Lystra: A Lame Man Healed & The Reaction Series

Something that stands out here is how very fickle these people are. Does it remind you of someone else? In America it is a baseball player one year, then a politician, then a football star, then another politician. By the following year they are all forgotten, and it is someone else new. It is the same way with the preachers. One can preach the Word of God and everyone will acclaim him as a wonderful preacher. Then the next day they are ready to crucify him. Paul and Barnabas had the same experience in Lystra. The same crowd that is ready to worship them will soon stone Paul and drag him from the city supposing he is dead.

Consider the perils threatening these men. Perhaps the gravest peril took place in Lystra when men suggested that they should worship them. That is the supreme peril to the Christian worker—to center their spiritual attention, not on Christ, but on His servant. It would have been so easy for Paul and Barnabas to gain power and notoriety; to accept their worship and avoid the persecution and the stones. This is the peril of the missionary. When men bring garlands to worship the missionary, when men suggest his deification, he is in extreme danger. If you would help the missionary, you should pray that he would never accept the garland or the worship of men. This was one of the most sinister times the apostle ever faced, but I don’t believe Paul trembled at any time. He was not seduced by the prospect of gaining power and notoriety because he was living in close fellowship with his Lord.

[1] The gates are either those of the temple or, more probably, of the town, where perhaps the healing of the lame man had taken place, the city gate being the favorite place for crippled beggars to set. The priests would hasten to do sacrifice at the site of the miracle.

[2] Lycaonian was an isolated hill-country dialect, and there are few literary remains of it. Centuries of Hellenistic influence in their area would have given them knowledge of Greek, and they would have had no difficulty in understanding Paul’s koine. As residents of a Roman colony they may have had some familiarity with Latin as well.

[3] Much of the Mediterranean world was bilingual, the people speaking the general language, Greek, and also their native dialect.

[4] "The Roman god Mercury," originally a god of tradesmen and thieves. Later he was associated with Greek Hermes, the god of oratory and the inventor of speech.

[5] The gods of a particular mythology considered collectively

[6] Woolen wreaths placed on the sacrificial animals.

November 16, 2014

By: Tom Lowe

Title: Lystra-A Lame Man Healed & the

Reaction Part 3 (14:8-20a)

Part 1: A Lame Man Healed (8-10)

Part 2: Paul and Barnabas Paid Homage (11-13)

Part 3: Paul and Barnabas Dismayed (14-18)

Part 4: Paul and Barnabas Rejected (19-20a)

Scripture (Acts 14:14-18; KJV) Part 3

14 Which when the apostles, Barnabas and Paul, heard of, they rent their clothes, and ran in among the people, crying out,

15 And 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: