The Macedonian Call

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.