Acts 16 contains the stories of three people who were unlikely candidates for the growing Christian movement. There must have been dozens more people there who came to faith, but Luke (the author of Acts) chose to write about just three—a rich religious woman, a slave girl, and a jailor. Why these three?
That’s a question we should always ask when reading the Bible: Why did the author include this? In this case, Luke records these stories to drive home that the gospel really is for everybody. The three people in Philippi represent the three types of people we find all around us—and show us how can we engage them with the gospel.
1. Lydia: The Spiritually Interested
Lydia was a wealthy businesswoman. Put together, driven, well-known and respected. She is religious (Paul meets her at a prayer meeting); but she’s not a Christ-follower. Here in the U.S., especially in the South, there are still lots of people in our community who fit this profile. Sometimes they have a Christian background, sometimes not. Sometimes they are active in church, a lot of times they are not. But for whatever reason they are open to having spiritual conversations.
So how can we reach the spiritually interested? Expose them to the Bible. You may be surprised how many people are open to simply reading the Bible together with you if you ask. So extend the invitation! If you aren’t sure where to start, use a simple Bible study method to kick start things. Or jot down 20-30 of your favorite verses, give them to your friend, and ask them to read the verses, a couple a day. Have them ask, “What does this mean? And what does this mean for me?” The power of Scripture can convince them in ways you couldn’t imagine. But you’ve got to have the guts to take the initiative.
2. Slave Girl: The Physical and Spiritual Captive
The slave girl is the opposite of Lydia. Lydia has her life together, but this young, demon-afflicted girl has nothing. She’s busted up, taken advantage of, and definitely not on her way to a prayer meeting. But she still shows some signs of interest in the gospel. Oddly enough, she is both attracted to the faith (she follows Paul around) and antagonistic toward it (she’s shouting and creating distractions).
A lot of people in captivity are torn like that: there’s something about the gospel that draws them, but they have anger and mistrust seething within them. You might find them railing against the church, but if you listen closely, you can also hear the soul cry for a redeemer, a savior, a healer.
So how can we reach the captive? Just like Paul, we have to get involved in their lives. That’s why at the Summit we lovingly engage the captives we have identified in our community—the homeless, the orphan, the prisoner, the unwed mother, and the high school dropout. These people aren’t going to wander into our church buildings. Many of them literally can’t. So if they can’t come to us, we have to go to them.
3. Jailor: The Skeptic
The jailor is, from outward appearances, the most unlikely of the three converts. His position was traditionally given to retired Roman soldiers after a decorated career. So he’s no cupcake—older, hardened, part of the ruling class, and quite cynical toward these ordinary people trying to spread an extraordinary message. Obviously he was not very welcoming toward Paul and Silas – he had thrown them into the “inner” prison—the lowest part of the building that was dark and dank—and had just finished putting their feet in stocks, hanging them upside down, and beating them.
So how can we reach the hardened skeptic? He’s probably not going to happily read the Bible with you, and we shouldn’t expect him to be drawn in to a worship service because he likes the music. No, this guy got saved because of two things: he observed Paul and Silas’ joy in the midst of pain; and he was the recipient of their extravagant grace. Given the chance to turn the tables on their captor, they extended grace instead of vengeance. Even the most hardened cynic has to wonder where someone could get that kind of strength. Nothing puts the gospel on display like grace in the midst of injustice
The spiritually interested needs to be confronted with the Word of God. The spiritually captive needs to encounter someone willing to love them. And the spiritual skeptic needs to see grace before he will listen to it. The gospel shows no partiality: there’s only one Creator and Father: God; we all have one problem: sin; and there’s only one hope: Jesus’ death in our place. Because of that, the church is the place where people from every background—religious and irreligious: male and female; young and old; rich and poor; from good families and broken ones—find a unity in Christ they wouldn’t find anywhere else.
