Sent to Lydia – Acts 16:9-15

A text – Acts 16:9-15   

⁹ During the night Paul had a vision: there stood a man of Macedonia pleading with him and saying, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” ¹⁰ When he had seen the vision, we immediately tried to cross over to Macedonia, being convinced that God had called us to proclaim the good news to them.

¹¹ We therefore set sail from Troas and took a straight course to Samothrace, the following day to Neapolis, ¹² and from there to Philippi, which is a leading city of the district of Macedonia and a Roman colony. We remained in this city for some days. ¹³ On the Sabbath day we went outside the gate by the river, where we supposed there was a place of prayer, and we sat down and spoke to the women who had gathered there. ¹⁴ A certain woman named Lydia, a worshiper of God, was listening to us; she was from the city of Thyatira and a dealer in purple cloth. The Lord opened her heart to listen eagerly to what was said by Paul. ¹⁵ When she and her household were baptized, she urged us, saying, “If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come and stay at my home.” And she prevailed upon us.

A reflection:

Paul and Silas had been trying to get north and east up through what is now Turkey, but the Lord put roadblocks in their way. Then came Paul’s clear vision to go northwestward instead, across the Aegean Sea to Macedonia (what is now Northern Greece), Alexander the Great’s home province. Alexander and his father Philip II were long dead, and the Romans had taken over the region. Philippi was a big city, where the Roman military had fought the final battle of the civil war begun by Julius Caesar’s assassination. Rather than move all those soldiers elsewhere, the Empire settled them in that place. It was a bustling new-ish spot, so it probably did not have a synagogue, which is where Paul usually went first in a town. So he and Silas looked for a logical place where people might meet for prayer. They found the river.

They met Lydia, a foreigner herself who had come to set up business as a very high-end dyer of cloth. She already knew about and worshipped the Hebrew God. Paul found her ready to hear the good news, and she and her family asked to be baptized. There were no conditions placed upon her household, they were welcomed as believers right away, and so she in turn welcomed the two missionaries to stay with her. They were mutual strangers sharing faith and kindness and trust. Paul’s vision had been of a man calling to him, yet this successful woman became his first western convert and his base of operations in Philippi.   

If you have ever travelled somewhere brand new to you, either because you felt drawn to it, or because you believed something was going to happen there, you may know a little of what Paul and Silas may have felt. They had journeyed very far. They had come to a busy place without the usual landmarks. They found somewhere that felt right to them, and voilà, there was Lydia. It seems that God’s call brought them together. If you have ever made such a journey and found something there for you, did you attribute that discovery to God? Some folks wouldn’t. But the older I get, the more I’m certain that we are often being led to exactly where God wants us to be.

A prayer:

Lord God, Thank you for loving us. Thank you for bringing Paul to Macedonia to find Lydia of the purple cloth. Thank you for bringing us where you need us to go. Help us to remember that we are always receiving gifts from you, not just to build ourselves up but to serve you and your mission to the world you love. Amen.