Acts 14King James Version
At Lystra they heal a man crippled from birth. The crowd thinks they are gods come down. The priest of Jupiter brings oxen and garlands. Paul tears his clothes: we also are men of like passions with you. Then Jews come from Antioch and Iconium and persuade the people to stone Paul. They drag him out of the city, supposing he is dead. He gets up and goes back into the city. They go through the cities revisiting the new churches and ordaining elders.
In Iconium, Paul and Barnabas preach to a divided crowd until a plot to stone them forces them to flee. In Lystra, Paul heals a lame man and the crowd tries to sacrifice to them as Zeus and Hermes. Paul barely dissuades them. Jews from Antioch and Iconium arrive, stone Paul, and drag him out of the city as dead. He gets up and goes back in. They return through the cities they had planted churches in, appointing elders, strengthening the disciples, and sail back to Antioch to report.
The same people who want to worship Paul nearly kill him in the same city, and neither the adulation nor the stones stop the work.
22: "Confirming the souls of the disciples, and exhorting them to continue in the faith, and that we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God." This is what Paul says to new Christians on the way back through cities where he was nearly killed.
Lystra was a Roman colony in the Lycaonian region, a place where Roman cultural forms were overlaid on a local population that still spoke its own language. The crowd's cry that the gods have come down in verse 11 is in the Lycaonian dialect. A local legend about Zeus and Hermes visiting the region made the misidentification culturally plausible. When Paul is later stoned in the same city, the same people who brought oxen and garlands are in that crowd.
Paul and Barnabas; the Lystra crowd who mistakes them for gods; the Jews from Antioch who stone Paul; the new disciples in each city receiving elders.
Lystra is a turning point. Paul is stoned and left for dead, an event he will later recount as his most severe physical suffering. The crowd that wanted to offer sacrifices to him participated in or watched a stoning. The volatility of public opinion in frontier cities is vivid here. The appointment of elders in each new church on the return journey establishes a pattern of structured leadership from the earliest phase of the Gentile mission.
For when the same people who adored you turned on you, and you still went back the next day. Paul got up and walked back into the city that had just stoned him. He stayed until morning.
1And it came to pass in Iconium, that they went both together into the synagogue of the Jews, and so spake, that a great multitude both of the Jews and also of the Greeks believed.
2But the unbelieving Jews stirred up the Gentiles, and made their minds evil affected against the brethren.
3Long time therefore abode they speaking boldly in the Lord, which gave testimony unto the word of his grace, and granted signs and wonders to be done by their hands.
4But the multitude of the city was divided: and part held with the Jews, and part with the apostles.
5And when there was an assault made both of the Gentiles, and also of the Jews with their rulers, to use them despitefully, and to stone them,
6They were ware of it, and fled unto Lystra and Derbe, cities of Lycaonia, and unto the region that lieth round about:
7And there they preached the gospel.
8And there sat a certain man at Lystra, impotent in his feet, being a cripple from his mother's womb, who never had walked:
9The same heard Paul speak: who stedfastly beholding him, and perceiving that he had faith to be healed,
10Said with a loud voice, Stand upright on thy feet. And he leaped and walked.
11And when the people saw what Paul had done, they lifted up their voices, saying in the speech of Lycaonia, The gods are come down to us in the likeness of men.
12And they called Barnabas, Jupiter; and Paul, Mercurius, because he was the chief speaker.
13Then the priest of Jupiter, which was before their city, brought oxen and garlands unto the gates, and would have done sacrifice with the people.
14Which when the apostles, Barnabas and Paul, heard of, they rent their clothes, and ran in among the people, crying out,
15And saying, Sirs, why do ye these things? We also are men of like passions with you, and preach unto you that ye should turn from these vanities unto the living God, which made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all things that are therein:
16Who in times past suffered all nations to walk in their own ways.
17Nevertheless he left not himself without witness, in that he did good, and gave us rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness.
18And with these sayings scarce restrained they the people, that they had not done sacrifice unto them.
19And there came thither certain Jews from Antioch and Iconium, who persuaded the people, and, having stoned Paul, drew him out of the city, supposing he had been dead.
20Howbeit, as the disciples stood round about him, he rose up, and came into the city: and the next day he departed with Barnabas to Derbe.
21And when they had preached the gospel to that city, and had taught many, they returned again to Lystra, and to Iconium, and Antioch,
22Confirming the souls of the disciples, and exhorting them to continue in the faith, and that we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God.
23And when they had ordained them elders in every church, and had prayed with fasting, they commended them to the Lord, on whom they believed.
24And after they had passed throughout Pisidia, they came to Pamphylia.
25And when they had preached the word in Perga, they went down into Attalia:
26And thence sailed to Antioch, from whence they had been recommended to the grace of God for the work which they fulfilled.
27And when they were come, and had gathered the church together, they rehearsed all that God had done with them, and how he had opened the door of faith unto the Gentiles.
28And there they abode long time with the disciples.