In Acts 15:36-39 we read that after deciding to revisit the churches they had established on their first mission, Paul and Barnabas had a division about John Mark. So Barnabas took his nephew to Cyprus and Paul chose Silas and set out on the planned journey.
However, the Spirit of God twice prevented them from preaching in two areas in which they had sought to minister. Then at Troas Paul had a vision, in which a Macedonian man appeared to him and called — “Come over and help us!” So they sailed from the Middle East and arrived in Greece. They were the first ever Christian missionaries to Europe (the EU).
Soon after, they arrived in the city of Philippi. Paul cast a spirit out of a fortune telling young woman who was making a nuisance of herself by identifying them as “servants of the Most High God, who show unto us the way of salvation”. (Acts 16:16-18). It was true, however, Paul didn’t want an evil spirit to advertise his ministry, so he cast it out, which meant that her owners no longer could use her to make money.
The result of which was that Paul and Silas were both beaten with rods and imprisoned, their feet placed in stocks. But at midnight, while they were praying and praising in turn, God caused an earthquake, which freed every prisoner, from stocks as well as chains. Long story short, the jailor and his entire household were saved and baptised, The wounds of Paul and Silas were washed and otherwise attended to, and they were given food. As they ate, the sun rose on a new and very different day.
Who does not love Paul’s epistle to the church at Philippi? Some of our most beloved NT verses are found in its four short chapters. The first Christian church in Europe was established in Philippi.
But let’s skip some years to a time when Paul “had no rest in his spirit” about the church in Corinth. Paul had pioneered the church and had seen it grow from a handful of people to possibly the largest of all churches. “I have many people in this city”, Jesus had informed Paul.
The Apostle Paul had planned to revisit Corinth, believing that God would bless them a second time. But it didn’t work out due to problems in the church. So Paul sent Titus to find out if a strong letter he had written to them had changed things in the church.
Paul hoped to meet up with Titus in Troas (Troy), but he failed to arrive. During his first visit to the city, a vision at night had appeared. It was of a Macedonian man. Maybe he wished for one of Titus in the church at Corinth, saying, “It’s all good, Paul, come now to Corinth!” That didn’t happen, so Paul took ship and on landing retraced his earlier steps to Philippi.
While waiting in that city, he would have seen again the river on the bank of which he and Silas had met Lydia, their first convert. He would have taught in the church, and no doubt enjoyed a reunion with members of the jailor’s household. Yet still no Titus.
What’s your ‘Philippi’? By this I mean the breakthrough place in your ministry that came through a vision from God (and maybe the pain it brought you.) Philippi 1.0 had been dramatic! Philippi 2.0 was traumatic. The first visit to a new mission field is a memorable experience, with deliverance,
God’s intervention, and entire families (households) are saved. But the second visit, while good, is never quite the same. Things change. In 1990 Lorraine and I ministered in a mission in Manila, and in three sessions over two days the Lord baptised 43 of the staff with the Holy Spirit! We then flew out to Germany. Weeks later we returned to Manila and again stayed at the mission. But we returned a week early and so were unexpected. No ministry had been planned for us there before we were to fly to Brisbane, so the dramatic scenes of so many staff being baptized in the Holy Spirit was not repeated. (In a barangay (village) we would have gone out and ministered here and there, but Manila being a city of many millions, that kind of thing was not possible.
It takes faith to wait, and during the wait what the Lord has done in the past is of little comfort when nothing is happening in the present. Mothers pray and wait for wayward teens; fathers fret over faltering businesses; and young couples wonder if banks will approve much needed housing loans.
But things can change suddenly, and when they do there is cause for rejoicing, for hugs of relief, and for expressions of praise and thanksgiving to God! That’s how it was for Paul with the arrival of Titus, and the good news he brought from Corinth.
In 2 Corinthians 2:12 we read: “Now thanks be to God, who always causes us to triumph in Christ, and makes known the fragrance of His knowledge by us in every place. For unto some we are a fragrance of life; and to others a fragrance of death.” In Paul’s spontaneous outburst of praise, his exultant doxology, we catch the memory of his first visit to Philippi: the fragrance of life to the jailor that brought salvation to his household, and the odour of death to the prisoners, who were briefly set free physically, but not spiritually. Philippi 2.0 was different but the memories were good!
No wonder Paul had a special relationship with the church at Philippi. No wonder they were the only church to support his ministry through thick and (mostly) thin times. No wonder Paul writes so beautifully of “the mind of Christ” (2:5-8), of counting “everything but loss” to “gain Christ” and to be “found in him” (3:7-9), of being “anxious for nothing” (4:6), of being able to do “all things through Christ’s strength” (4:13), and of God supplying “all [their] needs (reciprocally), according to His riches in glory, by Christ Jesus”!
Praise and Pain, some Loss, much Gain: a few glimpses into the ministry of an apostle.