Acts 14:8-20
Having been driven out of Iconium,
Paul and Barnabas moved on to Lystra.
They did not go to a synagogue and there is no synagogue mentioned so we
conclude there were not enough Jews in Lystra to merit one. (There had to be ten male heads of households
in a town in order to have a synagogue.)
So the brothers preached wherever they could. One day Paul spotted a man listening to him
who was crippled. Luke discovers later
that the man had been crippled from birth.
Seeing that the man had come to believe Paul commanded him to stand up
and he was healed.
Now we see that if there were many
Jews in Lystra they had not influenced the pagan people very much! Because the crippled man was healed the
people immediately concluded that Paul and Barnabas were Zeus and Hermes who
had returned to the Lystra Valley. There
was an ancient legend that said the two gods had come to the valley centuries
before disguised as humans. They went
door to door and were turned away at every one until one poor, elderly couple
invited them in and provided for them.
Afterwards, Zeus and Hermes took them to a hilltop while they flooded
and destroyed the entire valley and all those who had rejected them. Then the gods turned their humble cottage
into a great temple in which the old couple served until their deaths.
The people of Lystra would not make
the same mistake twice! They praised
Paul and Barnabas as if they were the returned gods! The priest of the temple brought oxen to
sacrifice! Paul and Barnabas did everything
they could to convince the people they were merely men like them who had
brought a message from the true God.
It appears that somewhere in the
crowds were Jews from Antioch and Iconium who had hunted Paul and Barnabas
down! They persuaded the people that the
apostles were charlatans and trouble-makers.
The adoring crowd immediately turned into an angry mob and stoned Paul
and dragged him out of the city leaving him for dead. Paul’s disciples gathered around his body,
perhaps prepared to protect their leader from further mutilation. They were probably discussing what to do with
the body when Paul rose up and went back into the city! What amazing courage! The next day the apostles left for Derbe.
Lystra appears to have been an epic
failure! There is no mention of even one
person believing the message and being converted! Verse 21 says they revisited all the cities
on their way home “strengthening the
souls of the disciples, encouraging them to continue in the faith,” but
there is no specific mention of any believers in Lystra. How discouraging!
When we get to chapter 16 we find
that Paul and Silas return to Lystra.
When they get there they find a young believer by the name of Timothy
who joins their team and becomes a key figure in the 1st century
church. He travels with Paul. He becomes the pastor of the church in
Ephesus. He is the recipient of two
epistles from Paul. He came from Lystra!
We don’t know when Timothy came to
faith. He was already a believer when
Paul returned to Lystra on his second journey.
Paul and Barnabas planted the seed of the gospel in Lystra and saw no
fruit whatsoever. Nevertheless, the Holy
Spirit was at work behind the scenes.
The seed grew, unobserved to the apostles, and the fruit of that seed
was Timothy.
We never really know what the Holy
Spirit will do with the seed we plant when we bear witness to people. It may well appear that nothing is
happening. It may seem like we failed. We may not be able to observe the seed taking
root and growing. But Lystra and Timothy
are perfect examples of what God can and will do when we faithfully bear
witness! We have no reason to become
discouraged and give up. Just as Paul
got up from the ground and went back into the city and then returned a few
years later, we should keep going back again and again and sharing the truth
about what God has done in our lives and what he will do for all who believe in
Jesus Christ!
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