How strategic was this open heart to the gospel advance into Europe!
The aggressive spirit of Christianity in the early days is evinced by the fact that Christ had not been twenty years in glory when His missionaries planted His ensign of salvation under the walls of Philippi. Jesus Himself led His missionary band from Asia to the shores of Europe—the field where His cross has struck deepest root and won many noble triumphs. Paul was borne by divine impulse to Troas, which looks across the sea to Greece. There a vision appeared to Paul in the night. There was a man of Macedonia beseeching him, “Come over into Macedonia, and help us” (Acts 16:9). The man of Macedonia, genius of the Hellenic race, waved the distress signal to Christianity. The outcome of that spirit was a yearning outlook towards Calvary.
When Paul and his comrades arrived in Philippi, the man who had invoked their aid seemed to have disappeared. In this great city there was no synagogue, no holy place held by faith as an outpost of the heavenly world. When, therefore, the Sabbath broke over the town, the Christian pioneers went to a riverside where there was a place of prayer.
The missionary company consisted of four—Paul and Silas, Luke and Timothy—four great names. Survey these men as they make their way to the riverside. Can these men conquer Europe? Can they subdue the sophists of Greece, the hordes of Germany, the painted clans of Britain? What do these sons of Asia seek in Europe? Not land, nor fortune, nor renown. They come to start the heavenly plow; they carry seed from the granary of Calvary; they will plant the cross on a new continent. They carry spiritual supply for spiritual demand. A group of women have prayed by the river, and the knights of the cross are the answer.
Paul and his comrades join the company of devout women. But there is another, an invisible Presence—the Man of Macedonia, the Pioneer, the Missionary of missionaries, the Explorer of man’s soul. Jesus Christ is there in the clime of Homer and Socrates, of Philip and Alexander. He has planted the invisible cross, He has come to annex Europe to His crown.
Paul has been led into Macedonia by the Lord of the harvest, yet he does not begin to preach the moment he touches the quays of Neapolis. He is deep in the spirit of the cross; still he awaits his Lord’s signal. He expects no ovation, no civic reception. He is not on the outlook for the aristocracy, the leaders of public life.
He knows that the gospel is quiet, that it begins with the cottage and homespun, with persons and not with crowds. He abjures learning, rhetoric, and eloquence. He speaks not of his visions or of his commission, of his labors or of his triumphs. He is to the women by the river what Christ was to the woman at Jacob’s well. He points to the heathen city, without God. He establishes a common platform of faith. He is soon in the holy Book and in the holy land. The river shore becomes Judean soil. A little hill crowned with a cross arises outside the gate. There is a garden near, and in the garden a grave. From the slope of Olivet ascends the Fulfiller of the Law, the Redeemer, the Hope of men.
Think of this picture in the blue-roofed morning, in the stillness of the Sabbath air. Without priest, without ritual, without patronage, without the favor of states, without routine, and without traditional restraint, slowly as a seed and silent as a force of nature, was the beginning of the gospel in Europe. We would give much for a descriptive report of this service. In subject and method it would supply a model for missionary preaching. We are certain of two things: Christ was the theme of the glorious conversation; and Paul’s personal experience was the atmosphere through which the cross was revealed. Paul could not speak long without stamping his hearer’s mind with the terms distinctive of the gospel. Hence Lydia’s entreaty, “If ye have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come into my house,” is an unconscious echo of the great Pauline doctrine of justification by faith in Christ.
Christ opened His mission in Europe among women, and this in Greece, whose great teachers had left women out of sight. Socrates, the greatest, wisest talker among the Greeks, delighted to waylay men of all crafts and classes with his conversation. But homely and gentle as he was, he would have passed by those women as unable to comprehend his discourse on life and duty and the gods. In Plato’s academy woman had no place.
When Christ comes to Macedonia, He opens His school among women. The first member of His Church in Europe is a woman. Lydia is the Western Mary, the mother of European Christianity. She rocks the cradle of the Gentile Church. Her home is the Nazareth from which have issued the life, the freedom, the reforms, the art, the progress, and glory of Europe.
Marriage or trade had drawn Lydia to Philippi. But God was leading her for higher ends. Her meeting with Paul was the supreme event of her life: Paul and she pursued converging lines of heavenly purpose. Lydia’s way to Philippi was as divinely opened as was her heart (v. 14). Thus did Cornelius from Italy and Peter from Galilee meet at Caesarea. When we leave our homes to embark in the world, we are prone to leave our religious habits and convictions behind. Lydia carries the fear and the worship of God into the land of the stranger.
She was in trade—a seller of purple, not a wearer of purple; yet she gave a day out of seven to her Creator. Neither fatigue nor care held her away from the holy assembly by the riverside.
Still her heart was closed. Closed in what sense? Not against truth, for she had received it; nor against light, for she had hailed it; nor against the fear of God, for she feared and worshiped Him. Her heart was not closed against the gospel, which had not yet knocked for admission. From Paul she first heard of Christ the Crucified. Paul carried her first invitation to the feast of salvation. In immediate response, Lydia is one with the penitent thief, with Zacchaeus and Cornelius. Her heart yielded to the first knock of redeeming love, became an ear to hear the voice of grace, an eye to mirror Calvary.
While Paul conversed, Lydia ceased to hear the river lapping at its shore, ceased to see her companions, ceased to remember her warehouse and her purple. She only heard the voice of the wonderful stranger. She heard of love and sacrifice, of faith and righteousness, of peace with God and reigning grace, of deliverance from sin and of eternal life.
The things spoken by Paul were the grandest that the human ear can hear. The merchant found the precious pearl, the dealer in purple found her robe of righteousness. Her heart was opened for the King of Glory to come in, her understanding opened to receive divine light, her will opened to receive the divine law, and her affections opened to receive divine love.
Lydia’s conversion to the Jewish religion left her mind open to the faith of Christ. It was the spiritual element in Judaism that drew proselytes. They cared little for priest or temple. They thought much of sin. They welcomed the revelation of a God merciful, loving, and holy. They were in search of salvation. Nursed in the Hebrew faith and living in a Gentile town, Lydia would have experienced a deeper struggle in renouncing the religion of her fathers. This obstacle would have to be overcome before her heart could be won.
Besides, Lydia was a woman of genius, the genius of the heart—the inspired heart—perceptive and receptive. The Lord may have opened other hearts as He opened hers, but the language descriptive of the divine operation is applied in the New Testament to hers alone.
Christianity is the only belief that has laid siege to the heart; the only faith that has opened the heart, emptied the heart, purified the heart, and healed the heart.
Europe took its keynote from Paul, the most intellectual of the apostles; but in Paul’s word of the cross there was no attempt to confine his message to the intellect alone. That is a message of love, and love appeals to the heart. The herald who calls to repentance must knock at the door of conscience. The preaching that assails the heart and moral sense of men is beyond all others in the succession of Paul and the company of the apostles.