Lydia: The Christian Who Broke Sterotypes

It’s night. The vision of a man comes to Paul, and the man is standing there and appealing to Paul, the man’s words strong, with a begging, urging quality, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.”

So Acts 16 tells us that when Paul saw the vision at night, immediately he realized that he and the others were called by God to preach the Word in Macedonia. “Called by God!” These words mean that God called them to Himself. He said in effect, “I want you close to Me. I’m calling you to Me, personally close to Me, through the preaching in Macedonia.” They immediately set sail for Macedonia.

They arrived at Macedonia, made their way to Philippi, went about talking to people, preaching the Word, but the Spirit didn’t seem to be moving anyone to believe in Jesus. Then, one day, on the Sabbath, a group of women had gathered outside, near a river. Paul and the others walked up to them and sat down.

Among those gathered was a woman named Lydia. In the ancient world, slavery thrived as an institution, and many slaves didn’t have a first name that personalized their existence, but, rather, they were named for the name of the region they came from. So if Lydia had been a slave, she would’ve been called a Laodean, because “Lydia” carries the literal meaning “Laodea,” which was also an area in the world where a large number of slaves were confined. So, at one time in her life, Lydia was a slave.

Lydia was a slave who became a free citizen. We don’t know how she got free, but we know that she did become free. She became a free citizen, because if she hadn’t become free, she wouldn’t have been able to be the head of a household. Women at that time either had to have a husband, or a guardian, or somebody who’d make decisions for them. They were seen as social inferiors. But not Lydia! She was the head of a household. “Head” means that she was completely in charge of that household, making decisions for that household, based on her own analysis, her own understanding of things, her own politics.

Because Lydia was free, she somehow got enough capital together to purchase the purple dye and the fabric to make the variety of wares she sold. And the purple dye was not only used for fabrics but it was also used to make rouge and lipstick. And it’s probably the case that she wore the very things she made. She put on lipstick she made, the rouge she made, and did her own dyeing of the fabrics she sold. Lydia was able to shop for the raw materials needed, buy them, and put them together in such a way that her artistry made her successful as a business woman.

Lydia was initially a gentile, but Scripture tells us that she became “a worshiper of God,” and this word for “worship” was frequently used to identify a proselyte or a converted Jew. So she was a converted Jew, not drawn into believing in one or more of the many different gods subscribed to by the Romans. Lydia wanted to worship the one true God. And this Greek word for “worship” also means a kind of shrinking back in awe at the power of God, the majesty of God. So Lydia’s worship focused on the feelings, the awe, the reverence, and the devotion to God, devotion to the one true God.

So Lydia had been broken out of slavery, broken out of disenfranchisement, legally had become the head of a household, had been broken out of being owned to owning her own property, and had moved out of the polytheistic display and grip of all the Roman gods to being a worshiper of the one true God. Lydia had the capacity to break free of stereotypes, break free of shaming internalized voices beaten into her when she’d been a slave, break free of institutional structures that had tried to squeeze her into demeaning roles, cripple her abilities, humilitate her dignity, and force her into being something less than human. Lydia had the power in her own spirit to want to break out of all forms of slavery.

At this stage of her life, Lydia’s life was going well. She worshiped the one true God, and she was a successful business woman who was the head of her own household. But the unexpected occurred: Paul appeared on the scene, sat down on the ground with the women, and he began speaking to them.

Paul was speaking, and the Word says that Lydia “was listening.” This word for “listening” is in an intense form in Greek, which means Lydia “sustained continuously her concentration and focus on” what Paul was saying, and as she was listening, the Lord “thoroughly opened her heart to respond to the things spoken by Paul.” Lydia was on the threshold of salvation!

Jesus had thoroughly opened her heart and He was keeping it open, open across the entire length and breadth of her heart and mind. Lydia was so concentrated on listening to the Word, so concentrated on the Word that her concentration brought her right to the threshold of faith. That’s as far as anyone can go under her own willpower. No one can go any further. That threshold, that’s where a person needs the Lord to thoroughly open a person’s heart, and keep it open.

So Lydia was listening, sustaining her listening, her heart continuously opened, the Word says, so that she could respond to what Paul was saying. This Greek word that means “respond to” is an empowering word. It means to keep the ship on course until it reaches its destination. So Lydia, through the concentrating of her own will, focusing on Paul’s words, with Jesus keeping her heart open, she continued to respond to Paul’s flow of words, staying on course, her only singular desire to reach her destination, and her destination was to be able to proclaim: “I believe in Christ, and I receive Him as my Savior.” To reach that destination, that’s the igniting point, the place and instant where the fire of faith is ready to burst forth. As Lydia continually put all of her focusing on the Word and her heart was continuously opened by Christ, the fire of her faith suddenly burst forth through the power of the Holy Spirit and she received Christ as her Savior. No one can believe in Jesus without being empowered, as Paul tells us in 1 Cor 12:3: No one can say Jesus is Lord, except by the Holy Spirit. She needed the power of the Spirit to enable her to receive the saving presence of Christ.

Lydia and her entire household were saved, and they were baptized. Then Lydia makes this statement to the Christian men present: “If you have judged me to be a believer in the Lord, come into my house and stay.” What does she mean by the statement “If you have judged me to be a believer in the Lord,” and why would she say that? “If you have judged me,” not “Hey! You baptized me. That means you think I’m a Christian.” But this word “judge,” in Greek it means that if after you’ve examined what you’ve just witnessed, and you’ve weighed the pros and cons, and you’ve formed an opinion, if after you’ve done all that, and you’ve come to believe that I believe in the Lord, then I’d like you to come to my house and stay there. Not just Paul. I want the whole missionary team to come and stay there with me.

And “I want you to stay” means that I want you to identify yourself socially with me, in a public way. Lydia is pressing for radical equality. And the men who’ve witnessed her conversion must have hesitated to accept her offer to come to her house and stay there for a while. Leading her to Christ, that is one glorious thing. Baptizing her, that is her public expression of her inner receiving of Christ as her Savior. But going to a woman’s house in the full light of day, and then going inside that house, and staying for a time, while under the scrutiny of the public and its traditional morality, now that is too public, and her strong request goes against what is proper and wise in that Roman-controlled society.

But Scripture says that “she prevailed upon us.” The Greek words mean that this woman of passionate faith moved toward these men with overpowering force, a force with a momentum that had no regard for the consequences of its committed action, a force streaming from the surging power of Lydia’s personal presence and her sustained conviction of the rightness of her inviting Christian men to come to her house to stay, a relentless force that kept pressing upon the hesitation of the men until they were persuaded, and then compelled to accept her gracious invitation.

Lydia moved from slavery, to being the head of a household, to owning her own business. She went from being an unbeliever, to being a Jew, to being a Christian who made her house into a home church. Lydia moved from having a will to survive, to having a will to live, to having a will to be a woman, to having a will to be a person, to having a will to be in God’s will. Lydia, a Christian life grounded in radical equality, and a life that was kept thoroughly opened by the Lord who lovingly came to live in her worshiping heart. Lydia–breaker of stereotypes for all ages.