King Encounters Prince

Acts 16:16 is the beginning of a set of power encounters between Yahweh and a principality called “python” (Strong’s NT4436)  that was given power by humans over the area of Delphi.

Paul & company launched a congregation in the home of newly converted Lydia. Paul cast a demon from python out of a girl who was being used as a slave to make money from spells and telling fortunes (Strong’s NT3132). This public display of power over a semi-local “deity” caused the local principality to move first in the slave’s owners, then a “multitude,” then the magistrates, who commanded their subordinates to beat Paul and Silas, and finally the local jailer, who chained and stocked them as an on-going torture.

Paul and Silas responded to the on-going opportunity to display Yahweh’s power by praising His name loudly through the night. Yahweh responded to the on-going praise by shaking the prison until all of the prisoners were freed. The next group to experience freedom during the shift of power was the jailer and his family.

The magistrates, having discovered that they had been frenzied into an illegal public beating of two Romans who had not been tried for a crime, tried to quietly release them from the jail. Paul demanded that instead, they publicly escort them through the streets of the city to Lydia’s home. They submitted to the King and did so.

The letter to the saints in Christ Jesus in Philippi, with the overseers and servants (Philippians), was written later by Paul to the congregation that grew in this freshly plowed and planted soil. It is worth a fresh read with this history in mind.