Philippi: The Divine Detour
Author: Stan Guthrie
August 19, 2026
This fall in Adult Sunday School, we’re going to take a thrilling dive deep into the Book of Philippians. Our theme will be “Discover the Greatest Life You’ll Ever Live.”
To whet our appetites, I’d like to share some of the fascinating information I’ve been learning about Philippi, the Macedonian city where the first church in Europe was founded. Then, over the following weeks, we’ll learn about some of the fascinating people and events when the gospel came in power on a new continent.
This week, we’ll learn about Philippi, a proud Roman city on Greek soil.
In William Shakespeare’s tragedy Julius Caesar, Caesar voices his suspicions concerning the Roman senator Gaius Cassius Longinus:
Let me have men about me that are fat,
Sleek-headed men, and such as sleep a nights.
Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look;
He thinks too much. Such men are dangerous.
And indeed, Cassius is a leader in the plot to assassinate Caesar, along with Caesar’s trusted friend Marcus Junius Brutus. When Caesar is later assassinated by a group of knife-wielding senators in Rome, including Brutus and Cassius, the felled dictator turns to his friend and asks, “Et tu, Brute?”
What does a famous play by Shakespeare—and the two conspirators, Cassius and Brutus—have to do with the ancient city of Philippi, where the gospel gained a foothold in Europe? More than you might think!
Turning from literature to history, Brutus and Cassius were actually defending the nearly 500-year-old Roman Republic, which they perceived as under threat from Caesar. The assassination, in 44 BC, was quickly followed by a series of events that ended the Roman Republic. In his will, Caesar formally adopted his great-nephew, Octavian, as his son. Octavian (later, Augustus Caesar) moved quickly against his enemies.
In 42 BC on the plains near Philippi, Octavian and an ally, Mark Antony of Egypt, defeated Cassius and Brutus, laying the groundwork for Imperial Rome. In the flush of victory, Philippi was granted coveted status as a Roman colony. As a reward for their loyalty, Mark Antony and then Augustus planted demobilized veterans there, granting them citizenship in the Empire.
Originally, Philippi had been a quiet Thracian settlement in northern Greece called Krenides (for “Springs” or “Fountains,” because of the springs that flowed from nearby Mount Lekani). Then, in 360 BC, Krenides was settled by Thasian colonists accompanied by an exiled Athenian politician named Callistratus (who later returned to Athens and was executed).
They named the settlement Daton, for the nearby fertile Datos plain watered by the springs. They also sought to exploit the nearby gold and silver mines. But their rule, without Callistratus, didn’t last long. Just four years later, Philip II of Macedon (father of Alexander the Great) conquered and fortified the city, renaming it after himself.
In 312 BC, the Via Appia—Rome’s first great long-distance paved road—was begun. Around 130 BC, with Philippi now under Roman control, the strategic east-west Via Egnatia became part of the Roman road system. This 696-mile thoroughfare ran right through Philippi and was its main street, connecting Dyrrhachium (modern Durrës, Albania) in the west with Byzantium (Istanbul today) in the east, making it one of the key land bridges connecting Europe and Asia in the ancient world. Philippi quickly became prosperous.
With its change in status after the Battle of Philippi, the city in effect became a little Rome, completely loyal to Caesar Augustus. Philippi had a Roman forum, theater, and acropolis. Scholars have noted the Greek city’s intense civic pride, Latin language, Roman dress, Roman law, and obsession with honorific titles.
By the time the Apostle Paul, Silas, Timothy, and Luke entered Philippi during the Second Missionary Journey (AD 49–52), most of the veterans of the Battle of Philippi would have died, but their glorious stories of yesteryear would have been fresh in the minds of their sons and daughters, grandsons and granddaughters.
The goal of the small missionary band on the journey was to share the liberating decisions of the Jerusalem Council (Acts 15:1–29; 16:4–5), see how the churches Paul and Barnabas had planted during the First Missionary Journey (AD 46–48) were faring, and continue sharing the gospel (Acts 15:36–41). Philippi’s Roman characteristics would play an important role in Paul’s journey and subsequent letter to the Philippians.
But we need to understand that initially Paul had no plans to enter Philippi. Instead, he wished to continue doing gospel ministry in the east. But the Spirit kept the little company from entering Asia and then Mysia (Acts 16:6–7).
So while they were waiting in the port city of Troas on the Aegean Sea, Paul had a nighttime vision of a man pleading for help in Macedonia, to the west—in Europe, saying, “Come over to Macedonia and help us” (Acts 16:9).
Paul didn’t need to be told twice: “And when Paul had seen the vision, immediately we sought to go on into Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them” (16:9–10).
Indeed he had. The rest of Acts 16 tells the incredible story of what happened on this divine detour. It’s a story stranger, and more exciting, than anything that Shakespeare ever put to paper.
Next week: Lydia’s conversion.
Stan Guthrie is Director of Outreach and Mobilization for New Covenant Church in Naperville, Illinois.
Main Image: Et tu Brute, a photo, 1888; William Holmes Sullivan, Public Domain.
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