Lydia and the Awe of Heaven

The sixth Sunday in Eastertide – Acts 16:6-15

It begins not in a synagogue, but by a river.

Paul’s second missionary journey was filled with interruptions. Every time he planned his next step, the road closed. 

The Holy Spirit “forbade” him to preach in the Roman province of Asia. 

Next, the Spirit of Jesus “did not allow” him to go into Bithynia. Whatever his maps said, they had to be rewritten. 

And then, one night, Paul had a vision. He saw a man from Macedonia calling across the sea…

“Come over and help us.”

Paul listened. He crossed from what is now Turkey into ancient Macedonia (now Greece), from the eastern empire into Europe. 

He arrived in Philippi, a Roman colony with so few Jews there was no synagogue, no Jewish establishment to push back or weigh him down.

Paul knew that in the absence of a synagogue, Jews gathered near a body of "living water" – a river or sea, not a stagnant pond – to access water for ceremonial purification before praying. So, on the Sabbath Paul sought this "place of prayer," where he found a few women gathered by the river.

And leading the gathering was Lydia.

Lydia was a trader, a dealer in purple cloth, wealthy, independent, and respected. 

But more than that she was a “God-fearer.” 

In Hebrew, that phrase is Yirei Shamayim, those “in awe of heaven.” Lydia was not Jewish by birth, but perhaps on her business travels she had met Jews who worshipped the One reverently addressed as Adonai.

However she came into contact with Judaism, she came to revere the God of Israel. By the time the Spirit reroutes Paul to Macedonia, Lydia has already turned from the Roman gods of her city and aligned herself with the One God of Israel.

So when Paul spoke of Jesus, the Jewish Messiah, Lydia didn’t have to leap into a new religion. She took the next step in the path she was already walking.

Her heart opened. And then, so did her home.

That moment matters. It marks the first documented conversions to the Jesus movement on European soil. And it happened not through conquest or debate, but through hospitality, through reverence, through a conversation at the water’s edge.

Philippi, nicknamed "the little Rome," was uniquely poised for this. An empire colony with legal privileges and access to the major trade route, the Via Egnatia, it was a crossroads of culture and commerce. The Gospel planted there could grow fast, and travel far.

And Lydia and her household, probably including family and servants, were the ideal first witnesses.

She and her household were already practicing faith rooted in Jewish tradition.
She had influence and independence.

She responded not with debate, but with welcome, as did those with her.

Paul had been steered away from Asia and Bithynia, but not out of failure. Rather, the Spirit was clearing a path to something deeply strategic: the opening of Europe, through the heart and home of a woman already in awe of heaven.

This is not a story of rupture, it is a story of continuity. Of how the Jewish roots of the Jesus movement reached receptive soil in Gentile hearts. Of how the Gospel flowed through unexpected vessels, across boundaries, and into homes.

Lydia reminds us that the Spirit moves where it will. That sometimes, a closed door is divine redirection. That the riverbank can be as holy as the temple. 

And that awe—true reverence—opens the door of revelation.