It couldn’t get a whole lot worse. For the “crime” of practicing Christian healing in accordance with the teachings of Christ Jesus, and in the presence of a violent mob, they’d been arrested, beaten, and thrown into an inner dungeon, where their feet were locked into stocks. These weren’t characters in a fictional adventure story. Paul and Silas, the two early Christians going through this extreme experience, were real people. 

The Bible reports that their response was to pray and praise God. As a result of their prayer, not only were they freed from the prison, but the jailor and his family readily accepted Christianity (see Acts 16:16–34). The story is a wonderful example of the power of Christ, the true idea of God, to heal and save each one of us.

Putting ourselves in their shoes, we might ask how we would have dealt with this situation. Would we have had the capacity to do the same? Yes!