Reading Time: 1-2 minutes
Monday, October 21, 2019
Dave, in Acts 16:14, did God give Lydia faith?
When Paul and Silas were in Philippi, they spoke to women who had gathered at the river outside the city gate to pray. One of the women was Lydia, and ―the Lord opened her heart to respond to the things spoken by Paul‖ (16:14). The Greek διανοίγω (“opened”) refers to the opening of the eyes to make understanding possible and enable perception. Many of the New Testament occurrences of kardia (heart) refer to the mind, as it does here. God opened the “eyes” of Lydia’s heart as if removing a mental veil (2 Cor 4:3-4) so that she would understand and respond. He enabled her to understand Paul’s message so that she could believe and be saved. But opening her heart (or understanding) is not the same as giving her faith. Acts 16 does not say God gave her faith. Instead, He enabled her to understand so that she could exercise faith.
Paul wrote in Romans 3:11, “There is none who understands, there is none who seeks for God.” However, God was drawing (cf. John 6:44-45) Lydia to Himself before Paul arrived. Nevertheless, giving a person the ability to understand differs from giving him or her faith to believe. God enlightened (a type of drawing) Lydia so that she could believe, but it was still her faith, not God’s gift of faith.
God granted her further revelation as a response to her positive reception of the truth He had already given her. God will not reject a sincere seeker. Luke signals Paul as the speaker, beginning to focus on him (cf. 16:17–18). That God opened her heart signifies that He granted Lydia comprehension of the saving message. The opening of the heart does not equate with believing, which occurs as a result of this opening, nor with regeneration, which occurs at the moment of faith, not before (cf. 16:31). The things spoken by Paul would have centered on the Gospel.
Sources Used
Bauer, Walter, William F. Arndt, and F. Wilbur Gingrich, A Greek English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 3rd ed., rev. and ed. Frederick W. Danker, 234.
Lopez, René A. “Is Faith a Gift from God or a Human Exercise?” Bibliotheca Sacra 164 (July-September 2007): 259-276.
Valdés, Alberto S. “The Acts of the Apostles.” The Grace New Testament Commentary. Ed. Robert N. Wilkin. Denton, TX: Grace Evangelical Society, 2010. 566.
