Philippi

Before we move on to Italy tomorrow, I wanted to share something of our experience of Philippi which was nothing short of amazing.  We drove to Philippi via the seaport town of Kavala which is the place where the Apostle Paul first set foot on European soil.

Luke tells us in the book of Acts that Paul and Silas came to the Roman city of Philippi and remained several days in the city.  On the Sabbath day they went outside the city to a place of prayer by the river.  They spoke to the women gathered there and a woman by the name of Lydia, a seller of purple cloth, was moved by Paul’s words and asked to be baptized - she and her entire household.  Afterwards Paul came to stay with Lydia and her family.

Some time after this Paul and Silas encountered a slave girl who was telling fortunes and making money for her master by doing so.   She knew who Paul and Silas were and kept calling everyone’s attention to them.  After a while it became annoying, so Paul ordered the spirit out of her that was enabling her to do fortune telling.  Her master was understandably upset to have his income curtailed and had Paul and Silas arrested.  They were beaten and imprisoned.  Later that same night while they were praying and singing an earthquake shook the earth so violently the doors of the prison were opened.  Paul and Silas, however, did not run for it because they knew the guard would be in serious trouble.

The guard was so impressed that he became a Christian along with his whole family.  They were all baptized.

In the morning, however, the authorities asked Paul and Silas to leave Philippi.  After stopping off to see Lydia and to encourage the new believers, Paul and Silas moved on to Thessaloniki.  With just these few encounters, the church of Philippi was begun.




Today Philippi is a ruins of the original town, but remarkably we were allowed to walk all over the ruins. This means we wandered on the Via Egnatia - the road everyone, including Paul and Silas,

walked on to get anywhere from east to west in this part of the Roman Empire.  We were allowed to walk all around and through the old Roman Forum where Paul would have been arrested.







We saw what might have been Paul’s prison and no less than 3 early Christian churches – 4th, 5th and 6th century.  The oldest was the Octagonal church which was the earliest church and built in 313 AD right after the last Macedonia persecution.

Being in this place was nothing short of amazing.  We spent 2.5 – 3 hours wandering around trying to understand what we were looking at in spite of the ferocious heat.  When we were out of water and verging on dehydration we headed to the near by park with a snack bar.  They took one look at us and brought us a bottle of water and made us sit down.  We ordered French fries and sugared drinks to replenish the electrolytes.  Then we headed back to the city in our air conditioned car.







We got up the next morning and drove back to the Philippi area to visit Lydia’s Baptistry.  Surprisingly, it turned out to be the highlight of the whole trip.  The site is the presumed and most likely spot of Paul’s encounter with Lydia.  It is a beautiful place by the Zygaktic river.

 There is a very peaceful outdoor baptistry and an exquisite church which centers completely around a large baptismal font in the center of the church.  All around the interior of the church are gorgeous mosaics telling the story of Paul and Lydia and the Christians in Philippi.  (The pictures above are from the interior of this church.)  We sat at the waters edge for about half an hour.  There was a group from France having a remembrance of baptism service when we arrived.  After they left we went to the water’s edge, touched the water and enjoyed God’s peace in that place.