Acts 15:22-32
Chief men among the brethren
The council sends its letter by hand, and the men carrying it are named. Silas stays on in Antioch rather than returning with it.
People of the Bible
Silas
Sang in a jail at midnight with his feet in the stocks, and mentioned in the morning that he was a Roman.
Also called Silvanus
He is picked out of the Jerusalem church as a chief man among the brethren and sent to Antioch to carry the council’s letter, which is a diplomatic errand and the reason he is in the story at all. He is also a prophet, and he and Judas Barsabas exhort the brethren with many words. When Paul and Barnabas split, Paul chooses him, and the second journey begins with two men who had both been sent by the council they are now carrying past Asia into Europe.
Scroll down to the storyThe movements, in the order the text gives them.
The story of Silas
- 01
- 02
Acts 16:19-24
Their feet fast in the stocks
The charge is trouble and strange customs; the real cause is lost income. They are beaten without a trial and put in the innermost cell.
- 03
Acts 16:25-26
At midnight Paul and Silas prayed and sang
The detail that the prisoners heard them is given before the earthquake. The doors open and every band is loosed.
- 04
Acts 16:35-39
Let them come themselves and fetch us out
Told they may leave quietly, they answer that they are Romans, beaten uncondemned. The magistrates have to come to the prison and ask.
- 05
Acts 17:1-15
They searched the scriptures daily
Thessalonica riots and Berea reads. Silas and Timothy stay behind when Paul is sent away by sea, and follow him to Corinth.
Why it matters
Philippi is where the account slows down for him. They are seized for casting a spirit out of a slave girl whose owners lose their income by it, stripped, beaten with many stripes and thrust into the inner prison with their feet fast in the stocks. At midnight they pray and sing praises and the prisoners hear them. After the earthquake and the jailer’s household, the magistrates send word to let them go quietly, and Silas and Paul decline to leave quietly.
5 songs
The music
Every song in the catalogue whose passage falls inside these chapters.
