“A God-fearing woman named Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth from the city of Thyatira, was listening. The Lord opened her heart to respond to what Paul was saying” (Acts 16:14, CSB).

The events in these verses take place during Paul’s second missionary journey. Paul and Barnabas had decided to go visit the churches they had established during their first missionary journey. When they disagreed about who should be on their evangelistic team, they parted company and Paul selected Silas to accompany him on his second missionary journey.

Paul and Silas set out across the regions of Phrygia and Galatia, which is in the eastern half of the modern country of Turkey. But, Paul’s plans to journey north into the region of Bithynia were constrained by the Holy Spirit and instead they traveled west to Troas on the coast of the Aegean Sea.

At Troas Paul had a vision of a man pleading with him to cross over the Aegean Sea into Macedonia, just to the north of the modern country of Greece. Paul and Silas would evangelize in Macedonia and eventually travel south into the Greek cities of Athens and Corinth.

From Troas Paul and Silas sailed to the city of Philippi, a Roman colony in Macedonia that is now located in northeastern Greece. At Phillipi Paul met Lydia, the main character of this story. (It’s interesting to note that the verse preceding this story, vs. 16:10, is the beginning of the first “we” section in the book of Acts, indicating that Luke likely joined Paul’s missionary team at Troas.)

Lydia was a a seller of purple cloth from Thyatira and a Gentile woman that worshiped God. She was probably a Jewish proselyte, a non-Jewish person who converted to Judaism.

Thyatira was a city of tradespeople, with guilds that included wool-workers, linen-workers, makers of outer garments, dyers, leather-workers, tanners, potters, bakers, slave-dealers, and bronze-smiths. It was known for its rich purple dye for cloth.

Purple cloth held significant importance in the Roman Empire due to its rarity, expense, and symbolic association with power and status. The deep purple dye, known as Tyrian purple, was extracted from a type of sea snail. The dye was incredibly difficult to produce because it required tens of thousands of snails for a small amount of dye.

On the Sabbath day Paul and his missionary team went outside the city gate of Philippi and down by the river where Jews of the city gathered to worship God. They sat down and spoke with the women gathered there and Paul shared the gospel with them.

Lydia was one of the women listening to Paul’s preaching. God opened her heart to pay attention to the gospel. As a result she was saved and baptized. In vs. 14 Luke explained that Lydia’s conversion was a combination of human initiative and divine intervention.

Presenting the gospel should always be a joint effort between God and human beings. God needs us to share the gospel with others but people respond to the gospel and are saved when the Holy Spirit prepares their hearts to receive the truth.

When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth. For he will not speak on his own, but he will speak whatever he hears. (John 16:13, CSB)