as he had been taught, “ I thank Thee that I am neither a slave nor a Gen tile nor a woman.” But I think truly I have never seen a more humble man, more in love with our Lord, for Paul at first opportunity told the blessed story of salvation through the crucified Messiah. One of the women who listened so attentively and rever ently, seemed to just hang on Paul’s words as he spoke. . . I could not tell whether she was a Jewess, or a Gentile who had been converted to the worship of the one true God. . . But Paul’s intellectual conception as to the attitude toward Gentiles and women had undergone a revolution ary change since that eventful day on the Damascus road when he had actually seen for the first time the risen Christ; and so, boldly and yet humbly and with the power of the Holy Spirit, he spoke the message, and—praise the dear Lord!— this one woman’s heart was opened by the Lord Himself, using the message as His implement, and she believed and was saved. . . I’ve sometimes wondered what might have been her thoughts as she listened. . . For she was a business woman, a seller of purple dyes. . . Purple dyes are extracted from the neck glands of the purple clams which abound in the Aegean. . . The neck glands of the larger clams are opened by an incision; the smaller clams are crushed, and the purple thus secured. . . Was if the words of Paul as he spoke of Calvary,- the opening of the veins of the Son of God, the crushing of the precious One that opened the fountain for cleans ing from sin, which Helped her to understand? Did she see in her mind’s eye the purple robe placed in mock ery upon the Saviour? I do not know . . I only know that her heart was opened, and it was she who was the key-personality to the evangelization of Europe. . . But my time and space are gone. . . . We had a marvelous time in Philippi — and plenty of trouble— conversions, and crowds, and perse cution. We were thrown into jail be fore we were through, but it was glorious . . . I’ll tell you about it in another letter sometime. In closing, let me remind you again: Sometimes the Spirit says “No” to our plans because He has a better plan—and this better plan will bring about in a better way the very thing which we so desire to do for Him. . . . And IF He is working and guiding, and if we obey Him, He will wield the forces of nature as His instru ments to accomplish His purpose. . . .
Come” Mission B y Paul Hutchens Illustrations: Violet Lanquist
There we rested awhile, quietly ob serving, doing nothing spectacular, waiting an opportunity. . . And then on the first Sabbath Day, it came. . . There weren’t enough Jews in the whole ungodly city to have a synagogue (there had to be at least ten men before a synagogue could be organized), and so we went to attend a prayer meeting with a little group which we’d heard gathered on the Sabbath in a circular inclosure open ed only to the sky, out along the riverside. . . Philippi, a city of many fountains, was beautifully situated near the mouth of the river, at the northern end of the Aegean. It was a bit disconcerting to find only women at the prayer gathering —and for Paul a real test of his con-' secration, for from his childhood, as a Hebrew, he had been praying daily
almost flew across the beautiful blue of the Aegean, of the word I’d once heard about the Holy Spirit, as the Lord had talked to Nicodemus one night, saying, “ The wind bloweth where it listeth, and you cannot tell whence it cometh or whither it goeth, so is every one that is bom of the Spirit.” We who had once been born of the Spirit, were now being borne by the wind, a symbol of the blessed Spirit, straight to our field of service. However, it is not always so that the forces of nature are so apparently with us. . . Sometimes the wind is contrary, and the waves take us down. . . We reached Samothrace without mishap, and thence to Neapolis, where we landed, and hurried on to Philippi which is a Roman colony. . .
MAY 1953
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