Neither Gods in the Street nor Strangers to Suffering

“Both together” translates kata to auto, which can also mean “in the same way”: at Iconium they followed the pattern of Pisidian Antioch, synagogue first. “So spake” credits the manner of speaking with the result. Iconium was a Greek city on a fertile plain, the chief town of its district.

“Unbelieving” is apeitheo, to refuse to be persuaded, which carries a sense of disobedience. “Made their minds evil affected” uses kakoo, the verb for Herod’s harming of the church in 12:1: here it means poisoning attitudes, turning neighbours’ souls against the believers before any hand is raised.

The “therefore” surprises: hostility is the reason they stay longer, not the reason they leave. “The word of his grace” is the phrase Paul uses when he commends the Ephesian elders “to God, and to the word of his grace” (20:32). The Lord himself is the one bearing testimony.

“Divided” is schizo, the root of the English schism. This verse and verse 14 are the only places where Acts calls Paul and Barnabas “apostles”; everywhere else the book keeps the title for the Twelve. Paul’s letters insist on it for himself (Galatians 1:1).

“Assault” is horme, an impulse or rush, which suggests a plan set in motion rather than an attack already made; verse 6 has them learn of it and leave. “Use them despitefully” is hubrizo, to outrage and humiliate, the word Paul uses of his treatment at Philippi (1 Thessalonians 2:2).

Lystra, a Roman colony, lay about eighteen miles south-south-west of Iconium, and Derbe some sixty miles beyond. Some ancient writers counted Iconium in Lycaonia, but its people considered themselves Phrygian, and Acts rightly has the missionaries cross a border when they leave, a detail W. M. Ramsay made much of.

The imperfect tense pictures continued work, “they were preaching the gospel”. Codex Bezae expands the verse, adding that the whole population was stirred by the teaching and that Paul and Barnabas stayed on at Lystra. The short verse closes one scene and clears the ground for the next.

Three phrases say the same thing, impotent in his feet, a cripple from his mother’s womb, never had walked, so no one could suggest a passing weakness. The wording closely echoes the man at the temple gate, “lame from his mother’s womb” (3:2): what Peter did in Jerusalem, Paul now does in a pagan town.

Paul fixes his gaze on the man, as Peter did on the lame beggar (3:4), with the same Greek verb. “Faith to be healed” is literally faith “to be saved”, sozo, the verb Jesus used in “thy faith hath saved thee” (Luke 7:50, 8:48); in Luke’s usage healing and salvation share a word.

“With a loud voice” ensures the crowd hears the command, which is why they know who performed it. “Leaped” is in the aorist, one spring, and “walked” in the imperfect, kept walking. Isaiah 35:6 had promised, “Then shall the lame man leap as an hart.”

The crowd speaks Lycaonian, its native language, which Paul and Barnabas evidently could not follow; they learn what is happening only when the sacrifice arrives (verse 14). Ovid tells a local legend of Jupiter and Mercury visiting the Phrygian hills in human form, welcomed only by an old couple, Baucis and Philemon, while the rest who turned them away were destroyed.

Jupiter is Zeus and Mercurius is Hermes, the Latin names being the King James choice. Hermes was the gods’ spokesman, and a later writer calls him “the leader of speech”, almost the phrase Acts uses, “the chief speaker”. Inscriptions from the region record Zeus and Hermes honoured together.

“Which was before their city” describes a temple outside the walls, and inscriptions elsewhere name a “Zeus before the city”. The garlands were woollen wreaths wound on the animals’ horns before sacrifice. The “gates” could be the city gates or the gateway of the house where the apostles lodged.

Tearing one’s clothes was the Jewish response to blasphemy, as the high priest tore his garments at Jesus’ trial (Mark 14:63). “Ran in” is ekpedao, to rush out, found only here. Barnabas is named first again, perhaps because the crowd had just ranked him the greater god.

“Like passions” is homoiopathes, of the same nature, the word James uses of Elijah, “a man subject to like passions as we are” (James 5:17). “Vanities” is the Septuagint’s word for idols (Jeremiah 8:19). The description of God echoes Exodus 20:11: he made heaven, earth, the sea and all that is in them.

The same thought returns at Athens, “the times of this ignorance God winked at” (17:30), and in Romans 3:25, where God is said to have passed over sins in his forbearance. “Their own ways” is a mild phrase for a long past: the nations were left to their paths, not abandoned without evidence.

“Without witness” is amarturos, witnessless. Lycaonia was a dry, treeless upland where, Strabo says, water came from deep wells, so rain was never taken for granted. Zeus was the sky-god believed to send it, and Paul credits the rain to the living God, with “us”, himself included, as its recipients.

“Scarce” means barely. The scene ends with the sacrifice stopped but no report of anyone believing; the Book of Acts gives Lystra no conversions until the disciples of verse 20 appear. Restraining worship took everything they had.

Antioch lay more than a hundred miles away, so opponents walked that far to follow them. Paul later lists, “once was I stoned” (2 Corinthians 11:25), and names “Antioch, Iconium, Lystra” among his persecutions (2 Timothy 3:11). The man who held the coats at Stephen’s stoning (7:58) now lies under the stones himself.

Timothy came from Lystra (16:1), and 2 Timothy 3:10–11 says he knew these sufferings, so he may have been among the disciples standing round; that is an inference. Paul walks back into the town that stoned him, then sets out the next morning for Derbe, some sixty miles off, the home of Gaius (20:4).

“Taught many” is matheteuo, to make disciples, the verb of Matthew 28:19, “teach all nations”. From Derbe the short road home led east through the Cilician Gates to Tarsus and Antioch. They chose instead to retrace their steps through the three towns that had driven them out.

“Confirming” is episterizo, to strengthen further, a word only Acts uses (15:32, 41, 18:23). “Must” is dei, the word of necessity Luke uses of Jesus’ own sufferings: “Ought not Christ to have suffered these things?” (Luke 24:26). “We” sets the missionaries among those who suffer.

“Ordained” is cheirotoneo, originally to vote by stretching out the hand, though by this time it could simply mean to appoint; whether the congregations chose is debated. Paul later tells Titus to “ordain elders in every city” (Titus 1:5). “Commended” is paratithemi, the verb of Jesus on the cross: “into thy hands I commend my spirit” (Luke 23:46).

Pisidia is the rugged mountain country between Antioch and the coast, notorious for brigands; Pamphylia is the coastal plain below it. Paul later mentions “perils of robbers” (2 Corinthians 11:26), and this road is one place he could have met them.

On the outward journey they passed through Perga with no preaching recorded (13:13–14); now they speak there. Attalia, modern Antalya, was the harbour founded by Attalus II of Pergamum, about a dozen miles south-west of Perga. “Went down” is the descent to the coast.

The voyage to Seleucia and up to Antioch closed a journey of perhaps 1,400 miles by land and sea, commonly dated to about AD 46–48. “Fulfilled” is pleroo, to complete: the work the Spirit named in 13:2 is now called finished.

The door image is Paul’s own: “a great door and effectual is opened unto me” (1 Corinthians 16:9), “a door was opened unto me of the Lord” at Troas (2 Corinthians 2:12). “Done with them” is a telling preposition: God working alongside them, not merely through them as instruments.

“Long time” is literally “no little time”, another litotes in the manner of Acts. Some scholars place Paul’s clash with Peter over eating with Gentiles (Galatians 2:11–14), and even the writing of Galatians, in this stay at Antioch; that reconstruction is disputed.