Lydia from Macedonia

[The LION will ROAR]

Lydia from Macedonia

http://mob.com.mk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=174%3Alydiafrommacedonia&catid=89%3Aopera-performances&Itemid=273&lang=en

Lydia the Macedonina was the most significant "discovery" among the Bible's forgotten women. She was the women that provided the purple linen for the entire Senate of the Roman Empire.
Lydia from Macedonia - The first European Christian!
The book "The Bible's Forgotten Women" published in New York City as well in some other world capitals, included large interest in the public. Lydia the Macedonina was the most significant "discovery" among the Bible's forgotten women. She was the women that provided the purple linen for the entire Senate of the Roman Empire. The moment Apostol Paul appeared on the Macedonian ground, folowing the famous "Appeal of the Macedonian" with the equally sentence: Come to Macedonia and save us...Fear from inside and threats from outside, is the moment when the message of the Christianity turns from Palestinian into a universal message that attracts every non - Christian nation in the world. That is very moment of the beginning of the modern history of the human kind: Christianization of the Europe and the World. Lydia, the Macedonian, (that is her precise name in the Bible) was the first women, the first person at all, Christianized by Apostol Paul on this two thousand year long odyssey. Thus, the house of Lydia, the Macedonian, becomes the First European Church and in the world, too. A chorus of Angels comes to that House - Church to tell the story of the "Love Civilization, from His till the Crucifixion and the Ascension for salvation of the entire humankind.

Synopsis

ACT I

Desert. The Apostol Paul, whose legs are bleeding from the walk, meets a man who is actually a God's Angel. The Angel eases the pain of the man and invites him to go to Macedonia and helps those who live in great pain and suffer. Paul promises that he will go.
Philippi. A city in Macedonia that is ruled by immorality and is under the torture of the Roman soldiers. The Apostole Paul arrives in Philippi, accomanied by Silas and Timothy and is appalled by the immorality and the people who have no perspective. He meets thieves, prostitutes, murderes and self interested soldiers. There is a fire, but no one wants to help to put it out. The Apostol Paul, horrified from the sight, abandons the city. On the river bank, Lydia, Asia and Dina paint a white cloth with a purple color while Paul, Silas and Timothy approach them. Paul baptizes Lydia.

ACT II

Lydia's house. Lydia announces to everyone that in her house she allows to have preaching and have people baptized in the Religion of the Only God, Jesus Christ. At the same time in the Roman Senate, Cesar announces an edict with which he obliges all the Senators to be wear purple colored togas, made with the cloth produced in Macedonia. The Apostol Paul continues with the preaching and the baptizing, but is spied by Ikia, who falsely presents herself as a believer. Paul is betrayed and is locked up by the Roman soldiers.

ACT III

Paul, Silas and Thimoty are in prison. Lydia comes in front of the prison walls followed by a crowed of people. They all together pray to God for salvation. At the moment there is an earthquake. The walls of the prison fall down, but no one is hurt. Paul, Silas and Timothy are free and at the same time Lydia arrives and tells them that the Roman Praetorians decided to set them free. Thanking God they start moving towards the city where a crowed of people that has greater faith in God, meets them.

ACT IV

Lydia is preparing the horse caravan loaded with purple cloth. Smiling kids accompany her but one of them steps in front and falls down under the hoof of one of the horses. Everybody thinks that the child is dead but Lydia believes in God's savior even though everybody blames her for the child's death. The Roman soldiers accompany the child's mother. The mother blames Lydia while the soldiers announce that she will be executed. In that moment the Apostol Paul comes and with one movement of his hand the child becomes alive and happily throws himself into Lydia's arms. The mother is thrilled and Lydia announces that it is brought to life together with the one that lives in him, Jesus Christ. Paul, Timothy and Silas greet the people before they leave. They bless Lydia promising that she will be eternally mentioned. Lydia names them as the Three Suns of Macedonia.
Apostol Paul announces that Macedonia is the country selected by God and from here, from Macedonia the New Testament will be spread.

[George S.]

LWR i wasn't aware she was macedonian but thanks for letting us know.

[cultea]

LWR i wasn't aware she was macedonian but thanks for letting us know.

She was from Thyateira (in... Lydia, Asia Minor) but she lived in Philippi (Macedonia). Internationally she is known as Lydia of Thyateira. In Greece she is known as Lydia of Philippi.
What you read in post#1, is not the Acts of Apostles but the Acts of an opera about her.
(Interesting pictures here)

http://www.wdbydana.com/philippi.htm

[George S.]

cultea she was macedonian there is a distinction how can one race of people be another race of people it defys logic.We have been under the turks for 500 years with a whole macedonia on the maps what did they call us macedonian.The romans under the province of macedonia what did they call us macedonians.So stop your state driven propaganda machine.You don't have to tell us what we allready know lydia is a macedonian.BEcause the bible was written by greeks & also the history is written by greeks of course they are going to give it a greek spin or biase it towards the greeks in some way.You don't think your priests will lie do you??

[cultea]

That's all

On the Sabbath day we went out of the city (of Philippi) to the riverside, where prayer was customarily made; and we sat down and spoke to the women who met there. Now a certain woman named Lydia heard us. She was a seller of purple from the city of Thyatira, who worshiped God. The Lord opened her heart to heed the things spoken by Paul. And when she and her household were baptized, she begged us, saying, “If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come to my house and stay.” So she persuaded us. . . . So they went out of the prison [Paul and Silas] and entered the house of Lydia; and when they had seen the brethren, they encouraged them and departed.
Acts 16:13-15 and 40

It also suggests that she was already Jewish, not a "national".

[George S.]

she wasn't jewish she was macedonian who became a christian.
It also suggests that she was already Jewish, not a "national".that's rubbish &you know it.

[Soldier of Macedon]

THYATI'RA (thi-a-ti'ra). A city in Asia Minor, the seat of one of the seven apocalyptic churches (Rev 1:11; 2:18). It was situated in the confines of Mysia and Ionia, a little S of the river Lycus and at the northern extremity of the valley between Mt. Tmolus and the southern ridge of Temnus. It was one of the many Macedonian colonies established in Asia Minor in the sequel of the destruction of the Persian Empire by Alexander. The waters of Thyatira are said to be so well adapted for dyeing that in no place can the scarlet cloth out of which fezes are made be so brilliantly or so permanently dyed as here. So in the Acts (Acts 16:14) Lydia, the first convert of Paul at Philippi, is mentioned as "a seller of purple fabrics" from Thyatira. The principal deity of the city was Apollo, worshiped as the sun-god under the surname Tyrimnas. He was no doubt introduced by the Macedonian colonists, for the name is Macedonian. A priestess of Artemis is also mentioned in the inscriptions. The modern city of Akhisar, about 50,000 in population, marks the site of the ancient city in the territory that is now Anatolian Turkey. Nothing of the ancient city can be seen. Remains of a Byzantine church remind one that the gospel once came to this place.

(From The New Unger's Bible Dictionary. Originally published by Moody Press of Chicago, Illinois. Copyright (c) 1988.)

(See LYDIA, the probable agent of carrying the gospel to her native town). Thyatira lay a little to the left of the road from Pergamos to Sardis (Strabo 13:4, who calls it "a Macedonian colony"); on the Lycus, a little to the S. of the Hyllus, at the N. end of the valley between Mount Tmolus and the southern ridge of Tetanus. Founded by Seleucus Nicator. On the confines of Mysia and Ionia. A corporate guild of dyers is mentioned in three inscriptions of the times of the Roman empire between Vespasian and Caracalla. To it probably belonged Lydia, the seller of purple (i.e. scarlet, for the ancients called many bright red colors "purple") stuffs (Acts 16:14). The waters are so suited for dyeing that nowhere is the scarlet of fezzes thought to be so brilliant and permanent as that made here. Modern Thyatira contains a population of 17,000. In Rev 2:18-25, "the Son of God who hath eyes like unto a flame of fire, and His feet like fine brass," stands in contrast to the sun god.

Tyrimnas, the tutelary god of Thyatira, represented with flaming rays and feet of burnished brass. Christ commends Thyatira's works, charity, service, faith, and patience. Thyatira's "last works were more than the first," realizing 1 Thess 4:1, instead of retrograding from "first love and first works" as Ephesus (Rev 2:4-5); the converse of Matt 12:45; 2 Peter 2:20. Yet Thyatira "suffered that woman JEZEBEL (which see), which calleth herself a prophetess, to teach and to seduce My servants to commit fornication, and to eat things sacrificed unto idols." Some self-styled prophetess, or collection of prophets (the feminine in Hebrew idiom expressing a multitude), closely attached to and influencing the Thyatira church and its presiding bishop or "angel" (the Alexandrinus and Vaticanus manuscripts read "thy wife" for "that woman") as Jezebel did her weak husband Ahab. The presiding angel ought to have exercised his authority over the prophetess or prophets so-called, who seduced many into the libertinism of the BALAAMITES and NICOLAITANS (sec) of Thyatira's more powerful neighbour Pergamos (Rev 2:6,14,16). The Lord encourages the faithful section at Thyatira. "Unto you (omit `and' with the Alexandrinus and the Vaticanus manuscripts, the Sinaiticus manuscript reads: `among ') the rest in Thyatira I say, ... I will put upon you none other burden (save abstinence from and protestation against these abominations: this the seducers regarded as an intolerable burden, see Matt 11:30); but that which ye have hold fast until I come." A shrine outside Thyatira walls was sacred to the sibyl Sambatha, a Jewess or Chaldaean, in an enclosure called "the Chaldaean court."

(from Fausset's Bible Dictionary, Electronic Database Copyright (c)1998 by Biblesoft)