Acts 16 Footnotes

16:15 Household baptisms are mentioned in Ac 11:14 and 18:8; what they involved is unknown. Probably the household leader believed and other members (adults and servants) responded similarly.

16:17-18 The demonic spirit actually spoke truth through the girl, but its incessant and distracting manner led Paul to cast out the demon.

16:21 Practicing various religions was not in itself illegal in the empire, but the Romans greatly feared civil disturbances. Any unrest was usually severely crushed.

16:27 If their prisoners escaped, Roman guards would likely pay the same penalty assigned their prisoners.

16:35 Some speculate that since the magistrates showed no awareness of either the earthquake or the jailer’s conversion, v. 35 naturally follows immediately after twenty-four. The intervening verses are therefore considered a later insertion from a body of mythological literature involving natural phenomena. However, this argument comes from silence. The magistrates’ action to release Paul and Silas may well have been in response to the earthquake and its consequences.

16:37 Paul’s Roman citizenship is first mentioned here (22:25-29; 23:27; 25:11), though understandably not in his letters since Paul only invoked it at places where his legal rights were threatened and due process was ignored. Paul’s citizenship was probably registered in Tarsus, but citizens also often carried small wooden tablets equivalent to passports (some of which have been found) to prove their identification. Paul may well have carried such a document, producing it at key times.