1st Missionary Trip - Lorin

Their counter action to stop this act of idolatry was to yell at the crowd: Ἄνδρες, τί ταῦτα ποιεῖτε; καὶ ἡμεῖς
ὁμοιοπαθεῖς ἐσμεν ὑμῖν ἄνθρωποι, εὐαγγελιζόμενοι ὑμᾶς ἀπὸ τούτων τῶν ματαίων ἐπιστρέφειν ἐπὶ θεὸν ζῶντα
ὃς ἐποίησεν τὸν οὐρανὸν καὶ τὴν γῆν καὶ τὴν θάλασσαν καὶ πάντα τὰ ἐν αὐτοῖς· 16 ὃς ἐν ταῖς παρῳχημέναις
γενεαῖς εἴασεν πάντα τὰ ἔθνη πορεύεσθαι ταῖς ὁδοῖς αὐτῶν· 17 καίτοι οὐκ ἀμάρτυρον αὑτὸν ἀφῆκεν ἀγαθουργῶν,
οὐρανόθεν ὑμῖν ὑετοὺς διδοὺς καὶ καιροὺς καρποφόρους, ἐμπιπλῶν τροφῆς καὶ εὐφροσύνης τὰς καρδίας ὑμῶν.
They stressed emphatically that they were only humans, not gods. The true God as Creator and Sustainer of the
world was the source of this miracle.
Luke’s summary here is one of but two places in the New Testament where the Gospel is presented to a
completely pagan audience. 151 Thus a very different approach is taken to this audience with absolutely no Jewish
or Christian background heritage.
Luke adds at the end of this section: καὶ ταῦτα λέγοντες μόλις κατέπαυσαν τοὺς ὄχλους τοῦ μὴ θύειν
αὐτοῖς. Even with these words, they scarcely restrained the crowds from offering sacrifice to them. These Christian missionaries
were barely able to keep the crowds from carrying out their desire to sacrifice to them as gods. To be
sure Paul and Barnabas speaking in Greek to an audience more comfortable with their native language of Lycaonian
presented some of the communication barrier. Beyond this was the determination of the people to not
offend any potential deity who might be in their midst.
Stoning (vv. 19-20): 19 Ἐπῆλθαν δὲ ἀπὸ Ἀντιοχείας καὶ Ἰκονίου Ἰουδαῖοι, καὶ πείσαντες τοὺς ὄχλους καὶ
λιθάσαντες τὸν Παῦλον ἔσυρον ἔξω τῆς πόλεως, νομίζοντες αὐτὸν τεθνηκέναι. 20 κυκλωσάντων δὲ τῶν μαθητῶν
αὐτὸν ἀναστὰς εἰσῆλθεν εἰς τὴν πόλιν. καὶ τῇ ἐπαύριον ἐξῆλθεν σὺν τῷ Βαρναβᾷ εἰς Δέρβην. 19 But Jews came
there from Antioch and Iconium and won over the crowds. Then they stoned Paul and dragged him out of the city, supposing
that he was dead. 20 But when the disciples surrounded him, he got up and went into the city. The next day he went on with
Barnabas to Derbe. At some point after this episode, outsiders arrived to take advantage of the crowd of Lycaonian
folks. Luke indicates that these were Jews who came from both Antioch (171 miles away) and Iconium (21 miles
away). Their traveling these long distances reflects the intensity of their hatred of Paul and Barnabas and their
determination to stop the preaching of the Gospel to Gentiles. In Iconium a plot to kill Paul and Barnabas had
been developed by both Jewish and Gentile authorities. In Antioch the Jewish authorities had worked through
powerful Gentiles in the city to get these missionaries banished. But only the Jewish authorities in both cities
were unrelenting in their determination to get rid of these missionaries. 152
In Lystra they were able to convince the fickle crowd, who early wanted to worship these missionaries
but now possibly offended by the refusal to accept their worship, to now turn on them with an attempt to kill them
by stoning. They almost succeeded when they got Paul and stoned him into unconsciousness in the city. For
some unstated reason, Barnabas escaped the stoning. Paul was dragged outside the city and left for dead by
the crowd.
But God had different plans for Paul. Luke’s language of the disciples surrounding the unconscious
Paul outside the city seems to imply a miracle taking place, although we can not be certain. 153 Paul got up and
ent from the Phrygian speech which they had heard on the lips of the indigenous population of Pisidian Antioch and Iconium; second, the
crowd’s use of Lycaonian explains why Paul and Barnabas did not grasp what was afoot until the preparations to pay them divine honors
were well advanced.” [F. F. Bruce, The Book of the Acts, The New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI:
Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1988), 274.]
151 “The summary which Luke proceeds to give of their expostulation provides us with one of the two examples in Acts of the preaching
of the gospel to purely pagan audiences—to people who, unlike the Gentiles who attended synagogue worship, had no acquaintance
with the God of Israel or with the Hebrew prophets.
Page 231
38 The other, and fuller, example is the speech delivered by Paul to the Athenian
Court of the Areopagus (17:22–31). 39 Preachers to such audiences would not be expected to insist on the fulfilment of Old Testament
prophecy, as they did in addressing synagogue congregations; instead, an appeal to the natural revelation of God the Creator is put in
the forefront. Yet this appeal is couched in language largely drawn from the Old Testament. Martin Dibelius points out that the speech
at Lystra shows dependence on the Septuagint—even more so, he thinks, than does the later speech at Athens. ‘The proclamation about
God,’ he says, ‘… is preached completely in Old Testament style (see Ex. 20:11); the gods are described as ‘vain ones’ (or ‘vanities’), as
in 3 King[dom]s 16:2, 13, 26; 4 King[dom]s 17:15; Esth. 4:17 [LXX]; Jer. 2:5; 8:19; 3 Macc. 6:11.’ 40 ” [F. F. Bruce, The Book of the Acts,
The New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1988), 276.]
152 “Luke does not say if there was a Jewish community and synagogue at Lystra. Probably there was, however; this would more
readily explain how Jews from Pisidian Antioch and Iconium were able to incite the Lystrans against Paul and Barnabas. This would
not have been so easy had those Jews been complete strangers, lacking any point of contact with the populace of Lystra, but they could
achieve their purpose more conveniently through a Jewish community in Lystra. Although more than a hundred miles separated Lystra
from Pisidian Antioch, the relation between the two places is evidenced by a statue of Concord which citizens of Lystra set up in Pisidian
Antioch. 47 ” [F. F. Bruce, The Book of the Acts, The New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B.
Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1988), 278.]
153 “Luke’s description of Paul’s suddenly standing up and going back into the city after being dragged out and left for dead by the