“Dorcas, Lydia, Priscilla: Women of the Early Church”
Acts 9:36-42; 16:11-15; 18:1-4, 24-28
Palisades Community Church
May 8, 2016 (Mother’s Day)
Winnie Christensen is a veteran Bible teacher, author of many study guides of the Bible and a book entitled “Women Who Believed God”. Following is her explanation of the connection between women of the first century Christian community, and the place of women in the Christian community as it has evolved since:
“It takes some extra examination to find the numerous women who worked side by side with
Paul and the other ‘well-knowns’. Possibly we are slow to notice their names because our own culture has trained us to see women more in strictly family roles than in ministry roles.”
Christensen points to story after story of ordinary women who, daring to trust God, made a difference for the fledgling Christian movement. They faced some of the same challenges of today: difficult relationships, loneliness, illness, poverty, injustice, war, death. Yet they chose to believe God in those circumstances, and consequently helped to change the world.
I thought it appropriate, on Mother’s Day, to consider how the witness of such women of the
Early Church might apply to our time and experience. Six weeks from now, on Father’s Day, the men of the Early Church will have their turn. Then, in the last sermon of a trilogy, albeit interrupted by a month of other Sunday emphases, I’ll talk about Paul, the “roving ambassador” of the Early Church. Of course it is the Apostle Paul that some women--and men--in today’s church excoriate for such recorded pronouncements as “the husband is the head of his wife” and “wives be subject to your husbands”. But for today, and until June 26, let’s give Paul a pass. After all, it was no less than the self – assured Eleanor Roosevelt who insisted: “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent!”
Wouldn’t it be interesting to have Paul of Tarsus and Eleanor of New York over for dinner!
Or instead, perhaps Dorcas, an ordinary woman who dared to trust God, and in the process made a difference for the fledgling Christian movement. Her actual name in Aramaic was “Tabitha”, which translated in the Greek is “Dorcas”, in English “a gazelle”. Peter is in Lydda, traveling from
Jerusalem on the gospel business of healing and encouraging and building up God’s people. Dorcas is in
Joppa, about 10 miles away on the Mediterranean coast, near what is present-day Tel Aviv. Part of a community of widows, Dorcas herself has died, and Peter is hurriedly called to her bedside.
By the power of Peter’s prayer, life revisits Dorcas’s body—not unlike miraculous recoveries
Jesus had effected often in Peter’s presence. Dorcas was well known among the community of disciples for her charitable work, which explains the collective despair upon her death and the collective joy upon her resurrection. She had personally sewn much of the clothing worn by the other widows surrounding her. Of modest circumstances herself, she had personally sewn and gifted garments for families even more desperate. Her legacy of charity is the countless Dorcas Sewing Circles of today, comprised of humble, quietly heroic women offering their handiwork to the glory of God.
It takes some extra examination to find the numerous women who worked side by side with Paul and the other ‘well-knowns’.
Or, perhaps Lydia, an ordinary woman who dared to trust God, and in the process made a difference for the fledgling Christian movement. In contrast to the more impoverished Dorcas, Lydia had wealth, and lived comfortably as a member of the upper class in Philippi, the region of ancient
Macedonia that is now northern Greece. Lydia owned a prosperous business in the manufacture of purple dye and fancy purple cloth, the color of royalty. Her reputation was widespread as a fair and kind entrepreneur, likely the reason that Paul and Silas found haven with her when they arrived after a lengthy journey from Asia. Lydia was a Gentile, but known to be “a worshiper of God”, because she met regularly for prayer at the riverside with a group of devoted Jewish women.
Paul soon discovered what everyone knew about Lydia—that she had an open heart. After hearing Paul’s message, she chose to be baptized in that same river, becoming the first convert to
Christianity in Europe. Her household of relatives and servants followed suit. She opened her home to the missionaries, who made it the headquarters of their evangelical endeavors. It was at some risk that
Lydia welcomed Paul and Silas again to her home after their arrest, beating, and imprisonment. Her hospitality allowed the Gospel to gain a solid foothold on the new continent, and early Christianity expanded thanks to the generosity of a network of such affluent supporters.
It takes some extra examination to find the numerous women who worked side by side with Paul and the other ‘well-knowns’.
Or, perhaps Priscilla, an ordinary woman who dared to trust God, and in the process made a difference for the fledgling Christian movement. As Jews, she and her husband Aquila had been banished from Rome by the Emperor Claudius. (“Banishment”: A circumstance eerily comparable to the real or imagined plight of populations harassed by the powerful in our day.) Paul the missionary met up with them in Corinth. In fact, he stayed with them in Corinth, where for a time they collaborated in the business of tent making, a skill they shared in common. Not all Jews were sympathetic to the message, so Paul embarked with Priscilla and her husband toward the more friendly home turf of Syria. But parting ways with Paul, Priscilla and Aquila settled for a time in Ephesus.
One wonders what contact they may have had with Mary, the mother of Jesus, who was living out her days near Ephesus. They did have contact with Apollos, a converted Egyptian eloquent in the scriptures, who showed up at their home, which served as the church in Ephesus. And after they heard Apollos preach, Luke reports in Acts that “they took him aside and explained the way of God to him more accurately!” From this and many other references to her, we can be sure that Priscilla was a well- known and effective worker in the Early Church, a pillar of faithfulness.
It takes some extra examination to find the numerous women who worked side by side with Paul and the other ‘well-knowns’.
Dorcas, Lydia, and Priscilla: Women of the Early Church. Ordinary women who, daring to trust
God, made a difference for the fledgling Christian community.
To be sure, the Early Church has no monopoly on Christianity’s unsung heroines of charity, generous hospitality, and faithfulness. Such heroines have left their mark in every age and in every iteration of “church”.
The spirit of Dorcas of Joppa lives in the charity of Marge, of Lodi, and Bonnie, of Ft. Thomas.
The spirit of Lydia of Philippi lives in the generous hospitality of Nancy of Hinsdale and Jacqui of Silver
Spring. The spirit of Priscilla lives in the faithfulness of Jessie of Annapolis and Jennifer of Wheaton.
And the spirit of charity, generous hospitality, and faithfulness—the gift of the Early Church to the contemporary Church—thrives among the women with whom I am acquainted of a certain neighborhood in northwest Washington DC.
Ordinary women who, daring to trust God, make a difference for the Christian community.