Please read the passage before reading the comments.
In this chapter, the message of the risen Christ is brought from Asia into Europe. There might not have been a Jewish synagogue in the town because Paul found only a place for prayer instead of a synagogue. He found only women, among whom was Lydia who worked in purple dye and owned a house and place big enough to put up four traveling missionaries.
I should say something about this Lydia. She seems to have had some wealth since she worked in the purple dye trade. It took 60,000 murex snails to make one pound of purple dye, which made it extremely valuable for the wealthy rich. She was probably employed by the Roman colonizers of Philippi and was an outsider to the locals.
As is often related in the book of Acts, it was outsiders who first welcomed the missionaries. Philip welcomed the eunuch in chapter 8; Ananias welcomed Saul in chapter 9; Peter welcomed the Roman centurion in chapter 10. Now, in chapter 16, it was Lydia, a foreign woman who made her wealth in the purple dye trade that catered to the fancy of Roman colonizers, who was welcomed.
If we are called into the Church, it is not because we are rich, intelligent, or respectable people. It is despite our failings and weaknesses that God has called us into Christ and the teachings of the Apostles.
There are indications that perhaps Paul found Lydia somewhat overbearing, since it is recorded that when Lydia invited Paul to make her home his headquarters, she “prevailed” on him and his excuses for not staying with her.
We are imperfect people, called by God to find our perfection in God through Christ the Lord. This is true whether we speak of the first apostles, the early church in Jerusalem, the church in Antioch of pagan origin, the first converts in Europe, and all those who are Christians on the American continents.
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