Silas was Paul’s companion who was imprisoned with him at Philippi after they expelled a spirit from an enslaved fortune-telling girl.
In Acts 16, the girl’s owners became angry because the exorcism destroyed their source of profit. They dragged Paul and Silas before the city authorities, who had them beaten and placed in the inner prison with their feet secured in stocks.
Rather than treating the night as the end of their mission, Paul and Silas prayed and sang hymns. An earthquake then opened the prison doors and loosened the prisoners’ chains. The frightened jailer asked how to be saved, and the episode ends with his household being baptized.
Silas was also known as Silvanus and was a respected member of the Jerusalem church. He was chosen with Judas Barsabbas to carry the Jerusalem council’s decision to Antioch, later joined Paul’s missionary work, and helped establish churches in Macedonia and Greece. Luke’s presence in parts of Acts sometimes causes readers to confuse him with Silas, but Acts specifically names Paul and Silas in the prison scene.