MINISTRY IN PHILIPPI

The Second Missionary Journey of Paul got off to a poor start. They had left Antioch in Syria and had traveled the entire length of Anatolia, but in all that time, there had not been a single convert. Instead they found the Lord closing doors at every turn. They had come all the way to the coast and now had gotten on a boat heading west. So it was that they came to Europe.

Troas took its name from the nearby ancient city of Troy. The two cities are not actually that close to one another. Troas was still a port city; Troy was now a good distance from the sea.

1. A Straight Course: Therefore putting out to sea from Troas, we ran a straight course to Samothrace, and on the day following to Neapolis (16:11).

The path traveled by Paul and company had been anything but "straight" up to this point. They had been traveling through Anatolia and had found the door shut in each province to which they had directed their steps. When they came to Troas, Paul had a vision. It was of a man from Macedonia and he was asking for help. They took it as a sign from God and they determined to go there. Getting on board a ship, they were taken on a straight course to Neapolis.

2. Neapolis.

The modern port city of Kabala stands astride the ruins of ancient Neapolis. The name Neapolis means "new city." It was apparently a new city and a new port built to service the region. From here, it is a ten-mile trip inland to the city of Philippi.

3. Philippi: From there to Philippi, which is a leading city of the district of Macedonia, a Roman colony (16:12).

Philippi was a Greek city and a Roman colony. That meant there were both Greeks and Romans living in the city. The people group notably lacking was the Jews. There were few Jews living in the city. In order to have a synagogue, there had to be at least 10 Jewish men. That was not the case in Philippi. There were not enough Jews here to warrant a synagogue.

Paul’s normal practice for evangelism was to begin in the synagogue. He would go there on the Sabbath day and he would tell of the One who had come and who had fulfilled the prophecies of the Scriptures. That would not work here. There was no synagogue.

That might have been discouraging news to Paul and his company. They had come hundreds of miles to bring the gospel and now there was nowhere for them to preach it. That Sabbath, Paul made his way out to the banks of the small river that ran past the city. Outside the city gates and still in the shadow of the acropolis of the city, there was located a Roman graveyard past which the river flowed. It would be here that the women of the city would come to draw their water and to do their laundry. This might also serve as a place of prayer.

Sure enough, Paul finds here a gathering of women. He proceeds to tell them of Jesus, that Galilean carpenter-turned-rabbi who was not afraid to speak to a Samaritan woman by a well.

It must have been a dramatic sight. They were under the shadow of the acropolis of the city. Seated near a graveyard, a place of death, they sat by the bank of the river as Paul shared with them the water of life.

1. Lydia listens: And a certain woman named Lydia, from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple fabrics, a worshiper of God, was listening (16:14).

One of the women who was present that day was a Greek businesswoman named Lydia. She was a worshiper of God. That means she was a semi-proselyte to Judaism.

Lydia wasn’t a native to Philippi. It could have been that she was only here on business. She was from Anatolia, the land through which Paul had so recently traveled and the country in which he had been forbidden to preach the gospel. She was from the city of Thyatira.

That is interesting because we learn in Revelation 2:18 that there would eventually be a church in Thyatira. Who started this church? I do not know. But I suspect it started by a Christian businesswoman named Lydia.

2. The Lord leads: The Lord opened her heart to respond to the things spoken by Paul (16:14).

If you had been there, you might have thought that Lydia did not need to be converted. After all, she was already a worshiper of God. But she needed the gospel. She needed to have her heart opened.

When you first came to know the Lord, you probably thought that it was your own idea. I certainly did. I was raised in a Baptist church and, like all good Baptists, I became a Presbyterian of my own free will. But the truth of the matter is that no one comes to the Lord unless the Lord has first opened their heart. Steve Brown describes it this way: You take the first step; God takes the second step, and by the time you get to the third step, you find that it was really God who took the first step.

3. Believers and Baptism: When she and her household had been baptized... (16:15).

We are told that Lydia heard the gospel and that she believed. Then we are told that both she and her entire household were baptized. There is an interesting omission here. We do not read that her entire household believed. They might have, but we are not told this was the case. And that is okay because Lydia was acting as the head of her household. She believed and she had her entire household baptized as a demonstration that she was committing her entire household to the Lord.

4. The Hospitality of holiness: "If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come into my house and stay." And she prevailed upon us (16:15).

There was a real power at work here and it was not the power of God. This girl was possessed by a demon. Her owners realized a good amount of financial profit in her misfortune.

Her prophecies now began to focus upon Paul and his entourage. She testified that they were servants of God and that they were proclaiming the way of salvation. Was her message true? Yes, it was. And yet, this annoyed Paul. Why? Because people of God are known by both their friends and their enemies and Paul had determined to maintain integrity with those who were true and distance from those who were not.

Jesus made the same sort of determination when demons sought to testify of him. The story is told in Mark 2:23-25. An unclean spirit testified that Jesus is the Holy One of God! Jesus rebuked the demon.

There is a lesson here. It is that you need to be careful from whom you accept praise. Jesus would not allow this demon to praise Him. And when the world begins to praise us, we better look out.

Paul and Silas are taken into the market place before the authorities. At the center of the marketplace of Philippi was the forum. On the north side of the forum stood a raised platform. It was known as the Bema -- the seat of judgment. It was here that Paul and Silas were brought.

The issue was that Paul had just cast a demon out of the servant girl. Her masters saw this as a financial loss. But they do not complain about the financial loss. To do so would be to admit the power of God that had been demonstrated in their midst. Instead they change the subject. They try to make it a racial issue and a political issue.

Notice the mob mentality that is at work. This all takes place in the public square of the marketplace. The crowd gathers and it moves against Paul and Silas. The magistrates order the two men to be stripped of their clothes and beaten. Shame and pain are mixed together as many blows are inflicted. But that is not all. They are then thrown into prison and their feet are secured in stocks. They will be forced to sit in an uncomfortable position for hours upon end with no relief.

What would have been your attitude in such circumstances? Beaten, mocked, stripped naked, rejected, and now forced to sit in uncomfortable stocks amidst your own refuse in the most unsanitary conditions imaginable.

And yet, we see that Paul and Silas were involved in prayer and in the singing of hymns of praise to God. Luke adds that the prisoners were listening to them. After all, they were a captive audience. They had nowhere else to go. But that is not the only reason they were listening. I think they had come to be impressed with the supernaturally gracious attitude of these two men.

Suddenly the earth began to shake. This is a region that is particularly prone to earthquakes and one took place now. But there was something special about this earthquake. It not only shook the foundations of the prison, it also opened all of the doors and unfastened every prisoner’s chains.

This was God’s earthquake and it was doing God’s work. But I want to let you in on a secret. All earthquakes are God’s earthquakes. He is able to take every work of nature and to use it for His kingdom.

The typical penalty for permitting a prisoner to escape was either imprisonment, torture or death. The jailer had been sleeping and, coming awake to see the open doors, he came to the conclusion that those left in his charge had escaped. His first impulse was panic and he prepared to end his own life through suicide. He was stopped by Paul calling to him from inside the prison.

Paul’s call speaks from a forgiving heart. After what Paul and Silas had been through at the hands of this man and his countrymen, most of us might have been tempted to delay our call. Would we have been stuttering at this point? Paul did not. He was ready to offer a message of hope to this one who had placed him in the stocks.

What follows is one of the shortest gospel presentations on record. I have a feeling it is short because Paul had already lain the foundation, explaining who is Jesus and what He had accomplished upon the cross.

In the early 1970's, I met a young man by the name of Bruce on the campus of Florida Atlantic University. He was a self-proclaimed atheist, but he listened intently as I shared with him the truths of the Bible and of its message of a promised Messiah who had come to die as a sacrifice for sins. At the close of our conversation, I asked him if he would like to come to know Christ and he replied that he would think about it. I did not see him again for about 2 or 3 years and, when I did, he had become a Christian. He told me how someone had come up to him the following week and mentioned Christ and that he had basically asked this same question that is presented in this passage: "Sirs, what must I do to be saved?"

Paul does not point out works that are to be worked. He does not say, "Turn over a new leaf and get us out of these stocks and if you are good enough for long enough then perhaps you will make it." He simply calls for faith in Christ.

Notice the evidence of a changed life. The jailer did not merely believe and then put Paul and Silas back into jail. He had a faith that worked. Not that these works of mercy saved him. Paul did not say, "Wash my wounds and give me food and drink that then you will be saved." You are saved by faith alone and not by works. But you are also saved by faith that does not remain alone and that is evidenced by resulting works. We could chart it out like this:

This faith was evidenced by works of mercy. It was also evidenced by baptism. Just as we saw Lydia and her entire household baptized, so also here we see this jailer and his entire household baptized.

It is interesting to note that, while the New American Standard translation makes it appear that the entire household was baptized because the entire household believed in God, the Greek text does not bear this up. The phrase "having believed" is singular and refers only to the jailer. This is one occasion where other translations do a better job of capturing the Greek text:

At this point, you might be asking the question, "What about those in the family that might have been too young to believe? How could they have been baptized as a sign of their faith when they were too young to have any faith?"

The answer is that baptism is the counterpart of circumcision -- the Old Testament sign of faith. Why do I say that circumcision was a sign of faith? I say it because the Bible says circumcision was a sign of faith. Romans 4:11 says that Abraham received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had while uncircumcised. When were people normally circumcised in the Old Testament? They were normally circumcised as infants. It was not that these infants understood this as a sign of faith, but rather, this reflected a commitment of their parents to identify their children with the salvation provided in God’s covenant relationship with His people.

We do the same thing today. When Christian parents have their children baptized, they are saying in effect, "I promise and covenant to raise up my children as Christian children, believing and claiming for themselves the promise of salvation that is found in Christ."

We have already noted that Roman citizenship was something special and it guaranteed special privileges to anyone who possessed it. One of those special privileges was that no one could lay a hand on a Roman citizen. That wasn’t the case with the normal population.

One cannot help but to wonder why Paul did not appeal to his citizenship on the previous day and prior to his having been beaten. Perhaps it had all taken place so quickly that he had been given no chance to make such an appeal. In any case, a serious infraction had taken place and Paul calls into question these actions. Rather than allow a quiet release, Paul demands that the officials of the city come in person to the prison to answer for their actions.

There are some lessons we can gleam from this passage:

1. Christians are permitted to hold others accountable for their actions.

2. An appeal to justice can serve to further the cause of Christ.

The city magistrates had sought to intimidate Paul and Silas into ceasing their work of evangelism. They could not stop them with a greater message; they could not stop them with greater miracles. They tried to stop them through intimidation. Instead, we see that it is these same city magistrates who became intimidated.

What intimidates you? Do you feel able and ready to share your faith with anyone? Or have you become careful and afraid of what people might think of you? There is a lesson here. It is that we need not be intimidated. Why? Because we serve the God of heaven and of earth and He is able to overcome all attacks, both physical and spiritual.