The Inner Prison
Paul and Silas were in the city of Philippi. For many days, a girl kept following them and shouting, "These men are servants of the Most High God, who proclaim to us a way of salvation!"
Finally Paul turned and said to the spirit, "I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her!" And it came out that very hour.
But the girl’s masters had been making money from her fortune-telling. When they saw their hope of gain was gone, they seized Paul and Silas, dragged them before the rulers, and said these men were causing trouble in their city.
The crowd joined in against them. The magistrates ordered them beaten with rods. Then they threw them into prison and charged the jailer to keep them safely.
The jailer threw them into the inner prison and secured their feet in the stocks.
It was dark. It was cold. Their backs hurt from the beating, and they could not move their feet. There was nothing, in that cell, that looked like help.
Paul and Silas are in the deepest part of the prison, in the dark, with their feet locked in stocks. After everything that happened that day, there is no reason to think anyone is coming to help.
What do you think they would have felt? What would you do in that cell?
Turn the page and hear what happened around midnight.
About midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God. And the other prisoners were listening to them.
Not sleeping. Not crying. Listening. In the middle of the night, in a dark prison, they heard singing.
Suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken. At once all the doors were opened, and everyone’s bonds were unfastened.
The jailer woke up. When he saw the prison doors open, he thought the prisoners had all escaped. He drew his sword and was about to kill himself, because a jailer who lost his prisoners could pay for it with his life.
The earth shook. The doors opened. The chains came loose. And the jailer is about to do something terrible, because he thinks everyone escaped.
What happens next could go two very different ways. What do you think Paul does?
Turn the page.
Paul cried out with a loud voice, "Do not harm yourself, for we are all here!"
Never mind the open doors, never mind the unloosed chains. Nobody had run.
The jailer called for lights and rushed in, trembling. He fell down before Paul and Silas, brought them out, and asked, "Sirs, what must I do to be saved?"
They said, "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household."
They spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. That very hour of the night, the jailer washed their wounds, and he was baptized, he and all his household. Then he brought them into his house and set food before them, and rejoiced with all his family.
How to Talk About This Story With Your Child
This story has real tension: a beating, a dark inner cell, an earthquake in the night. For a child, keep the harder parts in scale: they were hurt and locked up, and the night was frightening, but the center of the story is the singing and the doors that opened.
The most surprising turn is not the earthquake. It is that nobody ran. All the doors were open, everyone’s chains were loose, and Paul stopped the jailer from harming himself with one sentence: "We are all here."
The hymn at midnight is the image a child can hold. You do not need to turn it into a lesson about always being happy. It is enough that two men in a dark, hurting place, with no reason to sing, sang anyway.
And the story quietly shows the kind of person they were: when the jailer was about to hurt himself, their first thought was to stop him.
Pray Together
You do not have to use these exact words. You can tell God what you think about the story in your own words. Or you can pray this together:
Thank You, God, for Paul and Silas, singing in the dark. Thank You that You are with people even in the deepest places, and that the doors You open cannot be stopped by a prison. Help us remember that You are near even when everything looks closed. Amen.
Paul and Silas were beaten, thrown into the inner prison, and locked in stocks. But about midnight they were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening.
Suddenly the earth shook, every door opened, and every chain came loose. The jailer woke in terror, but Paul called out, "Do not harm yourself, for we are all here!"
Then the jailer asked, "What must I do to be saved?" And he and his whole household put their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Continue your family Bible time with more free stories and activities from Little Faith Hands.