Today’s Passage: Acts 14
This chapter follows Paul and Barnabas through one hard stretch of their first journey, and it moves quickly. At Iconium their preaching wins a great number of believers and splits the city in two, until a plot to stone them sends the two men fleeing to Lystra. There a man lame from birth stands and walks at Paul’s word, and the crowds, sure the gods have come down, hail Barnabas as Zeus and Paul as Hermes and try to offer them sacrifice, which the apostles refuse in horror. Then men from Antioch and Iconium arrive, turn the crowd, and stone Paul until they think him dead, yet he rises and walks back into the city. From there the two press on, and then they do the brave thing, retracing their steps through the same dangerous towns to strengthen the young disciples, to warn them that the road ahead is hard, and to appoint elders in every church. At last they come home to Syrian Antioch and report that God has opened the door of faith to the Gentiles. Do not read this as three separate sermons stacked one on another. The division and the stones and the elders are all one long climb, and the whole of it says the same thing: through many hardships we enter the kingdom.
The healing truly happened, and so did the stoning. Signs like these run all through Acts, and their work is to authenticate the message of grace as it first went out into the world. We do not read them as a standing stream of new revelation that continues today, for Scripture is final and complete. They were the seal on the apostles’ word, given as that word was being spoken for the first time.
As you read, hold this: Through many hardships we enter the kingdom.
Context The world of Acts 14
Iconium sat on a busy crossroads, and Paul kept to the pattern he had followed everywhere, going first to the Jewish synagogue with the good news.
Lystra and Derbe were smaller towns out in the Lycaonian countryside, where the old devotion to Zeus and Hermes still ran deep. Their legends told of gods who had once visited the region disguised as travelers and been turned away, so that when this district met two men who seemed to heal with a word, the crowd’s rush to worship them fits a people afraid of making that ancient mistake again.
The stoning at Lystra left a mark Paul never forgot. He later counts it among his sufferings when he tells the Corinthians he was once stoned (2 Corinthians 11:25), and years afterward he reminds Timothy, who came from this very region, of what it had cost him here (2 Timothy 3:10–11).
Notice too that the two men do not simply move on to safer ground. They deliberately circle back through the same danger to strengthen the disciples they had left behind, because for them mission was never a matter of preaching once and disappearing.
And when it is all told, the report they bring home puts God at the center of everything. It was He who opened the door of faith to the Gentiles.
Acts 14:1–7 (BSB)
¹ At Iconium, Paul and Barnabas went as usual into the Jewish synagogue, where they spoke so well that a great number of Jews and Greeks believed. ² But the unbelieving Jews stirred up the Gentiles and poisoned their minds against the brothers. ³ So Paul and Barnabas spent considerable time there, speaking boldly for the Lord, who affirmed the message of His grace by enabling them to perform signs and wonders. ⁴ The people of the city were divided. Some sided with the Jews, and others with the apostles. ⁵ But when the Gentiles and Jews, together with their rulers, set out to mistreat and stone them, ⁶ they found out about it and fled to the Lycaonian cities of Lystra and Derbe and to the surrounding region, ⁷ where they continued to preach the gospel.
As usual, they begin in the synagogue, and once again the fruit and the poison grow up side by side: a great number believe, while the unbelieving stir up the rest and turn their minds against the brothers. Paul and Barnabas do not hurry off but stay a considerable time, speaking boldly, and the Lord Himself affirms their message of grace by signs and wonders done through their hands. The division becomes public and the city takes sides, and when a plot to stone them forms, it drives the two men not into silence but into flight, so that new towns hear the very same gospel.
Acts 14:8–18 (BSB)
⁸ In Lystra there sat a man crippled in his feet, who was lame from birth and had never walked. ⁹ This man was listening to the words of Paul, who looked intently at him and saw that he had faith to be healed. ¹⁰ In a loud voice Paul called out, “Stand up on your feet!” And the man jumped up and began to walk. ¹¹ When the crowds saw what Paul had done, they lifted up their voices in the Lycaonian language: “The gods have come down to us in human form!” ¹² Barnabas they called Zeus, and Paul they called Hermes, because he was the chief speaker. ¹³ The priest of Zeus, whose temple was just outside the city, brought bulls and wreaths to the city gates, hoping to offer a sacrifice along with the crowds. ¹⁴ But when the apostles Barnabas and Paul found out about this, they tore their clothes and rushed into the crowd, shouting, ¹⁵ “Men, why are you doing this? We too are only men, human like you. We are bringing you good news that you should turn from these worthless things to the living God, who made heaven and earth and sea and everything in them. ¹⁶ In past generations, He let all nations go their own way. ¹⁷ Yet He has not left Himself without testimony to His goodness: He gives you rain from heaven and fruitful seasons, filling your hearts with food and gladness.” ¹⁸ Even with these words, Paul and Barnabas could hardly stop the crowds from sacrificing to them.
Here is a man lame from birth, sitting and listening, and Paul, looking straight at him, sees that he has faith to be healed. A single command, and the man who had never walked leaps to his feet, in an echo of the healing at the temple gate back in Acts 3. But the crowd reads the miracle through the only lens it owns, the old myths of gods walking the earth, and begins to worship the two men as Zeus and Hermes. Barnabas and Paul tear their clothes in grief and rush in to stop it, and their message is plain: they are not gods in the flesh but men like everyone else, come with good news that these people should turn from worthless idols to the living God who made heaven and earth. Even the rain and the fruitful seasons, Paul says, are that God’s own witness to His goodness. And yet, even after all these words, the two can scarcely keep the crowd from sacrificing to them, which is its own quiet lesson: a sign by itself can be misread, and it needs the spoken word to explain it.
Acts 14:19–20 (BSB)
¹⁹ Then some Jews arrived from Antioch and Iconium and won over the crowds. They stoned Paul and dragged him outside the city, presuming he was dead. ²⁰ But after the disciples had gathered around him, he got up and went back into the city. And the next day he left with Barnabas for Derbe.
How quickly the garlands turn to stones. The same crowds that would have crowned Paul are won over by his enemies, and he is stoned, dragged outside the city, and left for dead. Then the disciples gather around him, and he rises, and instead of fleeing he walks straight back into the city that had just tried to kill him, going on the next day to Derbe. The man who will soon tell others that the road is hard already carries its scars in his own body.
Acts 14:21–23 (BSB)
²¹ They preached the gospel to that city and made many disciples. Then they returned to Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch, ²² strengthening the souls of the disciples and encouraging them to continue in the faith. “We must endure many hardships to enter the kingdom of God,” they said. ²³ Paul and Barnabas appointed elders for them in each church, praying and fasting as they entrusted them to the Lord, in whom they had believed.
Derbe gives them many disciples, and then comes the brave reversal, back through all that danger to strengthen and encourage the ones they had won. Part of what they teach is this very word, thlipsis, that thlipsis, pronounced THLIP-sis. Strong's G2347, pressure, affliction, tribulation. The word means pressure, the weight of affliction bearing down. When Paul and Barnabas tell the young disciples, We must endure many hardships to enter the kingdom of God, they are not saying that pain earns the kingdom or buys our way in. They are describing the normal road of everyone who follows a crucified King into His glory. The pressure is not the price of the kingdom; it is the shape of the path that leads there. belongs to the journey. In each church they appoint elders, men set apart for that office, and they do it with prayer and fasting before entrusting them to the Lord in whom they had believed. The young churches are given shepherds and not only stories, leaders to care for them long after the apostles have moved on. We hold this office as a settled matter and teach it plainly, rather than leaving it an open question.
Acts 14:24–28 (BSB)
²⁴ After passing through Pisidia, they came to Pamphylia. ²⁵ And when they had spoken the word in Perga, they went down to Attalia. ²⁶ From Attalia they sailed to Antioch, where they had been commended to the grace of God for the work they had just completed. ²⁷ When they arrived, 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. ²⁸ And they spent a long time there with the disciples.
The journey comes full circle, back to the church that had sent them out. And the headline of their report is not their own courage but God’s open door to the Gentiles, and after it they settle in for a long stay among the disciples. The door stands open, and yet the path that leads through it is a hard one. Both of these things are true at once.
Study notes Going deeper
The same gospel that binds believers together into one family also splits a city down the middle, as it did at Iconium (14:4). Where the word is truly preached, it forces a decision, and not everyone will decide the same way.
A miracle, too, can be misread. The healing at Lystra led the crowd straight into idolatry until Paul and Barnabas explained it, a reminder that a sign on its own is not enough. It needs the spoken word alongside it to say what it means.
The rain and the fruitful seasons are a real witness to God’s goodness (14:17), and yet they are not by themselves the saving gospel. Not until Christ is preached does the witness of creation become the good news that rescues.
And notice, finally, how the two men speak of their own work. Their report is a record of what God did through them, the language of stewards giving an account and not of celebrities taking a bow.
"You, however, have observed my teaching, my conduct, my purpose, my faith, my patience, my love, my endurance, my persecutions, and the sufferings that came upon me in Antioch, Iconium, and Lystra. What persecutions I endured! Yet the Lord rescued me from all of them. Indeed, all who desire to live godly lives in Christ Jesus will be persecuted." 2 Timothy 3:10–12 (BSB)
"The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of His hands." Psalm 19:1 (BSB)
"You shall have no other gods before Me. You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in the heavens above, on the earth below, or in the waters beneath." Exodus 20:3–4 (BSB)