The four holding cells under the courthouse were painted yellow with a stainless steel toilet and metal bench. They were pretty stark, but the yellow walls were almost entirely covered with graffiti. I have always enjoyed reading graffiti. Someday, I would love to travel the country, stopping at rest areas, truck stops, and underpasses to photo-document the nation’s best graffiti which I could then compile into a coffee table book or something.

I remember one day when I brought a suspect over to the courthouse I found the other three holding cells empty. To pass the time I wandered in and out of them reading the graffiti. It was unusually interesting stuff. What would you write on the wall of a holding cell if you were ever arrested? Nearly every square inch of the cells’ walls were covered with messages in which the authors poured out their hatred for police, their enemies, life, society, etc… They wrote funny little rhymes. They drew pictures. They claimed that Sgt. so and so was a “liar.”

In Acts 16 we read about two men, Paul and Silas, who were beaten and imprisoned under circumstances that were wildly unjust. If ever there were two prisoners who had motive to scrawl angry graffiti on the walls of a cell it was those two. However, as Acts 16:25 tells us, they spent their time in lock up not scratching bitter messages into the walls but rather, “praying and singing hymns to God.” Then comes one of the most surprising and exciting twists in all of the accounts that we have studied thus far.

Listen in as we study the amazing story of how a Philippian Jailer was set free by his prisoners.