Last time we talked about the apostle Paul as the writer of Philippians. We saw that he started out as a Pharisee of Pharisees and then had a dramatic conversion experience on the road to Damascus. He had a radical life change. He wrote the letter while he was under arrest in Rome. Historians believe that he was under house arrest shackled to a Roman guard. He wrote a letter to the church at Philippi, a church he founded. He went to Philippi because of a vision he had during his second missionary journey. Turn with me to Acts 16:6-10.
Acts 16:6–10 (NIV)
Paul’s Vision of the Man of Macedonia
6 Paul and his companions traveled throughout the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been kept by the Holy Spirit from preaching the word in the province of Asia. 7 When they came to the border of Mysia, they tried to enter Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus would not allow them to. 8 So they passed by Mysia and went down to Troas. 9 During the night Paul had a vision of a man of Macedonia standing and begging him, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” 10 After Paul had seen the vision, we got ready at once to leave for Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them.”
There are 2 points I want to make about this turn of events:
The first is that:
~We can make our plans but we must be in a position of surrender for God to change those plans.
How agreeable are you when your plans get changed or rearranged? What kind of spirit do you have?
How flexible are you?
What made Paul and his companions so willing to change their plans?
They knew their focus had to be on Jesus and what He wanted to accomplish. Not their own ideas.
They were living a surrendered life.
A surrendered life to God.
What does a surrendered life look like?
Characteristics of Surrender:
They had an eternal mindset.
What is an eternal mindset?
How does one cultivate eternal thinking rather than temporal thinking?
A Surrendered Life with an Eternal Mindset.
The second thing that I would like to note is that:
It isn’t always God’s will to preach the Gospel.
He prevented them from doing so in 2 separate instances.
Why do you think God would keep them from preaching in those 2 regions?
Either because he knew the people were not ready to receive it or that he was planning on sending someone else to do that work.
Keep that in mind when you are thinking about ministry. Sometimes we get our minds so set that this is something God wants us to do because it is a “good thing.” “A God thing.”
But He might not have us to do that “good God thing” at this time. Sometimes the timing isn’t right or He has another way to accomplish that purpose.
Paul and his companions were in tune to the Spirit.
How can we live lives that are “in tune” to the Spirit?
So God directs them to plant a church in Philippi.
Follow along with me in Acts 16:11-15.
Lydia’s Conversion in Philippi
11 From Troas we put out to sea and sailed straight for Samothrace, and the next day 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 named Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth from the city of Thyatira, who 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.
They entered the city and usually they would preach at the synagogue but Philippi had so few Jews (you needed 10 Jewish men to justify having a temple) and anti Semitism was on the rise so the few believers there were would meet outside the city gates on the Sabbath for prayer.
Paul met with them there and shared the Gospel. This passage singles out Lydia who was a woman of substance.
That she dealt in purple cloth is significant because purple cloth was sold to the elite and wealthy. It was more costly to make and therefore more costly to buy. It was a color of the privileged. It also describes her as a “worshiper of God.” This means that she wasn’t born a Jew but believed in the one true God of the Jews.
The next verse is a beautiful description of the truth of the Gospel, “the Lord opened her heart.” And she responded to Paul’s message. Paul preached and God opened her heart. She was ready to receive and God sent the messenger. What a loving God we have.
She opened her home to Paul and his team and they stayed with her.
Now let’s see what else happened in Philippi.
Acts 16:16–24 (NIV)
Paul and Silas in Prison
16 Once when we were going to the place of prayer, we were met by a slave girl who had a spirit by which she predicted the future. She earned a great deal of money for her owners by fortune-telling. 17 This girl followed Paul and the rest of us, shouting, “These men are servants of the Most High God, who are telling you the way to be saved.” 18 She kept this up for many days. Finally Paul became so troubled that he turned around and said to the spirit, “In the name of Jesus Christ I command you to come out of her!” At that moment the spirit left her.
Some men were exploiting a demon-possessed slave girl for her ability to predict the future.
The English words, a spirit by which she predicted the future, translate two Greek words, “a spirit, a python.”
This concept goes back to the Greek city of Delphi where the god Apollo was believed to be embodied in a python snake. The original priestess at Delphi was said to be possessed by Apollo and able to predict the future; therefore anyone possessed by the python spirit could foretell coming events. The belief is that an actual demon gave such a person predictive powers. Demons took advantage of people’s worship of false gods.
The girl attached herself to Paul and the others and was shouting who they were (servants of the Most High God) and what they preached (the way to be saved).
Though her statements were true, the gospel of Christ would be damaged by an association with a demon-possessed slave girl. So after many days … Paul exorcised the demon, speaking directly to the spirit.
19 When the owners of the slave girl realized that their hope of making money was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace to face the authorities. 20 They brought them before the magistrates and said, “These men are Jews, and are throwing our city into an uproar 21 by advocating customs unlawful for us Romans to accept or practice.”
22 The crowd joined in the attack against Paul and Silas, and the magistrates ordered them to be stripped and beaten. 23 After they had been severely flogged, they were thrown into prison, and the jailer was commanded to guard them carefully. 24 Upon receiving such orders, he put them in the inner cell and fastened their feet in the stocks.
The charge of the slave girl’s owners against Paul and Silas was obviously prejudicial.
Paul and Silas were accused of disrupting the city … by advocating customs unlawful for Romans to accept or practice.
Rome permitted the peoples of its colonies to have their own religions but not to try to convert Roman citizens. So they would see the preaching of Paul and Silas as against the law.
16:22. Impelled by the crowd … the magistrates ordered them to be stripped and beaten. The verb translated “beaten” is from rhabdizō, which means “to beat with a rod.”
16:23-24. Paul and Silas were severely flogged and then thrown into prison. Not what Paul had been thinking would happen when he was redirected into Philippi.
Often we think if we are in God’s will, doing what He has asked us to do then we will be protected from hardship or suffering.
Often, just the opposite is what happens.
Doing God’s will is often Difficult and Painful:
The jailer with his strict orders was not going to take any chances so he put them in the inner cell (possibly a dungeon, at least the most secure cell) and fastened their feet in stocks.
He is literally guarding them with his life because if they escape, he will lose his life.
Imagine what a hard life it would be to be a Roman prison guard. The stress. To know that if anyone escapes it means your life.
And the working conditions; dark, cold, rats, bodily fluids, men with diseases being poorly fed and treated. This would be a hardened man. A man who has long ago lost any humanity or compassion.
So what do Paul and Silas do after they have beaten with a rod and flogged, put into a secure inner prison cell?
They sing! Their praying and singing was heard not only by God but also by the other prisoners. About midnight as they are praying and singing there was an earthquake so major that all the prison doors opened and everyone’s chains fell off. This of course woke up the guard and he drew his sword to kill himself.
But Paul, seeing what was about to happen, reassured him that the prisoners had not escaped. No one had left the prison even though they were free to do so. What kept them there? Shock at what had happened? Curiosity? Fear of God?
Vs. 29: Going into Paul and Silas’ cell, the jailer … trembling … asked, Men, what must I do to be saved? He must have understood what he was asking. Undoubtedly he had heard the story of the slave girl and how she had announced these men to be servants of God with the message of salvation.
Possibly also the prayers and singing of Paul and Silas had reached his ears.
The awesome earthquake with the subsequent opportunity for the prisoners to escape and Paul’s reassuring words all moved him to ask for the way of salvation.
What does Paul tell him to do? Let us go and you will be saved?
Verse 31 is a key passage on the message of faith. All that is needed for justification is faith in the Lord Jesus. The jailer had asked what he should do. The answer was that he need perform no works; he only needed to believe in Jesus who is the Lord.
The words and your household mean those members of his house who were of sufficient age to believe would be saved as they trusted Christ. Each member had to believe to be saved.
16:33. The jailer … washed the wounds of Paul and Silas —an amazing thing for a jailer to do for his prisoners. Then by water baptism he and all his family gave testimony to the washing away of their sins.
16:34. The jailer took the former prisoners home and fed them! And his family was joyful.
Apparently the jailer brought Paul and Silas back to prison. What prompted the magistrates to change their minds is left unstated.
16:37-40. Paul’s demand that the magistrates escort him and Silas out of prison appears to be vindictive. But it probably was designed to spare the young church in Philippi from further harassment. It certainly would place the believers in a far more secure position before the officials.
But why did Paul wait so long to mention his Roman citizenship? Born a Roman citizen, Paul had certain rights, including a public hearing. And no Roman citizen was supposed to be scourged.
In only two places in Acts was Paul harmed or threatened by Gentiles—in Philippi and in Ephesus (19:23-41). In both instances people were losing money in vested interests and in each case Paul was vindicated by a Roman official. After their prison release, Paul and Silas met with the believers at Lydia’s house to say goodbye.
Wow, what a story.
They enter a city, salvation begins in a small group of believers, they continue to share the gospel with a girl following them everywhere yelling at them, he exorcises a demon, that makes her employers angry they get beaten, arrested, jailed an earthquake occurs, they are miraculously released, the jailer goes to kill himself but is so amazed that the prisoners didn’t escape and all that he has witnessed he asks for salvation, takes Paul and Silas home, takes care of them, feeds them, his whole household gets saved and baptized and then they go back to prison, get locked up again until they are inexplicably released the next day. Oops, we changed our minds you can go. Paul fusses at them and makes them escort them out so that they have to publicly admit they made a mistake.
They go back to Lydia’s house say goodbye and leave.
It is believed because of the change in the pronouns at this point in the book of Acts that Luke remained in Philippi with the new church while Paul and company went on. The pronouns change from we to He or they.
Skip over to Acts 20:5-6 with me.
Here we see Paul returning to Philippi after being away for about 8 years.(58 AD) This time he takes Luke with him when he leaves (see the change in pronouns). That is the last time Paul is able to get to Philippi.
Paul writes the letter to the Philippians in about 62 AD. He is released from prison in 63 AD, jailed again in 67-68 AD and just after writing his second letter to his friend Timothy he is martyred in 68AD by beheading, just a few years after Peter was martyred.
That is the account of all the time Paul spent in the city of Philippi. It was a short time, yet action packed. Now as we turn to our study of the letter he wrote, you will have a clearer understanding of the relationships he built and the affection he had for the church at Philippi.
What can we take away from this small bit of research into the life of Paul?
Lessons to be gleaned from the life of Paul:
Live a Surrendered Life:
~Acknowledge that God has a right to be in control of your circumstances.
~Be willing to accept suffering and pain
Live an Eternal Life:
~Recognize that this is not your home.
~There is a much bigger picture that is unfolding that you may know nothing about.
Live a Spirit Led Life:
~Let God make and change your direction at any time.
~Be willing to change and grow and even move.
~Be willing to follow Him.
~Always be asking, “What next?”
Live a Truthful Life:
~Speaking the truth can be painful.
~It can come with persecution or loneliness.
~When you stand for beliefs that are counter-cultural, you will be judged and you will be “persecuted.” Jesus was, Paul was. All the apostles were.
Live a Joyful Life:
~As we get more into the study of Philippians we will see where Paul’s joy comes from.
