Acts 16:13 And on the sabbath we went out of the city by a river side, where prayer was wont to be made; and we sat down… 1. In ver. 12 we read of "certain days" — days which needed not to be named — the ordinary process of time. But in ver. 13 we read of "the Sabbath" — the day that has a name; the one day into which all other days flow as streamlets and rivers flow into the sea. There is none like it. You need not bolster up the Sabbath by argument. Its Divine authority is written in the heart, and we shall see it to be so when once awakened and inspired by the Holy Ghost. The Sabbath must be its own argument. 2. "And on the Sabbath we went out of the city by the riverside." Church hunting! A journey that was allowed. To leave home thus on Sunday is to seek the greater home. You cannot stop at home on the Sabbath day. That were insult to the very home you profess to love. To leave it is to seek it; to go from it is to get at it. We must go out on the Sabbath day, if the Spirit of Christ be in us, in order to help to complete the family gathering. Let us not be led away by the foolish fantasy that a man can read the Bible at home, or have a Church at home, in some sense which dispenses with the common joy of kindred sympathy and soul. Christianity does not isolate men, but brings men together in sacred, sympathetic brotherhood. We know what it is in strange places to seek the particular Church we know and love on the Sabbath day. 3. "Where prayer was wont to be made." How singular is the cause of reputation or fame! There are famous battlefields to which men make pilgrimages. How can a man be in Belgium without feeling some constraint towards Waterloo? That is natural. There are men who would make long pilgrimages to see where John Bunyan was born. The land through which the apostles passed was full of historic interest, but they cared little for the histories which have beginnings and endings; they lived in the nobler history which continues through the everlasting duration. They sought the place where soul battles had been fought. You might have known whither the men were moving; they were praying as they were going. We must keep up the spiritual frame. 4. "The women which resorted thither." Have men forsaken religion and left the women to keep it up? Do "women keep up the Church"? It may be; but it is a fool's gibe! The woman does keep up the Church — God bless her! But she keeps up more. Oh, thou blatant, mocking fool, to taunt the very saviour of society! There be those who say that the men have given up Church. Yes, but only in the same proportion in which they have given up love, purity, patience, home! 5. "And a certain woman named Lydia." This is like the "days" and "the Sabbath." What subtle little harmonies there are in this inspired book! How part balances part! As there are days that may be mentioned in the plural number, so there are men and women who may be mentioned in their plurality; but as there is one day which is always named alone, so there are individuals who head every catalogue; names which have whole lines to themselves. Look at the case of Lydia. I. SHE WAS A BUSINESS WOMAN — "a seller of purple." So, then, women of business may be women of prayer. We ought to have more women of business. It is one thing for a woman to be a slave, and another for a woman to work and to love her work. He, or she, who loves work, makes all the week a kind of introductory Sabbath to the great religious rest. I would that all women were Lydias in this respect of having something definite to do every day and doing it, and finding in industry a balance to piety. II. SHE WAS A RELIGIOUS WOMAN; she "worshipped God." It is one thing to be religious and another to be Christianised. Religion is a general term; Christianity is a specific form of religion. It is not enough for you and me to be religious, we must take upon us by the mighty ministry of the Holy Ghost a particular form, and that particular form is Christianity. In this respect Christianity is a heart opening; a heart enlargement. III. WHEN SHE BECAME THE SUBJECT OF CHRISTIAN INFLUENCE, AT ONCE SHE WOULD HAVE A CHURCH IN THE HOUSE — "If ye have judged me," etc. In that suggestion there is a whole philosophy. That was impulse Divine. When the two travellers felt their hearts burn within them, by reason of the converse of the third Man, they said, "Abide with us." Lydia would have a fellowship at once. Souls that are kindred must never leave one another. Christians must abide together. In the olden time "they that feared God met often one with another," etc. (J. Parker, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: And on the sabbath we went out of the city by a river side, where prayer was wont to be made; and we sat down, and spake unto the women which resorted thither. |
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