Reflections on Acts 14

Acts 14 (Contemporary English Version)


1. Paul and Barnabas spoke in the Jewish meeting place in Iconium, just as they had done at Antioch, and many Jews and Gentiles put their faith in the Lord.
   
2. But the Jews who did not have faith in him made the other Gentiles angry and turned them against the Lord's followers.
   
3. Paul and Barnabas stayed there for a while, having faith in the Lord and bravely speaking his message. The Lord gave them the power to work miracles and wonders, and he showed that their message about his great kindness was true.
   
4. The people of Iconium did not know what to think. Some of them believed the Jewish group, and others believed the apostles.
   
5. Finally, some Gentiles and Jews, together with their leaders, decided to make trouble for Paul and Barnabas and to stone them to death.
   
6. But when the two apostles found out what was happening, they escaped to the region of Lycaonia. They preached the good news there in the towns of Lystra and Derbe and in the nearby countryside.
   
7. (SEE 14:6)
   
8. In Lystra there was a man who had been born with crippled feet and had never been able to walk.
   
9. The man was listening to Paul speak, when Paul saw that he had faith in Jesus and could be healed. So he looked straight at the man
   
10. and shouted, "Stand up!" The man jumped up and started walking around.
    
11. When the crowd saw what Paul had done, they yelled out in the language of Lycaonia, "The gods have turned into humans and have come down to us!"
    
12. The people then gave Barnabas the name Zeus, and they gave Paul the name Hermes, because he did the talking.
    
13. The temple of Zeus was near the entrance to the city. Its priest and the crowds wanted to offer a sacrifice to Barnabas and Paul. So the priest brought some bulls and flowers to the city gates.
    
14. When the two apostles found out about this, they tore their clothes in horror and ran to the crowd, shouting:
    
15. Why are you doing this? We are humans just like you. Please give up all this foolishness. Turn to the living God, who made the sky, the earth, the sea, and everything in them.
    
16. In times past, God let each nation go its own way.
    
17. But he showed that he was there by the good things he did. God sends rain from heaven and makes your crops grow. He gives food to you and makes your hearts glad.
    
18. Even after Paul and Barnabas had said all this, they could hardly keep the people from offering a sacrifice to them.
    
19. Some Jewish leaders from Antioch and Iconium came and turned the crowds against Paul. They hit him with stones and dragged him out of the city, thinking he was dead.
    
20. But when the Lord's followers gathered around Paul, he stood up and went back into the city. The next day he and Barnabas went to Derbe.
    
21. Paul and Barnabas preached the good news in Derbe and won some people to the Lord. Then they went back to Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch in Pisidia.
    
22. They encouraged the followers and begged them to remain faithful. They told them, "We have to suffer a lot before we can get into God's kingdom."
    
23. Paul and Barnabas chose some leaders for each of the churches. Then they went without eating and prayed that the Lord would take good care of these leaders.
    
24. Paul and Barnabas went on through Pisidia to Pamphylia,
    
25. where they preached in the town of Perga. Then they went down to Attalia
    
26. and sailed to Antioch in Syria. It was there that they had been placed in God's care for the work they had now completed.
    
27. After arriving in Antioch, they called the church together. They told the people what God had helped them do and how he had made it possible for the Gentiles to believe.
    
28. Then they stayed there with the followers for a long time.

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In Antioch of Pisidia Paul and Barnabas had both success and opposition. This became somewhat of a pattern for them. Where they received a great response they also received strong opposition, and the opposition always came from the Jews. Though Gentiles were sometimes involved, their involvement was incited by the Jews. In Antioch nearly the whole town had turned out to hear Paul and Barnabas preach, stirring up jealousy within the Jewish leaders. They did not evaluate the message the two preach, only the response to it. Their reaction was not so much an opposition to the message as an opposition to the threat posed to their own religious system by the strong response of the people. They feared everyone would turn away from Judaism to this new movement.

What was happening with these religious leaders is something to which none of us are immune. Rather than recognizing our relationship with God as a journey that takes us wherever He leads, our tendency is to lock in on the first step of the journey to which He leads us and make that the religious standard by which all God-related activity is judged. Anything outside that standard is not legitimate and cannot be given serious consideration. Our eyes, then, are turned from following God and to following this religious system that has become established. And so it seems that the Jewish leaders were not considering that God might be the author of the message Paul and Barnabas preached, only that their system was threatened, and, from their perspective, that anything outside their system was also an act against God.

Those who opposed Paul and Barnabas in Antioch were committed to stopping their activity. Thus, they were not satisfied to merely run the two out of town. When they heard that they were having success in other towns of the region they went to these towns and stirred up opposition against them. So having gone to Iconium after being run out of Antioch, Paul and Barnabas were also run out of Iconium. From there they went to Lystra and Derbe where they also received a favorable response. But Jews from both Antioch and Iconium came to Lystra and stirred up trouble against them. On this occasion, Paul was actually stoned and left for dead. Fortunately Paul had a miraculous recovery and was quickly back into his ministry.

At this point on their first "Missionary Journey," Paul and Barnabas shifted from evangelizing to discipling, or building up new believers in the faith. They quietly returned to the towns where new churches had been started: Lystra, Iconium, Antioch, Pisidia, Pamphylia, Perga, and Attalia. In each place they strengthened "the hearts of the disciples by encouraging them to continue in the faith," and "appointed elders in every church." Finally, they "committed them to the Lord in whom they had believed." Thus, they encouraged and organized these new churches. Having done this, they returned to the church in Antioch that had sent them out on this journey and from where their journey had originated, and there they gave a full report of their activities.