“During the night Paul had a vision: there stood a man of Macedonia pleading with him and saying, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” When he had seen the vision, we immediately tried to cross over to Macedonia, being convinced that God had called us to proclaim the good news to them.” (Acts 16:9-10)
Dreams can change your life.
Paul had been in Troas, in modern-day Turkey (about 50 km from Gallipoli) when he had that dream about the Macedonian man, calling for help. No doubt Paul already had plans. He was probably thinking of looping back towards Jerusalem and visiting the churches he’d planted along the way. Even so, he had that dream, and so he told his team to head out and purchase tickets for a voyage to Europe!
My mind goes back to 2012 when I first started hearing news reports about the uprising in Syria. I had no idea where Syria was at that stage, and I didn’t have any Syrian friends but, for some reason, I couldn’t get Syria out of my mind. I’d lie awake at night, thinking about what was going on there, and I remember saying to God, “I’m busy here, Lord”. Even so, six months later I was in Damascus, going to bed each night with the distant glow of mortar fire lighting up the night sky in every direction.
I expect Paul’s stay in Philippi, Macedon’s capital, was at least as risky for him as Syria was for me. Macedon was a Roman city, and it was a town full of vets (and not the kind that look after animals)!
One of the big problems for kings and emperors in those days was what to do with your retired soldiers. This was not a group that the government wanted to get offside, so the Romans pensioned off their veterans very generously. Philippi had been given over entirely to veterans, which meant it was a city full of rough old men with money. Some would have had families. Many would have been single, and I imagine there was a thriving sex industry there and lots of late-night bars. It was an odd place for Paul to launch a Christian mission.
If Paul had been guided by the contemporary wisdom of church-growth strategists, he would have looked for an area with a well-established Jewish community – people who already understood concepts like Messiah and the Kingdom of God. Philippi didn’t have that. Paul couldn’t even find a synagogue there, and while he had dreamt of a local man calling for his help, he didn’t find any men he could connect with once he got there. Instead, he wandered outside the city and found a group of women praying by a river and … the rest is history!
We can’t be sure about much when it comes to the early development of the church in Phillipi though there has been lots of speculation. Was the leader of that prayer group, Lydia, the church’s first pastor? Were Paul and Lydia an item at one point? There is much we can’t be sure about, but one thing does seem clear. Paul looked back at his journey to Macedonia as one of the best things he ever did.
When Paul was in prison some years later, who did he write to? It was his spiritual family in Phillipi. And while so many of Paul’s letters have him exasperated, or frustrated over issues of lust, greed, immorality, and idolatry (e.g. Galatians, 1 and 2 Corinthians), listen to his words to the community at Phillipi:
“I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.
It is right for me to feel this way about all of you, since I have you in my heart and, whether I am in chains or defending and confirming the gospel, all of you share in God’s grace with me. God can testify how I long for all of you with the affection of Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 1:3-8)
I love Paul’s frankness about his passion for these people whom he ‘longs for with the affection of Christ Jesus’. I feel the same way about the people of Syria, and it’s breaking my heart to see what is happening to them at the moment.
Dreams can change your life. They can bring you light and love and joy and peace, along with risk, pain, suffering and exhaustion, but … only if you follow them.
As broadcast on The Sunday Eucharist – May 25th, 2025
