Rights, Redemption, and Reconciliation | Disruptive Presence 86

Hi and welcome to the Two Texts podcast. I'm here with my co-host, john Andrews, and my name is David Harvey. This is a podcast of two friends from two different countries meeting every two weeks to talk about the Bible. Each week, we pick one text to talk about, which invariably leads us to talking about two texts and often many more. This season we're taking a long, slow journey through the book of Acts to explore how the first Christians encountered the disruptive presence of the Holy Spirit.

Well, david, we have been spending quite a few of our podcasts recently in the dark or in the prison with the jailer, paul and Silas, and the low lights were eventually brought and the wonderful light of the gospel shone into the life of the jailer and his household. The daylight is approaching, so a lot has happened in the darkness from midnight to this incredible moment of daylight. I don't know how many podcasts we've spent in the midnight to daylight hours, but it's been absolutely fascinating conversation. But, of course, this episode with the jailer is coming to an end and now we get the daylight approaching and there is a fascinating sort of end to this episode right at the end of Acts, chapter 16, which I think we're going to try and reflect on a little bit today.

I was thinking to myself how we title this episode, because it's like the morning after the night before. What happens in Philippi doesn't stay in Philippi.

Absolutely, absolutely Ignore great stuff. So are you going to read for us from verse 35 to the end of the chapter?

I am going to read verse 35, and even how verse 35 begins, it sounds like Luke is thinking about the title as well of this section. It says so let me read this to the end of chapter 16. When morning came, the magistrates sent the police saying let those men go. And the jailer reported the message to Paul saying the magistrates sent word to let you go. Therefore, come out now and go in peace. But Paul replied they have beaten us in public, uncondemned men who are Roman citizens and have thrown us into prison, and now they're going to discharge us in secret. Certainly not Let them come and take us out themselves. The police reported these words to the magistrates and they were afraid when they heard that they were Roman citizens. So they came and apologized to them and they took them out and asked them to leave the city. After leaving the prison they went to Lydia's home and when they had seen and encouraged the brothers and sisters there, then they departed.

Yeah, then they left. They left on the wrong terms.

Absolutely. I mean, goodness, what a fascinating little exchange that I am relatively confident most of us wouldn't have had the confidence to navigate.

Yes, you gotta love Paul really, haven't you? You sort of think, my goodness, the man had serious courage in that moment. Most of us would have just gone. Oh yeah, thank you, We'll take that. We're off, we're out, and Paul goes. Nah, hold on a minute, hold on a minute.

Serious injustice has been done here. Oh and, by the way, we're Roman citizens and of course, that is the hand grenade to get dropped right in the middle of that conversation, because everybody who's been involved here will have realized that, oh, we have whipped and beaten and placed Roman citizens in prison without proper hearing and trial, which a Roman citizen was absolutely entitled to. This was one of the glorious protective rights of a Roman. So Paul and Silas have definitely been treated appallingly, but Paul is not behind the door on this issue, as my granny would have said. Paul did not miss and hit the wall. He absolutely nails this. He says nah, nah, we're not leaving quietly, Get the pumpkin down here and the scored us out, and then you get a really wonderful change in language in terms of that experience. So it's quite humorous. After all the sort of extremity that we've seen just before, this is quite a humorous and glorious little moment.

Yeah, it's a complex moment as well, because it's funny. But I actually think as we scratch around in this we'll find there's I mean, there's narratives of justice running around in this as well, isn't there? There's, I mean, it's hilarious at some level to us as modern readers, because there's like so many questions Like why wait till now to bring up the Roman citizenship? Like did that not occur to you to raise that question? It's like I don't know if you've ever played Monopoly with somebody that didn't really know what they were doing. And after three you know, turns in jail, they go oh, I have a jail free card. You're like why didn't you use that right at the start? There's a level of which we're kind of confused, I think, by this story, aren't we? It's shocking in a sort of strange way.

I don't know if that makes sense. I find myself perplexed by the story.

Yeah, absolutely for sure, and I think. I think that you get. You get the drama of the story in the way it's presented, right at the end and and and sort of built up but did but did. Also, I think there is a sense in which, at a deeper level, paul and Silas are both saying look though, we are followers of Jesus and we would accuse of things, we're also loyal citizens of Rome, we're also good citizens of Rome. And there's a sense in which, actually, we're seeing the Christian gospel positioned very positively in terms of even cultural and social responsibility within this moment.

So paul paul isn't doing anything that he wouldn't be allowed to do. He's not like he's making unnecessary trouble or he is being awkward or difficult. He is operating within the rights of the roman citizen and positioning, I think, with that the sort of sense that we, as followers of Jesus and the citizens of particular countries or cultures, have every right to, to, to see our faith as part of that context and also enjoy the privileges of that context if they're afforded to us. So he's a roman citizen that is enjoying, or should be allowed to enjoy, the freedoms that he has, but he's also expressing that as a follower of Jesus and I think those ideas are important for us.

The machine together of both his political, if you like identity that's too strong a word on his faith confession and paul pulls both of these together in a quite a dramatic way. I think that's helpful for us in the 21st century. That, as a follower of Jesus, it doesn't mean that I am mute to injustice. As a follower of Jesus, it doesn't mean I need to keep my mouth shut because this is nothing to do with me. But as a follower of Jesus, I also how both the rights and responsibilities to speak up and act in certain ways that expose injustice when that is appropriate To do so. I think that's a helpful, helpful little reminder there.

I think it's. I think it's profound. I mean, we talked about it in the last episode that we're hearing echoes of Zechariah song and Mary song, and, and these, these songs are bigger than just what's going to happen to us when we die. Right, which is one of the great shames, I think, of the gospel is that we've allowed it to be diluted down to simply that, whereas what we've seen throughout Luke is the gospel and and in acts as well. But Luke's whole double part story is the gospel changes life. It doesn't, it's the people are. I mean, we've had Barnabas selling property where we're caring for the poor, and here we have two people wrongly imprisoned and Paul is almost announcing that for the gospel to do his work, this sort of thing has to stop happening. So I think you're absolutely right there Now, but what they're doing is just fascinating. It's because of their discipleship as Jesus followers that they're activating the Roman citizenship. Not, I don't think, actually simply for their own sake. I think because of the injustice that we're going to do. We're going to shine light onto an injustice here, and I have to think about this text when I think of people that work in prison, ministries or the. I don't know if you've read the book and the names escaping me of an amazing author, just mercy, and he is a he's a lawyer in the US like that could look up the book at some point and he basically defends people who are who are in very questionable situations in terms of their imprisonment, people who are impoverished, who haven't been able to afford proper legal cover and have ended up unjustly imprisoned. And this top lawyer who has offered amazing, amazing opportunities where it could have become very, very wealthy instead runs this, this charitable law firm now working with the cases that nobody else wants to take because they're not worth it, like I whenever hear Brian Stevenson that's his name. He spoke at Alpha Conference a few years ago, his Ted talk His Ted talk is worth looking up if anyone's listening to, really, and his book, just Mercy, which has also been made into a film as well. So there's multiple ways to engage with Brian Stevenson story. Please, please do. I would say to people you would love the film John as well, like I know you well enough to know that, but but he he is essentially enacting exactly this that there's there's a call for the gospel to live out a real life justice, and I think this is what I love about what Paul's doing here is the.

In terms of my research into the New Testament, there's honor and shame dynamics here.

You have shamed us so you've taken something from us, so you're not just going to sneak us out the back door, you're going to give us back the honor that you took from us. Right, and you know, strip us and beat us in public and then shuffle us out the back, because what that leaves in the public impression and we see this all the time, don't we Newspapers print a headline story and then the retraction gets printed on page four in small letters down in the corner, and it's like I often feel like. No, if you print a story that's damaging the, the retraction should be in the same low, it should be in the same location as as, as, as the, as the headline was. But of course, nobody wants to do that. So we're seeing that the justice that Paul asks for is still not happening in the modern world. Right, we still prefer that when we've made a mistake and shamed somebody, and we'll just, we'll just let it pass, they'll blow over after a while. Does that resonate with you?

Yeah, oh, it does, it totally does. And I think I think for Paul and Silas there's a personal and a corporate level to this yes Response. I think at a personal level, they have. As individuals, they have suffered greatly. I mean, when you look at what they've gone through, it's pretty horrific and the details there in X, chapter 16 for all of us to see. So there's a sense of which, personally, hold on, we're Roman citizens, you haven't treated us right. This is not acceptable.

But of course, I think at a corporate level, he's also representing the wider church. He's saying that actually this is probably going to be a conversation. It's going to take place over and over and over again for the church and the church when it does its work, when it does the work of the gospel, when it brings the kingdom into the marketplace. We're probably going to see more examples of this type of flash point. And actually we are not trying to undermine Rome, we are simply bringing the kingdom of God and therefore we should be afforded the protection under Roman law to be able to do that. And again, he's speaking up on behalf of those who other brothers and sisters, other other people of faith who will die and perish or be or suffer because of, because of their stats of faith. I think it's a very courageous moment. It's very typical, it seems very typically Paul, you know what I mean. I'm not going quietly, you are going to escort me out, you are going to apologize and you're going to do this right. And I do love your. I do love your comment, david, that this is not a backdoor scenario. I like that.

I think one of the things, even for the church, let alone society, that is often absent, is a proper sense at times of facing up to what we've done and a proper sense of restitutional behaviour that actually helps restore those who have been hurt, but doing it in a way that is honourable and equivalent to the way they were treated to begin with. I think that's an important idea and I think sometimes we have to have the courage to say and this is another conversation, a difficult one but sometimes we have to have the courage to say, no, I'm not going out the back door. If you want me out here, you've got to put me out the front door, because actually there's something deeper at stake here, for the honour and glory of God. I think we, as followers of Jesus certainly let me speak for myself.

If I'd have been Paul, I'd have probably just taken it on the chin and said, yeah, thanks very much, and left because you're going right. I don't want to stir up any more trouble, but again, this is credit to Paul. Inside us, I think they're seeing a much bigger picture here and I think they're standing up for something that is of greater importance and influence and even their personal safety or personal reputation. So it's a very powerful moment, I think.

I wondered about how the unwillingness to apologise publicly might be evidence of unrepentance. So I do wrong to you, for example, and then you call me on it and eventually I just go okay, john, you were right, but let's just let it go now. It's quite easy to not actually be fully repentant but to print the front page headline saying hey, by the way, last week's front page headline was wrong and we harmed someone is to say if I saw a newspaper say two weeks ago we printed a story that turns out was mistaken and it was our headline story. So this week the headline story is we're sorry. I would say, my goodness, that newspaper is sorry because they have given the prime, expensive space to saying we're sorry what we did. When I see it hidden away in a background, what it tells me is you're not really sorry because you don't really want anyone to know that you were wrong. If I saw a newspaper do that, it probably would win me as a customer because I'd probably go my goodness, these are good people. There's a good people behind this.

It's quite interesting where Willie Jennings references. He draws a parallel which is a gorgeous story that I didn't know about that. He says that this story reminds him of a story around Nelson Mandela's life. Let me just read it, because this is how Mandela tells the story is that FW DeClerc, who was president of South Africa at the time, informs Mandela I didn't realize this informs Mandela the night before that he's going to be released from prison the next day. But after all those years in prison he got less than 24 hours notice that, oh, you're getting out, right? Declerc told Mandela that he'd be flown to Johannesburg and then released there. His quick release after decades of unjust imprisonment would be for the expediency of the government.

Then Jennings says Mandela had a different vision for his future. This now is Mandela's own words. He says I told him that's DeClerc that I strongly objected to that. I wanted to walk out of the gates of Victor Vester that was his prison and be able to thank those who looked after me and greet the people of Cape Town. Though I was from Cape Town, from Johannesburg sorry, cape Town had been my home for nearly three decades I would make my way back to Johannesburg, but when I chose to, not when the government wanted me to Once I am free, I said I will look after myself.

So you see this little sense of the same pattern is wait a minute. You very publicly held me in here for 30 years. You're not sneaking me out the back door, but I love Mandela's sense of and I want to thank the people who looked after me. It's powerful.

And it's strange that his actions, parallel to Paul and Silas' actions, then gloriously and courageously hold people to account. So what should happen, of course, is that the magistrates should realise okay, we've put two men that shouldn't be in there, we've given them a beating and we shouldn't have done that. That's good, down and sort this out. But they're never going to do that. So, for whatever reason, they wake up the next day and they just want these guys out of the prison and sort of okay, let them go. So, which seems to suggest that they did not have any agreement with the types of charges that were being brought against. Yes, and the fact that they're actually releasing them without any conversation, without any charge, without any further repercussions, sort of points to the fact that these guys probably, deep down, know these two men have sort of been at the wrong end of a mob. But who wants to stand up against the mob? But Paul and Silas' reaction forces them to be held to account and actually, again, there are moments in history, moments in society, moments within our faith journey, where the courage of standing up and saying no is to say to those who wounded us or who did what they shouldn't have done. Actually, you need to face up to some measure of accountability, acceptance and even, if necessary, restitutional or reconcilatory behavior that actually says, okay, we are deeply sorry. And ultimately it's back to a little bit of a confession we had on our last podcast, david, where we talked about orthodoxy and orthopraxy. At the end of the day, anybody can say sorry, but that doesn't mean anything if our actions aren't following up with actually, yes, I am sorry. Oh, and, by the way, the some of the stuff I did, I really need to somehow address it, I need to somehow fix it.

We rarely as a church community, engage in any sort of restitutional conversation because we believe in the power of forgiveness, and rightly so, and rightly so. We believe in the power of confession and we believe in the power of forgiveness and thank God for such truth. The danger is we just say, well, because I am forgiven, that's it over, I don't need to think about that anymore. And in maybe 90% of the issues that we're seeking forgiveness on, that's true, but there may be some issues where actually hold on, I can't just accept forgiveness and forget about that. I did something, I said something, I behaved in a way that has brought deep hurt to my world. Therefore, if I truly believe I am forgiven, I should be prepared to make some sort of restitutional action. Whether it be verbal, or whether it be material or physical, it says no, I really am sorry and I need to say that publicly.

It strikes me that I've heard people say this over the years, and the more I read about it, the more I believe it's true that many of us, as Christians, would do well to engage in the literature of recovery programs Like, if you, I mean the most famous being something like Alcoholics Anonymous. Right, you don't get to deny the truth in those spaces.

So if you think I mean then this is made famous by movies and TV shows and stuff like that. But you'll notice how people hi, I'm David and I'm a and then we confess whatever the addiction is we're struggling with, because these programs know and forgive me, I'm not the therapist that can explain this properly but these programs know that that confession is powerful Because it brings me to alignment with what's actually going on in me. But then if you actually follow through most of these kind of 12 step type programs confession, forgiveness and reconciliation are huge parts of these programs. Putting things right.

There's people I have to go and address and I think you're absolutely right that that one of the problems in the contemporary church context is forgiveness is essentially synonymous with sweeping it under the carpet. It's that and actually ironically, I'd say, when we treat forgiveness like that, it's because we don't actually believe in forgiveness. To me, what's stunning about what Christ invites us to in forgiveness is, for I think about James and the confessing our sins to one another and Jesus his proclamation to the disciples that they can forgive one another. Think about the notion of a community where you can share with appropriate. I mean, these are not public confessions, right? You don't want to be just not everybody's in the same space, but think about the power let's just talk about it as two church leaders for a second of somebody being able to say they're worse to you, knowing that your grasp and forgiveness is so strong that you will not treat them differently as a result of hearing the worst thing about them. Rather, what you'll do is partner with them so that they can encounter forgiveness and they can put things right that need to be put right.

But the reason most of us, the reason that I don't want to tell some people the worst things about myself, is because I know they'll immediately treat me differently and therefore this is not a forgiving community, because a forgiving community has to be able to say well, david, the fact that you stole those things from those people, that's pretty bad, so, but we're going to journey with you and getting that stuff back to those people and apologizing to those people, but we're not going to.

It's not all of a sudden. Oh, and when David comes around, make sure you lock away all the jewelry, right? Yeah, and one of the great failings I think in the contemporary context and why we brush things under the carpet, is because we're actually not forgiving we actually do hold. We live in this world of permanent internet presence, and so the moment anybody gets promoted to a particular public role nowadays, we trawl the last 20 years of their social media to see if they ever did anything that we don't like, and then we smear them with it. I mean, maybe I'm ranting, john, so forgive me if I am, but I think there's something powerful in true forgiveness. It says we have to be able to hear restore, plot a path to reconciliation and then hold that person in safety alongside them. Does that make sense?

That makes amazing sense, and I was just thinking. Think of the impact that we'd have on the reputation of the gospel. So if you have a good news message that is not only proclaiming to people, you can be forgiven and forgive my language, have a reset life, become a new creation in Christ and get to start all over again in Jesus' sort of language. That's what a message that is. That's magnificent. But imagine if we added to that in a discipleship context on by the way, where it is both appropriate, practical and profitable, we will be encouraging that those who come to faith in Christ, having received forgiveness, will do all that they can to address the wrongs in their world. Now again, all of this in care.

But imagine, let's go back to your stealing analogy. Imagine if you confess to me, I stole something from my next door neighbour and I say to you David, listen, in Christ you've confessed, you're forgiven and thank God for his mercy. If we confess our sin, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sin and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. John says that's marvelous. But then imagine if I said now listen, as we journey together in faith in Christ, we've got to think about getting that money or getting that thing or restoring what we stole, what you stole. That's an important part. Now, imagine if then, at some point, you were able to go to that neighbour and say, please forgive me, I stole this from you, but I have returned it.

Now, I know these are difficult scenarios, but imagine the impact, potentially, of that type of behaviour. Now there are extreme examples that we're talking about, but imagine if that mentality was much more part of what we do. That actually this is a sort of a conversation that needs to be part of any forgiveness conversation. It won't have to be part of every conversation, but it should be in the mix. I think the reputation of the community of faith, the reputation of the Gospel, would skyrocket. There are risks, of course, there would be pain, of course, there will be difficulty, of course, but I think the reputation of the Gospel would go into a higher level. In the same way that you said, if a newspaper printed a retraction on the front page, you would likely buy the paper or become a fan of that paper. It's the same, I think, with the Gospel.

There's probably a caveat that we should say. I think people will know. It's enough to know what we're not saying, but let's just say it anyway. One of the reasons that I really like the narrative around recovery programmes is there's also a confession of our spaces of weakness. So forgiveness can't be used as an excuse for continued abuse, for example. So if somebody is committing harm to another person, forgiveness doesn't look like continuing to allow that person to inflict harm upon you. I think that's really important.

When forgiveness is used and it has been used in the church, where abusive marriages have been kept together because, well, you need to forgive, and that's not good or godly I don't think that's not right. But there's also what I love about recovery programmes is you're forgiven, you're restored and nobody's response and forgive me if this is insensitive, but I mean nobody's response is right. Let's all go to the pub then and celebrate, because there's also a confession that actually here's an area that I have weakness. And the forgiveness of the church is to say we forgive you, we welcome you, we will not hold it against you, but we'll also remember that these are not healthy spaces for you and we now will not go to those spaces with you because we want to keep you in a place of grace and forgiveness. And I think sometimes we overplay the forgetting and it becomes sweeping under the carpet and then starts to recycle circuits of harm. So maybe the person that comes to you we're not going to treat them differently because of their stealing, but maybe we're going to journey with them to go what is this stealing about? And maybe you're not the treasurer while we're working this out with you, not because we distrust you, but because we don't want you to put you in the place that you've admitted. This is where you're weak, but then maybe one day you're restored and actually you are able to be the treasurer. I mean, I want to hold out hope for that, but I think there's a wisdom to this that goes on and it's even like even in this text we're talking about.

It struck me that the police reported the words to the magistrates. The magistrates were afraid when they heard that they were Roman citizens. So let's just, this narrative is so deep, I think that Luke's giving us about forgiveness here. So the magistrates aren't apologizing because they've wrongly beat up Paul and Silas. They're apologizing because they've realized we could get in trouble for this, and so Paul holds them to, it gets the apology, but I don't think Paul's lost on the fact that actually this apology isn't really an apology for what's been done.

And that's the narrative that I think where the wisdom comes in that too often the bringing to things to apology are only because we're about to get caught. I think you'll know that you've got a safe forgiving community when people are confessing things that actually they were never going to get caught for, stuff that they got away with. When somebody comes to you and says 20 years ago I stole something from my neighbor, they think you're a forgiving person because they're not getting caught for that, but they've still felt that they need to address it with you and they trust you to help you. Maybe I'm over egging the pudding, but I think this, I think that's an important point.

I think it's a very important point and and again it shows the contrast here that as far as Paul and Silas are concerned, they're dealing with a bunch of people who will live pragmatically, who will have a situational ethic, who will do whatever is convenient at the time to help them survive a particular moment.

And that's one level of behavior.

But of course we as the church community, we as followers of Jesus, don't want to fall into those traps of behavior.

We don't want to be like the world around us.

We want to hold ourselves to a deeper and greater sense of an understanding of what forgiveness actually is. And we're necessary and we're appropriate Hold some of those things to account, both within us and beyond us, to our world. And again, as I say, it's appropriate. It won't always be required, but again, for many of us within the church it will require a more robust understanding of what it means to forgive, a more robust understanding of accountability and potentially a more robust understanding of things like restitution and, as it were, making things right to the extent that people can move forward and the reputation of the gospel is not damaged. I think this moment is a clash of cultures and I think Paul is doing things at a personal level because he's been hurt. At a corporate level, representing the church, but also challenging the mentalities and behaviors of a secular system in a secular state that actually needs to be brought into the light and held to account by the light itself in terms of their treatment of its citizens and their approach to those citizens.

And that's kind of one of the reasons why I love that final verse of the passage. They took them out and asked them to leave the city, and they don't. Luke makes no real mention. He just says they went to Lydia's home and made sure that they did what they'd come to do. So you do get the sense of Paul's holding this injustice.

So you've not really properly apologized to us here. You're still trying to maintain while sneak out the back door okay, we'll apologize because we don't want to get in trouble, but just leave. Just go now, because then you'll be forgotten. It's the retraction, almost it's a page for apology. And what you see in allusion to all of these theological statements that we've seen throughout Luke and Acts, is the gospel, where we work on the gospel's terms. So, nope, we're going to go back to Lydia's house where we started. We're going to encourage them and then we're going to head off on our mission. But there's almost a sense of and we're only heading off on our mission because it's our mission, not because you told us to leave, absolutely.

No, absolutely right. And I have to say I think verse 40 is a magnificent sort of it's almost regarded as a post script to the story and yet I think it's a magnificent finisher, where you get this lovely idea that they leave the prison and you get the feeling they're leaving it more on their own terms than the terms of the magistrates. And then look at this they've just had a night like the night we've described and the first thing they do is go to the household of Lydia, where the church, the ecclesia, is gathering, and they encourage the brothers and sisters. And then it says and then I love this then they leave. If you look at that beautiful text, literally in the Greek, it tops and tails with the same word. It's the idea that they left the prison and then they leave Philippi. But, as I've sometimes reflected, they leave the prison better than they found it, they leave the church better than they found them. And there's this gorgeous idea, the symmetry of leaving, and in both leavings they've left it better. And I just think it's a remarkable again, testimony to the belief system of Paul and Silas and to the behavior of Paul and Silas, is that they don't just leave, but they go to the house where the believers are and make sure that the believers are encouraged before they leave. And it's remarkable, paul and Silas encourage them.

It's not that the church I'm sure the church did encourage them, but actually the only thing that Luke records is they encouraged them. Then they left and I'm going. My goodness, these men have just had 12 to 14 hours of serious harassment and pain and difficult. They get out of prison. They've just experienced a pragmatic, political brush off and yet they're not discouraged themselves. They go to the house of Lydia and they say, hey, we're here to bless you, we're here to encourage you, and then, when we've done that, then we'll leave and we'll go to where we need to go. And I love, I love the glorious resistance and stubbornness of that, that we are going to do what we believe we should do and no one's gonna tell us we can't do it. And Paul goes there and encourages it, because that's what we do. We encourage one another. Just love it.

So you need to say, john, that when you've been beat up and imprisoned, you don't feel encouraging afterwards.

It's so true. It's so true, my goodness, that we do see the impact of the gospel in in these people's life like that and and they head out. And perhaps the interesting post script is that the letter that Paul then sends later to this church suggests that this church is doing really, really well and there's a lot of joy there, absolutely. So that's it for this episode. We know that there's always more to explore and we encourage you to dive into the text and do that. If you liked this episode, we'd really appreciate it if you rated, reviewed or shared it. We also appreciate all of our listeners who financially support the show, sharing the weight of producing this podcast. If you'd like to support the show, visit to textscom. But that is all for now, so until next time from John and I, goodbye.