LYDIA AND THE GREAT PHYSICIAN

LYDIA

Acts 16:11-15 and 40

The account of Lydia does not, in itself, occupy many sentences, but it is full of simple beauty, and, in its setting, full of significance.

We have been following our Lord, first in the days of His flesh as the great Physician, observing Him dealing with individual souls. We are still watching Him, no longer limited, no longer restricted, to use His own word, no longer "straitened," but having risen, ascended, and by the baptism of the Holy Spirit having united (Deity Within) to Himself those who believed on Him, He had created for Himself a new Body, a spiritual Body, and yet very definitely a material one in the members of the Church. We are now watching the same Lord carrying on the same work through these members of His Church.

As we do so I think we must be impressed with what for the moment we may describe as the irregularity of it all. Necessarily we use that word irregularity in a particular sense. The whole book of the Acts of the Apostles manifests the regular irregularity of the Spirit's action. Incidents are recorded one after another, seeming to have very little connection with each other, and yet being vitally connected. As in the days of His flesh our Lord is seen meeting with individuals apparently casually. He went about doing good, and this still tells the account. Yet there is a tremendous significance in each incident which may appear to be almost trivial; because all the while we see how through His Church His sphere of operations is being enlarged. In the days of His flesh He was largely confined to Jewish territory, except when upon occasion He crossed the borderline and visited Tyre and Sidon. Before He left His disciples however, He had charged them to be His witnesses in Jerusalem, in Judaea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. We now see Him, then, moving forwards as, to quote from Mark, they went out, the Lord working with them. Thus He is seen working through these witnesses, being members of His Body, and He the supreme Worker.

The account of Lydia must be taken in connection with all that lies round about it. Paul had been passing through what I venture to say were among the strangest experiences of all that came to him in his pioneer apostolic work. He was forbidden of the Holy Spirit to preach the Word in Asia. Necessarily the word there refers to Pro-consular Asia, as it existed at the time. This must have been a somewhat strange experience for him. As we read these accounts we are growingly impressed by the familiarity of these early witnesses with the will of God made known through the Holy Spirit. They knew when the Spirit spoke to them, and Paul knew that he was forbidden of the Spirit to preach in that district. It is evident, however, that he thought if so forbidden, he might cross the borderline, for we are told he "assayed to go into Bithynia." Once more he was prevented:

"The Spirit of Jesus suffered them not."

I repeat that it must have been a strange experience for the man whose very motto was the regions beyond, to be thus prevented from carrying on his work in certain regions.

If we look at the picture with the map in our mind we can see him travelling on, forbidden to go north, until he reached the land's last limit at Troas. There he slept, and there came to him a vision of a man of Macedonia, "Standing, beseeching him," and calling to him:

"Come over into Macedonia and help us." It was a call to cross from Asia into Europe.

The apostle was evidently working in fellowship with Luke and the others who were with him, for Luke says that they concluded that God had called them to preach the Gospel unto them. The word "concluding" employed by Luke is a very suggestive one, meaning that they put this and that together. Evidently in consultation they considered the combination of their situation and this vision, and became assured that it was a Divine leading.

They acted at once, and Luke says, "We made a straight course to Samothrace," which literally means that having entered into the boat, the wind was with them. The result was that the voyage was accomplished in two days. It is interesting in passing to remember that Paul took the same journey later, and it took five days, because the wind was against them. Thus all these matters were working together to a definite end; the call, the obedience, and the wind.

Having arrived at Samothrace, they still travelled on until they came to Neapolis, the port of Philippi, and thence still on, until they arrived in Philippi, eight miles beyond Neapolis.

Luke says of Philippi that it was the first city of that district, and it was a colony. It is important to a correct understanding of the account that we realize what was meant in the Roman empire by a colony. The colonies were points fixed by Rome on the frontiers, and the colonists were sent directly from Rome to occupy these positions. They reproduced at the point of settlement the Roman order of life. Their magistrates were not elected from the populace, but were sent from Rome. Philippi was indeed an important city; for it was there that a tremendous battle was fought between Brutus and Mark Antony. Philippi therefore was in closest touch with Rome and its government.

Paul, who was himself a Roman citizen, came at Philippi perhaps more into the Roman atmosphere than he had ever been before. He was born in Tarsus, and brought up there until he was twelve years of age, or thereabouts. He had been at least eight years in Jerusalem at the School of Gamaliel, a Hebrew of Hebrews, but all the while a Roman citizen. He now stood in a city wholly Roman in its government and value.

But he was there as the ambassador of his Lord, and as the messenger of the new Kingdom and the new Empire. It was there that Lydia was found. She was the first convert, then, of whom we have any personal record, in Europe. We may now attempt to see her, and watch our Lord's method with her.

Lydia was a business woman. She belonged to Thyatira, which was the home of the purple industry, and was herself a dealer in purple. She had her house, and doubtless her business in Philippi. Evidently she was a woman of wealth, for her house is revealed as large enough to be capable of entertaining Paul and the group associated with him. These are the material facts.

Turning to the more important matters we learn that she was "one that worshipped God." That form of speech reveals the fact that she was a proselyte to the Hebrew faith. From the standpoint, therefore, of her conviction about God, she was already one at heart with these messengers of Christ. We see her resorting on the Sabbath to the place of prayer, and that in itself throws light on the state of affairs. Evidently there was no synagogue in Philippi, but there was a proseuche, or place of prayer. These were found scattered in many places where synagogues did not exist. Where there were ten Hebrew men it was by law necessary to form a synagogue. This reveals the fact that there were not ten such men of the Jewish faith in Philippi, and the only persons that Paul found were a group of women, groping in the darkness, dissatisfied with the diffusion of devotion by the multiplicity of gods, having found the one God, and gathering together for the purpose of worship. It is clear that before Paul arrived, the religion of Lydia was far more than mere intellectual interest. It was active; it was obedient. She observed the day set apart by the law of God, and found her way to the place of prayer. These places of prayer were often simply enclosures, constantly found by the side of rivers that is in the interest of washings and ablutions made necessary by the rites of the Hebrew faith. Thus we observe a rallying center in a Roman colony around the religion of one God, and this woman is seen among others, as yielding to the demands which such convictions produced.

I have no doubt that there were very many in those days who had found some answer to the quest of their restless souls in the monotheistic religion of the Jew. They had found one God. This is all we know concerning Lydia. We see her outside the territory of Judaism, in the midst of pagan Rome, but a worshipper of God. The very fact that she resorted to the place of prayer would suggest that she was still seeking for fuller knowledge, more complete understanding, making time for these holy exercises.

We now turn to examine Christ's method with this woman. In doing so we find that the arrival of Paul was not the beginning. When Christ is seen at work He is seen first acting directly, and then mediatorially. This is markedly so in the case of Lydia. To emphasize the fact let us remind ourselves once more of her position, and the attitude of her soul. Undoubtedly clever and successful in business, and yet at the very center of her life a hunger after reality, she had found a doctrine of God that unquestionably had brought her some measure of quietness and peace and satisfaction. Of her the simple and yet sublime statement is made, "whose heart the Lord opened." That is how it all began. Paul might have preached, and with no effect, had this not been true. It is a mystic sentence, and it is conceivable that there may be clever people who would smile at it. Nevertheless I cannot but feel that the ribald jesting of some writers of this age constitutes a minor obligato to the infinite music of the Gospel. No amount of cleverness can finally explain what is meant by the statement as to the processes of that opening of Lydia's heart. It is, however, worthy of note that Luke uses a word here which no other New Testament writer ever uses. We find it in his Gospel in several places. It is a Greek verb which means literally to thoroughly open up. Indeed, we should get to the very heart of its thought if we rendered it, disentangled. The probability is that every woman will understand that illustration better than a man. I have often seen a ball of tangled wool. I never disentangled one, but I have seen my mother do it many times. That is the word telling of what the Lord did, and it reveals also the condition of the mind of this woman. Great things were mixed, and lacked clarity in her thinking, and the Lord opened them up, and prepared her for what was to follow.

Luke uses the same word of the two men who walked to Emmaus, as he says, "Their eyes were opened," and yet again when he speaks of the Lord opening the Scriptures, and once more, opening their understanding.

He "opened her heart," He created her capable of hearing, and hearing intelligently. He brought to bear upon her a constraint to attention, a desire to attend, to these things of the heart.

We have seen in other connections the word heart is used in different ways, but it often stands for the whole of personality, with a special emphasis upon the emotional nature. Here undoubtedly the word refers to far more than the emotion, and includes the whole personality of Lydia. Let it at once be said that He was opening up the way into Europe, and thus directly brought to this woman some preparation of personality so that she was prepared for His Mediatorial activity through Paul.

As we now read the account it is arresting to observe that Paul and the rest of them tarried two or three days before doing anything. They waited for the Sabbath, and when that came they made their way down to the banks of the river where they supposed, and correctly, they would find a place of prayer. On arrival they found only women assembled there. Someone has recently remarked in disparagement of the work of the Church, that it is largely now attended by women. In reply to any such criticism we have to say, God have mercy on the nation when women cease to worship.

To this company Paul, the Pharisee, the Hebrew of Hebrews, the man brought up at the feet of Gamaliel, came. As a Pharisee through all those years of his life until he was apprehended on the Damascene road, he had uttered a form of thanksgiving, which every Pharisee employed every day:

"Oh God, I thank Thee that I am not a Gentile, I am not a slave, and I am not a woman."

Here we find him in a Gentile city, and when he came to the place of prayer he found himself there confronted by women. In Christ he had found the contradiction and correction of the thinking expressed in that formula of thanksgiving. It was Paul who wrote that in Christ:

"There can be neither bond nor free; there can be no male and female; for ye are all one man in Christ Jesus."

Therefore, when he came into the midst of that worshipping company of women he preached the Gospel. As his custom constantly was, his first action in Philippi was that of seeking those of his own nation. As he preached the Gospel, and Lydia listened, Christ was operating through him. He had opened her heart, and there was now to be brought to her knowledge and understanding through the preaching of Paul.

Then Luke puts the result in one sentence characterized by directness and great simplicity:

"She gave heed to the things spoken by Paul."

That means infinitely more than that she listened. To heed them was to accept them. She yielded her personality, which had been strangely and supernaturally moved before Paul began his account. There had been an unloosing of the heart, an opening up of the tangled web of her strange conflicting quest; and in that condition she heard Paul tell the account of Jesus. We have no reason to speculate as to what were "the things spoken by Paul." Unquestionably he had told her of Jesus as the Son of God, how He had lived, how He had died, how He had risen from the dead, how that He was then at the right hand of God, anointed to be a Prince and a Savior, and to give remission of sins. Lydia listened; she gave heed; and then by the river side in Philippi, in the place of prayer, she was won for Christ. 'She immediately carried out her belief in confession as she was baptized. She joined that company of the disciples of the Lord. In her yielding she was baptized in water as the sign and symbol of the trinity of the Godhead – into the name of the Father, into the name of the Son, and into the name of the Spirit; a tri-unity and all participating into her salvation. (Matt. 28:18-20)

At once we see Lydia beginning to act in fellowship with the enterprises of the Lord. She became hostess. She opened her house, and Luke says she constrained them to enter into her home, and make it the base of their operations. The word "constrained" is essentially the word of hospitality. We find it in one other place in the New Testament when it is used of the two men who had walked to Emmaus in the company of Jesus that they constrained Jesus to abide with them. Paul made her house the base of his operations for the period of his sojourn in Philippi. Thus when the Lord opened this woman's heart, He found vantage ground for the carrying on of His work in Europe.

Then directly we see Satan at work and that through another woman. Whereas the account of this damsel of divination is not our special theme, it is arresting to notice the method of Satan. He always has two methods with the Church. The one is that of alliance, and the other is that of antagonism. He tried alliance. He sent this damsel forth declaring that what Paul said was true. Paul would have none of it. Like his Master, he would receive no testimony from the underworld, even to the truth of his Gospel. The demon was exorcised.

Then antagonism manifested itself. As persecution began in Europe, it changed its note. The persecution which the witnesses of Christ had found in Asia had always arisen from religious opinion. In Europe it resulted from commercial disaster. "The hope of their gain was gone." As a result Paul was put in prison. In our next article we shall be dealing with the account of the Philippian jailor. We now observe that when at this point Paul was brought out of prison, it was to Lydia's house that he went, and she opened it and received him.

All this is a very simple account. It is interesting however to know what Paul thought of it. Years after, writing to these people in Philippi, he said:

"I thank my God upon all my remembrance of you, always in every supplication of mine on behalf of you all making my supplication with joy, for your fellowship in furtherance of the Gospel from the first day until now."

That is how Paul remembered Lydia, and the house of Lydia, and the action of Lydia.

Again in that same Philippian letter he referred to the matter at the close, as he said:

"And ye yourselves also know, ye Philippians, that in the beginning of the Gospel, when I departed from Macedonia, no Church had fellowship with me in the matter of giving and receiving, but ye only."

Thus the account is seen in its beauty and its grace. Lydia's opened heart was the Lord's vantage ground for a forward movement. Through that opened heart He passed into Europe. The whole thing is seen in its greatness. An opened heart, an opened house, an opened continent. However apparently unimportant it may seem when the message of the Lord is given to one woman, to one man, it is important to remember that when we deliver that message He Himself has ever been ahead of us, preparing the ground, and that the apparently simple may be, and constantly is, inspiring in all the results that follow.