STUDY THEME: GODLY WOMEN OF DEVOTION. 5-21-06.
“LYDIA: WILLING SERVICE.” ACTS 16: 11-40; PHIL. 1: 1-11.
ACTS 16: 11-15, 40; PHILLIPIANS 1: 3-8, 9-11.
PLEASE OPEN YOU BIBLE TO ACTS 16.
We begin today’s lesson on rather a sad note. Paul had so enjoyed his first mission trip to Asia Minor with his companion Barnabas, the encourager. He was a bit put out when John Mark turned back and went home when they reached the swamps of Pamphylia. The planting of new churches in Asia Minor was rewarding.
In Acts 15:36 in A.D. 49 Paul said to Barnabas, “Let’s go again and visit our brethren in every city where we have preached the word of the Lord, and see how they do”. Barnabas was ready and determined to take his nephew John Mark; “But Paul thought it not good to take him.” So Barnabas took Mark and sailed unto Cyprus. Paul chose Silas and walked to Asia Minor. In Lystra he gained a disciple named Timothy.
Having visited the churches in Asia Minor they had planted on the first mission journey, Paul wanted to preach in procounsular Asia but became too ill to go on. It was necessary to take a different direction so he went to Galatia, and preached there.
Paul next felt the lure of Bithynia, and he would go there. But, no, he must go west. The Spirit forbade him preaching in Asia. The Spirit of Jesus drove him toward Troas. Paul had learned that it was better to go to Troas with God, than anywhere else with out Him.
It was in Troas, while awaiting direction as to which way to go, that Paul had a vision of a man inviting him to come to Macedonia in Europe.
PLEASE READ ACTS 16: 11-15.
The voyage from Troas to Philippi took only two days because the wind was with them. Paul, Timothy and Luke arrived in Philippi about 20 years after the founding of the Church of Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost. The primary reason Paul went to Philippi was because it was the leading city of that district of Macedonia.
Paul’s time in Philippi was not long---he only stayed in that city for a number of days.
But what he accomplished during that time was significant. Up to this point Paul’s practice had always been to go to the local synagogue first to share the gospel. The fact that Paul went outside the city gate by the river is telling.
Rabbinic practice required a minimum of 10 men in order to constitute a synagogue, but Philippi was primarily a military town, so the number of Jews there was small. The river outside Philippi is the Gangites River, and perhaps Paul and his group had heard there was a group who met there to worship.
They went to the river because they thought there was a place of prayer. This would be the closest thing to a synagogue that Paul and his companions could find.
What they found was a group of women…who worshipped God. This was a technical expression for devout Gentiles who had not fully converted to Judaism. Lydia----and we can assume the women with her---believed in the covenant God of Israel and were devoted only to Him, even though they had not fully immersed themselves in Judaism.
Jewish places of prayer were found through out all these cities, where no synagogues were built.
That Paul would speak is an arresting fact. Paul was a Pharisse who through the long years of his early life had daily repeated such words as these: “O God, I thank Thee that I am neither Gentile, nor slave, nor woman.” Later Paul wrote, “In Christ there is neither Jew nor Gentile, bond or free, male nor female,” thus contradicting the false view of the thanksgiving that had passed his lips for years. He now abandoned the Jewish and Pharisec contempt for a woman.
Lydia was originally from the city of Thyatira, which had a large Jewish community. It was perhaps through their influence in Thyatira that she first came to put her faith in God. Lydia already had a heart for God. She was not a full proselyte to the Jewish religion, but she worshiped God.
If her heart were already turned toward seeking God, she would have a predisposition to hear the truth Paul was sharing .God had already been at work in Lydia’s heart, and now the Holy Spirit brought it to completion as she had heard Paul share the gospel of Christ. Lydia accepted the truth and followed Christ, as evidenced by her subsequent baptism.
The Lord opened the heart of Lydia. She listened and obeyed. After she and her household were baptized, she urged Paul and his companions to stay in her home while in Philippi.
This was a wonderful offer because Paul and his companions had no comfortable place to stay. The inns and hotels of the Roman Empire were horrible. As good as this offer was, it appears that Paul initially hesitated. Luke wrote that she persuaded us. Lydia had to convince Paul to do this.
Perhaps Paul was hesitant because there were four of them, which could become a great burden on any host. Perhaps Paul did not want to give up his independence. However, Lydia was thankful for what Paul and his team had done for her, and she wanted to give back to them.
She made their acceptance of her hospitality a test. If they rally believed she was now a follower of Christ, they would stay in her home. With such an earnest request, how could they refuse?
We should want to know how, and by whom, the Gospel was first preached in Europe. Had it been contained and confined in the Middle East we might well be still unaware in Europe and the U.S.A. that Jesus ever existed. We are happy that the pen of Luke tells us when the first the Gospel was first preached in Europe and by whom and who was the first convert in Europe. I half envy Lydia that she should be the leader of the European band. But I feel glad that a woman led the van and that her household followed so clearly in the rear.
God has made great use of women and greatly honored them in the kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Holy women ministered to our Lord when He was upon the earth, and since that time much sacred work has been done by their hands. Men and women fell together, together they must rise.
After the resurrection, it was a woman who was first commissioned to carry the glad tidings of the risen Christ.
In Europe, where woman was in future days to be set free from the many trammels of the East, it seems fitting that a woman should be the first believer. Not only, however was Lydia a sort of first fruit for Europe, but she probably became a witness in her own city of Thyatira in Asia.
We do not know how the Gospel was introduced into that city, but we are informed of the existence of a church there by the message of the ascended Christ, through his servant John, to “the angel of the church in Thyatira.” Very likely Lydia became the herald of the Gospel in her native city.
Women can be as powerful for evil as for good. We see it in the very church of Thyatira where the woman Jezebel, who called herself a prophetess, sought to seduce many from the truth in Revelation 2: 20.
Since then, the Devil employees women in his vice, let those women whom God has called by His grace, be doubly earnest in seeking to prevent or undo the mischief that those of their sex are working. If not called to public service, all have the home sphere wherein they can shed forth the aroma of a godly life and testimony.
If the Gospel does not influence our homes, it is little likely to make headway among the community. God has made family purity to be, as it were, a sort of trademark on religion in Europe, for the very first convert begins with all her family. All her household believed and were baptized with her.
Of all the churches in the New Testament, none was more generous than the one at Philippi. They continually supported Paul in his missionary work, and the Book of Philippians is a thank-you note for their generosity. As the first convert in Philippi, Lydia exhibited that generous character, and one might reason that the generous spirit of the whole church grew out of Lydia’s example and leadership.
PLEASE READ ACTS 16: 40.
Did Paul ever find the man of Macdeonia whom he saw in the vision? The vision was of a person representing all the spiritually needy in Macedonia. Luke tells us of three people, whose needs were met, by the Lord working through Paul and the others.
Lydia was one---a successful businesswoman.
The second was the slave girl whose masters were using her to make a profit from the work of an evil spirit within her. Paul cast the spirit out of her, and her owners got angry and accused Paul and Silas of serious crimes. The Jailer was a rough man, but he asked what he had to do to be saved. When Paul told him, he believed. He too was baptized and his household followed him.
The town leaders were embarrassed over the way they treated Paul when they learned he was a Roman citizen. They apologized publicly. The visit to Philippi closes with Paul and Silas going to the house of Lydia. She had opened her house to the church. The believers probably included Lydia, her servants, the slave girl, the jailer and his household, and perhaps other brethren.
Here we see Lydia opening her house as a meeting place for the church at Philippi. What would you do if you moved to an area with no evangelical church? Many Christians have begun a church, even if it meant using their homes as a meeting place.
Temple Baptist Church and Sharon Baptist church were both begun as missions of Immanuel Baptist Church. Heritage Baptist Church was born when Oklahoma Baptist church purchased the property where Immanuel was conducting church services on Bryan Street.
Lydia is one of the striking women who were, so to speak, the nursing mothers of the infant church. Like Dorcas she was a woman devoted to good works. Like Eunice she entertained the apostle. Like Mary the mother of John Mark she had a church in her house, like Pricilla she “labored with the apostle in the gospel.”
Paul’s first visit to Philippi took place in the early 50s of the first century. About a decade later Paul was under house arrest facing a hearing before the emperor in Rome. During that time of confinement Paul wrote a letter to the Philippian Church.
The letter presents a warm relationship between Paul and the church. Over the years the church had sent financial help to Paul on more than one occasion. When they heard of his confinement, they sent not only money but also one of their members. Epaphroditus. This messenger had been ill in Rome, and when Paul sent him back to Philippi, he asked him to carry his letter to the church.
Lydia is not mentioned by name in the letter. Therefore, we do not know for sure she was alive, still in Philippi, and having the church meet in her house. We do know that Paul’s
Letter to the Philippians exhibits a church that bore the imprint of Lydia.
PLEASE READ PHILIPPIANS 1: 3-8.
Paul’s opening words to the Philippians described his prayer life. As Paul reflected on his relationship with the Philippian church, he was moved to express thanks to God. His thanks to God was an acknowledgment that God was the One who had brought them together, led the Philippians into God’s kingdom, and led them to be Paul’s partners in ministry.
Paul’s thankfulness made it easy for him to continue praying for them with joy. Paul’s thankfulness and joy grew out of the Philippians’ partnership in the gospel from the first day until now.
How had the Philippians been Paul’s partner? The idea of a partnership means there was a partnership in something they shared in common. In this context they were partners in a common interest and activity—the spreading of the gospel and the kingdom of God.
Their partnership in sharing the gospel took a variety of forms, including prayers for Paul and their own evangelistic efforts. Remember Paul’s reason for writing---they had just sent financial support for Paul’s missionary endeavors, and Paul included their gift as a part of their partnership. Their partnership had continued right up to the point Paul was writing, until now.
Paul’s thanks for the Philippians led to his continuous supplication for them. As God had worked in the Philippians’ lives in the past, Paul continued to pray for them in their present service. His prayers were grounded in confidence in God---I am sure of this.
Paul had cause to be confident, to be persuaded: He had seen God work in the past: therefore, he was persuaded that God would also work in the future. Paul’s confidence was not grounded in the Philippians but in God.
Paul’s confidence was in the fact that God would finish what He started. “He who started a good work in you” picks up the phrase from the first day until now in vs. 5. God would not start something only to let it come to nothing. God was at work in them from the very beginning, and He was at work in them, as evidenced by their partnership and gift.
All of it had been a good work because it had all been God’s work.
The work of God in their lives was not complete, though God would keep working to carry on to completion. The conjunction of the words started and carry it on had a technical usage, referring to religious ritual and the beginning and ending of a sacrifice. God would continue to work in their lives until His work was complete. When would that be? The day of Christ Jesus.
This can only refer to one event, the day when Christ returns and rules as Lord and Judge. At that time believers will be fully and completely saved: total freedom from sin, glorified bodies, and face-to-face communion with Christ. On that day, what God started many years earlier would finally be complete.
PLEASE READ PHILIPPIANS 1: 9-11.
Prayer for one another is one of the ties that bind together good news partners. In Phil. 1: 9 we now get to the heart of the prayer Paul mentioned in vs. 4. Paul’s letters are filled with prayers for the churches and requests for them to pray for him. He obviously believed God uses intercessory prayers as channels of grace and power.
The Philippians’ generous character indicated their love, and Paul prayed that their love would keep on growing, that their love would exist in excessive measure. Love, however, is not to be indiscriminate and accepting of all things: love is to be guided by two key elements: knowledge and every kind of discernment. Love and knowledge went hand in hand in Paul’s mind. Love is to guide us in how we use our knowledge, and knowledge without love “inflates with pride.”
As we grow in our love for Christ, we want to know more of Him with a knowledge that comes by experiencing Him. As that love grows in our experiential knowledge of Him, we also gain discernment, shrinking from evil and seeking to do what is right. Our love is to be grounded in our love for Christ and all He loves and in a sensitive moral perception.
The result of our love growing under these parameters is that we can determine what really matters. This determination, or approval, was used for the final testing of those seeking to be physicians. When they passed their examinations, they were certified; their worth as physicians was recognized and they received approval. When we grow in our knowledge and discernment, we will place our approval on things of lasting value.
Instead of sin and impurities, we are to be filled with the fruit of righteousness. We are to be filled to the degree that there is no room for anything else but righteousness. What is this fruit? Paul defined the fruit as the character traits exemplified by the Spirit-filled life in Gal. 5:22-23, and our good works in Eph. 2:10.
As the Spirit lives His character through us, we bear the fruit of good works. Notice, however, this is not something we produce, it is the fruit that comes through Jesus Christ. We let Him live through us, and He does the work that brings glory and praise to God.
The books Robinson Crusoe and Swiss Family Robinson both tell of shipwrecked survivors trying to make a life on an isolated island. The difference was that Crusoe was alone and the others were a family. There is an analogy here for the church. The Christian is no Robinson Crusoe struggling alone against fear and loneliness; he or she is more like a member of a family that supports one another.
Approve was used to describe coins that were tested and proven to be genuine, not counterfeit. Paul wanted them to approve things that are excellent.
Paul prayed that God would help them distinguish not only good from evil but also the best things from good things. He wanted them to be able to “determine what really matters.”
What are the things that really matter? Those who follow the Bible’s list of priorities put first their relationship with God. Closely related are loving relationships with others---at home, at work, and in church. Living a godly life is a priority. Serving others is another thing that that matters to Christians. Sharing the good news is crucial for all who live by the N.T. It is no accident that these five things constitute what churches do.
Churches help believers worship, grow morally and spiritually, love one another, serve others in the name of Christ, and obey the Great Commission. Achieving these excellent things is impossible without active participation in a church.
NEXT WEEK WE WILL LOOK AT MARY, THE SISTER OF MARTHA AND LAZARUS IN LUKE 10: 38-42 AND JOHN 12: 1-8 . A.V. DAUGHERTY