Who was Lydia?

 Lydia was the first gentile European convert to Christianity and was probably the richest commoner mentioned in the Bible. She was a merchant in Thyatira (in modern Turkiye) who sold purple cloth, an expensive luxury item which was only available to the very wealthy and especially to members of the royalty. The purple dye used was extracted from a special sea mollusk. Less well-off people used red dyes while most probably used no dyes at all. Lydia allowed Paul and Silas to use her home as a house church.

Acts 16:14-15.

The Inferior Five

The Inferior Five are a comic book superhero team made up of persons who are not what one would expect of such a team. They are Merryman, a 98 pound weakling who wears a jester’s costume and is very smart; Awkwardman, who is super strong but very clumsy; The Blimp, who floats in the air rather than flying. He literally needs a wind to blow behind him. He is blown about by every wind (Ephesians 4:14); White Feather, who is a skilled but emotionally insecure archer; and Dumb Bunny, who is “strong as an ox and almost as intelligent.”

The Inferior Five always win the day. They are truly superheroes. Instead of Inferior, they might more correctly be named the Unlikely Five.

God always choses the unlikely person, the unlikely nation, the unlikely way. His ways seem like foolishness to the world.

He chose, not a powerful empire, but the Jews, to be the nation which He used to reveal and explain Himself to the world. 

He chose a shepherd boy to become the greatest king of Israel and a man after God’s own heart. This man also committed adultery and ordered the murder of a loyal friend.

He chose a woman who was essentially being held as a sex slave by a brutal king. Her assignment was to protect His people from extermination by a scheming government official.

He chose uneducated fisherman, a hated tax collector, a little boy, a cuckolded husband, the wife of a wardrobe keeper, a sheep-herder, and a cousin of the King of Judah, to become His prophets and apostles. 

He chose a Gentile trained in the science of the day to write the first history of the church which began as an exclusively Jewish movement.

He chose a vicious persecutor of His church to become its greatest intellectual and the first great explainer of Christian doctrine. 

Many of us feel that we have no talents, that we have nothing to offer. We fail to remember that God has chosen each one of us and has given each of us the particular abilities we need to perform whatever duties He has for us to perform. He has equipped us to be, and expects us to be, on His unlikely team.

Christians

Chiang Ching-kuo (B. 1910, China –d. 1988)  President of the Republic of China 1978-1988.  Methodist.

Titus (fl. 1^st century) A Gentile Christian who was a convert and later a friend and emissary of Paul. Paul sent him on several specific missions.  Galatians 2:3, 1 Corinthians 1-6, 2 Corinthians 2:13, 7:5-16, chapter 8, the book of Titus, 2 Timothy 4:10.  He was accepted as Paul’s spokesman.

Horatio Gates Spafford:  (b. 1828, New York (USA) – d. 1888) Attorney, investor, philanthropist, hymnist.  After all four of his daughters died in a shipwreck he wrote the words to the hymn, “It Is Well With My Soul.”  He, his wife, and their subsequent children worked for years in Jerusalem providing soup kitchens, hospitals, and orphanages.  He died in Jerusalem.  “I am glad to trust the Lord when it will cost something.”

Tiana Anpo Win Spotted Thunder (b. Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota (USA), aka: Tasiyagmuka Ho Waste Win; Good Voice Meadowlark  Woman)  Singer in English and Lakota.

Melchior Grodziecki (b. ca 1582, Poland – d. 1619) Jesuit priest, military chaplain,  and martyr.  Beheaded by Transylvanian troops in Kosice.

God Chooses Unlikely People to Accomplish His Purposes

Rahab , a Gentile prostitute in the city of Jericho (Ariha, West Bank), became an honored convert to the Jewish faith and was praised by the writer of Hebrews for her faith.  When the king of Jericho sent his soldiers to catch Israelite spies sent by Joshua, Rahab hid the spies in her house.  For her help, Rahab was promised protection for herself and her family when the Israelites overran the city.

Rahab later became the mother of Boaz, who married Ruth.  Through Ruth, Rahab became the great-grandmother of King David.  She is one of only four women mentioned in the genealogies of Jesus.

Joshua 2:1-20, 6:17

Ruth 4:18-21

Matthew 1:5

Hebrews 11:31

James 2:25