When the jailer woke and saw that the prison doors were open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, supposing that the prisoners had escaped. But Paul cried with a loud voice, “Do not harm yourself, for we are all here.”
Acts 16:27-28
Police in Los Alamos, New Mexico, burst through the door of a man suspected by his coworkers as a suicide risk amid the isolation and depression brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. But they were too late. The man had just taken his own life—and he’s not alone. Through the first seven months of 2020, the number of suicides in the small northern New Mexico town tripled the total for all of 2019. Similarly, suicides are up 13 percent in Chicago this year, and June suicide totals in Fresno, California, were 70 percent higher than the same month last year.[1] The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that a quarter of Americans between ages 18 and 24 say they have considered suicide in the past month because of the pandemic.[2] The sad suicide spike calls to mind another desperate situation 2,000 years ago, when God transformed a suicidal Philippian jailer into a joyful disciple.
Paul and Silas had been arrested for ruining the economic prospects of Roman slaveowners whose demon-possessed servant girl lost her satanic power to tell fortunes when Paul and Silas led her to faith in Christ (Acts 16:16-24). Roman magistrates instructed Philippi’s jailer to “keep them safely” (v. 24)—no small order for a Roman guard, for if the prisoners escaped, he could lose his life (cf. Acts 12:19). So when an earthquake threw open the prison door at midnight and unfastened their fetters (16:26), the jailer’s reaction was understandable: he drew his sword to kill himself and preempt his Roman punishment, assuming the prisoners had fled. Yet Paul intervened in the nick of time. “Do thyself no harm,” he said, “for we are all here” (16:28 KJV). The Greek word for “harm” (kakon) carries the connotation of “evil” or “perniciousness.”[3] And that’s precisely what the jailer’s despairing act of self-murder would have been. Thankfully, Paul and Silas pointed him to a better way.
In fact, the biblical text suggests God’s focus in bringing about the jailer’s moment of crisis was drawing him to salvation. Had securing Paul and Silas’ release been the earthquake’s purpose, God could have kept the jailer asleep. Likewise, He could have moved Paul and Silas to walk out the open door. However, the Lord left them in prison to call out the folly of the jailer’s self-focused despair. Humbled by the circumstances and God’s power, the jailer was ready to hear the message of salvation (16:29-30). Upon believing it, his despair turned to joyful service of his new brothers in Christ, washing their wounds and feeding them (16:33-34).
Throughout Scripture, moments of crisis placed other men and women at the same point of decision faced by the Philippian jailer. At times, they inclined toward self-destructive despair, as when Job’s wife advised him to curse God and die (Job 2:9), when Elijah wished for his own death as he fled the murderous Queen Jezebel (1 Kings 19:4), and when Judas committed suicide (Matt 27:5). On other occasions, they chose the path of faith and hope, as when Joseph remained faithful under affliction (Gen 37-50), Job trusted God amid agonizing loss, and Paul and Silas sang praises in jail (Acts 16:25).
As the COVID-19 pandemic sickens bodies, wipes out savings, and isolates people from their loved ones, contemporary men and women face a similar point of decision: despair or hope. Like Paul and Silas, we are called to watch for despairing friends and neighbors and remind them trial doesn’t have to be an occasion for self-destructive gloom. It can be the occasion for humility and saving trust in the Savior who endured loneliness and death so we don’t have to.
David Roach is editor of the BibleMesh blog.
[1] Sandhya Raman, “Pandemic’s Effects on Already Rising Suicide Rates Heightens Worry,” Anchorage Daily News, August 12, 2020, https://www.adn.com/nation-world/2020/08/11/pandemics-effect-on-already-rising-suicide-rates-heightens-worry/ (accessed August 13, 2020).
[2] Brianna Ehley, “CDC: One Quarter of Young Adults Contemplated Suicide During Pandemic,” Politico, August 13, 2020, https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/13/cdc-mental-health-pandemic-394832 (accessed August 13, 2020).
[3] A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (BDAG), Rev. and ed. Frederick William Danker (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), s.v. “kakos.”