Laboring Outside the Gate

                                          Acts 16: 9-15

           I was watching a TV program the other night and one fellow said to the other: “I’m thinking inside the box.” The other fellow says: “What do you mean? I thought you were supposed to think outside the box these days.” The first guy says: “In a way, I am. Everyone is so busy thinking outside the box, there’s plenty of room inside the box.”  I was sitting there processing the exchange and it occurred to me that both were saying the same thing: to not be limited in the way we come to problem-solving. Sometimes, you just need to find another way to get your message out.

          The apostle Paul was this amazing force of energy. Everywhere he went, he ran the risk of overpowering those he came to serve, because he was like the Tasmanian devil, the cartoon character who spins through a place like a buzz saw, taking down everything and everyone in his path. Paul’s uncompromising enthusiasm got him bounced out of town a lot. From Athens to Iconium to Antioch and others, Paul got used to being jailed, jeered and escorted to the edge of the city limits. Maybe he was just too demanding, too strong, for the people who heard him. But along the way, he learned. He honed his delivery of the gospel. And Paul never worried about what to do. He was guided by the Holy Spirit and he responded to that call, no matter where it took him.

At the beginning of what we now call Paul’s second missionary journey, he is in the region of Phrygia and Galatia, an area in modern day Turkey east of the Mediterranean Sea. He is preparing to take the gospel east to Asia. But Paul hears from the Holy Spirit and the word is no, don’t go to Asia. So Paul tries to go north to the region of Bithnia around the Black Sea. Again, the Holy Spirit stops him. Not exactly knowing what to do, and being denied access both east and north, Paul turns west. He goes back toward the Mediterranean and comes to the port town of Troas. There in the night, Paul has a vision. He sees a man from Macedonia, the region west of Paul that we now know as the Greek peninsula. The man in Paul’s vision says to come over and help them.

That was what Paul needed. He acted on the sign. The Scripture says that immediately they sought to go. They concluded that they had been called to preach the gospel there. In the book of Acts, you might notice that right here, the pronouns shift from third to second person, form he/they to we. In other words, we may assume that now Luke, the writer of the book, has joined Paul’s company for this journey.

          It’s worrisome trying to discern God’s call in our lives. God has a lot of competition, don’t you think? We hear many voices, get much advice. I read the other day that a modern grocery store in the United States carries an average of 25,000 items. For instance, there are 186 varieties of cereal. I’m sorry, but for me, that is choice overload. How are we supposed to make sense of all the choices with which we are faced? Even if we have chosen to follow God, what church do we join?  How do we become disciples? What exactly does Jesus want us to do and how is that revealed to us? The passage we are looking at provides us with some answers, though they may not be exactly in our comfort zone. Let’s take a closer look.

          Luke tells us that Paul and Silas were traveling and working together. In Derbe and Lystra, a young man named Timothy joins them. They are right at the doorstep of Asia. Paul thinks that’s where he’s supposed to go next, but a funny thing happens. Luke’s gospel says that they were forbidden by the Holy Spirit to go east into Asia. So Paul’s idea is shot down. He thinks of going north, but in preparing for that, he is shot down again. Instead, Paul receives a vision. He is to go west, back into Greece.

          So the Holy Spirit has found a way to speak to Paul, and Paul has let himself be led by the Spirit. So far, so good.  If God has called Paul to go west, then west it is. Surely there will be a warm reception for this group so dedicated to spreading the gospel. Well, according to what Luke tells us, not exactly. They get passage on a boat and go from Troas to Samothrace to Neapolis to Philippi. Luke tells us that Philippi was a leading city in Macedonia and that is was a Roman colony. What he doesn’t say here is that the Jewish population is so small in Philippi that there is not even a synagogue. There is no base of operations. Paul always started in the synagogue and worked his way out, but in Philippi that option was not available.

          Luke tells us that the group stayed in the city for some days. Then, on the Sabbath, with no synagogue in which to worship, this little band of evangelists “went outside the gate to the riverside.” They went there because they “supposed there was a place of prayer” there. And there they found a “group of women who had come together” and they spoke to them.

          Let’s stop here for a moment and revisit this sequence from the point of view of discipleship. Paul picks two wrong destinations, then embarks on a third based upon a vision in the night. His logic has led him two other directions, but instead he follows a dream.  Next, as he embarks upon this journey of unknown destination, Paul takes on not just Luke, but also young Timothy to look after. Third, they set sail and bypass three cities to arrive in a fourth city where there is no synagogue, no base from which to begin. Then, on the Sabbath, they go looking for a place of worship. The pickings are so slim that they leave the city, hoping they might find some kindred spirits out by the river. And last but far from least, they take their message to a few women gathered there. Women in that day and time had little to no influence. It was a male dominated society. Paul’s missionary journey so far looked amateurish, disorganized, unplanned and doomed for failure. Wrong direction, too many amateurs along for the ride, no advance planning, no base, no church, no contacts and now, an audience of women by the river. Paul had nothing in his toolbag with which to go soul-saving, much less church planting.

          Actually, Paul did have a couple things in that bag of his. He had faith. He was obedient to the Holy Spirit. And he adapted. Paul understood that the success of his mission did not depend on his talent or even his work ethic. It depended on his faith and obedience, and how he could bring those traits to bear in a given situation.

          The rest of the story is about what God can do with faith and obedience and a little adaptability. One of the women in the prayer group was named Lydia. She was up from Thyatira, a bustling city down the coast a ways. She was a merchant. She sold purple goods and in that day, that probably meant that she was well to do. It turns out that Lydia already believed in God.  Paul took her to the next level and told her about Jesus. She believed. She was baptized. So was her household. And guess what? Paul had a new base of operations.

The next chapter in Paul’s journey included a stint in jail for intruding on the local economy of several merchants who were cashing in on the misfortunes of a slave-girl possessed by a demon. Dealing with the demon cost Paul and Silas their freedom. Then there is the earthquake and a jailor who becomes a convert and quite a few other adventures. Once again, Paul and Silas get the boot, but isn’t it interesting where they head? The chapter ends with them on the way to Lydia’s house.

What did Paul accomplish and how did he accomplish it? Later, Philippi was to have its own Christian following. And on that Sabbath, Paul faithfully and obediently brought the message of the gospel to an unlikely audience of women praying at the river. No church. No synagogue. No men. Just a prayer group of women. One of them turned out to be the first convert for Jesus in Macedonia.

But what about Paul? He made all those tactical mistakes. How could he experience any success? The answer lies in verse 14 in our passage today. “The Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said.” The Greek nouns here are informative. When we read that Lydia was a worshipper of God, the Greek word is theos, which means God. When we read that Lydia’s heart was opened by the Lord, the Greek word changes to kurios, which means Lord.  This is a different name. It is used almost always in the New Testament to mean Jesus. Jesus, not Paul, opened Lydia’s heart. That’s why she heard Paul and that’s how she became the first Asian convert on record.

You see, it doesn’t matter that Paul got it wrong. It doesn’t matter that his missionary journey was ill conceived and poorly planned. What matters is that Paul faithfully showed up, as Luke tells it, because “God had called us to preach the gospel to them” What matters is that Paul and company were obedient to that call. What matters is that Paul learned to adapt not his values, but his style and delivery, to suit the needs of the audience he had. It didn’t matter that it was a woman’s prayer group on the riverbank instead of a congregation of hundreds or thousands. Paul was obedient to the call.

When the voices of the world crowd in on us, we have to listen for that still, small voice. Sometimes it may even come in a dream. When the choices of our existence scream for our attention, we have to believe and be obedient to that voice. When we are given the opportunity, we have to labor outside the gate, just like Paul did. He found a way to get the message out. We have to go where God sends us, say what God tells us, do what God bids us. When we do, the Lord will “open hearts to pay attention to what we say.”