The Church Begins at Philippi

Having heard God’s call to go to Macedonia, Paul and his companions on his second missionary journey set off and landed at Neapolis (Acts 16:6–11). Neapolis was the port of the city of Philippi, which was a leading city of that part of Macedonia “and a Roman colony,” as Luke tells us in today’s passage (v. 12). That Philippi was a Roman colony meant that it was governed by Roman law and had a constitution modeled after Rome’s. Many military veterans lived in Philippi, which was near the site where Octavian and Mark Antony had defeated the assassins of Julius Caesar, Brutus and Cassius, in 42 BC. After that battle, Octavian, perhaps better known as Caesar Augustus, encouraged many Roman soldiers to settle there.

Acts 16:12 indicates that Paul and the others stayed in Philippi “some days.” As was their custom, they set out to evangelize the city on the Sabbath by going first to the synagogue. There was no synagogue in Philippi, however, and they had to go outside the city to the riverside to find “a place of prayer” (v. 13). Synagogues were essentially places of prayer, and when there were not at least ten Jewish men in a city to form one, Jews and God-fearers who lived there would often gather near water for prayer. Sometimes they did so because of anti-Jewish sentiment in the area, but such locales were also chosen because the access to the flowing water made it easier to conduct the Jewish cleansing rituals required by the Old Testament.

The missionaries met some women at the riverside, including Lydia from Thyatira, “who was a worshiper of God” and “a seller of purple goods” (v. 14). This means that Lydia was a God-fearer, a gentile worshiper of the God of Israel who did not follow all the ceremonial requirements of the Mosaic law. Thyatira was a city in Asia Minor, and Lydia had probably begun her trade in purple goods—purple-dyed cloth—in Thyatira and brought her business to Philippi.

Paul proclaimed the gospel to Lydia, she believed, and she and her household were baptized. Paul and his companions then lodged in her home (vv. 14–15). The word for “household” likely means that young children, perhaps even infants, were baptized. Note especially that “the Lord opened [Lydia’s] heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul” (v. 14). As in every other conversion, God was the effectual agent who enabled Lydia to understand the gospel and respond in faith. As Matthew Henry comments, “Conversion-work is God’s work.”