15th Oct 2010

Acts 16:11-15 – Lydia's Conversion in Philippi

• “When Teaching Trumps Traditions”

• This passage reminds me of a great proverb that I will mention at the end.
• It also fits into a discussion being had now on Facebook after yesterdays blog.
• Paul is a man of many traditions. But something in his life is messing that all up.
• His calling.
• In this passage the teaching of Jesus conflicts with some well established and sensible practices of his as we will see.
• What will he do?
• More importantly; what would you do?
• In Luke, Jesus passes onto His disciples a strategy for mission when he send them out.
• On Pais we call it “Spread, Spot, Stay, Send.”
• Paul, now a long way from his usual haunts adopts the same principles to a ‘T’.
• SPREAD: Jesus told His disciples to spread the word – that’s exactly what Paul is doing on this missionary trip. He is going in to towns, cities and villages.
• SPOT: Jesus told His disciples to spot ‘people of peace’; those leaning forward to the message. They do this by often going to the synagogues but Paul has a problem here. There is no synagogue. A synagogue could only be created by a ‘minyan’ a group of ten or more Jewish men. Plus the Jews had some previous trouble in this city. So Paul goes outside the city as he knew that whatever Jews there would be there would have to gather by some running water as it was needed to be a ceremonial place of prayer.
• STAY: This is where Paul would have issues!
1. In Luke Jesus told His disciples that when they found a ‘person of peace’, that they should stay with that person. Not move from house to house looking for a better option.
2. But the person of peace here was a woman. Not a Jew. And she offered for him to stay at her home.
3. … awkward…
4. He had this teaching however. The teaching was not directly from Jesus but passed down to him by the Messiah’s disciples.
5. In this case, the teaching trumps his traditions.
• SEND: Jesus then obviously taught His disciples to send out those they had stayed with and taught into the rest of their communities to make disciples.
1. Lydia becomes the first person in Europe to be a follower of Christ.
2. Without his teaching trumping his traditions this first European church would not have been planted.
• The proverb I am reminded of?
• Proverbs 18:15 - “Intelligent people are always open to ideas. In fact, they look for them”
• Praying for that kind of intelligence!