SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 4/16/2018
10:17 AM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-2 “The Liberated Woman”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Acts
16:11-15
Message of the
verses: “11 So putting out to sea
from Troas, we ran a straight course to Samothrace, and on the day following to
Neapolis; 12 and from there to Philippi, which is a leading city of the
district of Macedonia, a Roman colony; and we were staying in this city for some
days. 13 And on the Sabbath day we went outside the gate to a riverside, where
we were supposing that there would be a place of prayer; and we sat down and
began speaking to the women who had assembled. 14 A woman named Lydia, from the
city of Thyatira, a seller of purple fabrics, a worshiper of God, was
listening; and the Lord opened her heart to respond to the things spoken by
Paul. 15 And when she and her household had been baptized, she urged us,
saying, "If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come into my
house and stay." And she prevailed upon us.”
In our last SD we got our missionaries to Philippi that is
Paul, Silas, Timothy, and Luke the writer of the book of Acts who has not
joined the others on this 2nd missionary trip. We see in verse twelve that they “were staying
in this city for some days,” and then in verse thirteen we see that “on the
Sabbath day went outside the gate to a riverside, where” they “were supposing
that there would be a place of prayer.”
Paul usually would go to a Synagogue to talk to those there about the
gospel of Jesus Christ, but there was no Synagogue there as there were not ten
Jewish men in that city as it does take ten men to begin a Synagogue. John MacArthur states that because there was
no Synagogue there that people would go to a body of water to pray. In this case they were going to a river to
pray, and so Paul, knowing this went there on the Sabbath day.
This indeed must have been a small collection of Jewish
men in this city as it seems that only women were found by the river, as they
did not have a man to open up the Scriptures to them. Perhaps these women were looking for a
traveling Rabbi to come and preach to them, and if that was the case then today
would be a good day for them as Paul and the rest of the missionaries would be
there.
I have been thinking about how women have had a very
important role in the gospel. Here we
find Paul seeing a vision and then coming to Europe as a result of the vision,
who by the way was the vision of a man.
So God has chosen a woman to be the first person to here and to
understand the gospel, and thus be saved.
When Jesus was on planet earth the first person that He told that He was
the long awaited Messiah was the woman at the well as seen in the 4th
chapter of John, so now we see something similar here in Europe.
I think that it is a shame that many have thought of Paul
as a male chauvinist, but nothing could be further from the truth as there are
many women mentioned in Paul’s letters, especially at the end of them where he
will name people that he wants to say hi to.
Let us look once again at verse 14 “14 A woman named
Lydia, from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple fabrics, a worshiper of
God, was listening; and the Lord opened her heart to respond to the things
spoken by Paul.” We first see that the
name of this woman was Lydia, and that she was from the city of Thyatira. When we studied the book of Revelation we
learned that Thyatira was one of the cities that are mentioned there as they
received one of the letters. All seven of
those cities were in Asia Minor which is modern day Turkey. I just want to mention that today in Turkey
it is against the law to tell others about the gospel. They have really fallen very far from when
they received the letter of Revelation.
As a matter of fact they are putting on trial today a missionary who was
preaching the gospel there and he could actually be killed because of what he
did.
In our next SD we will continue looking at this rather
long 14th verse as there is much more in it.
Spiritual meaning
for my life today: I have to say
that of all the people that I have had the privilege of leading to the Lord
that most if not all have been women. It
seems that the women that I meet are interested in the end times, which is
usually who the Lord brings into my life to talk about. I have to say that my wife was the first one.
My Steps of Faith for Today: I continue to trust the Lord to work out
several situations that are going on in my life at this time, that He will give
me, and in this case my family, wisdom to understand what He wants us to. There is also a issue with my preparation for
my Sunday school class that I am looking for wisdom from the Lord.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
question: “Gehazi” (2 Kings 5:20).
Today’s Bible
question: “What writing s are regarded
as inspired scripture in the theology of the Roman Catholic Church but not in
the Protestant and Jewish Churches?”
Answer in our next SD.
4/16/2018 10:51 AM
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