Lydia by the River, Whose Heart Was Opened

Paul was on the road again, this time with his friend Silas, and for weeks God kept saying no.

They tried to preach in the province of Asia, and the Holy Spirit stopped them. They turned north toward Bithynia, and the Spirit of Jesus would not let them go there either. So they walked until they ran out of land, at a port called Troas.

That night Paul saw a vision of a man from Macedonia, across the water, pleading with him. "Come over to Macedonia and help us!"

By morning they were packing. God was calling them across the sea. (Luke the doctor, who wrote this part of the Bible, was traveling with them now. You can tell, because right here his story starts saying "we.")

The wind was behind them, and in two days they were across. They walked inland to Philippi, a proud Roman town where Rome's old soldiers had been given homes. When the Sabbath came, there seemed to be no synagogue, so they went out through the city gate and down to the river, guessing that God's people might gather there to pray.

They guessed right. On the bank sat a group of women. (Paul had come looking for a man from Macedonia. God gave him a riverbank full of women instead.)

Paul and his friends sat down and talked with them. One of the women was named Lydia. She came from Thyatira, a city in Asia, the very province where God had told Paul no. She sold purple cloth. (Purple dye came from sea snails, and it took thousands of snails to color one robe, so purple was what kings wore. Lydia's customers paid well.) She already worshiped the God of Israel, but no one had ever told her what he had done in Jesus.

So Paul told her. He told about Jesus, who died on a cross, was raised from the dead, and is alive and Lord of all.

Lydia listened, and Luke says the Lord opened her heart to take in what Paul was saying. Lydia believed, and right there in the river she was baptized, and so was everyone in her household.

Then she stood up, dripping, and turned to Paul. "If you have decided that I truly belong to the Lord," she said, "come and stay at my house."

"That is very kind," Paul began, "but we..."

"Come!" said Lydia.

Luke says she would not take no for an answer. After all those weeks of hearing no from God, Paul had finally met someone who would not hear it from him. So they went, and Lydia's house became the first home of Jesus' people in Philippi.

Paul had done the talking. Opening a heart is work no preacher can do, and the Lord did it.

Luke had told a story like this once before. In his first book he wrote about two sad friends walking home to Emmaus on the evening of the day Jesus rose. A stranger walked beside them and opened the Scriptures to them, and their hearts burned. At their door they begged him to stay. (Luke uses the very same word for how hard they pushed him to stay and how hard Lydia pushed Paul.) At supper he broke the bread, their eyes were opened, and they knew him.

It was Jesus, alive, and he is still opening hearts and homes. Lydia had spent her whole life selling purple, the color kings wore. Now the true King had opened her heart, and she opened her front door to his friends.