Expositor's Bible Commentary Commentary Acts 16:31

"And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus, and thou shalt be saved, thou and thy house." — Acts 16:31 (ASV)

What Paul and Silas gave the Philippian jailer was the same Christcentered Gospel that had been proclaimed since Pentecost: “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved—you and your household” (cf. 2:38–39; 3:19–26; 4:12; et al.). But since it was all new to the jailer, the missionaries took time to explain to him and the others of his household “the word of the Lord.” To judge by their actions, the jailer and his family believed in Christ and received the Holy Spirit. The jailer washed the wounds of Paul and Silas, probably at a well in the prison courtyard, and there too he and all his family were baptized. Then he brought the missionaries into his home and fed them. “And the whole family,” Luke tells us, “was filled with joy, because they had come to believe in God.”