Acts14chapter 14

Acts 14:1-2

And it came to pass in Iconium, that they went both together into the synagogue of the Jews: Paul and Barnabas keep the pattern already set at Pisidian Antioch, entering the synagogue first and finding among the Jews and the Greeks together a great multitude that believed. The unbelieving Jews who reject the word are not all Israel, and Luke is careful to distinguish them from the believing multitude of their own nation in the same verse, the split running through the synagogue rather than around it. Their answer to a message they will not receive is to stir up the Gentiles and set their minds evil affected against the brethren, the same tactic that will follow the apostles to Lystra.

Acts 14:3

Long time therefore abode they speaking boldly in the Lord: the opposition does not shorten the stay, and the boldness thread that runs from the apostles' first prayer at 4:29 continues here in the field. The Lord himself gave testimony unto the word of his grace, granting signs and wonders to be done by their hands, the same order the book keeps everywhere, wonders serving the word rather than standing apart from it. Chrysostom reads the grant of signs as an answer matched to the danger, God confirming the gospel most visibly where it is most fiercely opposed.

Acts 14:4-5

The multitude of the city was divided, part holding with the Jews and part with the apostles, Iconium split down the middle by the same preaching that filled the synagogue. The division hardens into an assault made both of the Gentiles and the Jews together with their rulers, two groups elsewhere at odds now agreed in opposing the gospel that has united believers across their own line. The plan is to use the apostles despitefully and to stone them, the first appearance of the punishment Paul will actually suffer three verses later.

Acts 14:6-7

They were ware of it, and fled unto Lystra and Derbe, cities of Lycaonia, obeying the Lord's own counsel to flee persecution from one city to the next rather than courting it. The flight is not retreat from the mission, for there they preached the gospel still, carrying the same message into new territory the moment the old one closes against them. Lystra and Derbe sit further into the Anatolian interior, a Roman colony and a native town where Greek was heard beside the local Lycaonian tongue that will surface at verse eleven.

Acts 14:8-10

There sat a certain man at Lystra, impotent in his feet, a cripple from his mother's womb who never had walked, the case as hopeless as the lame man Peter heals at the temple gate in 3:2, a deliberate parallel the book draws between the two apostles. Paul, stedfastly beholding him and perceiving that he had faith to be healed, speaks with a loud voice, Stand upright on thy feet, and the man leaped and walked, the healing instant and complete before witnesses. The bench reads Paul's discernment of the man's faith as a gift exercised in the moment, not a formula he carried from city to city.

Acts 14:11-13

The people, seeing what Paul had done, cry out in the speech of Lycaonia, The gods are come down to us in the likeness of men, and name Barnabas Jupiter and Paul Mercurius because he was the chief speaker, reading the miracle through their own legend of Zeus and Hermes visiting Phrygia in disguise, a story Ovid records for this very region. The priest of Jupiter, whose temple stood before the city, brings oxen and garlands to the gates and would offer sacrifice with the people, the honor escalating from acclamation toward worship in a single scene. Luke's precision about the local cult and the Lycaonian dialect, unmentioned by any other ancient source, is the kind of incidental detail historians of the region have found repeatedly accurate.

Acts 14:14-15

When the apostles heard of it, they rent their clothes, the Jewish sign of horror at blasphemy, and ran in among the people crying out against a worship no creature may receive. Sirs, why do ye these things, Paul protests, we also are men of like passions with you, refusing the very honor the healing had provoked and pointing the crowd away from himself toward the God he serves. The turn from these vanities unto the living God, which made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all things that are therein names the true object of worship in language a pagan audience with no Scripture could still follow.

Acts 14:16-18

Who in times past suffered all nations to walk in their own ways: Paul's brief address to a Gentile crowd without Scripture argues from what all men can see rather than from the prophets he would cite in a synagogue, the same method he expands at Athens in chapter seventeen. 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, a witness in providence and harvest available to every nation regardless of covenant. Even this word from two men they had just called gods scarce restrains the people from sacrificing, the crowd's zeal outrunning its object even after correction.

Acts 14:19-20

Certain Jews from Antioch and Iconium arrive and persuade the same people who had moments before called Paul a god to turn on him, and having stoned Paul they draw him out of the city supposing him dead. Howbeit, as the disciples stood round about him, he rose up, and came into the city, Luke's spare wording leaving open whether this is recovery from a beating meant to kill or something nearer resurrection, a question the text does not settle and the bench holds open. The next day he departs with Barnabas to Derbe still, the mission unbroken by the stoning Paul later counts among his sufferings at 2 Corinthians 11:25.

Acts 14:21-23

Having preached the gospel to that city and taught many, they returned again to Lystra, and to Iconium, and Antioch, retracing the very cities that had stoned and expelled them to strengthen the disciples left behind. Confirming the souls of the disciples, and exhorting them to continue in the faith, they teach plainly that we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God, the suffering just witnessed becoming the pattern named for every believer rather than an exception. When they had ordained them elders in every church, and had prayed with fasting, they commended them to the Lord, on whom they believed, leadership established in the same breath as the warning about tribulation.

Acts 14:24-26

After they had passed throughout Pisidia, they came to Pamphylia, retracing in reverse the route of chapter thirteen back toward the coast. They preach the word once more at Perga, which they had passed through without recorded preaching on the way out, and go down to Attalia, the port city, before sailing back to Antioch. This is the Syrian Antioch from whence they had been recommended to the grace of God for the work which they fulfilled, the church that sent them the natural place to return and report.

Acts 14:27-28

gathered the church together: When they were come, and had gathered the church together, they rehearsed all that God had done with them, the missionary report given to the sending congregation rather than kept as the apostles' own credit. How he had opened the door of faith unto the Gentiles is the mission's own summary of chapters thirteen and fourteen, the same door language Paul uses again of Ephesus and Troas, faith entered rather than earned or inherited. There they abode long time with the disciples, the rest before the next controversy, the very question the door has opened, breaks out in chapter fifteen.