“So, setting sail from Troas, we made a
direct voyage to Samothrace, and the following day to Neapolis, and from there
to Philippi, which is a leading city of the district of Macedonia and a Roman
colony. We remained in this city some
days. And on the Sabbath day we went
outside the gate to the riverside, where we supposed there was a place of
prayer, and we sat down and spoke to the women who had come together. One who heard us was a woman named Lydia,
from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple goods, who was a worshiper of
God. The Lord opened her heart to pay
attention to what was said by Paul. And
after she was baptized, and her household as well, she urged us, saying, ‘If
you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come to my house and stay.’ And she prevailed upon us.”-Acts 16:11-15 (ESV).
We do not know whether Lydia, a
citizen of Thyatira, whom Paul met in Philippi and won to the Lord was a
mother, but her example surely speaks well of characteristics of a Christian
mother.
Today is
Mother’s Day. When we are gifted to have a Christian mother, we are blessed
indeed. If we are a Christian mother, we
have a built-in gift from God. We cannot
be sure Lydia was a mother, but reference to her “household” indicates that she
may have been. She demonstrated in her
invitation to the missionaries to come into her home that she recognized their
needs and responded. We can imagine that
she offered them all the amenities of food for their hunger, and rooms where
they could rest and gain restoration from travels and work. “A Christian home is a home with an ever-open
door,” writes Dr. William Barclay in his commentary about Lydia. Lydia and her household have the distinction
of being Paul’s first European converts.
As we honor mothers today, let us thank God for the influence and
blessings of Christian mothers.
Now let us
look a little more closely at how Paul met and witnessed to Lydia of Thyatira. Paul and his mission team set sail from Troas on a
northwesterly course on the northern neck of the Aegean Sea to the island of
Samothrace, a journey of about two days.
The next day they boarded a ship to Neapolis. The next lap of their journey was to
Philippi, a major city of Macedonia some ten miles inland. Paul was now in
Macedonia, in Europe, and was fulfilling the call of his vision, “Come over
into Macedonia to help us.” Philippi,
founded by Philip, father of Alexander the Great, was a major trade
center. It was one of the chief cities
on the Great Egnatian Way, an important travel and trade route that connected
Asia and Italy. Even though a populous
city, the Jewish population there evidently was not enough for the city to have
a Jewish synagogue, the place where Paul usually began his mission in any new
city he entered.
An ordinary
practice, however, was for Jews in a city with no synagogue to gather at a
river (or by the seaside of a coastal city) for prayer and worship on the
Sabbath. They would thus find water
needed for the ritual purification rites before worship. In the several days Paul and his team had
already been at Philippi, they probably had heard of the place on the river
where worship was held. There they found
women gathered in prayer, and a leader seems to have been a business woman
named Lydia, a native of Thyatira, a district where there were many dyers and
dealers in fabric. It is significant that she was a “seller of purple goods.” The
purple dye had to be gathered drop-by-drop from the shell fish. A pound of cloth dyed with this rare dye
could cost as much as 40 pounds. This
speaks of the stature and importance of this European business woman from
another town, Thyatira, operating her business in a cross-roads of international
trade, the busy city of Philippi. And
she was a God-fearer, one accustomed to worship on the Sabbath.
Paul began
to teach the assembled women about Jesus the Messiah. They listened, were receptive, and were won
to Christ; and moreover, “her household” as well. This would mean any family members and servants.
They were baptized as testimony to their new-found faith. Then Lydia, wealthy business woman, invited
the mission team to her house to lodge. Luke
wrote: “She prevailed upon us.” This
comment shows not only that she made
the invitation but that she really meant it.
In several of Paul’s writings, he denotes the gift of hospitality as
being commendable and a spiritual gift.
Blessed are
Christian mothers. In the fifth
commandment, “Honor thy father and thy mother” (Exodus 20:5), God gave a
promise to those who follow this teaching:
their days would be long. Many
mothers in our culture today not only rear children but also assist with (or
make) the livelihood for their family and still hold the responsibilities of
motherhood dear. Like Lydia of old, they
“tend well to the ways of their household.”
Today let us remember with thanksgiving the influence of a godly mother
and the privilege God gave us to be a mother (and a grandmother and great
grandmother, where applicable). –Ethelene
Dyer Jones 05.11.2014
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