In Lystra and Derbe
8 In Lystra there sat a man who was lame. He had been that way from birth and had never walked. 9 He listened to Paul as he was speaking. Paul looked directly at him, saw that he had faith to be healed 10 and called out, “Stand up on your feet!” At that, the man jumped up and began to walk.
11 When the crowd saw what Paul had done, they shouted in the Lycaonian language, “The gods have come down to us in human form!” 12 Barnabas they called Zeus, and Paul they called Hermes because he was the chief speaker. 13 The priest of Zeus, whose temple was just outside the city, brought bulls and wreaths to the city gates because he and the crowd wanted to offer sacrifices to them.
14 But when the apostles Barnabas and Paul heard of this, they tore their clothes and rushed out into the crowd, shouting: 15 “Friends, why are you doing this? We too are only human, like you. We are bringing you good news, telling you to turn from these worthless things to the living God, who made the heavens and the earth and the sea and everything in them. 16 In the past, he let all nations go their own way. 17 Yet he has not left himself without testimony: He has shown kindness by giving you rain from heaven and crops in their seasons; he provides you with plenty of food and fills your hearts with joy.” 18 Even with these words, they had difficulty keeping the crowd from sacrificing to them.
19 Then some Jews came from Antioch and Iconium and won the crowd over. They stoned Paul and dragged him outside the city, thinking he was dead. 20 But after the disciples had gathered around him, he got up and went back into the city. The next day he and Barnabas left for Derbe.
Dig Deeper
I am personally convinced that one of the most powerful, and potentially dangerous, human motivators is disillusionment. Disillusionment is quite different than many other human emotions and motivators because it can swing someone’s motivations, loyalties, and actions wildly and erratically in the blink of an eye. One moment someone can be deeply in love with someone but once disillusionment sets in that love can radically switch to blind rage and vitriol in the matter of seconds. This is particularly true when it comes to the church. It is vitally important that churches and ministers do their dead-level best to ensure that new Christians and younger members have a realistic view of the church. It is quite easy for a young Christian to to come and visit a church and quickly fall in love with everything about it. If the members of that church are not extremely careful and wise, they can easily, in their zeal, give the impression that everything about the church is wonderful, that the minister is the best thing since sliced bread, and that their life will simply be better in every way imaginable if they become part of the believing community.
The problem is that no church is perfect. Every church is flawed because all humans are flawed. The New Testament promises that we will need to have great patience, forbearance, and love for one another because we will fail one another. But if people are not clear on all of that they will come to idolize the church, the minister, or certain Christians within the church. The problem is that it is only a matter of time before they realize that the church is flawed and people are not perfect, despite their genuine desire to live as God’s family. That’s when disillusionment sets in and people who were once loyal and loving members of a church can easily become bitter enemies in an instant. What they once revered they now would like to destroy.
In fact, the greater someone’s hopes are built up before being dashed, the deeper the disillusionment and the greater the bitterness. At the core of this account is that very reality of disillusionment. Great hope was put before the people but they misunderstood. It was not what they thought and what they were hoping for and so their great adoration and amazement turned almost instantaneously into hatred.
As Paul and Barnabas arrived in Lystra, they encountered a man that had been lame and unable to walk since birth. Everyone would have known him well and been quite convinced of the fact that he would never walk. In fact it is safe to presume that him being healed and walking never even crossed their mind. But as Paul came to town this man listened intently. Something about the announcement that Jesus had resurrected from the dead and showed himself to be the true king of the world and that the kingdom of God was breaking into the present world through that resurrection must have caught the attention of this man. As Paul was speaking we can assume that the Spirit drew his attention to this man, although the text doesn’t say that explicitly. Paul saw an opportunity to demonstrate the kingdom of God. It would be a manifestation in the present age of God’s future age to come, a time when God will restore the entire creation back to its intended wholeness. Nothing demonstrated that truth better than healing a man who had been lame from birth. Nothing verified the truth of his words about that coming age more than telling this man to walk.
As Paul spoke, he discerned, again presumably through the guidance of the Spirit, that this man had the faith to be healed. This man had come to faith through Paul’s words. It wasn’t that he believed that he could be healed because that wasn’t even an option yet. But he had come to believe that God had given promises to restore his creation and that those promises were being fulfilled through Jesus’ life, death, resurrection, and now through the preaching of the gospel. Because he had faith in that, Paul would heal him and show a sample of that coming reality. Paul told him to stand up immediately and walk, something that the man did instantly. We can only imagine the shock of the crowd around them as they observed the pure and bewildering joy that the man must have felt and the confident lack of shock on the faces of Paul and Barnabas. His getting up and walking was of no great surprise to them. To the crowd, this was the most incredible thing they had ever seen. And they immediately jumped to conclusions.
We must understand that there was a local legend preserved in a Latin poem by Ovid. According to this legend, the gods Zeus and Hermes had visited this region looking for lodging many years before. They were turned down at house after house, and were eventually sent away by one thousand homes in the area. Finally the pair of gods came upon an elderly couple named Philemon and Baucis who were unaware that they were having an encounter with the gods. They eventually welcomed the divine pair into their home. The gods later returned and turned the home of the elderly couple into a temple in honor of their hospitality but they were enraged with the rest of the region and they destroyed all of the houses that had rejected them.
As Paul and Barnabas came upon the scene and performed such an incredible and miraculous healing, the people immediately interpreted it in the only way that their worldview would allow. These must be the gods returned to earth. It is possible that Barnabas was the larger and more physically dignified of the two and so they mistook him as Zeus, while Paul was mistaken for Hermes who was the spokesmen for the gods. Whatever the case, they were clearly determined not to make the same mistake that their people before them had. The people went shouting and declaring in Lycaonian that the gods had returned to them and they quickly got busy making the proper preparations to honor them with appropriate sacrifices. The scene was no doubt chaotic and dizzying along with the fact that neither Paul nor Barnabas spoke that language or knew what was happening around them.
Upon finally understanding what the crowds were thinking and what they had in mind, Paul and Barnabas were horrified. They tore their clothes in response to this well-meaning, but blasphemous attempt to honor them. In that act, the people were demonstrating that they truly had no understanding of the one, true God. They weren’t gods that typically brought varying degrees of bad news and destruction. They were men just like them that were there to preach the good news about Jesus Christ.
Paul’s words were thoroughly in the style of the Old Testament as he warned them that the gods and idols they worshipped were lifeless and worthless. They were wasting their time worrying about the favor of the gods, because the favor of the one, true God, the one who created the world and everything in it, had been finally made available to all. In the past they were outside of God’s family with little hope to come into it (see Eph. 2:11-19). God had always been there, though, providing through nature and they should have recognized that but they had turned instead to worshipping elements of the creation (cf. Rom. 1:18-23). This sermon as Luke has recounted it looks very similar to Paul’s sermon in chapter 17 and no doubt continued on to describe the good news of the resurrection of Christ just as he did there.
But the people were so locked into their own worldview that despite Paul’s powerful sermon pointing them to the true God through his Son Jesus Christ, they still had trouble shifting their paradigm and still wanted to make sacrifices to them as gods. The reality is that false religions stem from people’s desires rather than the other way around. This is why Paul said in 2 Timothy 4:3 that it is not that people are tricked into false religions and false doctrines but rather that they gather around them people that teach what they want to hear based on their desires. These people wanted the type of religion that they had already and despite the incredible miracle they had just seen were apparently not open to the stunning truth of the gospel.
If their desire had been for the truth that lies in the gospel they would have embraced it but instead, Luke tells us, that a group of Jews came over from Antioch and Iconium, and convinced them to reject what Paul and Barnabas had been saying. These people who wanted to worship Paul and Barnabas were now quickly swung in the other direction. They were enthralled thinking that the gods that they desired to worship had come to visit them but their excitement quickly turned into disillusionment. Their moment of hope that the gods had returned and they had a chance to please them disappeared. All that was left was the simple truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ and the men who were preaching that gospel. Their dashed hopes turned to blind rage and they dragged Paul outside of the city to stone him.
This was no day at the beach. Stoning was a violent act that was intended to kill someone and they thought that this time was no different. Although it didn’t kill him, the event clearly left an indelible impression on Paul who mentioned it as many as three times in other writings (2 Cor. 11:25; 2 Tim. 3:11; and possibly Gal. 6:17). What happened next is one of those incredible things that has made Paul a hero to many in the faith ever since. He had been rejected and beaten down by those who wanted nothing to do with the idea of being part of God’s family but the disciples gathered around him and gave him strength. Buoyed by their love and support, Paul rebounded and got right back up (Luke does not say that there was any specific miraculous element to Paul’s getting up and does not seem to imply any such miracle either). We might expect him to have gone somewhere safer and immediately flee Lystra but Paul was not going to let them get the best of him and the gospel. He picked himself up and walked right back into Lystra. Paul would leave for Derbe the next day, but it would be on his terms and not because of fear.
Devotional Thought
Can you identify with Paul’s situation here. It is unlikely that most of you reading this will ever be in danger of being stoned for the gospel but it can sure feel like it sometimes when we are rejected or mistreated for our faith. When that happens, what is your response? Is it to slink away and look for safety or is it to surround yourself with disciples, get re-energized, and go right back at the leading of the Holy Spirit? When you face your next “Lystra,” what will your response be?
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Thursday, May 12, 2011
Acts 14:1-7
In Iconium
1 At Iconium Paul and Barnabas went as usual into the Jewish synagogue. There they spoke so effectively that a great number of Jews and Greeks believed. 2 But the Jews who refused to believe stirred up the other Gentiles and poisoned their minds against the brothers. 3 So Paul and Barnabas spent considerable time there, speaking boldly for the Lord, who confirmed the message of his grace by enabling them to perform signs and wonders. 4 The people of the city were divided; some sided with the Jews, others with the apostles. 5 There was a plot afoot among both Gentiles and Jews, together with their leaders, to mistreat them and stone them. 6 But they found out about it and fled to the Lycaonian cities of Lystra and Derbe and to the surrounding country, 7 where they continued to preach the gospel.
Dig Deeper
Many Christians these days seem to have a real problem with Christianity. Oh, they love certain aspects of it, like maybe the traditions, the encouragement that it can bring, and the camaraderie but there are also aspects of it that they do not like. People who claim to be Christians themselves are almost embarrassed at the idea of Christianity being divisive in any way. They have instead turned Christianity into a sort of universal catch-all where any beliefs are welcome and they don’t want to create waves at all. They cringe at and denounce anything Christian that actually divides the saved from the lost, the disciple from the wanderer.
As trendy and popular as that sort of Christianity has become in our world of tolerance, it stands in stark contrast to the beliefs and practices of the first century. This can be difficult because it is not acceptable in our culture to claim a singular truth. It is deemed offensive and arrogant to do so. But at the heart of the gospel message is the truth that Jesus claimed that he was “the way, the truth, and the life,” and that no one could come to the Father but through him (Jn. 14:6). Jesus also made it quite clear that his gospel would cause division: “Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division. From now on there will be five in one family divided against each other, three against two and two against three. They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law” (Lk. 12:51-53). The message of the gospel that brings peace to those who accept it is so demanding and challenging that most will not accept and that automatically causes division.
Nearly every religion, of course, makes truth claims at one level or another. That is important because truth claims necessarily separate those that accept those truth claims from those that don’t. What sets Christianity apart, however, is that it is the only religion, philosophy, or worldview that can actually plausibly back up its claim to be truth. The vital question to ask here is how do we determine that a religion or philosophy is true? Nearly all religions and philosophies that seek to answer that question respond by saying that an adherent will simply know within themselves that this is true. It is that inner witness and confirmation which will tell them that their beliefs are true. But that is not what the early Christians staked their claim on. In the first 19 verses of 1 Corinthians 15, Paul makes it quite clear that the veracity of the Christian faith lies in the historical fact of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. If it happened as claimed then Christianity is true and Jesus really is the rightful savior and Lord of the entire world. If it never happened, then Christianity is a sham and a waste of time.
Armed with the resurrection as the core of the truth of the gospel, as Luke has made clear throughout the book of Acts, the disciples went around boldly proclaiming the gospel. But just as surely as they preached the resurrection of Christ wherever they went they also encountered sharp opposition wherever they went. It was something that they could expect. Jesus had told them as much, saying “You will be hated by everyone because of me, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved” (Matt. 10:22). Wherever they went the gospel divided between those who wanted the light that was revealed through the preaching of the truth of the word of God and those who hated the light and chose to stay in the dark. It’s a truth that we must firmly understand and accept or the Christian walk will always be painful and unbearable. Preaching the truth will not be popular; it will not always produce results; and it will always cause division and opposition.
As was their usual custom, Paul and Barnabas began their preaching Iconium at the synagogue. It served as a good based to reach out to the Jews and Gentile God-fearers. Those who were waiting for God to act on his promises and were open to the truth of Jesus being the Messiah and fulfillment of those promises were quick to believe so the mission in Iconium met some early success. But that did not mean that things were all pleasant. The Jews who refused to accept the truth of the gospel were not content to simply reject it and walk away. They, like Paul once was, were determined to show their zeal for God’s ways by fighting and hopefully destroying this new upstart Messianic movement. So they stirred up the Gentiles, presumably both the God-fearing Gentiles and the pagan Gentiles, by slandering the gospel and urging them to actively oppose and persecute the Christians.
Without the fully established witness of the word of God as contained in the New Testament, the Holy Spirit confirmed their message through the means of signs and wonders. Luke doesn’t specifically recount what those were in Iconium, but they no doubt included the same sorts of things like praising God in languages that were previously unknown to the speaker and miraculous healing as they had performed in other places. These signs were not meant to impress so much as to demonstrate the values and principles of the age to come. Through the preaching of the gospel and the establishment of the kingdom of God, the elements of that future age were breaking into the present age. The manifestations of that, the signs and wonders, were confirmation that access to that age of eternal life really was available through the Messiah just as they claimed.
As Christianity will do, their message divided the city. To some it was foolishness. To others it was a stumbling block and a scandal. But to others, they saw in the gospel presentation, the power of God. The life of God’s age to come really had broken into the present age through the resurrection of Jesus the Messiah and had been made available not just to the Jews but also the Gentiles.
It appears that there was a bit of lag time between the arrival of Paul and Barnabas in Iconium and the time that the persecution against them gained traction. Luke doesn’t tell us how much time they were able to spend there but it was enough time that they were able to establish the core of a Christian community when they left. God had established a window for them of just enough time to do what they needed to do there and then get out before the persecution got too stiff. Eventually a plot somehow came to their attention that their lives were in danger and God had more work for them to do. It is important to note that the reason they left was not because their lives were in danger or because they were afraid but precisely because it was God’s plan and will that they continue on in the mission. When the time came for them to face death, they would do that without flinching, as men who believed firmly in the resurrection of those in Christ.
Upon leaving Iconium, Paul’s group would head Southwest to the Lycaonian cities of Lystra and Derbe. This was no normal escape or vacation, however. They went there to continue their mission of preaching the gospel. This illustrates the importance of understanding the true nature of the gospel. If we rightly understand that the true gospel is the victory proclamation that Jesus is God’s promised Messiah who has defeated death through his resurrection and shown himself to be the true King and Lord of all people, and that the only proper response is to obey that proclamation by laying down our own lives and will, and entering into the body of believers that is God’s family, and to live according to his will by putting the interests of the family of believers ahead of our own personal interests, then the path becomes clear. Wherever we go we can’t help but to declare this truth and live out the reality of the kingdom of God on earth. We realize that we are God’s people, called to live together as his family that is imperfect in this age but dedicated to the proposition of living here and now as a people that are committed to the values, principles, and realities of that future age. If this is our true mindset then we will naturally spread the gospel wherever we go.
If, however, we are confused on all of this and think of salvation as a personal issue between God and myself that does little more than change my future from an eternity in hell to one in heaven with God, then evangelism becomes a very different animal. It becomes something that I must constantly do rather than who I am. It becomes a task of which I can tire rather easily instead of a constant expression of the recognition of who we are in Christ and an ongoing expression of gratitude for calling us to be his family. It is when we really grasp that fully that we too will continue to preach the gospel wherever we go.
Devotional Thought
What is your attitude about evangelism? Is it something that you have to do or is it a natural expression of who you are? As you share your faith with those that need to hear the gospel have you embraced the fact that it will be divisive and not necessarily make you the most popular person? Why is that an important truth to grasp?
1 At Iconium Paul and Barnabas went as usual into the Jewish synagogue. There they spoke so effectively that a great number of Jews and Greeks believed. 2 But the Jews who refused to believe stirred up the other Gentiles and poisoned their minds against the brothers. 3 So Paul and Barnabas spent considerable time there, speaking boldly for the Lord, who confirmed the message of his grace by enabling them to perform signs and wonders. 4 The people of the city were divided; some sided with the Jews, others with the apostles. 5 There was a plot afoot among both Gentiles and Jews, together with their leaders, to mistreat them and stone them. 6 But they found out about it and fled to the Lycaonian cities of Lystra and Derbe and to the surrounding country, 7 where they continued to preach the gospel.
Dig Deeper
Many Christians these days seem to have a real problem with Christianity. Oh, they love certain aspects of it, like maybe the traditions, the encouragement that it can bring, and the camaraderie but there are also aspects of it that they do not like. People who claim to be Christians themselves are almost embarrassed at the idea of Christianity being divisive in any way. They have instead turned Christianity into a sort of universal catch-all where any beliefs are welcome and they don’t want to create waves at all. They cringe at and denounce anything Christian that actually divides the saved from the lost, the disciple from the wanderer.
As trendy and popular as that sort of Christianity has become in our world of tolerance, it stands in stark contrast to the beliefs and practices of the first century. This can be difficult because it is not acceptable in our culture to claim a singular truth. It is deemed offensive and arrogant to do so. But at the heart of the gospel message is the truth that Jesus claimed that he was “the way, the truth, and the life,” and that no one could come to the Father but through him (Jn. 14:6). Jesus also made it quite clear that his gospel would cause division: “Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division. From now on there will be five in one family divided against each other, three against two and two against three. They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law” (Lk. 12:51-53). The message of the gospel that brings peace to those who accept it is so demanding and challenging that most will not accept and that automatically causes division.
Nearly every religion, of course, makes truth claims at one level or another. That is important because truth claims necessarily separate those that accept those truth claims from those that don’t. What sets Christianity apart, however, is that it is the only religion, philosophy, or worldview that can actually plausibly back up its claim to be truth. The vital question to ask here is how do we determine that a religion or philosophy is true? Nearly all religions and philosophies that seek to answer that question respond by saying that an adherent will simply know within themselves that this is true. It is that inner witness and confirmation which will tell them that their beliefs are true. But that is not what the early Christians staked their claim on. In the first 19 verses of 1 Corinthians 15, Paul makes it quite clear that the veracity of the Christian faith lies in the historical fact of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. If it happened as claimed then Christianity is true and Jesus really is the rightful savior and Lord of the entire world. If it never happened, then Christianity is a sham and a waste of time.
Armed with the resurrection as the core of the truth of the gospel, as Luke has made clear throughout the book of Acts, the disciples went around boldly proclaiming the gospel. But just as surely as they preached the resurrection of Christ wherever they went they also encountered sharp opposition wherever they went. It was something that they could expect. Jesus had told them as much, saying “You will be hated by everyone because of me, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved” (Matt. 10:22). Wherever they went the gospel divided between those who wanted the light that was revealed through the preaching of the truth of the word of God and those who hated the light and chose to stay in the dark. It’s a truth that we must firmly understand and accept or the Christian walk will always be painful and unbearable. Preaching the truth will not be popular; it will not always produce results; and it will always cause division and opposition.
As was their usual custom, Paul and Barnabas began their preaching Iconium at the synagogue. It served as a good based to reach out to the Jews and Gentile God-fearers. Those who were waiting for God to act on his promises and were open to the truth of Jesus being the Messiah and fulfillment of those promises were quick to believe so the mission in Iconium met some early success. But that did not mean that things were all pleasant. The Jews who refused to accept the truth of the gospel were not content to simply reject it and walk away. They, like Paul once was, were determined to show their zeal for God’s ways by fighting and hopefully destroying this new upstart Messianic movement. So they stirred up the Gentiles, presumably both the God-fearing Gentiles and the pagan Gentiles, by slandering the gospel and urging them to actively oppose and persecute the Christians.
Without the fully established witness of the word of God as contained in the New Testament, the Holy Spirit confirmed their message through the means of signs and wonders. Luke doesn’t specifically recount what those were in Iconium, but they no doubt included the same sorts of things like praising God in languages that were previously unknown to the speaker and miraculous healing as they had performed in other places. These signs were not meant to impress so much as to demonstrate the values and principles of the age to come. Through the preaching of the gospel and the establishment of the kingdom of God, the elements of that future age were breaking into the present age. The manifestations of that, the signs and wonders, were confirmation that access to that age of eternal life really was available through the Messiah just as they claimed.
As Christianity will do, their message divided the city. To some it was foolishness. To others it was a stumbling block and a scandal. But to others, they saw in the gospel presentation, the power of God. The life of God’s age to come really had broken into the present age through the resurrection of Jesus the Messiah and had been made available not just to the Jews but also the Gentiles.
It appears that there was a bit of lag time between the arrival of Paul and Barnabas in Iconium and the time that the persecution against them gained traction. Luke doesn’t tell us how much time they were able to spend there but it was enough time that they were able to establish the core of a Christian community when they left. God had established a window for them of just enough time to do what they needed to do there and then get out before the persecution got too stiff. Eventually a plot somehow came to their attention that their lives were in danger and God had more work for them to do. It is important to note that the reason they left was not because their lives were in danger or because they were afraid but precisely because it was God’s plan and will that they continue on in the mission. When the time came for them to face death, they would do that without flinching, as men who believed firmly in the resurrection of those in Christ.
Upon leaving Iconium, Paul’s group would head Southwest to the Lycaonian cities of Lystra and Derbe. This was no normal escape or vacation, however. They went there to continue their mission of preaching the gospel. This illustrates the importance of understanding the true nature of the gospel. If we rightly understand that the true gospel is the victory proclamation that Jesus is God’s promised Messiah who has defeated death through his resurrection and shown himself to be the true King and Lord of all people, and that the only proper response is to obey that proclamation by laying down our own lives and will, and entering into the body of believers that is God’s family, and to live according to his will by putting the interests of the family of believers ahead of our own personal interests, then the path becomes clear. Wherever we go we can’t help but to declare this truth and live out the reality of the kingdom of God on earth. We realize that we are God’s people, called to live together as his family that is imperfect in this age but dedicated to the proposition of living here and now as a people that are committed to the values, principles, and realities of that future age. If this is our true mindset then we will naturally spread the gospel wherever we go.
If, however, we are confused on all of this and think of salvation as a personal issue between God and myself that does little more than change my future from an eternity in hell to one in heaven with God, then evangelism becomes a very different animal. It becomes something that I must constantly do rather than who I am. It becomes a task of which I can tire rather easily instead of a constant expression of the recognition of who we are in Christ and an ongoing expression of gratitude for calling us to be his family. It is when we really grasp that fully that we too will continue to preach the gospel wherever we go.
Devotional Thought
What is your attitude about evangelism? Is it something that you have to do or is it a natural expression of who you are? As you share your faith with those that need to hear the gospel have you embraced the fact that it will be divisive and not necessarily make you the most popular person? Why is that an important truth to grasp?
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