In Acts 16, Paul has a vision of a man from Macedonia asking him to help his people. So, Paul packs up his stuff, leaves Troas (modern day Turkey) and heads to Philippi with his pals Silas, Timothy, and Luke. A mosaic in Kavala (back then it was called Neapolis) shows the vision of Paul.
Paul likes going to a synagogue first when he arrives at a new place. However, Philippi had no synagogue (you had to have at minimum 10 Jewish men in a town to establish one). So, the next best place to talk to people about God is a water source. Paul heads north of town, out of the city gate at the river. He chats with some women there, including a gal named Lydia. She was awesome. She owned her own purple dieing goods business, lived in her own house, most likely was widowed, and was a God-fearer (someone who followed God but didn't know about Jesus yet.) She believed the Good News Paul gave and was baptized in the river that very day. Folks who lived in her house believed too. I decided to renew my baptismal vows while I was there.
So, the steps and platform were put in later by the Greek Orthodox Church. This is a little more upstream and looks much more like the natural environment Lydia would have met Paul.
I totally understand why Lydia hung out there. It was cool, lush, and peaceful. I wanted to stay but we headed to the nearby chapel to sing Amazing Grace instead. And that was pretty nice too. My travel companions have great voices and I might have cried for the first of a billion times on this journey.
Here is the chapel from the outside and inside. I discovered that Greek Orthodox folks really like things that are sparkly.
So, Lydia invited Paul and crew to her house to stay while he ministered to folks in the city. Presumably, she housed the new little church in her home. Paul had a lot of work to do and he was not going to leave before trouble came lurking in the form of a disturbed fortune telling girl... more on that later.
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