Acts 16:37

37-39. To be thus released from prison, as though they had simply suffered the penalty due them, would be a suspicious circumstance to follow the missionaries to other cities; and, fortunately, the means of escaping it were at hand. (37) "But Paul said to them, They have beaten us publicly, uncondemned, being Romans, and have cast us into prison; and do they now cast us out privately? No. But let them come themselves, and lead us out. (38) The officers told these words to the magistrates, and when they heard that they were Romans, they were alarmed. (39) And they came, and entreated them, and led them out, and asked them to depart out of the city." If the fact of their having been scourged and imprisoned should follow them to other cities, it would do them no harm, provided it were also known that the magistrates had acknowledged the injustice done them, by going in person to the prison, and giving them an honorable discharge.

As it was a capital crime, under the Roman law, to scourge a Roman citizen, and Paul and Silas both enjoyed the rights of citizenship, they had the magistrates in their power, and could dictate terms to them. The terms were promptly complied with; for men who can be induced to pervert justice by the clamor of an unthinking mob will nearly always prove cowardly and sycophantic when their crimes are exposed, and justice is likely to overtake them. By making complaint to the proper authorities, Paul might have procured their punishment; but he had been taught not to resent evil, and was himself in the habit of teaching his brethren. "Avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath; for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord." His conduct, on this occasion, happily illustrates this precept. If he had appealed to the Roman authorities for the punishment of his tormenters, he would have been avenging himself in the most effectual method. But to yield, as he did, this privilege, was to leave vengeance in the hands of God, to whom it belongs. By this course Paul gained the approbation of God, and the admiration of posterity, while justice lost nothing; for the unresenting demeanor of the apostle "heaped coals of fire on their heads," and the Judge of all the earth held their deeds in remembrance. The incidents justifies Christians in making use of civil laws to protect themselves, but not to inflict punishment on their enemies.