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Paul and His Companions at Philippi
The voyage to Philippi:
v. 11. Therefore loosing from Troas, we came with a straight course to Samothracia and the next day to Neapolis,
v. 12. and from thence to Philippi, which is the chief city of that part of Macedonia and a colony, and we were in that city abiding certain days.
v. 13. And on the Sabbath we went out of the city by a riverside, where prayer was wont to be made; and we sat down and spake unto the women which resorted thither.
In those days of active commercial intercourse between the various Aegean ports, it did not take long for them to find a ship upon which they could take passage. Paul and his companions therefore drew away, they set sail from Troas, being favored by a good stiff breeze from the south and east, which enabled them to make a straight run past the island of Imbros to that called Samothrace, one of the northernmost islands of the Grecian archipelago. Here they turned toward the west and sailed past the island of Thasus to the Macedonian port of Neapolis, the latter part of the journey taking only one day. Thus the voyage had been undertaken under unusually propitious circumstances and completed in an exceptionally short time. The missionaries did not remain in Neapolis, however, but pressed on to the larger city of Philippi, which was a Roman colony, both coins and inscriptions corroborating the words of Luke. Near it was fought the great battle between Augustus and Antony on one side, and Brutus and Cassius, the murderers of Julius Caesar, on the other, the battle which decided that Rome would be an empire, and not a republic. In honor of this event Philippi had been granted the rights of a Roman colony, as the name "praetors," used by Luke to designate the officials of the city, also shows. And Philippi was the first city in that district, or division, of Macedonia. For almost two Centuries before, Macedonia had been divided into four districts, whose general boundaries were still recognized, although they were no longer accepted by the government as political districts. That Philippi was the first, the most important city of that part of Macedonia was due to its location on the great Egnatian Way, the main Roman road between Europe and Asia. It was in those days what Byzantium, or Constantinople, later became, the gateway to the Orient. The Roman province of Macedonia lay between Greece and the Aegean Sea, on the south, and the Balkan Mountains, on the north. In Philippi, then, where the East and the West met, these travelers from the Orient spent some time, anxious to gain some souls for the Lord. Since the Jewish population of the city at that time was not large enough to support a synagogue, and the Jews had therefore the custom of gathering outside of the city gates, on the banks of a river, by the riverside, and of holding their meetings of prayer there, this site had become known as the place of prayer. To that spot, therefore, Paul and his companions also went on the Sabbath, to the river Gangas or Gangites. There was probably no formal worship, as in the synagogues, although there may have been leaders of the devotions. At any rate, Paul accommodated himself to the conditions. He sat down with his party among the worshipers and spent the morning talking to the women that had come together there. It seems, then, that the Jews and proselytes of the city consisted largely of women, many of whom occupied positions of considerable freedom and social influence, a fact which is fully borne out by careful historical research. Note: it may have seemed strange to Paul, after all the elaborate preparations, to find only a handful of women assembled, but God has His own ways of doing things and conducting the affairs of His kingdom, as the subsequent condition of the Philippian congregation shows.