What is Our Heart Captivated By?

What Is My Heart Captivated by?

It is another Friday night in my life and I think I have now had about 2,860 of them now in my brief stint on this earth. My how the ‘normal ones’ have changed from my youth and throughout the years of my marriage with Pamela. I find myself on most of my Fridays nowadays that I’m reading the Scripture and writing and reflecting. I have not lost my mind, but hope that maybe I am finally maturing to a better and more satisfying place in life. A bit of true confession, I hope that I will not have 2,860 more Fridays on the earth, for I long to be with Jesus in my ultimate home. For now though, He has me reading, writing and reflecting on faith matters as another weekend begins.

To be honest, I love these Friday nights around 10PM for in them I find the sweetness of my faith growing more and more fresh and I am reminded that Coffee is awesome – ‘every good and perfect gift comes down from the Father of Lights”! So thanks to My Heavenly Father!

Tonight, my mind has drifted back to a verse that never seems to leave me from early on in my faith journey. I don’t know if I can say that it is my life verse, but it sure has been and still is my most introspective verse. Without further delay here it is…

Acts 16:25 About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them, 

I have to honestly confess, I have never gotten over this verse for all of my Christian life. I remember reading it for the first time about a year after I became a believer at the age of 18 and in my young faith, I wanted to be a rat in the cell observing two men so lost and captivated by Jesus. I remember the earliest tears I shed were connected with thoughts of “how does a heart become so captivated by Jesus like these two mean’. Here I am all these years later on a July 4^th Eve and I’m still wondering the same exact thing. 

Let’s look at the text surrounding 16:25…

The Crowd Joins In

16:22 The crowd joined in attacking them, and the magistrates tore the garments off them and gave orders to beat them with rods. 23 And when they had inflicted many blows upon them, they threw them into prison, ordering the jailer to keep them safely. 24 Having received this order, he put them into the inner prison and fastened their feet in the stocks.

As things can happen, a crowd can get in a state of frenzy and violence becomes the inevitable result and that is just what happens. The text reveals that Paul and Silas made no apparent appeal to the leaders of the city.

The persecution of Paul and Silas begins and here is what took place…

1.  Tore the garments off them

Usually slaves would have done what the magistrates do here in the tearing of the clothes off of the guilty.

2.  Gave orders to beat them with rods. 

Rome had in a sense a type of local Police force called “Lictors”, who were the punishers for Rome where all of the Greek people lived.  They worked for the magistrates and they carried around with them the tools of their trade in a backpack where they wrapped together all kinds of these really hard sticks designed to inflict much punishment.  In the middle of the sticks they had an ax, which they could use if necessary for cases of swift capital punishment if it was deemed necessary.

Roman law commanded people to be stripped down to their loincloth or underwear, and they would be forced to face and be tied to a large stake with their back and legs uncovered and exposed for the coming punishment. The “beating rods” were usually ¾ of an inch thick so that they could be swung quickly and powerfully.

Jewish legal tradition gave a maximum number of blows that could be delivered when beating a person (40), but under Roman, no law existed limiting the amounts of blows.  We know with the intensity of the crowd that there is little doubt that Paul and Silas were severely beaten. 

The rod beating process could cause internal bleeding, broken ribs, crushed vertebrae of the spine, organs damaged, and it at times ended in death. 

Suffering with terrible pain from their backs and legs and still bleeding, they would be led from the forum to the dark prison. It would have been difficult for them to walk to the prison.  With each step there would have been the heavy panting of breathing, blood flowing down their legs into their sandals. 

he put them into the inner prison 

The jailer was commanded to keep them locked up safely, so he put them into the inner prison, which was a place where it was entirely dark and where chains were fastened into the wall.  The Jail would have been a subterranean dungeon where there was almost no ventilation or light, it would have been damp with the certainty of rats, lice, disease. Most prisoners had to stand in their own filth as there were no bathroom breaks for the prisoners under Roman rule.

The suffering would be great & sleep impossible, plus their hurting backs would likely still be bleeding and oozing. If that was not enough, being in the inner prison meant they would experience the wretched stench of human urine and excrement. 

            and fastened their feet in the stocks.

The stocks were in a sense a kind of plank with varied holes designed to keep comfort an absolute impossibility for anyone to remain in, as within the plank there were several holes designed to spread the legs out going out wider. So they were placed in stocks where their legs were stretched wide so as to make them as uncomfortable as possible and the stretching was designed to make leg cramping the norm while you were in them.  

The discomfort they experienced in the jail -- backs torn and bleeding, legs in horrible pain, where they could only stand in an awkward position upward, for to lie back some, if they would was likely impossible because of the excruciating pain to their flayed back. 

These were horrible circumstances, but God had not failed His people, and this imprisonment was all part of His plan to establish a Christian local church in Philippi.

By the way, when you look back at 16:9, God had called them to go, and yet look at how it turned out. Look at Acts 16:9 And a vision appeared to Paul in the night: a man of Macedonia was standing there, urging him and say, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.”   God had indeed called them there!  

What we see here is this…

Sometimes perfect obedience leads to great persecution.

Let’s now come back to the verse that I cannot shake…with all that in mind previously, this is Paul and Silas response to their mistreatment and persecution…

Acts 16:25 About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them, 

About midnight

It is midnight now and there is no way they can find any position to be able to sleep, and with all they have gone through as their feet were still in stocks, legs constantly cramping – you have a decision to make in that moment:

Q: How do you live in that very moment?  When you cannot find comfort even if you tried.  Q: Is Christ still worth it? They saw the moment as worthy of God exalting prayer and praise.

Tertullian said of this text - “The legs feel nothing in the stocks when the heart is in heaven.”

You see…

The heart sings in a setting like this 

because it has already found the greatest treasure!

****In this moment for Paul and Silas, they were not looking for Jesus as if he were gone from them, but they exalted Him for they knew He was closer than their breath!**** 

I want to close this blog post by asking all of us to think with me on some of the strong implications from Paul and Silas that are relevant for our day. 

      

     What is our heart captivated by tonight? 

What is consuming our emotions?
What fears are dominating our lives? 

What are we posting about on social media? 

What was the content of our conversations today? 

Are we demanding “our rights” as Christians with a complaining and critical heart? 
Are we demanding of others that they must see things our way?

How are we proclaiming His glory as Paul and Silas in the most difficult of places?

Are we posting, talking, complaining more on all things connected with Covid-19 than we are about the glory of Jesus?

I got off public social media a couple of years ago, so I am “out of the loop” as to what might be the rage over the last days and what is being posted, tweeted, or uploaded, but I can imagine there is much debate, perspective and opinion on the new changes that have come our way.  

If you are a Christ-follower, then it is of the most critical nature that we look and sound more like Jesus than we do of the world. I will be up front and honest that I have many personal opinions on the matters of the day, but I must remember that He must shine in me so that others will give “praise to my Father who is in heaven” when they see my good works (Matthew 5:16). My opinion matters none in light of God's Word and that is where I must fall in line.   

So let’s consider some observations from Paul and Silas, so while their being lost in Christ in a Philippian jail in some ways I still don’t fully understand, their response has much to say to the Covid-19 days we are living in.

Later, Paul wrote back to the church that was started in those horrible human days, but days actually ordained by God to begin a church in Philippi. I think much of what is contained in this great epistle flows from the example they set when they were both in Philippi.

(1) We are to die to self and be Captivated by nothing but Jesus

Our rights, civil liberties (regardless of a side one may be on) etc. are secondary to knowing Christ – period. I am reminding myself of this as I read the news. 

Philippians 1:21 For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. 22 If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me. Yet which I shall choose I cannot tell. 23 I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better. 

(2) We are to be in the Word of God, seeing and hearing God’s Perspective on the World, not spending our days reading the words and opinions of the world

Philippians 1:27 Only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the gospel, 28 and not frightened in anything by your opponents. This is a clear sign to them of their destruction, but of your salvation, and that from God. 

The Gospel is what changes the World, not our opinions.

(3) We are in the Covid-19 Classroom of Learning Contentment

Philippians 4:11 Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. 12 I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. 13 I can do all things through him who strengthens me.

I hope and pray we are willing to be good students in this classroom of learning contentment and that we do not become the class clown or the rebel who is a bad example. Paul embraced what came his way and he learned this from the life of Jesus. 

(4) We are called to shine as His light by not grumbling or disputing, by holding fast to the Word of Life

Philippians 2:14 Do all things without grumbling or disputing, 15 that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, 16 holding fast to the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain.

As His people, we should be the ones who are not grumbling and disputing, but the ones who are living blameless and innocent in a Crooked and Twisted Generation! Are we shining as lights in the World or are we contributing to the grumbling and disputing?
Let's not forget this example from Jesus...Isaiah 53:7 He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth.

(5) We count All Things as Loss for the Sake of Knowing Christ

Philippians 3:7 But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. 8 Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith—

They did not demand their rights to get out of jail nor to avoid the abuse they endured. Here in Philippians 3:8 Paul sets forth that Christ-followers consider knowing Christ the greater treasure. 

Earlier Paul set forth the “rights” that we His in Philippians 3:5 circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; 6 as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless. 

Now in Philippians 3:8, Paul calls all of those “privileges” as “rubbish”, so that He could gain Christ more and more. 

Paul and Silas changed the world, people like Ananias, Sapphira, Judas, Hymanaeus, Alexander, Demas, Jannes, Jambres  - they lost their way for Jesus became not their way. 

Well, I have spent another couple hours of my life reflecting on an event 2,000 years ago in a jail in ancient Philippi, that still moves me as the day closes. 

As I write this last sentence tonight, I know that our lives have been turned upside down in these days in so many ways, I found myself remembering two men who found Jesus worth singing about at midnight.

It is now 21 minutes before midnight on July 3, 2020, my prayer is that at midnight tonight my heart will still be captivated by Jesus, that I will not get caught up in the craziness of these days and lose my perspective on the worth of Jesus at midnight in the midst of Covid-19 days.