COLONIA

‘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.’ Acts 16:12

Greek – κολωνία (kolōnía)
Latin – colonia
English – colony


THE GOSPEL COMES TO EUROPE

After Paul and Silas completed the first stage of the second missionary journey during which they had visited previously established churches in Phrygia and Galatia, they decided to preach the gospel in the next-door province of Asia. Somehow they were ‘forbidden of the Holy Ghost to preach the word in Asia’ so they journeyed northwards through Asia until they reached Mysia in northwest Asia Minor. From there they tried to enter Bithynia but again ‘the Spirit suffered them not’. So they travelled south to the seaport of Troas, on the Aegaen Sea. There Paul received his vision of a man from Macedonia calling for help (Acts 16:9), after which the party set sail from Troas and reached the island of Samothrace which was about halfway between Asia Minor and Greece. The following day they disembarked at Neapolis, a port in Macedonia, and travelled some ten miles up the road to Philippi. Some years later the reverse journey took five days (20:6)!

These first Christian missionaries to arrive in Europe must have seemed a motley crew. Two of them, Paul and Silas, were obviously Jews (Acts 16:19-20). Another, Timothy, was half Jewish (Acts 16:1) but probably looked and dressed like a Gentile. The fourth was Luke, who appears to have joined the missionary party at Troas and is thought to have been a Gentile (compare Col 4:11 with 4:14). Luke was the author of the Acts of the Apostles and in 16:10 includes himself with the others (‘we’) as responding to the Macedonian Call. This is the first of five ‘We’ sections in Acts (16:10-17; 20:5-15; 21:1-18; 27:1-29; 28:16) in which the usual third person (he, they) narrative changes to first person plural (we). This suggests that Luke was writing as an eyewitness who had spent some time at Philippi along with the missionaries.

PHILIPPI

Philippi was located in eastern Macedonia (now northern Greece) and strategically situated on a hill surrounded by marshes. There were mountains to the north and south, and also to the south was the port of Neapolis. The city lay on the Via Egnatia which was the only land route from Rome to the East of the empire.

The town, originally named Crenides (‘springs’), was founded by settlers from the Greek island of Thasos around 360 BCE. They began to mine gold and silver from nearby Mt. Pangaion but were so harassed by nearby tribes from Thrace that three or four years later they called on Philip II of Macedon (Alexander the Great’s father) for assistance. Philip was quick to take control of the town in 356 BCE and name it after himself. He fortified Philippi, expanded the mining operations and set up a royal mint nearby. He exploited the natural resources of the area to such an extent that the town declined. The Romans conquered Macedonia c. 167 BCE but Philippi remained relatively unknown until it hit the headlines in 42 BCE as the site of the battle of Philippi. This was between the forces of Octavian and Mark Anthony on the one hand and, on the other, those of Brutus and Cassius (the assassins of Julius Caesar).

After the victory of Octavian and Anthony the town was made a Roman colony; Mark Anthony named it Colonia Victrix Philippensium. Veterans of the campaign were discharged and given land there as compensation for their service. In 30 BCE Augustus renamed it Colonia Augusta Julia Philippensis and resettled more former Roman soldiers. This time the colonists were veterans of a campaign that had ended with the Battle of Actium in 31 BCE. Thus Philippi was very much a military town.

Not only was Philippi martial in character but it was very Roman. As a Roman colony (colonia) the town had special rights; including exemption from poll tax. It also had the privilege of ius italicum (Italian law) of which it was proud. In the Provinces land was regarded as belonging to the Roman state and could not, therefore, be bought. In a colony with ius italicum, however, land could be bought and sold; the transactions being tax-free. The architecture of Philippi was Roman, inscriptions were in Latin and the usual Roman officials ran the colony. The official language was Latin and, although the people mostly spoke Greek, Latin held a strong position. It was the language of the Roman army and would therefore have been spoken by the resettled veterans and their family members, by slaves in Roman households and by employees in the imperial administration.

In areas previously unreached with the gospel Paul’s evangelistic strategy usually involved the establishment of churches in large urban centres from which the message could then be circulated to rural areas. Although his preaching was always aimed at both Jews and Gentiles he tended to first present the gospel to the local Jewish community at their synagogue worship. If they refused to accept it he then moved on to evangelize Gentiles. This procedure was not followed in Philippi, for two reasons. First, Philippi was something of a backwater and, although historically important (‘chief city’ 16:12), it was small. It had a population of about 10,000; tiny compared with Corinth or Thessalonica which numbered c. 80,000 -100,000. Second, hardly any Jews lived there so it did not have a synagogue.

In Acts 16:11-40, Luke gives a flavour of the early days of gospel work in Philippi by detailing three episodes of conversion. The first two concern the conversion of women and are connected with a ‘place of prayer’, the third is the conversion of a man and the setting is a prison. Two of the episodes contain a miracle; an exorcism and a miraculous release from prison. Taken together the stories of conversion remind us that God works providentially in the lives of different kinds of people in order to bring them to faith.

LYDIA

On the Sabbath, since there was no synagogue in Philippi, Paul looked for a ‘place of prayer’. According to the early Jewish historian Josephus (Antiquities, 14.10.23 § 258) Jews were accustomed to meet for prayer beside a river or at the seaside. At a river outside the town Paul found a group of women gathered together to pray. One was a merchant called Lydia who was a dealer in purple. This was an expensive dye used on fabrics and as rouge for cheeks or lips. Having a business that catered to the rich Lydia would have been well-dressed and wealthy herself. She was a native of Thyatira and already a worshipper of the one true God of the Jews. As she listened to Paul’s preaching her ‘heart’ was ‘opened’ and she became a believer in Christ. Not only that, she and her household were baptized (16:15). Then, at her insistence, the missionaries lodged at her home. Thus the church in Europe began with Lydia.

THE SLAVE GIRL

On their way to the place of prayer Paul and his friends met a slave girl who was possessed by a ‘spirit of Python’ (16:16). Python was a surname (epithet) of Apollo, the Greek god of divination. Her fortune-telling was a source of profit for her owners. She followed Paul and his companions shouting: ‘These men are servants of the Most High God, who declare to us a way of salvation’ (Young’s Literal Translation). The term ‘Most High God’ was used by Jews as a title of God, but in that local environment it could equally be understood as a term of respect applied to gods like Zeus or Isis. The slave girl was also shouting that the missionaries were proclaiming ‘a’ (not ‘the’) way of salvation. Paul was tolerant ‘for many days’ but, aware of the ambiguities in her proclamation, he commanded the spirit to leave her. When her owners realized that their source of income had dried up as a result of this they dragged Paul and Silas before the town authorities at the forum and accused them of:

1) Being Jews.

This was a sure way of stirring up the crowd against them as Jews were unpopular in the empire at that time. The emperor Claudius had expelled all Jews from Rome in 49 CE, probably just a few months before this incident. Luke refers to that Edict of Claudius in Acts 18:1.

2) Causing civic unrest.

The Romans were obsessed with maintaining public order in conquered territories, and they ruthlessly suppressed any hint of disturbance. This explains the action of the magistrates (the ‘duumviri’) in Philippi.

3) Promoting customs that were not legal for Romans to adopt.

The Romans insisted that religious cults be licensed as it was generally thought that calamity would come if the old ancestral gods and religious customs were forsaken. Also, the imperial cult was prevalent in Philippi and ‘Saviour and ‘Lord’ were titles of the Roman emperor. Paul may have been preaching about Jesus as ‘the’ Saviour and ‘the’ Lord, and also about the possibility of obtaining citizenship in a different kind of colony. He certainly reminded the Philippian believers about these things in his Epistle to the Philippians, written about five years later:

‘But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Saviour from there, the Lord Jesus Christ’ Phil 3:20 (NIV)

The Romans would have regarded this as treason against Caesar (Jn 19:12; Acts 17:7).

THE PHILIPPIAN GAOLER

The accusations were not related to the exorcism but had the desired effect of stirring up the mob against Paul and Silas. Unfortunately, the magistrates were swayed by the crowd and without properly investigating the matter had Paul and Silas stripped, cruelly flogged, and delivered to the gaoler; who secured them in the inner prison with their feet in stocks. It was unlawful to treat Roman citizens in this way, but they were given no opportunity to say that they had this status.

A dramatic event occurred as Paul and Silas prayed and sang praises to God during the night, while the other prisoners listened. This reminds us that others are looking on and gauging our reactions as Christians when under pressure. Paul and Silas were not moaning and groaning or cursing and swearing about their beating. It is not surprising that they prayed, but how could they have sung in such circumstances?

Then an earthquake released the fastenings of all the prisoners. This earthquake shook the prison foundations but left it standing, burst open its doors, and released the prisoners’ chains. The event must have impressed upon the inmates the fact that God was working. At times God uses circumstances to awaken individuals to the realisation that they are sinners in his sight, and arouse them to their need of salvation. In your case, it may be nothing so dramatic as an earthquake, but it is worth asking yourself the question: ‘What does God have to do to awaken me’?

The Philippian gaoler certainly reacted. Thinking that all the prisoners had escaped, and preferring death to disgrace, he had drawn his sword to kill himself when Paul shouted: ‘Do thyself no harm, for we are all here!’ Having called for a light, the gaoler came in trembling and asked a great question.

‘Sirs, what must I do to be saved?’

(N.B. I have had the following points in my notes for years, unfortunately I cannot reference the original source)

THE REQUEST (Acts 16:30) ‘What must I do to be saved?’

It speaks of:

1) HUMILITY – ‘what must I do’ – it implies that there is a need for salvation.

2) NECESSITY – ‘must’ – it implies that salvation cannot be done without.

3) INDIVIDUALITY – I’ – it implies that salvation is a personal issue. No-one else can receive it on my behalf.

4) AVAILABILITY – God is willing to save a repentant sinner.


THE REPLY (Acts 16:31) ‘Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house[hold]’

It speaks of:

1) A Person – ‘the Lord Jesus Christ

2) A Plan – ‘’believe on the Lord Jesus Christ’

3) A Promise – ‘thou shalt be saved’

THE RESULTS (Acts 16:33-34)

1) Salvation – ‘believing in God with all his house.’

2) Service – ‘And he took them the same hour of the night, and washed their stripes”

3) Satisfaction – ‘and rejoiced’

Verse 32 is very important: ‘And they spake unto him the word of the Lord, and to all that were in his house.’ Paul and Silas did not expect the gaoler to profess faith in the Lord Jesus Christ without first receiving an explanation of the facts of the gospel. The passage might suggest that they preached the gospel to him even before their wounds were dressed.

The next morning the magistrates, (perhaps realizing that they had acted unfairly and wishing to send the prisoners away as quietly as possible), sent the police (lictors), who ordered the gaoler to release Paul and Silas. Paul, however, refused to leave until the issue of their Roman citizenship was addressed. It was bad enough that Roman citizens had been imprisoned without a trial but the fact that it was illegal to flog Roman citizens created a major headache for the magistrates. They came to the prison themselves and tried to placate Paul and Silas. After receiving an official apology Paul and Silas were escorted from the prison, and went back to Lydia’s house to confer with the believers before leaving Philippi.

Paul maintained a close relationship with this assembly in the colony of Philippi, the first Christian assembly in Europe, and it, in turn, was supportive of his missionary work; sending him financial assistance on several occasions. (Phil 4:10, 15-16; 2 Cor 11:9).