Act 16:13-15 | PNT | STEP | Went out . . . by a river side . The Ganges, a small river which flows by the city. Where prayer was wont to be made . Where there was a praying place. There seems to have been no synagogue, but a few pious Jews, women at least in great part, met on the river banks, out of the city, for prayer. Spake unto the women . Either Jewish women, or proselytes to the Jewish faith.

Acts 16:13-15

Went out . . . by a river side. The Ganges, a small river which flows by the city.

Where prayer was wont to be made. Where there was a praying place. There seems to have been no synagogue, but a few pious Jews, women at least in great part, met on the river banks, out of the city, for prayer.

Spake unto the women. Either Jewish women, or proselytes to the Jewish faith. Lydia. The name is Greek. She was probably a convert to Judaism.

A seller of purple, of the city of Thyatira. Thyatira, afterwards one of the seven churches of Asia, was beyond the Aegean Sea, hundreds of miles away. It was on the borders of Lydia, which was famous for its purple cloths. She was at this distant place for purposes of trade. Thyatira was a Macedonian colony, and Lydia probably had acquaintances or kinsmen in Macedonia itself.

Whose heart the Lord opened. How, it is not stated. Possibly some of his providences especially fitted her for the reception of the gospel. And when she was baptized. In the apostolic period baptism always at once followed acceptance of the gospel.

And her household. Some have held that this implies the baptism of infants. It rather implies that her servants and friends also accepted the gospel. There is no ground for the inference that she was even married, or had children. Meyer ("Acts", p. 311), himself a German Lutheran, says: ``If, in the Jewish and Gentile families which were converted to Christ there were children, their baptism is to be assumed in "those" cases, when they were so far advanced "that they could and did confess their faith on Jesus as the Messiah; for this was the universal, absolutely necessary qualification for the reception of baptism. . . . Therefore the baptism of the children of Christians", of which no trace is found in the New Testament is not to be held as an apostolic ordinance.'' Olshausen and Neander, also Pedobaptists, take the same view. Lydia's household was probably composed of women who assisted her in her business.

She besought [us]. Paul did not usually accept aid from his converts (Ac 20:33 2Co 12:17), but it seems that her urgent entreaty prevailed.