The Thessalonian Story Part 1

And then they dragged these two men off unceremoniously down into a jail, down into the dungeon of the cell, the jail back into the remotest part of the dungeons. And there the two men are almost certainly manacled by each hand and by their feet. They are now dehydrated. Their clothes are ripped off of them, they’re bleeding profusely, and they are very close to not only exhaustion, but they’re cold and chilly, and they’re going into shock. They fall asleep mercifully; when they wake up, they do something. I tell you, if I had been there with them, then I think they would have been singing the solo; it would not have been a trio. They began singing. Now, how Timothy missed the beating I do not know, but he was not present, and as they begin to sing, a rumble begins on the earth, and the jail begins to shake, and the door hinges on their cell pop open, as do the doors of all the cells.

At that moment, the jailer runs down into the dungeons. All he sees is the doors open. It comes to his mind that if the doors open, the prisoners are all gone. The jailer knows that he is personally held responsible for those men; there’s only one thing he can do because he’s going to suffer anyway if he doesn’t. He grabs his sword, his small Roman sword, and he is about to puncture his belly with it, and Paul says, ” Don’t do that”, and the jailer says, “Then what can I do to be saved?” Now, I have a feeling that the jailer really meant, “What can I do to get out of this mess I’m in?” But Paul answered the right question anyway.

He said, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you’ll be saved.” And the gentleman did. He believed. He took Silas, and he took Paul back to his home. He fed them, and he washed them from the very beating he himself may have inflicted. And there was added that night, to the number of the people meeting in that tiny ecclesia in Philippi, now a jailer and his entire household, and there were no escapees.

The next morning, the city magistrates came and said, ‘Get out of town,’ but Paul refused to leave the cell. He said, I will not go. You didn’t give us a chance to answer the charges against us yesterday. You unceremoniously grabbed our hands and feet. You pulled us over that stone. You beat our backs, and we are something you’re not. We are Roman citizens, and you have no right ever to beat a Roman citizen without a trial. And you gave us no trial. You get somebody down here and apologize to us, and we will leave.

So, the mayor of the city, whoever he is, whatever his name, has to come down and fearfully apologize to these two men who really are Roman citizens, and they can prove it by a little chain and a symbol that they carry around on their neck that nobody else has but them. It’s a registered thing. Well, anyway, whatever it is, they are now free.

And this is what I want to tell you. This is the tiniest church that Paul of Tarsus will ever raise up, and it is the shortest length of time in his whole lifetime that he ever spent with a group of believers. Probably he has spent no more than three weeks, and there are probably no more than 10 or 15 people at the most, 20 outside, probably about 10-15. Well, I think that our two brothers left that city that day because they were told to get out of town. I think they were the two best-dressed church planters in Christian history. At least right at that moment, they were well-dressed.  Lydia gave them the best clothes she had. And Lydia noticed, when they put those clothes on, she noticed how much money they had.

And the amount of money they had was almost none at all. We’re going to imagine a few copper coins, one or two bronze coins, and maybe one or two silver coins. Those two men between them, along with Timothy, have run out of money, and very shortly, they won’t have any at all, and this is the first time since the New Testament opened that we begin to ask the question, Where did Paul get his income?

Now that question becomes very pertinent, and to me it’s very important, it’s important to me, personally, Gene Edwards, because I wrestle with that question every day of my life. And I think of the traditions of this present day, and all the verses that are quoted in our generation, and all the money that is raised, and I ask a straightforward question, ‘What really went on in the first century, and what went on in the lives of these men and what’s going on right now, and this would become actually the center of our story for the next few moments. So I will quickly just go with you and you with me as to where men who were Christian workers in the first century got their income. And those of you who are out there thinking about becoming a Christian worker first century style, oh friend, don’t think in terms of doing it for the money, because it’s not there. It seems as though the Jewish apostles, Peter and the others, received some sort of money or income from their preaching. They received money for preaching. Paul even said they did. He quoted a verse of Scripture later in his life and said, ‘You don’t muzzle the ox when it treads out the grain.’ Or a man, if he has preached to you, he’s earned the right to your carnal gifts, that is, your money.’

You’re going to catch a view here, Paul, though. It’s quite interesting. I want you to know that I don’t know where Paul and Barnabas got their income on the first church planting journey they took. I don’t know. Not a mention in Scripture. I’ll give you three possibilities.

This is the second one. The first journey they took. First trip. Barnabas had been wealthy but gave his money away in Jerusalem. Maybe the church in Antioch, because it was gigantic, it was huge, maybe 10-20,000 believers, maybe the largest church in the world at that time, may have backed them and given them money, or they may have been tent makers. It would appear that they did not take much money with them when they left Antioch, and that they made their living building tents, because that’s what Paul was.

And by the way, I’d like to commend the Jewish custom that every rabbi in the Jewish religion could not become a rabbi if he did not have a skill. He had to be able to make a living. I wish that every Baptist preacher on this earth, before he would be ordained as a Baptist preacher, or Methodist, or Presbyterian, or anything else, would have to have a skill so that he could work for a living; it would greatly enhance the gospel of Jesus Christ. Just for the record, fellow, if you don’t know how to work for a living, you’ve got a twisted view of life. Then you demand too much of God’s people, and you tend to get fat and lazy, and you take too much for granted, and secondly, you tend to get corrupt.

I have a right to talk that way to you. And so would Paul of Tarsus have that right to speak to you that way. Here is the man who is considered the greatest apostle of all times. He is considered the church planter. He is loved. His books are read. He is the most admired Christian in Christian history. And nobody in the ministry or anywhere else ever stops to remember that man was a layman who worked with his hands and did not take money. And we are about to see the story of that glorious, wonderful, unbelievable, ingenious, radical, even crazy concept being born right this moment as Paul leaves Philippi. They don’t have much money.