Acts 16:13-15 “And on the Sabbath day we went out of the city to the riverside, where prayer was customarily made; and we sat down and spoke to the women who met there. (14) Now a certain woman named Lydia heard us. She was a seller of purple from the city of Thyatira, who worshiped God. The Lord opened her heart to heed the things spoken by Paul. (15) And when she and her household were baptized, she begged us, saying, "If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come to my house and stay." So she persuaded us.”
This second passage of scripture that I have quoted is still the witness of the Holy Spirit, for as we have already stated, it is He that inspired Luke to write this passage of scripture. We looked at this passage earlier, to show that God blinds the minds of the unbelievers, so that they cannot see the truth of the gospel message. But this same passage also reveals to us the truth that men believe the gospel message, because God opens their understanding to it. For in this passage, we see the apostle Paul and his team preaching the gospel to a number of Jewish women. But even though all the women heard the same message preached at the same time, only one believed, i.e. Lydia. So what was different about Lydia that she believed, but the others did not? The Holy Spirit tells us that the Lord opened her heart to heed the things spoken by Paul. In other words, because Lydia was chosen for salvation, the Lord allowed her to understand the message of the gospel, while He did not allow the others to understand, because they had not been chosen for salvation. And so, again we very clearly see that the method that God uses to predestine the lives of believers is that He opens their understanding to the truth of the gospel, so that they can believe it and thus be saved.
Michael E.B. Maher
Comments