As usual, I have lots of question for which the Bible doesn’t supply the answers.
Most of those questions are unimportant and some are even foolish,
And there isn’t necessarily any sin involved in asking.
“Women of Jehovah Prayer Meeting, 10:00 a.m. Every Sabbath morning. Strymon park”?
Are we to assume that there were no Jews openly practicing their religion in all of Philippi?
Was it true that there wasn’t a synagogue there, or is it simply that we aren’t told?
The only time that we read the word “Jew” after verse three is in regard to Paul himself.
And brought them to the magistrates, saying, These men, BEING JEWS, do exceedingly trouble our city.”
Another question that I have relates to the length of the “service” that day.
It is strange that people sometimes complain about the lack of teaching about the church in Book of Acts.
Some seem to think that Paul neglected his missionary duties as he traveled across the country.
Although he made reference to the baptism of John, this is the first time that we read of Paul baptizing.
Does this mean that Timothy was circumcised in lieu of baptism?
Not at all.
In fact, that Lydia so quickly was immersed seems to suggest that she was taught about baptism immediately after she received the Lord by faith.
So again, I wonder how long the “church” service lasted that day on the banks of the Strymon River?
There was probably some extensive exposition about Christ from the Old Testament scriptures.
Then there might have been a lengthy period of questions and answers, or perhaps that took place during the Bible study, because this was probably very informal.
Then Paul must have gone on to tell the ladies about his desire to plant churches where these gospel truths could be promulgated and shared with others.
And that would have led to instruction on Ecclesiology and the necessity of baptism and church membership for the new believers.
Even if this meeting started at 9:00 or 10:00 a.m. it could have extended well into the late afternoon.
And then before everyone went to their homes, or their home, there was a baptismal service.
When Lydia was baptized it was a RADICAL STEP; it was a step of FAITH and it was a FAITHFUL STEP.
In this, Lydia’s baptism was radical.
That is the second definition.
It was the first and most basic step in her service of the Lord as a Christian.
Do you suppose that since Lydia was a lady, and since the men there were all strangers to her,
Filled it full of water, came back to where Lydia was sitting,
And then poured it over her head in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost?
Well then did he get a bowl of water, dip his fingers in and then splash or sprinkle that water in her face, calling it “baptism?”
Don’t you realize that those ladies probably hadn’t brought a second set of clothes?
How likely was it that the missionaries carried baptismal robes and towels to loan to their new converts?
No?
The thought that Paul poured water over Lydia and called it “baptism” is absolutely ludicrous.
As we have said a couple hundred times over the last 14 years, the Greek word “baptizo” cannot mean anything less than immersion or the plunging of a person under the water.
It is more logical to bury a person in sand and to call it “baptism,” than it is to call the affusion or sprinkling of water “baptism.”
Paul took that lady, and some of the others as well, out into a slow moving part of the river, where it was at least waist deep.
Then one by one he leaned them over, probably backwards, and buried them in the water, in Lord’s Name,
Then he lifted them back up out of the water.
And all of this was done to symbolize what the Lord Jesus had done to purchase their salvation.
It was a New Testament equivalent of the Passover ceremony at the door of those Israelite homes.
And it was also done to illustrate what those people had received through Christ.
This was the aspect of that baptism which was so radical according to definition number two.
That baptism was a declaration that these people fully identified with the Lord Jesus.
They were dead to their old lives;
Were unnecessary, and even contrary, to what they possessed in the Lord Jesus.
All of the aspects of the Law which pointed to the first coming of Christ, were passe and useless.
But in this baptism, this burial, some of their friends were likely going to consider them dead.
There were going to be friendships ended; there were going to be kinships broken.
I don’t think that most Christians today realize the radical nature of baptism 2,000 years ago.
While we are commanded to repent, we are also commanded to believe on Christ which is far better.
While we are exhorted to put off the old man and the deeds of the flesh, we are also told to put on the Lord Jesus Christ.
Before we are told not to lean on our own understanding, we are exhorted to trust in the Lord.
In many cases the Lord gives us things ten-thousand times better than anything that we give up for Him.
When Lydia was baptized, she was being buried to her old sinful life, and much of her old religion.
But when she was raised back out of that water, she was told that she had a new life to live in the Lord.
“Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?
For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection.”
I have seen pictures of some of the European cemeteries where dead of the two World Wars are buried.
The same is true to a smaller degree at places like Shilo and the Little Bighorn.
Hundreds of men, from hundreds of backgrounds had been brought together to fight a common enemy.
And many of them had been killed and were buried with their comrades.
Often each of those men were honoured with identical crosses or other monuments.
In their burials, those very different people were made to appear as twin brethren.
When she believed, Lydia became a part of a new family, and those baptized with her after trusting Christ were her sisters even more than they had been earlier.
Please don’t think that I’m equating baptism with salvation, the new-birth or spiritual adoption,
This baptism – this burial – brings people together in a very special way.
Also as Paul taught us in Roman 6, baptism has a very important element of faith.
Not only does it create an immediate bond by illustrating the new Christian life that the baptized are beginning to live,
But that baptism also reminds us what we shall be also “in the likeness of Jesus’ resurrection.”
This new Christian life is not going to be confined only to our next 50 earthly years.
Baptism is a testimony of union with Christ that shall extend throughout eternity.
A person may have eternal life without being baptized, but I’m not sure that he is JUSTIFIED TO TELL anyone that he has it.
Just as there are today, there have been multitudes of people since the days of Lydia who have not been baptized because of the embarrassing nature of baptism.
“Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation; of him also shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he cometh in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”
And that raises the perpetual question about this household baptism:
Lydia and her house, or her household, were baptized.
Many Protestants like to say that this proves that the baptism of infants is Biblical.
There are some honest Protestants, however, who have to admit that this verse doesn’t say anything about babies.
In fact, the whole history suggests that Lydia was not married, although she might have been at one time.
Business-women were the exception, not the norm.
Ladies were driven into business because of necessity, not because it was one of their human rights.
My guess would be that she was a widow, and if she did have children, they were grown by this time.
I would also guess that her “household” consisted of other women, and perhaps women servants who were with her there at the river.
Only because she was the leader and perhaps the eldest person among the ladies, was it that we have her name and not the names of the others.
In his comments on this verse A.T. Robertson quotes someone named Furneaux.
In the household baptisms (Cornelius, Lydia, the jailor, Crispus) one sees “infants” – or not – according to his predilections or preferences.”
“And when she was baptized, and her HOUSEHOLD, she besought us, saying, If ye have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come into my HOUSE, and abide there. And she constrained us.”
There is absolutely no reason to say that the people baptized that day were not all new believers in Christ.
We notice that there wasn’t any delay in the baptism of these people.
The Apostle had to rely on their profession of faith in Christ, which he did.
I think that one reason that he could do that was because of the radical nature of baptism in those days.
Lydia and her friends may have been risking their very lives when they were baptized.
And if someone was willing to that, then it was easy to assume that they really were trusting Christ.
Of course there were exceptions, like Elymas Bar-Jesus, but they really were exceptions.
And then the fact that Lydia and these ladies had been faithful in maintaining their river-side prayer meetings meant that they really were serious about their relationship to God.
They may have needed more revelation, especially about Christ, but they did what they could to honour and to remember the Lord.
That was probably a part of the faithfulness to which Lydia referred in this verse.
Their faithfulness to be baptized was not unimportant, but it doesn’t seem to be all that Lydia was referring to.
Now, let me digress for moment.
Do you remember my thoughts about Luke’s relationship to the Macedonian vision?
I think that Paul was not in good health – that he had at least one major thorn in the flesh.
But Luke was a physician who had come to know the Lord.
When he met Paul, he expressed his willingness to accompany him and to minister to him.
There is a sense in which Luke was to Paul as Dr. John H. Watson was to the fictional Sherlock Holmes.
He was also the supposed biographer of the world’s greatest detective, and the narrator in at least some of the stories.
Likewise, Luke was Paul’s physician and the historian of the Book of Acts and the penman of one of the Gospels.
“And when she was baptized, and her household, she besought US, saying, If ye have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come into my house, and abide there. And she constrained US.”
Luke was not a resident of Philippi, and he needed a place to stay there as much as Paul did.
He apparently didn’t have friends in Philippi with whom he could stay for a while.
I don’t think that Luke was the man in the Macedonian vision.
I am of the opinion that Lydia had become a reasonably wealthy selling her purple product from Lydia.
She had a family, perhaps a family of servants, who not only worked with her, but lived with her.
Now that she had been born-again and met these missionaries from Syria, her heart went out to them.
They were like the angels in Sodom without a place to stay.
I have been told that hotels and inns in those days were not much better than brothels.
So this woman insisted that this party of men come to stay in some of the guest rooms in her home.
“And when she was baptized, and her household, she besought us, saying, If ye have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come into my house, and abide there. And she constrained us.”
How could they refuse an invitation like that?
Lydia received Christ as her Saviour and was immersed in water as a testimony to her faith in Christ.
Immediately she yearned for ways in which she could serve her Saviour.
And knowing that she had the means of showing hospitality to the missionaries who lead her to Christ, she offered to keep them while they stayed in Philippi.
And now, what about you?
Is there any similarity between you and Lydia.
Have you been scripturally baptized since your salvation?
Are you using your gifts, resources and talents to serve the Saviour.
Why not?