Acts 14
v.2
But the Jews who refused to believe stirred up the Gentiles and poisoned their minds against the brothers.
v.3
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.
v.9-10
He listened to Paul as he was speaking. Paul looked directly at him, saw that he had faith to be healed 10and called out, “Stand up on your feet!” At that, the man jumped up and began to walk.
v.11
When the crowd saw what Paul had done, they shouted in the Lycaonian language, “The gods have come down to us in human form!“
v.14
But when the apostles Barnabas and Paul heard of this, they tore their clothes and rushed out into the crowd, shouting:
Evidence that Barnabas was considered an apostle.
v.15
“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.
v.16
In the past, he let all nations go their own way.
…Paul preached about a progressive unfolding of divine redemption. While the sermon does not explicitly refer to salvation through Christ, it is hard to believe that it was not meant to point to Jesus Christ and his work as the divine climax of history.
v.17
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.”
Various philosophers, especially Stoics, believed that nature itself testified to the character of the supreme god. Jewish teachers agreed that nature testifies to God’s character (this is biblical; cf. Ps 19:1; 89:37) and taught that he provides all peoples with health, food and so forth. Scripture already emphasized that God was the source of these agricultural blessings
v.19-20
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. 20But after the disciples had gathered around him, he got up and went back into the city. The next day he and Barnabas left for Derbe.
When Jewish crowds stoned a transgressor, they sought the transgressor’s death; Paul’s survival undoubtedly points to divine protection. Normally such executions were performed outside the city, and they may have dragged him out of the city for purity reasons; that he not only survived but could walk afterward must be understood as miraculous.
Some months later, when Paul wrote the believers in Galatia (again, we assume a “South Galatian” destination for the letter), he closed by saying, “Finally let no one cause me trouble, for I bear on my body the marks of Jesus” (Gal 6:17). Some of the marks may well have been scars caused by the stoning at Lystra. And when still later he wrote the Corinthians of his being stoned (2Co 11:25), it was Lystra he had in mind (cf. also 2Ti 3:11).
v.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, 22strengthening 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.
Returning to towns where they had faced persecution required courage (praiseworthy in ancient accounts), though the opposition may have usually involved mob actions (even with officials’ cooperation) rather than official decrees. It would offer a model of faithfulness to local believers who could not leave so easily.
v.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.
v.26
From Attalia they sailed back to Antioch, where they had been committed to the grace of God for the work they had now completed.
v.27
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.