11 From Troas we put out to sea and sailed straight for Samothrace, and the next day we went on to Neapolis. 12 From there we traveled to Philippi, a Roman colony and the leading city of that district of Macedonia. And we stayed there several days. 13 On the Sabbath we went outside the city gate to the river, where we expected to find a place of prayer. We sat down and began to speak to the women who had gathered there. 14 One of those listening was a woman from the city of Thyatira named Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth. She was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul’s message. 15 When she and the members of her household were baptized, she invited us to her home. “If you consider me a believer in the Lord,” she said, “come and stay at my house.” And she persuaded us.
Over the next few days, the first readings all come from Acts and describe Paul’s experiences in Greece. Since this forms part of the background to the captivity letters, we’ll pause and take a look at them. At this point, the center of the Church had moved from Jerusalem to Antioch. Until now, Paul had been following instructions from Antioch and going where they sent him. Now, for his second missionary journey, he branches off on his own. He first visits the churches he had organized on his first trip, but then, in the passage just before today’s reading, Paul has a vision telling him to go to Macedonia. He immediately heads there and arrives in the city of Philippi.
Philip of Macedonia (father of Alexander the Great) built the city in 358-7 BC and named it after himself. Under Emperor Augustus it became a Roman military colony but was primarily agricultural. When Paul arrived there, it was an important city with a mainly Roman population that numbered around 10,000. It was governed by Roman Law which was a great honor for a colony since it meant that they were put on par with Rome itself. The citizens were Roman citizens with all the rights that went with that designation.
Following his usual practice, on the Sabbath, Paul goes out to find the Jewish community in order to preach to them first. It seems that very few Jews lived in Philippi so there was no synagogue. In such cases, he would go to the nearest body of water where people would gather to pray. There he finds a group of women, and he begins evangelizing them. One of the first he converts is Lydia, an independent businesswoman, probably a widow, who produced and sold purple cloth. This was expensive so she was probably fairly wealthy. However that did not stop her, as Loveday Alexander points out in her book on Acts, from being doubly marginalized: she was a woman and an immigrant from Thyatira in a Roman city. Going to worship on the Sabbath means that she was also a God-fearer, a Gentile who followed Judaism without being an actual member of the community (which increased her marginalization). Paul baptizes her and all her household, and Lydia becomes the founding member of a new Christian community. She then persuades Paul and his companions to stay at her house and use it as a base for their operations.
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