Narrative Lectionary Key Verse for Today
“When the jailer woke up and saw the prison doors wide open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, since he supposed that the prisoners had escaped. But Paul shouted in a loud voice, ‘Do not harm yourself, for we are all here.’ The jailer called for lights, and rushing in, he fell down trembling before Paul and Silas. Then he brought them outside and said, ‘Sirs, what must I do to be saved?’”
NL Daily Devotion for Tuesday, May 20, 2025
by R. M. Fergus, Clergy Stuff
I’ve been reading a history of the church. I am amazed a the commitment of the earliest Christians to their beliefs, to the point of martyrdom. The persecutions by various Roman emperors were on-again/off-again, often capricious and inconsistent. The chief complaint about them was that they were obstinate—they refused to get with the Roman program of syncretism (the blending of all the known world’s religions and worship of all gods) or of emperor worship. They were seen as a threat to the peace of Rome by undermining the basic fabric of societal observances. But mostly they were just annoyingly perplexing in their single-mindedness.
Maybe this jailor was happily syncretistic and just fine keeping the peace by sacrificing to the emperor. Maybe he had no concept of someone so thoroughly committed to any kind of spiritual concept that they would willingly remain in prison over it. Certainly when the prison doors busted open, he assumed they’d booked it. So much so that he was willing to kill himself rather than be held accountable for their escape (one has to imagine what the penalty would have been to inspire such an extreme action!). When Paul and Silas were like, “Nope. We’re still here. We’re not going anywhere,” he was so blown away he had no choice but to believe whatever it was they believed that had given them so much integrity.
That kind of integrity is, sadly, still rare. It’s far easier to just go along with whatever society as a whole deems “acceptable” even when what is supposedly acceptable is characterized by self-absorption, racism, homophobia, and an insatiable desire for material possessions. So many of us are far more like the jailer than we are like Paul and Silas—hungry to see real integrity and self-sacrifice modeled, hungry to have something to believe in. Imagine the impact we could have if more of us were willing to turn away from the demands of our modern capitalism-obsessed society and toward our neighbors in need of help. Maybe we all need to experience the kind of conversion this jailer did.
What different choices can I make that might have a positive impact on those around me?
