The Macedonian Call
Acts 16:9–15 NKJV
And a vision appeared to Paul in the night. A man of Macedonia stood and pleaded with him, saying, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” Now after he had seen the vision, immediately we sought to go to Macedonia, concluding that the Lord had called us to preach the gospel to them.
Therefore, sailing from Troas, we ran a straight course to Samothrace, and the next day came to Neapolis, and from there to Philippi, which is the foremost city of that part of Macedonia, a colony. And we were staying in that city for some days. And on the Sabbath day we went out of the city to the riverside, where prayer was customarily made; and we sat down and spoke to the women who met there. Now a certain woman named Lydia heard us. She was a seller of purple from the city of Thyatira, who worshiped God. The Lord opened her heart to heed the things spoken by Paul. And when she and her household were baptized, she begged us, saying, “If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come to my house and stay.” So she persuaded us.
We continue looking this morning on Paul’s second missionary journey. In the previous passage, we saw that Paul had retraced the cities in Asia which Paul and Barnabas had established in what is today southeast Turkey. This shows the importance of follow up on evangelism. the churches still needed to be nurture. Having done this, it was time for Paul and Silas to evangelize new areas. As the province of Asia (modern southwest Turkey) was the next province they would come to on the road, it would seem logical for them to have stopped there to evangelize there. After all, big cities like Ephesus were there which had a large Jewish population which would serve as a springboard, a fruitful ministry was to be had. But the Holy Spirit had other ideas and forbid them to evangelize at this time in Asia. We saw when we studied this passage that we often will use a default course of action which serves us well in some circumstances. But sometimes, the Lord has other ideas. Asia would later be evangelized by Paul, but God had other plans at this time. We, too, must be willing to be led in these circumstances.
The Lord revealed to Paul that night what He wanted him to do next. He saw a vision of a Macedonian man at night beckoning Paul to come over and help. Paul understood this that they were to cross over the Hellespont at Troas and evangelize Macedonia. We should notice that the narrator switches from the third person plural “they” to “we.” This is where Luke seems to have joined Paul’s evangelism team. We know him to be highly literate, a physician, and likely from the area. perhaps he was a Macedonian as well. We do not know how Luke had come to faith and to Paul, but it was a great gift of God to us, for by his hand we have both the Gospel of Luke and Acts. This show that Luke was an eyewitness to much of Paul’s ministry.
After they crossed over, they did not stop at Samothrace. Neither did they stop at Neapolis. Considering that we often see the Apostles taking time to evangelize even the small villages and towns along the way, Paul passed through them to come to Philippi. Philippi was named after Philip of Macedon, the father of Alexander the Great. It was also near the Oracle of Delphi where large numbers of followers came to have their fortunes told. At Delphi, certain maidens who were considered to be possessed by the python spirit would make incoherent babblings which the priests would interpret and put into perfect Greek hexameter for the adherents. By the time of Paul, the city had become a colony made for retired Roman legionnaires. This means they had great pride in Rome as well as her idea of law and order. Both of these things would soon come into play.
The text says Paul took stock of the situation. The first thing he noticed is that there was no synagogue in Philippi which means there were less than ten Jewish males in all of Philippi. In fact, there may have been none at all as he only could find some Jewish women praying at the riverbank. As Paul had made it his practice to come to the synagogue first when he came to a town, he would have to make a different approach here. He spent several days considering what to do when he found a group of Jewish women praying at the riverbank on the Sabbath.
One of the women there was named Lydia, who was a merchant who sold purple cloth and was from Thyatira. She was a God-fearer, which means that she herself was not a Jew but a Gentile who believed in the God of Israel and worshiped with the other women there. she must have been a woman of considerable means as it is said she ran a household which meant that she had servants and perhaps slaves working with her. It is unusual that no husband is mentioned which could mean that if she had one, he was dead. The norm of society was that men ruled over the household. But the rules which kept women subordinate were often relaxed if the woman was of high enough rank. Purple cloth was only allowed to be worn by the highest ranks in society. It was also very expensive to produce. the purple dye was manufactured in Thyatira where Lydia was from.
It says that the Lord opened her heart to Paul’s preaching of Christ. She was baptized and her household which means she held authority over the house in the same way that men ruled over the household. Slaves and servants were expected to adhere to the religion of the master of the house. We would later see at Philippi that the Philippian jailor was baptized and his house. This brings up the question of individual belief. Did the servants and slaves believe on their own choosing, or were they baptized in solidarity with the rules of the household (“economy: in Greek? This has implications for the practice of infant baptism where the head of the house (parents) makes the decision in behalf of the infant. This has been a conundrum in the church for centuries and the cause for heated debate in the church.
It would take far more time to discuss the topic of infant baptism, and after 2000 years and many great thinkers on both sides of the issue, it would be presumptuous for me to claim that I have the final word on the matter. But we should perhaps look at where it says that the Lord opened Lydia’s heart. The greater caused the lesser to believe and be baptized. Saving faith is a gift of God. No one can choose for the Lord in one’s own will. We all need a proxy to stand in for us. Jesus is that proxy for us who stood in our place and made a decision to go to the cross. It was by Jesus’ free will decision to suffer for us that even gives us the ability to respond. So, parents and the sponsoring church body are proxies for the infant who decide for the child that he or she be raised in a Christian home and nurtured by the church body. Lydia, the master of her household, and all hers, were now servants in a greater household where Jesus is King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
Lydia, being a woman, could not be circumcised. She was a God-fearer as we noted. But the only way she could have been admitted into the congregation of Israel was indirect. She would have to have a husband who would have to be circumcised and admitted into Israel. Then, she would have standing to some degree in Israel. In other words, she would need a proxy. But the Christian church led by the Holy Spirit had an admission ceremony which allowed women and slaves to be directly and fully admitted into the Church as equal members. So even the servants, slaves, and if she had any, children had equal status in Christ.
We should then realize that baptism is a doorway to faith in Christ. The church needs to have an active confirmation process afterward to see that faith in Christ comes to fruition. Just the fact that one is baptized is not enough to save. Faith needs to be confirmed. This is similar to the bar-mitzvah (or bat-mitzvah) practiced in Judaism. There is the possibility of the child, or adult for that matter, to become apostate. This is just as true if one comes into the church through believer’s baptism.
What we see here, in review, is that norms were broken. Christianity had come to a new continent. Paul had to adjust his evangelistic methods to meet the new reality on the ground. there were no male Jews in Philippi, so he evangelized women on a riverbank itself. We have the mention of entire households being baptized, leaving the question whether the servants and slaves individually believed at this point or not to a later discussion. Philippi would prove to be some of the most difficult church plants seeing it was full of retired Roman soldiers. In a city of strong men, the gospel seed was sown among women first. History shows that the church grew into a strong church, it gave sacrificially which shows that there was much poverty in the church. It did not look very promising at first. But God had plans for the church.
We should realize that there are many congregations which were and are in difficult situations. But we should also realize that many of the larger established churches also came from humble starts. We should be faithful in these small matters and pray that the Lord would move on the hearts of people in our communities that a great work for the Lord might be done. As Paul tells us, one plants (evangelizes) and another waters (nurture), but it is God who causes the increase. It is God who gets the glory. When we plant and water, it is according to the gifts and discipleship we have received. Paul was a slave of Christ, but he was given liberty to conduct the business of the church according to his plans. God is no micromanager. But when we need to break from the norms, He will let us know. So let us conduct the business of the Lord as we pray for discernment.
