So now Paul, Silas and Timothy are traveling together through what is Asia Minor. In Acts 16:4-5 they are retracing part of Paul’s first journey, delivering to those churches the results of the council in Jerusalem. Though they are not specifically named, these churches could have been in Derbe, Lystra, Iconium and Antioch (not the one in Syria, but in the province of Galatia in Asia Minor).
Then in verses 6-8 after they had traveled farther west from Galatia into the province of Mysia, they determined to head north into Bithynia. Verse 6 tells us the Holy Spirit forbade them to preach the Word as they passed through this new territory. And in verse 7 “the Spirit of Jesus” would not permit them to go north. Again, it’s curious that the KJV omits “of Jesus” and has only “the Spirit”, where most subsequent versions correctly translate the original “Spirit of Jesus” in this verse. Paul and his party then continued west to Troas, a port city on the Aegean Sea.
And in the verses that follow Paul is directed through a vision to continue west across the Aegean Sea into Europe. Here I have to pause and point out a significant development in verse 10. It says, “And after he had seen the vision, we immediately determined to go into Macedonia.” I underline “we” because the use of this pronoun indicates for the first time the writer of this account, Luke, is speaking. So then, it is assumed that Luke joined this group in Troas. Later, in chapters 20, 27 and 28, the use of both “us” and “we” indicate Luke was still with Paul. He’s mentioned again by name in Colossians 4:14, Philemon 24 and 2 Timothy 4:11, when Paul was finally imprisoned in Rome.
This relationship between Paul and Luke is reasonable since Luke was a Gentile believer from Antioch in Syria. We already know Paul had spent many years in Antioch, both before and after his first journey. I personally believe Luke had an important influence on Paul in his preparation for taking the gospel to the Gentiles. He was a well-educated man with a high literary ability, a Greek perspective and a physician’s training. Taken together, Luke would have been well qualified to help prepare a former zealous Pharisee to understand Gentile cultures. Though Paul (Saul) was born in Tarsus in southeast Turkey, he was “brought up” in Jerusalem under the tutelage of Gamaliel, the most honored teacher of Jewish law in his day (Acts 22:3).
Philippi is the first place Paul preaches the gospel message in Europe. Verse 12 says it was the “chief city” in that part of Macedonia and a “colony”. Here, the word “colony” is from kolonia, a transliteration of the Latin colonia. This was a Roman settlement made up of disbanded and retired Roman soldiers. Augustus had given such men lands in Italy; but later he transferred them to other lands farther east. The purpose was to encourage the native peoples there to be loyal subjects of Rome.
The next several verses (13-15) give us the account of Paul’s first converts in Europe. On the Sabbath they went out of the city to a place by the river where “prayer was wont to be made”. “Prayer” is from proseuche, a place of prayer, commonly in places where there was no synagogue. It was usually an open-air amphitheater. They probably arrived before any formal activity had started, as they began talking to some women that had gathered there (verse 13). One of them was “Lydia, from the city of Thyratira, who was a dealer of fabric dyed in purple”. She probably got her name from the Asian province of Lydia, where Thyratira was located (verse 14). Lydian women were known for their high quality purple fabrics, colored from a dye made from the murex or rock snail, common to the region and found in shallow, rocky waters.
Verse 13 continues that she “worshipped God, listened to what was being said, the Lord opened her heart and she paid careful attention to what Paul was saying.” It’s somewhat ironic that Paul was prevented from going into Asia to preach the gospel, is, instead, sent into Europe to preach to the Gentiles, and the first person that comes to the Lord is an Asian woman who had converted to Judaism.
Then there is one more thing we should address, just so there’s no confusion. Verse 15 says, “she was then baptized, along with her whole household.” If that caused you to pause, remember in the series explaining why water baptism is not for the church today, at this point in time (and even well beyond this time) Paul had not yet settled this doctrinal distinction. And through the principle of progressive revelation it will be almost 10 years from this time before he says anything definitive about not baptizing believers.
The last thing about this account is that Lydia’s “whole household” was baptized with her. The “household” could consist of both family and servants. What is involved here is not clear, but not in the least unusual. The inference is that everyone in the household became believers as well. There are at least 10 instances of this in the New Testament (see John 4:53 for an example and remember Cornelius in Acts 10) and we will see another before we finish Acts 16.
The end of verse 15 tells us Lydia then convinced Paul and his party to come and stay at her house. From verse 16 to verse 40 covers an account of something that probably took place some time later towards the end of Paul’s stay in Philippi. There could be a gap in time of up to 1 year between verse 15 when Paul went to stay at Lydia’s house and verse 40 when he departed.
So, while Luke doesn’t tell us much about the church that was established in Philippi, we do know it remained strong. Ten years, or so, later, Paul writes his letter to the Philippians from Rome during his first imprisonment there. In it he thanked them for their gift of support (4:18), took the opportunity to tell them about his circumstances and encouraged them to stand firm.
This is verse 16, “Then one day on our way to the place of prayer, we were met by a slave girl who was possessed by a spirit of divination, and she earned a lot of money for her owners by soothsaying.” I can’t resist digging into this verse a little, due to its cultural history. This slave girl was possessed by a demon of “divination”. This is translated from puthon, or python. Pytho, according to fable, was a large python with the ability to predict future events. As the fable goes, Apollo killed the serpent, became Apollo Pythius and gained for himself the ability to predict the future. It was then believed that this spirit of Apollo influenced anyone who pretended to foretell future events.
Finally, there is the term “soothsaying” (some translations have fortune telling), from manteuomai, meaning, to be mad or beside oneself, derived from the erratic, extravagant behavior exhibited by such people. Usual characteristics included foaming at the mouth, loud screaming or yelling, gnashing teeth, shaking, trembling and quick, unpredictable bodily movements.
Verse 17 says she followed “Paul and us” all the while shouting, “These men are servants of the Most High God, showing us the way of salvation.” Now, you might think it strange that a demon possessed girl would be saying something totally true and accurate. But this was simply an attempt to connect Paul and his message to the occult. That way anything he did or said would be discredited as ultimately coming from Satan.
And since she continued doing this for “many days”, Paul probably became aware of what was happening and got so annoyed that he decided to put a stop to it. He spoke directly to the demon and commanded it “in the name of Jesus Christ” to come out, and it did. By expelling the demon using Jesus’ name, Paul proved the miracle was done by the power of God and not Satan. So, the plot was foiled, but the trouble was just beginning, as we will see in the next lesson.