Lydia

We set sail from Troas, making a straight run for Samothrace, and on the next day to Neapolis, and from there to Philippi, a leading city in that district of Macedonia and a Roman colony. We spent some time in that city. On the sabbath we went outside the city gate along the river where we thought there would be a place of prayer. 

We sat and spoke with the women who had gathered there. One of them, a woman named Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth, from the city of Thyatira, a worshiper of God, listened, and the Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what Paul was saying. After she and her household had been baptized, she offered us an invitation, "If you consider me a believer in the Lord, come and stay at my home," and she prevailed on us. (Acts 16:11-15)

Lydia must have been an influential woman.  She was a dealer in purple cloth and had her own household.  She had resources.  Paul and his fellow travelers spoke to Lydia and the women who had gathered there along the river outside the gate. She invited Paul and his companions to stay at her home, and they did.  

According to one useful reference: (begin) Lydia’s hospitality and her benefaction of Paul and his ministry required courage. Having a group of foreign men stay in her house might potentially cause scandal. Hosting meetings where they worshipped a new Jewish messiah, and not an emperor or any of the ancient and socially respectable pagan gods, could have ruined her reputation and her business. Receiving Paul and Silas into her home after they were released from prison and asked to leave town was brave as some in Philippi were angry with the missionaries (Acts 16:19-22).

Harassment, persecution, and suffering were common in the apostolic church. In his first letter to the Thessalonians, Paul refers to the persecution he experienced in Philippi, and he alludes to the persecution the Thessalonian Christians themselves suffered because of their new faith. Being a Christian could be difficult and women were not exempt from persecution. 

Lydia is identified as a “God-worshipper” sometimes translated as “God-fearer.” This description is an idiom that tells us Lydia was a Gentile adherent to Judaism rather than a full convert. In the first decades of the church’s existence, almost all Christian converts were either Jews or they were Gentiles with some kind of affiliation or sympathy with Judaism. It is well documented that some Gentiles were attracted to the monotheism and the morality of Judaism.

In some parts of the Roman Empire, women could play prominent roles in their Jewish communities, especially in places where women already had some social freedoms. Ancient inscriptions survive that show a few women were even called leaders of synagogues. Other women were patrons of synagogues and were prominent and influential in their Jewish communities. Lydia may have been a patron of the Jewish community at Philippi. It is likely she became both a patron and a leader of the church in Philippi. 

The story of Paul’s meeting with Lydia near a river is similar to the story of Jesus taking the unusual journey through Samaria and his meeting with a woman at Jacob’s well in Sychar. Both Paul and Jesus were supernaturally guided to Philippi and Sychar, respectively: Paul through a vision, Jesus through some kind of compulsion. They providentially met with women who were quasi-Jews: a “God-fearer” and a Samaritan. The women became believers in Jesus as Messiah and then told others about their experience. Lydia presumably told members of her household, who followed her lead and were baptized with her. We can assume she also told business contacts, clients, and neighbors. The Samaritan woman told people in her village. These women played a pioneering role in the spreading of the gospel.

Jesus and Paul did not hesitate to minister to people of both sexes, from all stations of life. And they ministered in an empowering way. The women were equipped and empowered with faith, knowledge, and personal experience to tell others. Jesus and Paul had no difficulty in teaching theology to women, and they allowed women to minister according to their abilities and their situations without artificial restrictions.

Women such as Lydia were not at the margins in the first decades of the Jesus’ movement. They were not silent in the churches or ineffective in evangelism. They cared for local congregations and were vital and strategic players at the forefront of the expanding Christian mission. A church was established in Philippi because of Lydia’s open heart and her open home, and it grew because of her patronage, her initiative, her courage, her ministry. (end)

Thank God for women who spread the Gospel.  Without them, I suspect Christianity would have spread at a snail's pace, if at all.

Deacon David Pierce