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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadGreater Men and Women of the Bible by James Hastings: 641. Lydia's Readiness
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Lydia's Readiness
It is doubtful whether “Lydia” was her proper name, since it may well be a designation of her nationality. She was certainly a Lydian, since Thyatira was in Lydia; and it is scarcely probable that so ambiguous a word should have been given as a name.
Lydia would seem to have been a widow, and must have been a woman of some position, for she was able to entertain the Apostle and his company as soon as she embraced the faith and felt its exceeding preciousness.
2. Lydia was a Jewish proselyte. Evidently devout by nature and habit, she was walking with God up to the full measure of her knowledge, and doing her best to serve Him. Born outside the ranks of the chosen people, and without direct share in the truths and traditions which had come down from Abraham and Moses and the long line of the prophets, she yet accepted the faith of Israel-most likely as soon as it was brought to her attention-and was living a religious life and developing and illustrating a religious character.
She had adopted the Hebrew faith, she worshipped one God; but she was not content. Like the Ethiopian eunuch, she cherished longings that could scarcely be expressed in words-a hunger of love created by the very pureness of the law which she had accepted as her rule of life. She followed the ceremonies of her new religion faithfully: the many washings were duly observed, the prayers were duly prayed; but there was still an aching void. That morning brought about for her a spiritual crisis.
Emotion and the inward contact with God are the explanation of our hunger and our striving; for the Spirit of God gives chase to our spirit, and the closer the contact the greater the hunger and the striving. This is the life of love in its highest development, above reason and higher than all understanding; for in such love reason can neither give nor take away, for our love is in touch with the divine love. And I think that once this point is reached there will be no more separation from God.1 [Note: M. Maeterlinck, Ruysbroeck and the Mystics, 149.]
Of all the myriad moods of mind
That through the soul come thronging,
Which one was e'er so dear, so kind,
So beautiful as Longing?
The thing we long for, that we are
For one transcendent moment,
Before the Present poor and bare,
Can make its sneering comment.
Still, through our paltry stir and strife,
Glows down the wished Ideal,
And Longing moulds in clay what Life
Carves in the marble Real;
To let the new life in, we know,
Desire must ope the portal;-
Perhaps the longing to be so
Helps make the soul immortal.
Longing is God's fresh heavenward will
With our poor earthward striving;
We quench it that we may be still
Content with merely living;
But, would we learn that heart's full scope
Which we are hourly wronging,
Our lives must climb from hope to hope
And realize our longing.2 [Note: J. R, Lowell.]
3. There are two things worth noting in connexion with Lydia's readiness to receive the truth.
(1) First, she kept the Sabbath day holy.-In this heathen town of Philippi, and all over the world, the Sabbath day was unknown, except among the Jews and the proselytes of the Jewish religion. We find Lydia here, then, engaged in business, and in a line which was pursued, most probably, by many others in the city of Philippi. When the Sabbath day dawned did she keep her shop open, in order to maintain competition with other dealers who knew nothing of the Sabbath? Many a man who professes to be a Christian, in our cities and all over our land, in all the different lines of business, labours through the Lord's day like any other day, when it is customary for men in his line to do so, claiming that he is compelled to do it in self-defence. Lydia was not a woman of an indiarubber conscience. When the Sabbath day came, her house of business was closed. She and the women whom she had employed with her in the business could not be found there. They had left home, and left the town, and gone outside the city to spend the Sabbath.
Ah! ev'ry day mid bring a while
O' eäse vrom all woone's ceäre an' tweil,
The welcome evenèn, when 'tis sweet
Vor tired friends wi' weary veet,
But litsome hearts o' love, to meet:
An' yet while weekly times do roll,
The best vor body an' vor soul
'S the church an' happy Zunday.
Vor then our loosen'd souls do rise
Wi' holy thoughts beyond the skies,
As we do think o' Him that shed
His blood vor us, an'still do spread
His love upon the live an'dead;
An' how He gi'ed a time an' pleäce
To gather us, an' gi'e us greäce,-
The church an' happy Zunday.1 [Note: William Barnes.]
Nearly a hundred years ago, eleven young Scotsmen met together in New York. They had recently landed from a voyage of several weeks' duration. It was a fine Sunday morning, and one of them announced his intention of going to church. The others demurred. They had been shut up on board ship so long, and on their first Sunday in the new country they intended to go for a walk. The first speaker stood firm. He said, “My father said to me when leaving the pier, ‘Now, my boy, wherever you go, Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy,' and I am not going to break my father's last command.”
His companions ceased urging him. He went to church; they said they would go next Sunday. The name of the one who went to church was Thorburn Grant. He rose to be a wealthy and influential man. At the age of eighty he wrote the story of his life, and stated that the other ten young men, who put off going to the house of God, got into bad company that very first Sunday, and never fulfilled their purpose. He had traced the career of every one of them, and found that all went astray and wasted their lives.1 [Note: Helen S. Dyer, The Ideal Christian Home, 126.]
(2) Secondly, Lydia was at the place of prayer.-She was away from her native place, but she was worshipping. The faith that had come to her at Thyatira was not left behind with that city. The habit of worship acquired there was continued at Philippi. She was in a city without churches and ministers, but she was worshipping. She did not wait for a lead. She was not spiritually helpless. In material matters she had learned to look after herself. The spirit of self-help, so strong there, she applied to the needs of her soul.
Eleazer, the servant of Abraham, tells how, being in the way, the Lord led him. That is the principle illustrated by Lydia's case. Worshippers are “in the way.” Those who make a habit of gathering to worship God put themselves in the way for God to deal with them.
I know a spot where budless twigs
Are bare above the snow,
And where sweet winter-loving birds
Flit softly to and fro;
There with the sun for altar-fire,
The earth for kneeling-place,
The gentle air for chorister,
Will I adore Thy face.2 [Note: Alice Brown.]