The Reference:Acts 16:13, 14On the Sabbath we went outside the city gate to a place of prayer. We sat down and began to speak to the women who had gathered there. One of those listening was a woman from the city of Thyatira named Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth. She was a worshiper of God.
The story that emerges:
Paul was not the first history maker to embark from the port of Troas. About a millennium before, Odysseus sailed out from Troy to return to Ithaca, Greece, after the Trojan Wars. A decade later Aeneas, a survivor of Troy, sailed out from the same port intending to establish Rome. Both of them met with the ire of the gods, sending them foul weather and disasters at every turn. Their trips took over ten years, with many lives lost on the way.
Then, about the year of our Lord 50, Paul embarked with three friends to cross the Aegean Sea under orders of God the Holy Spirit. His trip took two days and resulted in the evangelization of all of Europe.
The story began with prayer and continued with the Holy Spirit’s careful direction. Paul showed his alertness to the Holy Spirit in listening and heeding. He listened as the Holy Spirit would not allow him to preach in southern Phrygia, the vicinity of Thyatira. Likewise, the Holy Spirit forbade him from moving up along the coast of the Black Sea. Then, when Paul heard “the Macedonian Call,” to cross from Turkey to Europe, he heeded the call.
These lands were pagan territories with no known precursor of the gospel. He had no contact across the sea and no knowledge of what to expect. What he did know was the certainty of God’s call and His presence wherever he ministered. And so they crossed, arriving at the coastal city of Neapolis, then moving to the more strategic city of Philippi.
By prayer and the Holy Spirit, he soon found a place of prayer for some of the women of Philippi. He spoke to them of the mercy of the God of heaven, and of the cross and resurrection of His Son. One of the women, Lydia, responded. Actually, Luke spells out the impact of Paul’s preaching that it was not by his persuasion but by the Holy Spirit. “The Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul’s message” (Acts 16:14).
Thus, Lydia became the first convert to Jesus Christ in Europe. She made no secret of her faith. As a woman of means, a seller of purple cloth, she had a house large enough for the visitors. Luke describes how she immediately offered hospitality. That was no slight gesture, for these men were strangers, from another country, and publicly espoused a religion that bore no resemblance to the weird behavior of the Greek gods.
Furthermore, to the amazement of some of her friends, no doubt, she received baptism--she and her household. (Though that may make some brothers and sisters nervous, it does look like some infants might well have been part of the baptismal party!) Her public and total identification with the faith of Jesus Christ not only gave Paul’s party comfort, but also brought others to the faith she embraced.
There is one more chapter to the interweaving of prayer and the Holy Spirit with Lydia. This chapter, I confess, is based on presumption, on the likeliness of this happening.
It unfolds like this. Luke mentioned that Lydia was originally from Thyatira. That was one of the cities that the Holy Spirit did not permit Paul to preach on his way to Troas. But in the Revelation to John we read that one of the seven churches was, in fact, at Thyatira. My assumption is that Lydia at some point returned to her home city as a witness to her Lord. She would have assisted those who had gone there to plant a church. The woman Lydia was chosen by God not just as first convert in Europe but to be for us an example of a faith that shines in darkness.
When Lydia and I sat down in heaven, I wanted her to open up about that last point, the possibility of her return to Thyatira. Instead she moved to our story today. What she said caught me totally off guard. I was simply dumbfounded. She told how God is repeating her circumstances in the same places and for the same results.
Consider the extraordinary parallels. The basics of her story are few: Troas was very close to the shores of Greece. Paul left Turkey for the short trip to the nearby city of Philippi. There, a Turkish woman living in Philippi became Europe’s first Christian. In my scenario, Lydia returned to Turkey as an evangelist to her former people.
Today these circumstances look like this: A few miles south from Troas are the shores of Ayvalik, Turkey. The Greek island of Lesvos is a mere four miles away from this. The coast of Lesvos has been the destination of thousands of refugees leaving from Turkey. They traverse the waters in a matter of hours. These hordes have arrived from Afghanistan, Syria, Iran, Iraq, and other countries, places that have been tearing apart their lives by warfare, violence, and starvation.
They are leaving countries where the gospel of Jesus Christ has been muted or outlawed. But in their new homes of Greece, Germany, Great Britain, and other European countries, the Christian message is freed to be told.
From Lesvos to Holland there are numerous sites of Christians receiving these people. The refugees arrive traumatized, scared, and needy. These Christians offer them the resources most immediately needed—hospitality, papers, places to sleep, food, diapers, and most other necessities. And importantly they offer listening, love, prayer, and understanding. Often God wraps His love and gospel in with all the other expressions of His love. These new believers are taught, disciplined and grounded in the faith.
One such place gives us a website. The place is named “Bridges.” Their richest resource, according to their visitors, is listening and prayer. From those come lives changed and people finding Jesus Christ’s love. https://www.facebook.com/Syrian-Bridges-512151758924500/
There is one further similarity to Lydia’s story, an amazing way God is working. Many of the Muslim followers of Jesus are trained to return to their homes—yes, to the very places of danger, death, and destruction—to be the evangelists for friends and families to join them as followers of Jesus. So strong is their love for their Savior that they will risk their lives to return, like Lydia’s example, and shine in the darkness.
Lydia I found to be a forceful person. No surprise there. She raised the role of the church today, its witness in the midst of those seeking a hope and a future. For the Christians working their, they listen daily for the direction of the Holy Spirit. For us away from there, ours is the privilege for the other part that Paul took with him leaving Troas. And that is prayer.
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