Silas

So when I read that, I'm like, okay, this is Paul's, probably it's known as his first letter that he wrote.

Now, the book of Acts chapter, I believe it's chapter 16, Paul and Silas take this young Timothy and they go into the second missionary journey.

And in that second missionary journey, they go to the church of Philippi first.

And this is a place where Lydia gets saved.

Then you have Paul and Silas are thrown in prison because he delivered the demon-possessed little girl.

So they throw him in the prison, and then a jailman gets saved.

So all of that is leading towards him making all this journey where Paul is planting churches and he's been kicked out because of persecution.

And people, the Bible says, are pierced to the heart.

In Acts 16, the Philippian jailer asked, what must I do to be saved? Paul and Silas tell him, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Throughout Acts, people respond in different circumstances, but the apostles proclaim the same essential gospel without relying on one rigid conversation script.

It's so important for us to know this because we treat a particular evangelism method almost as if though it were a biblical method.

And by the way, Thessalonica was a wealthy Roman trade hub, the capital of Macedonia.

And Paul and Silas had founded a community there during Paul's second missionary journey in Acts 17.

And he's writing to these people who are living in this wealthy place and they were being persecuted.

And he says to them, listen, you need to live at peace.

And by the way, Thessalonica was a wealthy Roman trade hub, the capital of Macedonia.

And Paul and Silas had founded a community there during Paul's second missionary journey in Acts 17.

And he's writing to these people who are living in this wealthy place and they were being persecuted.

And he says to them, listen, you need to live at peace.

Times of quiet make it a bit more easy to raise the mind and the heart to God, less distractions.

We hear in the Acts of the Apostles that around midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God.

And in St. Paul's first letter to Timothy, he describes the qualities of a widow who sets her hopes on God and continues in supplications and prayers night and day.

Of course, we do want to try to get sufficient rest, but also we're reminded to be generous when it comes to times of prayer.

The events we associate with the city of Philippi, you've got Lydia's conversion to Christianity and her being the first baptism on European soil.

the slave girl that was freed from a spirit of divination, Paul and Silas being beaten and imprisoned while they were there, you know, are tied to the form and marketplace of the area, not the theater itself.

So even so, it sits within the same archaeological site, you know, travelers are going to walk through it.

And it's a helpful visual for just how established and Roman this Macedonian city already was by the time Paul arrived, because, you know, As the Romans took all the territory from the Greeks, they turned it into Roman cities.

You've got a lot of Gentiles as well.

Paul clearly is with, you know, Barnabas at the beginning, Paul and Silas at the end, and they are ministering to Gentile upon Gentile upon Gentile.

You're right, Acts 15 says, look, just nothing sacrificed to an idol.

What are you doing? What are you doing? And Paul makes that very clear here, and he's saying...