Philip Schaff's Popular Commentary (4 vols)

Acts 16:31

Acts 16:31. And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house. The question of the jailor evidently implies that he was acquainted in some measure with the general purport of the preaching of Paul and his companions; indeed, his question seems to re-echo the monotonous burden of the poor demoniac girl's constant cry though the streets of Philippi during the ‘many days:' ‘ These men art the servants of the most high God, and they proclaim to you the way of salvation' (see Acts 16:17). The Roman official now in his great fear and consternation asks these men, who he feels are servants of the most high God, to tell him what he must do to find the way of salvation. They reply to him by telling him at once of One, even the Lord Jesus, in whom alone there is salvation. They demand from him, if he would indeed be saved, ‘a faith of which His Person is the object nothing more than faith, nothing less (fide sold, we must remember, was ever the watchword of the Apostle Paul);' and then the meaning of faith in Jesus was explained, and the gospel was preached to the jailor's family at midnight, while the prisoners were silent around, and the light was thrown on anxious faces and the dungeon wall; and this Roman, who believed from that hour with all his heart, showed his faith by rendering all the services to these persecuted servants which gratitude and adoring love to their Master could suggest. There is a brief but remarkable comment of Alford's on Paul's answer to the Philippian jailor's question as to how he should be saved: ‘We may remark, in the face of all attempts to establish a development of St. Paul's doctrine according to mere external circumstances, that this reply, “Faith in Jesus only can save,” was given before any one of his extant epistles was written.'

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Philip Schaff's Popular Commentary (4 vols)

Acts 16:31

Old Testament

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