Acts, Chapter 14

Please, first read the chapter.

Verse 1: “At Iconium Paul and Barnabas went as usual into the Jewish synagogue. There they spoke so effectively that a great number of Jews and Gentiles believed”.

They must have known what kind of reception they would receive in a Jewish synagogue. Still they went, preaching effectively. There were many converts.

Verses 2, 3 ‘But the Jews who refused to believe stirred up the Gentiles and poisoned their minds against the brothers. So Paul and Barnabas spent considerable time there, speaking boldly for the Lord, Who confirmed the message of His grace by enabling them to do miraculous signs and wonders”.

‘The Jews who refused to believe’ must have been dumbfounded. The town was in turmoil. The God of Israel was, in this Gentile town, still interested in the Jews and again allowing them to believe on the basis of the miracles they could see. Many Jews would not and instead apparently attacked Paul painfully (2 Timothy 3:10, 11).

Verse 4: “The people of the city were divided; some sided with the Jews, others with the apostles.

Verses 5, 6: 7 “There was a plot afoot among the Gentiles and Jews, together with their leaders to mistreat them and stone them. But they found out about it and fled to the Lycaonion cities of Lystra and Derby and to the surrounding country, where they continued to preach the Good News”.

The Jews who refused to believe may stir up the Gentiles and poison their minds, yes, they may, they may plan to mistreat and stone God’s servants, yes, they will, yes, they will do all that, BUT . . .GOD!

It was the grace of GOD that led the two apostles to Iconium, Not the Jews, but the God of the Jews made them welcome to the town. And once those two must flee to Lystra and Derby, what did they leave behind? A section of the Church of the Lord Jesus, who in turn would share and further the Good News of forgiveness, to be found in Jesus only.

Verse 8, 9, 10: “ In Lystra there sat a man crippled in his feet, who was lame from birth, and had never walked. He listened to Paul as he was speaking. Paul looked directly at him, saw that he had faith to be healed and called out, ’Stand up on your feet!’. At that, the man jumped up and began to walk.”

This time again, it was God Who did the miracle! And His evil enemy would use it to tempt the servants used by God..

Verses 11, 12, 13 “When the crowd saw what Paul had done”.

The crowd was mistaken! Yes, the crowd saw what had happened. But did not attribute the miracle to God. They still were in the darkness of this sinful world.

“they shouted in the Lycaonian language ‘the gods have come down to us in human form!’ Barnabas they called Zeus, and Paul they called Hermes because he was the chief speaker. The priest of Zeus, whose temple was just outside the city, brought bulls and wreaths to the city gates because he and the crowd wanted to offer sacrifices to them”.

Why is human enthusiasm, human admiration, so very tempting to humans. How many of the Lord’s servants have fallen on that sword.

The two apostles too were only men, but men full with the Holy Spirit.

Verses 14, 15, 16, 17 “But when the apostles Barnabas and Paul heard of this, they tore their clothes and rushed out into the crowd shouting ‘Men, why are you doing this? We too are only men, human like you. We are bringing you good news, telling you to turn from these worthless things to the living God, Who made heaven and earth and sea and everything in them. In the past He let all nations go their own way. Yet He has not left Himself without testimony; He has shown kindness by giving you rain from heaven and crops in their seasons; He provides you with plenty of food and fills your hearts with joy’ “.

Those words by Paul and Barnabas were the words the living God was speaking. The lips of the two mortal men were useful to Him to speak eternal light into satanic darkness. Not for the sake of those people. God loved them and spoke to them. But primarily God works for His own glory.

Verse 18: “Even with these words they had difficulty keeping the crowd from sacrificing to them”.

Was there no power in Gods words? Oh yes! There was! The glory was for God, because the apostles did not take it for themselves. They had themselves emptied out of self and were filled with the Holy Spirit and kept on trying to keep the crowd ‘from sacrificing to them’.

Verse 19: Then some Jews came from Antioch and Iconium and won the crowd over. They stoned Paul and dragged him outside the city, thinking he was dead”.

BUT . . . GOD! They were wrong. HE is right!

Verse 20: “But after the disciples gathered around him, he got up and went back into the city. The next day he and Barnabas left for Derbe.

And what did they leave behind? A group of disciples! The word about GRACE and TRUTH was still spreading, further and further.

And further still.

Verse 21, 22:: They preached the good news in that city and won a large number of disciples. Then they returned to Lystra, Iconium and Antioch, strengthening the disciples and encouraging them to remain true to the faith. ‘We must go through many hardships to enter the Kingdom of God’, they said “.

The Kingdom of God exists in different sections, perhaps provinces is a more appropriate word. The nation of Israel is one. The Church of the Lord Jesus is a different one. Due to God’s covenants with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, their descendants, Israel, is meant to inherit the earth. The Church has her inheritance with her Lord, in Heaven (1 Peter 1:3, 4). Paul himself, and many more Jews in his days, did have to suffer many hardships for joining the Christian Church. By doing that, they heaped the bitter anger of the Jewish priests and their followers upon themselves and hardships never ended. But they were children of God, the King.

Verse 23: “ Paul and Barnabas appointed elders for them in each church and with prayer and fasting committed them to the Lord in Whom they had put their trust”.

Each church did have its own elders and because each church, in its own environment, was the Church of the Lord Jesus, the elders were, under His leadership, leading that local church (1 Timothy, chapter 3 / chapter 5:17, 18, 19).

Verses 24 – 28: “After going through Pisidia they came into Pamphylia and when they had preached the Word in Perga, they went down to Attalia.

From Attalia they sailed back to Antioch, where they had been committed to the grace of God for the work they had now completed.

On arriving there they gathered the church together and reported all that GOD had done through them and how He had opened the door of faith to the Gentiles.

And there they stayed a long time with the disciples.

‘All that God had done’ was their story. Their pains of hardship, rejection, abuse and stoning were irrelevant in the light of ‘all that God had done’. To Him belongs all the glory, in those days, in our days and for evermore.