Therefore I exhort you, be imitators of me

Good morning. They found a woman named Lydia, from the city of Thyatira (where one of the churches in Revelation was located), a seller of purple fabrics (this city was famous for its dyeing works, especially royal purple – i.e. Crimson – roll Tide!), a worshiper of God, was listening; and the Lord opened her heart to respond to the things spoken by Paul. And when she and her household had been baptized, she urged us to come into her house and stay. It happened that as we were going to the place of prayer, a slave girl having a spirit of divination met us, who was bringing her masters much profit by fortune-telling. Following after us, she kept crying out, saying, these men are bond servants of the Most High God, who are proclaiming to you the way of salvation. The Greek would normally be translated “a” way of salvation; which would mean there was more than one way. Whether it was that or the fact that a servant of the devil was doing the proclaiming, Paul was extremely agitated. She continued doing this for many days. But Paul was greatly annoyed, and turned and said to the spirit, I command you in the name of Jesus Christ come out of her! And it came out at that very moment. It is my opinion that this was figuratively the “thorn in the flesh“ that Paul talks about in one of his letters. The letter said Paul entreated the Lord three times to remove the thorn, but Jesus told him My grace is sufficient for you. If this is the incident that Paul was talking about, Jesus meant I don’t have to do anything, you do it. Also why didn’t Paul do it sooner, unless he was waiting for the Lord to do it? We will see next time that this caused quite a stir. Father thank You that You are always with the reader. Help him/her to have safe travels.