And a certain woman, by name Lydia, a seller of purple, of the city of Thyatira, who worshipped God, heard; whose heart the Lord opened to attend to the things spoken by Paul.
The gospel had just crossed into Europe, and the first person there to receive it was a working woman named Lydia. The verse names her city, her trade and her religion — then credits the whole result to the Lord, who opened her heart.
Lydia was not born a Jew. The words "a worshiper of God" mark her as someone who had already turned to the God of Israel — a proselyte, as one writer puts it:
The work began in the heart of Lydia, which God opened. The words "a worshiper of God" show that she was a seeker, and had become a proselyte. Now, in the gospel that Paul preached, she found the full thing she had been looking for.
One writer finds in her an encouragement for places the gospel has not yet reached:
Her name is Lydia, a seller of purple, clearly a person with a profitable business, perhaps a widow, since she was the head of a household... Before Paul came, she was known as one who worshiped God. May there not be many seekers after light whom God takes note of in places where the pure gospel has not yet reached? The first name of a European convert was a woman's. She was peacefully at work in her lawful trade, yet she had a fear of God in her heart and was seeking light.
Paul spoke and Lydia listened. One writer traces both to God, and reads the verse beside the Lord's teaching in John 6:
The heart of Lydia was opened by the Lord, as well as the lips of Paul that spoke to her. He spoke to her and she attended to him; and both of these things were of God. How simple, and yet how necessary! The Lord lets us know we need both of these operations in His great discourse in John 6. He teaches us that if the Father does not give to the Son, if He does not draw, if He does not teach, the ministry will be lost on the soul. The bread of life, the true manna of the desert, will be spread out in vain.
Another writer asks whether a woman this devout was already converted before that day:
Whether she had already been born again cannot now be settled. But it is certain that while she listened to Paul's message the Spirit of God worked with the glad tidings of grace, and produced faith in her soul.
God opened her heart first, and then she paid attention. One writer explains why that order matters:
Until the heart is touched, the mind will not be fixed. So notice what it says: God opened the heart of Lydia "to pay attention." The mind runs on the will's errand. We spend our thoughts on whatever our hearts choose. If the heart has no sense of its ignorance, or no desire after God, no wonder such a person does not listen to the preacher. His heart sends his mind somewhere else.
Lydia's attention is then turned into a test for anyone sitting under preaching today:
Lydia was not one of those who go to meetings and think about anything and everything except the things spoken by the Lord's messengers. She was not thinking about her purple, or the prices, or the likely gains and losses. How many of those who fill our preaching rooms and lecture halls follow Lydia's example? Sadly, we fear very few indeed.
Later in the same chapter the jailer is converted too. One writer sets the two side by side:
So with the jailer and Lydia in Acts 16. She was devout, gentle and gracious, and the Lord, by a very gentle operation, opened her heart. An earthquake went with the unlocking of the bars of the jailer's strong iron heart. With Lydia's heart, "the still small voice" had done the same work.
One writer turns her next step into a question for the reader:
It is a great thing when the heart is opened. What do you think happens when the heart is opened? The Lord gets His right place there... First her heart is opened, and then the next thing is that her house is opened. Is your house used for the Lord? If it is, that is a very happy thing. If you do not use your house for the Lord — even if it is only one room or two — I do not think He has a very big place in your heart.
What began with one soul did not stay small:
One soul had been won for Christ. Though the work during this first visit of the apostle was not large, it was so thorough that it became the foundation of a church. In its spiritual state, that church was surpassed by none we have on record in the New Testament. The stability of a house depends greatly on its foundations. In the same way, the character of a church often comes from the nature of its beginning.
- Opened before Paul came. She already worshiped God, and He took note of her — as He takes note of seekers where the gospel has not yet reached.
- Opened by Him. God moved Paul's lips and Lydia's heart. Without the second, the preaching would have been spread out in vain.
- Opened heart, then mind. Until the heart is touched, the mind will not stay fixed. A hearer whose heart is elsewhere sends his mind after it.
- Opened differently. With Lydia a still small voice, with the jailer an earthquake — God fits the work to the person.
- Opened house. The heart that opened to Christ opened its door to His servants. That one household became the foundation of a whole church.
And when she had been baptised and her house, she besought [us], saying, If ye have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come into my house and abide [there]. And she constrained us.
Commentators count Lydia as the first convert to Christ in Europe, and this verse shows what happened once she believed. Two questions follow: who was in that household, and what did she mean by tying her invitation to their judgment of her faithfulness?
One writer traces her steps from receiving Christ to standing openly with Him:
Lydia's was a very real and decided case, in every respect. It was direct, positive, and unmistakable. She received Christ into her heart. At once she took Christian ground by being baptized, and baptism carries deep meaning. Nor was this all. She opened her house at once to the Lord's messengers. Hers was no mere lip profession. She proved her faith in Christ in two ways. She went down under the water of baptism. She also joined herself and her household to the name and cause of that blessed One whom she had received into her heart by faith.
One writer draws out the order of what happened in her, and turns it into a question for the reader:
It is a great thing when the heart is opened... The Lord gets His right place there. She is the first in Europe to identify herself with the Lord. I believe that in Lydia you have the first convert to Christ in Europe... First of all, her heart is opened, and then the next thing is her house is opened. Is your house used for the Lord? If so, it is a very happy thing. Perhaps your house is only a room or two. Even so, if you do not use it for the Lord, I do not think He has a very big place in your heart.
Here commentators differ. Some warn against filling in what Scripture leaves out:
Were the members of it saved? Were there children in it or not? On all this the Scripture is absolutely silent: and it is not silent to give us the opportunity to speculate about these matters... the important thing for us is to note what the Scripture says, and not add our own thoughts: and the Scripture records that Lydia's household was baptized, without any mention whatever of faith, real or otherwise, on their part. As the record stands, Lydia's whole household was baptized on the ground of her faith.
Others read the same silence as leaving no ground for baptizing infants, and note who the record does mention:
We do not hear of children or of husband; she may have been a widow without a family or never married. She had a household, and in verse 40 we hear of the brothers there, believers therefore, and probably not men only but women. We hear nothing of little children. God's record is wonderfully full and exact in every other detail, yet it does not even hint at anything of the kind.
Her words point back to a judgment the preachers had already made when they baptized her:
So, when she was baptized, "she urged us, saying, 'If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord.'" This faithfulness, the fruit of faith, was not something given after her baptism. On the contrary, their baptizing her implied their conviction that she was faithful.
That wording also sets a standard for whose hospitality a servant of Christ may accept:
There is great moral beauty in Lydia's words to Paul in Acts 16... There is a great principle wrapped up in these words. To accept hospitality where there is obvious and definite unfaithfulness to Christ the Lord is to prove that He has a very low place in our hearts.
The last phrase is stronger than a polite offer. The ESV reads "she prevailed upon us"; older translations read "constrained."
The word here translated "constrained" is found only twice in the New Testament, and it is used the same way in both places. Lydia "constrained" Paul and Silas to stay with her (Acts 16:15). The two disciples "constrained" our blessed Lord in the same way, saying, "Stay with us." It is a strong word. In classical Greek it can even mean doing violence to someone. So in these scriptures it means constraining in the sense of taking no denial. How such a constraint must have delighted the Lord's heart, and with what joy He would answer a request pressed like that!
She had no idea what her insistence was worth to Christ:
The love of Christ was there and made her, little knowing the value of her gracious insistence in His sight, to be a fellow worker with the truth (3 John 8).
- Opened. Her heart was opened first, and the Lord took His right place there. Everything else in this verse flows from that.
- Owned. Baptism was how she publicly took her stand — faith that stayed at the level of words would have stopped short of it.
- Household. Her house was baptized with her. Scripture says nothing about their faith or their ages, and commentators differ over what that silence proves.
- Opened wide. Heart first, then home. The open house is the honest test of the opened heart, however small the house.
- Constrained. She took no denial, and that insistence made her a fellow worker with the truth.