Paul was in prison when he wrote his letter to the Philippians. But despite the most unpleasant circumstances, joy and gratitude infuse his writing from beginning to end. “I thank my God for every remembrance of you, always in every one of my prayers for all of you, praying with joy for your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now.”[1]
When Luke later wrote in Acts about this partnership in the gospel from the first day, he lifted up one woman in particular. Her name was Lydia, and according to Luke, she was the first person on European soil to embrace the gospel with faith.
Paul and his missionary team had been traveling in what is today Turkey. They had been city-hopping, as it were, following the Roman roads that were major arteries for the exchange of goods and ideas, but it doesn’t appear that they had planned their route well in advance. Luke writes, “They went through the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia.” Forbidden by the Holy Spirit, Luke writes, without any further explanation what that might have looked like. “When they had come opposite Mysia, they attempted to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them.” It was the Spirit of Jesus, Luke insists, in case some of us readers might wonder if perhaps it was the spirit of censorship or the spirit of fear that did not allow them to take their proclamation to those regions. “So, passing by Mysia, they went down to Troas.”[2]
“They stumble around the region, running into one barrier after another set up by God,” writes one commentator. “Barred by the Spirit from going south and west into Asia or from going north into Bythinia, Paul [and his team appear] backed into a coastal corner at Troas by God’s strange and repeated ‘no.’”[3] I mentioned last Sunday that the book of the Acts of the Apostles might as well be called the Acts of the Holy Spirit, because everything that unfolds in the wake of God’s pouring out God’s Spirit on all people is Spirit-infused, Spirit-guided, Spirit-driven. I wish Luke had written a little more about how they determined that their next stop wouldn’t be Bythinia, how they knew it wasn’t because they weren’t trying hard enough to get there, but because God had a different route in mind for them.
So now the team was on the coast in Troas, with no idea where to turn next. And there, during the night, a vision came to Paul: it was a man from Macedonia urging Paul, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” And now something marvelous happens in Luke’s story. Up to this point, it’s all “the disciples did this and the apostles did that, Peter did this and Cornelius did that, the circumcised believers did this and the Gentile believers did that.” But in Troas, in the morning, the narrator’s perspective shifts:
Immediately after Paul saw the vision, we prepared to leave for the province of Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to proclaim the good news to them.
As readers, we’re still following the carefully investigated and compiled account of a historically informed writer,[4] but now the story is no longer presented from an observer’s perspective, but from the perspective of a participant. The story is no longer just their adventure, it’s ours: Immediately after Paul saw the vision, we prepared to leave for the province of Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to proclaim the good news to them. Paul received the vision, but interpreting it wasn’t up to him alone. We discerned, writes Luke, that this was God’s call, and that the help which was needed was the preaching of the good news, and that the call was for immediate action.[5] Again, I wish Luke had written a little more about the process of discernment; clearly it wasn’t a matter of Paul coming down the stairs in the morning, pouring himself a cup of coffee, and telling the rest of the team who were sitting around the kitchen island, “I had a dream last night. Pack your things. We’re going to Macedonia.” The church, over the centuries, has been in Troas countless times, not certain where to go next, often wrestling with the nagging worry that perhaps God wanted it to go to Bythinia after all, that perhaps the last time it had attempted to go there, it just hadn’t prayed hard enough, planned hard enough, worked hard enough. Luke doesn’t go into the details of discernment, and I think he doesn’t because to him it’s not a matter of meticulously following a detailed process — the church forever doing just what the apostles did and how they did it. The way I understand Luke’s witness, the only thing that really matters, is for the church — every manifestation of the church, from the ministry team of two or three, to the congregation, to the conference of bishops, and the World Council of Churches — the only thing that matters, is for the church to entrust itself wholeheartedly to God’s movement in the world. With such trust in the Spirit of Jesus, clarity will come.
Paul and his team got into a boat to the island of Samothrace, then sailed on to Neapolis, a lovely seaside town in the northern Aegean, and once on land they didn’t linger on the beach, but walked eight miles inland to Philippi. No meandering here, no attempting to go this way or that way, just a straight journey from Troas to Philippi, a Roman colony, as Luke mentions. “[The city] was the heart of the Empire’s project in this corner of the world,” writes Brian Peterson, “a place that lived like an extended section of Rome itself, intended to be an example of what Rome offers to the world.”[6] And now this little missionary team showed up, this gospel avantgarde of the kingdom of God, a community of witness to a way of life that subverts systems of domination, a living testimony to what Jesus offers to the world.
Upon their arrival in the city, nothing much happens for a while. Luke isn’t very specific, only tells us that they were there for “some days.” The appeal in the vision was urgent. The team’s response to it was immediate. But then they were just there for some days, waiting for God to move.
Luke doesn’t mention a synagogue, and perhaps there wasn’t a large enough Jewish community in the city to sustain one. Synagogues were typically the first stop for Paul and his team, according to Luke. Philippi wasn’t typical. On the sabbath, they went outside the gate to the river, thinking they might find a group of worshippers there. And they did, and most of them, possibly all of them, were women. And one of them was Lydia. Paul’s vision was about a Macedonian man, but the first to receive the gospel of Jesus with faith in Philippi was a woman, and to add one more layer of holy unexpectedness, she wasn’t even Macedonian: Lydia was a business woman from Thyatira, a city in the Roman province of Asia, from the very area where the Spirit had forbidden the team to go. When you entrust yourselves to the movement of God in the world, apparently you better brace yourselves for some old rugs of expectation to be pulled from under your feet.
Paul talked and Lydia listened eagerly, but Luke doesn’t mention even a word of what Paul had to say, because it was God who opened her heart. The heart has ears no preacher can open, not even Paul — charm, eloquence, conviction, empathy and wisdom are wonderful gifts and skills, but at best they can lay words on a listener’s heart. Only God can open hearts to receive the Word. Only God can open eyes to recognize Christ in the stranger. Only God can open minds to let the same mind be in us that was in Christ Jesus, which is God’s way of subverting our proud dreams of supremacy, domination, and empire with the promise of God’s reign.[7]
Lydia was baptized along with her entire household, which makes me wonder if God opened all those other hearts as well, or if workers and children simply had to follow the head of household’s lead — I hope it was the former. Lydia was a business woman of substantial means, and entrusting herself to the movement of God in the world, she opened her home to become the first mission station in this Roman colony, making her the first leader of what may well have been the first house church in Europe. When Paul wrote his letter to the church in Philippi, thanking them for their partnership in the gospel, he didn’t mention Lydia — I hope this was only because there were too many local leaders to mention by name.
Luke tells us, that after Paul and Silas were released from jail in Philippi, and before they got on the road to Thessalonica, they went to Lydia’s home.[8] There they encouraged the brothers and sisters, and no doubt received encouragement for the long road ahead. Together they entrusted themselves to the movement of God in the world. May we go with them.
[1] Philippians 1:3-5
[2] Acts 16:6-8
[3] Brian Peterson https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/sixth-sunday-of-easter-3/commentary-on-acts-169-15
[4] See Luke 1:1-3
[5] See Brian Peterson https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/sixth-sunday-of-easter-3/commentary-on-acts-169-15
[6] Ibid.
[7] Compare the various divine openings that occur in Luke 24: 31,32,45; Philippians 2:5
[8] Acts 16:40