Prisons and Death might not seem like chocolate and peanut butter in 2019, but in the ancient world the two go together quite well. Ancient prisons were not a good place to be. Our modern prisons are wonderful places compared to the ancient world. The Romans had no problem killing anyone who got in the way of… anything. There were no human rites. In Acts 16 we see that there were rights granted to Roman Citizens. Paul, who was a Roman citizen, at times took advantage of those rights.
In our movie clips we see a man walk into a building with the jailer and two Roman guards. The before and after is striking. What is also striking is the conscience shown by the jailer. Not all of the people in the ancient world were calloused and angry. Many were spiritual people feeling their way towards a relationship with some god.
Our church body does an incredible job with prison ministry. Not only is every pastor trained to go into a prison during his ministry, the WELS has an aggressive mail instructional system. Members of our church body correspond with convicts correcting their tests through the self-study course. All of the letters are screened during the process for the safety of the volunteers.
That brings us to the second topic – that of death. In the movie clip the jailer seems to be in great anguish over what seems to be a common criminal. We don’t know exactly what was in the jailer’s heart, of course, but from Acts 16 we can discern that he was worried about his spiritual life.
Want to hear more about prisons and the end of life? Watch this Sunday’s Bible study from our series, End of the Earth.
Please click HERE for the Bible class slides.
Please click HERE and HERE and HERE for the video clips.