The Book of Acts

Come over to Macedonia and help us
(Acts 16:6 - 17:15)

Paul's second missionary journey took him to Macedonia and Achaia, the provinces respectively of northern and southern Greece. The towns of Philippi, Thessalonica and Berea, in the section we are considering, were all in the Roman province of Macedonia.

“Come over to Macedonia”
Paul and his companions were unable to proceed in the directions they had decided upon. First they were prevented by the Holy Spirit from preaching in the province of Asia (16:6). They then tried to enter Bithynia, but with the same result. These two provinces had been set aside for Peter (1 Peter 1:1), and it is probably for that reason that Paul was forbidden to go there. Instead he was clearly directed to go to Macedonia. At Troas he had a vision of a man from Macedonia begging him to “come over to Macedonia and help us” (16:9).

Commentators make much of the fact that the apostle was now entering Europe, the continent where most of us happen to live. It is of course irrelevant to Acts where we happen to live. Even Europe is a misnomer since Europe as such did not exist. In going from Asia to Macedonia they were only travelling from one Roman province to another. The real advance made at this juncture was that they now evangelised the Greeks. Previously they had spoken to the Gentiles, the non-Jews of Asia Minor; now for the first time they came into contact with the Greeks of Macedonia. This is recognized as a major break-through in the structure of Acts.

Lydia's heart is opened
Having received his marching orders, Paul prepared at once to leave for Macedonia. Accompanied by Luke (the first “we” section begins at 16:10), they sailed from Troas to the mountainous Aegean island of Samothrace, and on to Neapolis. Evidently the wind (as well as the Holy Spirit) was with them since they covered the 150 miles from Troas to Neapolis in only two days. An additional ten-mile walk along the Via Egnatia brought them to Philippi.

Jews were so few at Philippi (only ten males were needed) that no synagogue existed. Paul knew however where to find the women who would gather for prayer: it was on the banks of the river Gangites outside the city gate. He sat down and spoke to those he found there, Jews and interested Gentiles. One of them, Lydia, a trader in the purple dye for which that area was famous, responded to Paul's message. She was a worshipper of God, someone who believed and behaved like a Jew without having actually become one. Lydia was baptised with her household and then prevailed upon Paul to stay at her house.

Lydia may have been one of the wealthiest women in the Roman Empire. The only source of blue or purple dye in those days was a small gland in the murex snail. It took 12,000 snails to fill up a thimble of blue dye! In 200 BC one pound of cloth, dyed in this way, cost the equivalent of 36,000 dollars. By AD 300 the same amount of cloth cost 96,000 dollars. It must have added greatly to the impact of the Christian message when a person of such calibre was converted to the faith.

A slave-girl is healed
Another day, on their way to this place of prayer, they were met by a slave-girl who had a “spirit of python”, that is she was possessed by the spirit of Apollo, the demon which was worshipped at Delphi in central Greece. For many days she followed them continuously, shouting, “These are the servants of the Most High God, who are telling you the way to be saved.” In the same way “Legion” had shouted at the top of his voice, “What do you want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God?” (Luke 8:28). The demons knew that He was the Christ (Luke 4:41), but their raucous confessions were profoundly unwelcome. Paul became so troubled that he finally commanded the spirit to come out of her. We are not told that she became a Christian, but we may safely assume that she did.

The girl's owners had been making a great deal of money from her fortune-telling. They were now so enraged that they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them before the authorities. They accused them of advocating customs unlawful to “us Romans”, and to make matters worse, “These men are Jews,” they said. Before they could say a word in their own defence Paul and Silas were severely flogged. For Paul this was the first of three such beatings (2 Corinthians 11:25), though nothing is known of the other two.

The jailer is saved
Having suffered this outrageous indignity (for they were Romans), they were thrown into prison. The jailer was ordered to guard them carefully, so he put them in the inner cell and fastened their feet in the stocks. The dramatic events of the following night are known to us all. At midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, in spite of their throbbing wounds and chafing stocks. Suddenly there was a violent earthquake. All the prison doors were thrown open and everybody's chains fell off. Fearing the worst the jailer was about to kill himself, but Paul stopped him in the nick of time. “Don't harm yourself! We are all here!” he shouted.

The jailer fell trembling before Paul and Silas. “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” he asked. It is uncertain what he would have meant by this request, but he may have learnt about salvation from listening to his charges “praying and singing hymns to God”. In any case Paul gave him the only possible answer. “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved—you and your household,” he replied. The jailer, having washed their wounds, was himself washed in baptism. He then set a meal before them. This hardened old campaigner (for warders were usually retired soldiers) “was filled with joy because he had come to believe in God—he and his whole family”.

Here, very briefly, is the story of three converts to the Christian faith from very different backgrounds and walks of life; a prosperous business woman from Thyatira, a demon-possessed slave-girl, and a retired soldier. What is there to be learnt from this unusual selection of new believers?

All one in Christ Jesus
The events recorded in the second half of Acts are only a choice assortment of all that Paul did and accomplished. How few of the disasters listed in 2 Corinthians 11 are actually mentioned in Acts! The events that are mentioned are best understood as illustrations of Paul's doctrine and practical teaching. In Galatians 3:26-28 he had said, “You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For all of you who were baptised into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

In Acts 16 we have a Greek (the jailer), a slave-girl, and a female (Lydia). A more diverse company can hardly be imagined, but they became “all one in Christ Jesus”. After Paul had left they would have worshipped together, and served one another, their natural feelings of dislike and suspicion forgotten in their newly-found unity in Christ. Such it has always been in the body of Christ: differences of background and circumstance no longer have a place.

Follow my example
Many teachers do not practise what they preach, but emphatically Paul was not of that number. More than anyone else his own life illustrates what he instructed others to do.

• Join with others in following my example - he urges his readers (Philippians 3:17).
• Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ (1 Corinthians 11:1)
• Do everything without complaining or arguing....as you hold out the word of life - he tells the Philippians (2:14-16).
• Rejoice in the Lord always (4:4)
• Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit....look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others (2:3-4)
• Work out your salvation with fear and trembling (2:12)

All these excellent precepts are shown to perfection in Paul's actions and demeanour.

Paul and Silas did not argue or complain when unjustly flogged and imprisoned, though both of them were Roman citizens. Rather they rejoiced that they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name (Acts 5:41). It was not his own salvation which the apostle considered important when the prison doors were thrown open, but that of the jailer whose need of salvation was far greater than his own.

Thessalonica and Berea
In spite of their maltreatment in Philippi our two apostles were irrepressible. They now proceeded to Thessalonica which was 100 miles from Philippi, following the Via Egnatia all the way in a south-westerly direction. Paul here followed his usual custom: “on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and proving that the Christ had to suffer and rise from the dead. ‘This Jesus I am proclaiming to you is the Christ,' he said” (17:2-3).

The word translated “proving” is really “placing alongside” ( paratithemenos ). What he did was to place the fulfilment alongside the prediction, and in this way “opened up” the Scriptures. It would be a useful exercise for us to do the same, using the passages quoted in Acts.

In spite of his prolonged exposition only “some of them” were persuaded. However a large number of God-fearing Greeks and prominent women were ready to join Paul and Silas. The Jews (as usual) were jealous. They “formed a mob and started a riot in the city”. Paul and Silas, with events at Philippi still fresh in their minds, slipped away at nightfall, and went on to Berea, another 50 miles down the Via Egnatia.

The Bereans proved far more receptive: “they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true”. Here “many of the Jews” believed and also a fair number of Greeks, both men and women. But the Thessalonian Jews, not satisfied with causing a riot at home, now came to Berea, “agitating the crowds and stirring them up”. Without delay Paul departed to the coast, leaving instructions for Silas and Timothy to join him in Athens as soon as possible. It was not in fact until Paul got to Corinth that they were finally reunited (18:5).

The book of Acts gives only the bare bones of what happened. But Acts should always be read in conjunction with the epistles written soon after. Paul's high regard for his converts at Thessalonica, his intense concern for their spiritual welfare, and nagging fears that they might have succumbed to the tempter; for all this and much more his first epistle to the Thessalonians should be read.