truth is god's truth paul the evangelist - Free Church of Scotland

Photograph:
Lima
Cathedral
How should we evangelise in our postmodern world? How
can we communicate the good news of Jesus to a world that is
just as lost as the modern world was? I believe that we have a
great deal to learn from the methods of the Lord Jesus and the
Apostle Paul.
We have already looked at how Jesus preached (in the
Sermon on the Mount) and how he evangelised (the Woman
at the Well). We have also looked at how Paul preached in
Athens. Now I want to consider how Paul evangelised. I want
to take the example of how he dealt with three very different
people in Philippi in Macedonia (in what is modern-day
Greece). This is described in Acts 16:11-40.
Not everyone may ask explicitly, “What must I do to be
saved?” (v.30) But all need to be saved, and each of these
three people in Philippi needed to be saved. One of our great
aims ought to be to get people to ask that question—because
that is the most important question you could ever ask. Many
people are asking that question. They might not put it in just
these terms, but they maybe know something is wrong in their
lives. It may be angst (guilty anxiety), or ennui (boredom), or
addiction to some sort of evil and destructive influence. The
gospel is about being saved.
Here were three very different people who experienced the
saving power of Jesus Christ: a business woman, a slave-girl
and a prison warder. These very diverse characters were the
first three converts in Europe (at least under Paul’s ministry).
It must have made Philippi a very interesting church! This is a
reminder to us that Christ’s church is made up of all sorts of
people, and therefore, in our evangelism we ought never to
think that it is impossible for a certain person, or type of
person, to be converted. All need the power of God. And his
power is able to change the hardest heart.
February 2004—page 4
Preaching in the
postmodern
world
Paul the evangelist
A woman who was searching
Lydia was in many ways similar to a typical woman of the
postmodern world. She appears to be a “liberated woman”.
She was a businesswoman, running her own business. She was
a dealer in purple (dye or cloth). She came from Thyatira in
Asia Minor (modern day Turkey), a place famed for its purple
dye, which means that she was probably running an export
business. This dye was extremely expensive and was in great
demand in the Roman empire, because of the association of
the colour purple with the Emperor. This was particularly
true of Philippi which was a Roman colony and had many
veterans of the Roman army settled there.
All this means that Lydia was of independent means. She
was rich and was either single or possibly a widow. She certainly
ran her own household and was mistress of the house (v.15).
How did Paul and his friends come to meet such a woman?
They met her because she was searching—searching
spiritually. Why was she searching? Perhaps it was because she
was unsettled—unsettled by having to pull up her roots and
move to a different area, into a different culture. She was far
from her home, and even although there was the link that
Thyatira was a Macedonian colony, the strongly Roman
culture of Philippi may have seemed strange.
It also appears she was dissatisfied. She was a Gentile (non-
Jewish) by background, but she was attracted to the Jewish
religion. We know she was non-Jewish, not just from her name,
but from the fact she is described as a “worshipper of God”
(v.14). It may have been in her native city of Thyatira that she
had become a worshipper, because there was a Jewish colony
in that city. Be that as it may, it is obvious that at some point
she had become dissatisfied with paganism and was attracted
to the Jewish religion. Judaism was, and is, far from perfect,