Ever the optimist, Paul knew his God was in control, no matter what the circumstances. Prison was a mere stepping-stone to the progress of sharing the gospel. He got great mileage out of every experience. On a personal level, the apostle had learned that suffering was a means to spiritual growth (Romans 5:3-5). He had learned to live beyond his own life.

On the immediate level, his imprisonment gave unprecedented access to an otherwise unreached audience. Imagine being the soldiers assigned to guard Paul! It is commonly thought that imprisonment often involved Paul being chained to a guard. Talk about a captive audience! Word spread through the whole palace guard. This reminds me of a godly, old evangelist who often went snow skiing by himself, riding up the chairlift with a captive audience for the gospel!

Word had gotten around that Paul was not your usual prisoner. He continued to live out his mission when others would give in to overwhelming despair. He will extol more on this later in this letter.

But, there was a second and equally important benefit in his present incarceration. Other Christians were becoming emboldened to witness for Christ. Specifically, Paul’s imprisonment encouraged others to fearlessly “speak the word of God.” Why was this? They could see Paul’s example, that jail time was not an over-ruling experience; he didn’t give in to fear and despair. The apostle kept on mission; the message of the truth really was more important and more powerful than even prison. So others where strengthened in their resolve to keep on mission and not give way to fear.

Over the years Christians have been emboldened by the stories of God’s servants who suffered, yet never gave up the faith, even rejoicing in the midst of their sufferings. There is something about those tales that stirs up the spirit of the believer. A classic collection of such stories is “Foxe’s Book of Martyrs. A more recent one is, “Jesus Freaks.” Yet, a story of faith in the midst of struggle is no farther away than the nearby cancer hospital where a Christian may be dying, but sees his or her predicament as an assignment from God to help others in the hospital come to know the glory of Christ.