Acts 16 - Introduction

THE BOOK OF ACTS. CHAPTER 16a

OUTLINE AND COMMENTARY. MARK DUNAGAN

I. OUTLINE OF chapter Acts 16:1-15:

I. Timothy joins Paul and Silas: Acts 16:1-3

II. Strengthening the churches: Acts 16:4-5

III. God directing them to Macedonia: Acts 16:6-11

IV. Events in Philippi: Acts 16:12-40

A. Conversion of Lydia and her Household: Acts 16:12-16

B. Their arrest after healing the slave-girl: Acts 16:17-25

C. Earthquake and conversion of the Jailer: Acts 16:26-34

D. Paul refuses to leave without amends from the Magistrates: Acts 16:35-40"The most notable feature of Paul's second missionary expedition is that during it the good seed of the gospel was now for the first time planted in European soil. Of course there was in those days no line of demarcation between 'Asia' and 'Europe', and the missionaries sailing across the northern part of the Aegean Sea were conscious of traveling only from one province to another, not from one continent to another, since both shores of the Aegean belonged to the Roman Empire" (Stott p. 258). Paul's second journey began in Acts 15:40 and will end at Acts 18:22, Acts 18:22, during this journey churches will be established in major metropolitan areas, Philippi, Thessalonica and Corinth. This chapter also introduces us to Timothy (Acts 16:1-3) and the author Luke, who joins this preaching team somewhere around Troas, (notice the transition between Acts 16:8 "they", and Acts 16:10 "we".)

THE BOOK OF ACTS. CHAPTER 16b

I. OUTLINE OF chapter Acts 16:16-40

Erdman notes, "The first convert to be made in Philippi, and so the first in Europe, was Lydia. She was. woman of wealth, of intelligence, of wide experience,. seller of purple who had come from the city of Thyatira; moreover she was religious, godly, and prayerful. Yet this woman needed salvation, she needed Christ. Such persons are to be found in every land; but it is certainly not in accordance with Scripture to insist that they are saved without the gospel. Their moral, upright, prayerful lives are said by some modern teachers to indicate that they already have 'the essential Christ', that they are already possessed of. spiritual life which is quite the same as that of professed Christians. The case of the first convert in Europe gives. different suggestion. Lydia however is not the common type of womanhood in heathen lands; their condition is pictured rather by the poor slave girl Such are either the toys or the tools of men. Their nameless agonies and anguish are the real 'Macedonian cry'" (pp. 132,133). "If Lydia came from the top end of the social scale this slave-girl came from the bottom" (Barclay p. 134).. good modern parallel to this slave-girl and her masters are those women today in our society who are exploited by the pimps, pornographers, drug dealers and abusive husbands and or boyfriends.