If you are reading this, and you have European ancestry in your DNA, you have Lydia to thank.
Lydia was a successful businesswoman living in the first century C.E. She apparently own a business which specialized in producing purple clothing and fabric. If she purple was a car, it would be a Bugatto Veyron Super Sports car, which won the most expensive street legal car awhile back, costing a mere $2.4M. If you happen to be royalty, this may seem trivial. Purple was the color afforded only by royalty and the very elite. No doubt, Lydia found a niche, and did very well.
But we know from reading her story in Acts 16 that money, business success and being on the A-List did not buy her happiness. She sought solace in the religion offered by her region, and by her government, and kept seeking. Somewhere along her journey she caught wind of Judaism's monotheistic way of relating to God. We aren't sure what compelled her to follow exactly. Maybe it was that the God taught by Judaism made sense - God cares about the world God created and the people in it, is all about justice, ending strife, and making the world and her inhabitants more like the Eden dream.
One Sabbath while she was attending a prayer meeting, a well-educated Jewish teacher was present, and shared news that brought Judaism's God even closer to home. Paul spoke of Jesus, his teaching, his ministry, his death, resurrection, and the Kingdom of God growing through all who believe. She was enamored by what she heard, embraced it fully, was baptized and became the first European convert to the Way of Christ.
She was a changed person, evidenced by her immediate generosity toward Paul and his cohorts. But it didn't end there. She opened up her home to the Kingdom of God. A church began in her living room. But she realized the Kingdom wasn't just for her home and community. This news needed to spread. So, in recognition of all that God had entrusted to her, she invested significant resource toward Paul's ongoing missionary efforts. Years later, Paul would brag about the generosity of the Philippian church. Lydia was cutting big checks to make sure the news of Jesus spread.
Lydia's very life challenges us to examine ourselves. Are we at a place where we really believe that our relationship with God is more central to meaningful life than money, status, and creature comforts? Are we open to the new things God is wanting to reveal to us, as Lydia was open to being stretched? HAve we been so caught by what God is doing in the world that we cannot help but be changed? Are we at a place where we genuinely say to God, "My life, my stuff, my money, my status, my identify, my future is yours"?
If Lydia had not led the generosity charge, it is difficult to determine what would have happened to the Christian movement. What we do know is that her faith was evident in the way she lived her life, and that her choices spread the word of Jesus effectively so that one day I would be compelled to embrace the same Good News as a Dutch-German guy, and you would be reading this to be challenged to do the same.
Thank God for Lydia! Thank God that we have the opportunity to make a similar impact with our lives should we follow in her footsteps.
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