. Paul only claimed and pressed his Roman citizenship when, and this is very interesting, the continuing opportunity for the gospel was at stake. Let's ask this question, why did the Apostle Paul here claim Roman citizenship after they had been beaten and after they were in prison?

Oh, excuse me, you expect me to answer that? Okay, so here's the deal. Why would he do that? Why would he wait until afterwards? The reason was He didn't want to be in a place where he was pressured to get out of Philippi. He wanted to stay as long as was needed to encourage the believers and to help support them. And then he also wanted the opportunity to return. He wanted the opportunity to return.

And both those things might have been cut off had he not claimed Roman citizenship. Next, his identity as a Jew and as a believer in Christ were always primary. He only claimed Roman citizenship in his instance when the opportunity for the gospel was at stake. As we go through the book of Acts, the rest of it, we're going to see exactly that. He had the right to claim Roman citizenship in a number of instances, and he did not carry it out. Where he did claim Roman citizenship, was for the sake of the gospel, just as everything else that he did. Suffering for Christ's name and enduring trials would not be set aside for the easier path. Instead, the reasons and purposes for trials and suffering would not be bypassed for Paul. So, as a believer in Christ, should we always opt to maximize our own rights and privileges?

I mean, wouldn't that be a nice consistent thing? Let's always optimize, claim all the rights that we have available to us and all the privileges we have available to us. Should we do that? Or should we just set them all aside as if we'd never had any rights and privileges? Which one should we do?

Guess what? What we see from the book of Acts and the rest of the New Testament, we are neither to hold out for all of our rights and privileges or deny them consistently. Now, wouldn't it be easier if we could do one or the other? Yeah, sort of. But guess what? The biblical pattern for us as believers is not to go to either one of these extremes. instead of carrying out some consistent policy to always claim the rights and privileges we have, or to consistently deny them, we're to learn God's Word, pray for wisdom, and walk in fellowship.

Isn't that something? Rather than look at what is the legal limit that I'm allowed, or should I deny it all, Instead we say God's values and principles a principle is either a fundamental truth of the way things work or both That's values and principles rank ahead of and above what is legally allowed or required by law Here's some wisdom that Paul wrote to the Corinthians two different places first Corinthians chapter 6.12 says, a principle personalized, right? All things are lawful for me, but not all things are profitable. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be mastered by anything. So the focus there is on Christ as Lord, right? So all things are lawful for me. I could claim all sorts of things legally, but that's not the principle I operate by.

1 Corinthians 10.23 says, a principle generalized, all things are lawful, but not all things are profitable. All things are lawful, but not all things edify, not all things build up.

So the first one has to do with our relationship with Christ as Lord. The second one has to do with our relationship to the church body. And these are principles by which we would measure Do we claim our rights or set them aside? We've got one more very valuable piece here to look at, and it's the last slide on your handout here.

Philippians 1, 27 through 30. This is written in early spring of 62 AD, so roughly a decade later. And the Apostle Paul writes, only conduct yourselves. And by the way, that doesn't mean just behave yourself. It is a word that means citizen behavior. It's one of the three places in Philippians that talks about us having a heavenly citizenship.

In this case, conduct yourselves as citizen behavior in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or remain absent, I will hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit with one mind, striving together for the faith of the gospel. in no way alarmed by your opponents, which is a sign of destruction for them, but of salvation for you, and that too from God. For to you it has been granted for Christ's sake, not only to believe in him, but also to suffer for his sake."

Not always to claim every right and privilege that you might have. but God may have in mind suffering for his sake, experiencing the same conflict which you saw in me, and now here to be in me. That rather than across the board always claiming our rights and privileges, or rather than even turning them down, what does God have in mind here in this circumstance? What does God want to have done? what will recognize Christ as Lord, what will build up the body of Christ here.

Let's pray. Lord, what an amazing set of verses, brief ones, that you've set out here. And what an astounding set of principles, that we don't just look at the law of the land as something to be maximized for our benefit, or to be looked upon as something entirely set aside, but instead we look to you, we look to the principles in your word, and we look to our relationship and fellowship with you in all these things. We look to you for wisdom and understanding and insight, and ask that you would show us what is your will in each circumstance. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.