The Importance Of Helpers To The Imprisoned Paul In The Book Of Acts -- By: Brian Mark Rapske

Journal: Tyndale Bulletin
Volume: TYNBUL 42:1 (NA 1991)
Article: The Importance Of Helpers To The Imprisoned Paul In The Book Of Acts
Author: Brian Mark Rapske


The Importance Of Helpers To The Imprisoned Paul In The Book Of Acts

Brian M. Rapske

1. Introduction

From Acts 21 to the end and encompassing a period well in excess of four years the apostle Paul was imprisoned. The peristasis catalogues of 2 Corinthians mention many other imprisonments (6:5; 11:23) in the period before Acts 20:2a.1 Of these, Luke records only Paul’s Philippian imprisonment (16:16-40; cf. 1 Thes. 2:2), passing over others in silence. Clearly Paul was frequently in confinement and for long periods of time. How did he cope?

It is unfortunate that this question, which presses for a practical answer, often draws a largely theological response, succumbs to triumphalist assertions concerning Paul’s indomitable spirit, or simply dies in the asking. Asked again, how practically speaking, did he cope? The answer is that Paul received help.

Admittedly, Luke does not dwell upon the helpers of the prisoner Paul or their helping activities to any great extent. But neither does he ignore them. It is the purpose of this paper to examine a few helpers and the help they render Paul in the book of Acts. When analyzed against the much fuller background of prison helpers and helping behaviours in the Greco-Roman world, these Lucan snippets yield some surprising and helpful insights.

2. Kinds Of Helpers

1. Friends, Disciples and Slaves: The virtue of helping a prisoner because of true friendship is mooted in a letter of Seneca, dated c. 63-5 AD. He argues there that friendships should not be made simply to mitigate or escape disasters such as imprisonment. ‘He

who regards himself only, and enters upon friendships for this reason, reckons wrongly’,2 writes Seneca. Rather, the true friend seeks out one ‘by whose sick-bed he himself may sit, someone a prisoner in hostile hands whom he himself may set free’.3

Some friends may be motivated to help the prisoner by what we might call affection. The emotionally depressed prisoner Publius Vitellius (31AD),4 the Jewish prince Agrippa (37 AD),5 and Antiphilus and Deinias in Lucian’s Toxaris (c. 163 AD),6 are attended by friends who show such self-disregarding affection.

The solidarity of friends with the prisoner sometimes has a political or ...

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