Acts - Lesson 23

In Acts 13, Paul was in Antioch of Pisidia in the mountains. He and Barnabas preached, founded a church, and suffered persecution, and moved on to Iconium.  

Acts 14:1-7 … Now at Iconium they entered together into the Jewish synagogue and spoke in such a way that a great number of both Jews and Greeks believed. But the unbelieving Jews stirred up the Gentiles and poisoned their minds against the brothers. So they remained for a long time, speaking boldly for the Lord, who bore witness to the word of his grace, granting signs and wonders to be done by their hands. But the people of the city were divided; some sided with the Jews and some with the apostles. When an attempt was made by both Gentiles and Jews, with their rulers, to mistreat them and to stone them, they learned of it and fled to Lystra and Derbe, cities of Lycaonia, and to the surrounding country, and there they continued to preach the gospel.

The pattern we saw in Antioch of Pisidia was repeated in Iconium. Paul and Barnabas found the synagogue, Paul preached, the Holy Spirit moved (including signs and wonders), church of believers was formed, and then the unbelievers began to forcefully reject the Gospel. At that point, Paul and Barnabas would move on and minister in the next city. However, the next city was Lystra and they were deeply pagan and dangerous both spiritually and physically.

Acts 14:8-13 … Now at Lystra there was a man sitting who could not use his feet. He was crippled from birth and had never walked. He listened to Paul speaking. And Paul, looking intently at him and seeing that he had faith to be made well, said in a loud voice, “Stand upright on your feet.” And he sprang up and began walking. And when the crowds saw what Paul had done, they lifted up their voices, saying in Lycaonian, “The gods have come down to us in the likeness of men!” Barnabas they called Zeus, and Paul, Hermes, because he was the chief speaker. And the priest of Zeus, whose temple was at the entrance to the city, brought oxen and garlands to the gates and wanted to offer sacrifice with the crowds.

Lystra also seems to be different because things did not apparently develop around the Jewish synagogue. The person who was crippled from birth was listening to Paul speak and Paul sensed that the Holy Spirit was moving in this man’s life. It seems this was in a public place and not in a synagogue. However, the people of Lystra saw one healing and decided they had a visitation from Zeus and Hermes. The use of the Lycaonian language by the mob made communication difficult. So, initially, they had a very positive reception physically but a very confused and negative reception spiritually.

Acts 14:14-18 … But when the apostles Barnabas and Paul heard of it, they tore their garments and rushed out into the crowd, crying out, “Men, why are you doing these things? We also are men, of like nature with you, and we bring you good news, that you should turn from these vain things to a living God, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in them. In past generations he allowed all the nations to walk in their own ways. Yet he did not leave himself without witness, for he did good by giving you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness.” Even with these words they scarcely restrained the people from offering sacrifice to them.

When Paul and Barnabas figured out what was going on they naturally objected. Tearing garments was a cultural method of showing how distressed you were. This would have communicated across cultures. Even with this protest by Paul and Barnabas it was all they could do to keep these people from sacrificing animals to them. In Luke’s record of Paul we get glimpses of the epistles and it adds depth to what the epistles stress.

One important take home message here is Paul’s ability (under the anointing of the Holy Spirit) to communicate to a pagan crowd. Notice what is not in this evangelistic message. Paul doesn’t use Jewish history and verses from Scripture. He communicates that he has good news for them, he urges them to repent, he tells them to turn to the living and true God who is no longer working only through ethic Israel, and Paul refers to the sufficiency of general revelation as a testimony that God exists.

General revelation is the revelation of truth we see in creation and common grace is blessing of the reliability of creation that we enjoy. Unbelievers today will often reject general revelation, assume the existence of bad things disproves God, and assume the existence of good things is a natural right of mankind in a godless universe. This general response is found in the entire spectrum of society. The poorest person with a drug dependency may articulate this as well as the most brilliant and respected physicist. It transcends mankind’s social structures as well as time itself. Men – even atheists – make gods with a little “g” that they can manage for their comfort.

Here is Paul from the book of Romans that speaks to the context here in Lystra as Paul references God’s common grace that gives witness to His existence via general revelation. Common grace and general revelation cover all mankind.

Romans 1:19-23 … For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

Creation testifies to the existence of God. If anything exists then it testifies to the existence of God. God’s common grace is the grace we receive in the regular function of the universe and the regularity of physical events. They are so regular that we call them the laws of physics.

Stephen Hawking was quoted as having communicated that, “Because there is a law such as gravity, the Universe can and will create itself from nothing.” Here is one of the brightest men on the planet today very seriously asserting something silly. If there ever was a time when there was nothing then there never would be anything. So while ignoring a fundamental law of logic he elevates the “law of gravity” to a self existent position above the God of the Universe. Gravity is part of common grace and it “rules” – if you wish to call it ruling – at the discretion and pleasure of God. However, the atheist has a fundamental need to reject those concepts because the existence of God (omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, perfect, and eternal) would threaten mankind’s autonomy.

Paul tries to lift the eyes of the people of Lystra from their exchange of the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal men. Paul and Barnabas are partially successful as the Holy Spirit did make some disciples in Lystra but it was a hard place to minister and the disgruntled unbelievers from Antioch in Pisidia and Iconium had followed them to Lystra.

Acts 14:19-23 … But Jews came from Antioch and Iconium, and having persuaded the crowds, they stoned Paul and dragged him out of the city, supposing that he was dead. But when the disciples gathered about him, he rose up and entered the city, and on the next day he went on with Barnabas to Derbe. When they had preached the gospel to that city and had made many disciples, they returned to Lystra and to Iconium and to Antioch, strengthening the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to continue in the faith, and saying that through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God. And when they had appointed elders for them in every church, with prayer and fasting they committed them to the Lord in whom they had believed.

Think of the temptation here to fall back on manipulating the crowd with their pagan beliefs. The temptation would be to go back to the Zeus and Hermes story and use fear and manipulation to control this crowd. What a temptation that would be compared with being beaten with stones.

Ovid (Metamorphoses) in ancient times wrote a story about Zeus and Hermes coming to a valley near Lystra and they were not treated very well. Only one old couple in a shack treated them well. In the end the valley flooded and the old couple’s shack was turned into a temple with a golden roof while everyone else drowned. The residents of Lystra would have known this story. This helps explains the response of Lystra to Paul and Barnabas because they didn’t want to all die in a flood. I would have been tempted to take advantage of them with the story if they were lining up to stone me.

Paul was beaten with stones, dragged out of the city, and left for dead in Lystra. He went from being a god to being despised very quickly. When you are sick with a chronic illness then life is hard. When you are sick with malaria and beaten with stones until people think you are dead then I’m afraid that would have been at least one bale past the last straw for me. I would have headed home but in Paul we are seeing a man surrendered to the Holy Spirit with a firm grasp of his great indebtedness to God’s grace.

Paul went back into Lystra, then to Derbe, and then back to Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch of Pisidia. At each place they established leadership for the churches. This first journey was an “out and back” trail for them and not a loop. As they went back and visited each church they, 1) gave encouragement, 2) taught the believers, 3) organized the church, and 4) prayed. This was the way the Holy Spirit built these early churches and formed living communities of believers in hostile territory.

Acts 14:24-28 … Then they passed through Pisidia and came to Pamphylia. And when they had spoken the word in Perga, they went down to Attalia, and from there they sailed to Antioch, where they had been commended to the grace of God for the work that they had fulfilled. And when they arrived and gathered the church together, they declared all that God had done with them, and how he had opened a door of faith to the Gentiles. And they remained no little time with the disciples.

Perhaps because of Paul’s thorn in the flesh they didn’t speak the word in Perga when they went though the first time so they ministered there on the way back. This was where John Mark had left them as they went on to Antioch in Pisidia. They preached there and probably in Attalia and then sailed back to Antioch in Syria. This was the local church that had sent them on the first missionary journey. They had fulfilled the work that God had sent them out to do. At home, in a manner similar to missionaries today, they shared what God had done with those who had supported them.