Chapter 14
Ministry at Iconium
1 In Iconium they entered the synagogue of the Jews together, and spoke in such a manner that a large number of people believed, both of Jews and of Greeks.
2 But the Jews who disbelieved stirred up the minds of the Gentiles and poisoned them against the brothers.
3 Therefore they spent a long time there speaking boldly with reliance upon the Lord, who was testifying to the word of his grace, granting that signs and wonders be done by their hands.
4 But the people of the city were divided; and some sided with the Jews, and some with the apostles.
5 And when an attempt was made by both the Gentiles and the Jews with their rulers, to mistreat and to stone them,
6 they became aware of it and fled to the cities of Lycaonia, Lystra and Derbe, and the surrounding region;
7 and there they continued to proclaim the gospel.
Translator’s Notes — vv. 1–7:
v.1: Iconium (modern Konya, Turkey) was approximately 80 miles southeast of Pisidian Antioch, on a major east-west trade route through central Anatolia. Paul and Barnabas follow the same pattern as at Pisidian Antioch: they enter the synagogue and preach. The result is similarly double-edged: a large number believe, including both Jews and Greeks (God-fearers and Gentile sympathizers who attended the synagogue), while the unbelieving Jews mobilize opposition.
v.3: Despite the opposition, Paul and Barnabas stay “a long time” (ἱκανὸν μὲν οὖν χρόνον, hikanon men oun chronon). They do not flee at the first sign of trouble; they remain and continue preaching boldly. The Lord “testifies to the word of his grace” by granting signs and wonders. The phrase is precise: the signs are not independent displays of power but testimony to the message. The miracles confirm the word; the word interprets the miracles. Neither exists without the other.
τοὺς ἀποστόλους (tous apostolous) — v.4: “The apostles” — Luke calls Paul and Barnabas “apostles” (ἀπόστολοι, apostoloi). This is one of only two passages in Acts where the title is applied to anyone outside the Twelve (the other is v.14). Luke generally reserves “apostle” for the original Twelve, but here he extends it to Paul and Barnabas as those sent (ἀποστέλλω, apostellō, “to send”) by the Antioch church on the Spirit’s authority. The title carries its original meaning: “sent ones.”
vv.5–7: When the opposition escalates to an attempted stoning (a mob action, not a judicial sentence), they flee. This is not cowardice but strategic withdrawal: Jesus himself instructed his disciples to flee from one city to the next (Matthew 10:23). The flight takes them into Lycaonia, a region of south-central Anatolia. Lystra was approximately 18 miles south-southwest of Iconium; Derbe was about 60 miles further southeast. They have moved from Greek-speaking, cosmopolitan cities into more rural, Lycaonian-speaking territory. The cultural landscape is changing.
The Healing at Lystra
8 At Lystra a man was sitting who had no strength in his feet, lame from his mother’s womb, who had never walked.
9 This man was listening to Paul as he spoke, who, when he had fixed his gaze on him and had seen that he had faith to be made well,
10 said with a loud voice, “Stand upright on your feet.” And he leaped up and began to walk.
Translator’s Notes — vv. 8–10:
vv.8–10: The healing parallels Peter’s healing of the lame man at the Beautiful Gate (3:1–10) with striking precision. Both men are lame from birth. Both are healed by a commanding word. Both respond by leaping and walking. Luke presents Paul’s ministry as parallel to Peter’s — the same Spirit, the same power, the same results. The parallelism validates Paul’s apostleship: what Peter did in Jerusalem, Paul does in Lycaonia.
πίστιν τοῦ σωθῆναι (pistin tou sōthēnai) — v.9: “Faith to be made well” — Paul sees (ἰδών, idōn) the man’s faith before healing him. The verb σώζω (sōzō) means both “to heal” and “to save,” and both meanings may be intended. Faith precedes the healing — the man believed he could be made well before he was made well. Paul perceives this internal reality and responds to it. The healing is not a random demonstration of power but a response to faith already present.
v.10: “Stand upright on your feet” — Paul speaks with a loud voice (μεγάλῃ φωνῇ, megalē phōnē), ensuring the crowd hears both the command and the result. The public nature of the healing is part of its purpose. And the man’s response — “he leaped up and began to walk” (ἥλατο καὶ περιεπάτει) — echoes Isaiah 35:6: “then the lame man will leap like a deer.” The prophetic vision of restoration is being enacted in a Lycaonian town.
Mistaken for Zeus and Hermes
11 When the crowds saw what Paul had done, they raised their voice, saying in the Lycaonian language, “The gods have become like men and have come down to us.”
12 And they began calling Barnabas, Zeus, and Paul, Hermes, because he was the chief speaker.
13 The priest of Zeus, whose temple was just outside the city, brought oxen and garlands to the gates, and wanted to offer sacrifice with the crowds.
14 But when the apostles Barnabas and Paul heard of it, they tore their robes and rushed out into the crowd, crying out
15 and saying, “Men, why are you doing these things? We are also men of the same nature as you, and preach the gospel to you that you should turn from these vain things to a living God, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in them.
16 In the generations gone by he permitted all the nations to go their own ways;
17 and yet he did not leave himself without witness, in that he did good and gave you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness.”
18 Even saying these things, with difficulty they restrained the crowds from offering sacrifice to them.
Translator’s Notes — vv. 11–18:
Λυκαονιστί (Lykaonisti) — v.11: “In the Lycaonian language” — this detail is significant. The crowd’s reaction is in their local language, not in Greek, which explains why Paul and Barnabas do not immediately understand what is happening. Lycaonian was an indigenous Anatolian language that survived alongside Greek in rural areas. The missionaries are no longer in the cosmopolitan Greek-speaking world of Pisidian Antioch or Iconium; they are in the hinterland, where the population thinks and reacts in local cultural categories. And the local category for a miraculous healing performed by strangers is: the gods have come down.
v.12: The identification of Barnabas as Zeus (the chief of the gods) and Paul as Hermes (the messenger god, patron of speech and eloquence) follows a logic: Barnabas may have been the more physically imposing figure, while Paul was “the chief speaker” (ὁ ἡγούμενος τοῦ λόγου, ho hēgoumenos tou logou). In Greek mythology, Zeus and Hermes had a specific connection to this region. The Roman poet Ovid (Metamorphoses 8.626–724) tells the legend of Baucis and Philemon, an elderly couple in the hill country of Phrygia (neighboring Lycaonia) who were the only ones to offer hospitality to Zeus and Hermes when the gods visited disguised as mortals. The gods rewarded them and destroyed everyone who had turned them away. If the Lystrans knew a local version of this legend, they would have been terrified of refusing divine visitors — which explains the urgency of the sacrifice: they do not want to repeat the mistake of their mythological ancestors.
v.13: The priest of Zeus brings oxen and garlands (στέμματα, stemmata — wreaths placed on sacrificial animals) to the gates of the city. This is a formal public sacrifice, organized by the official priest of the local Zeus temple. The speed of the response indicates genuine religious conviction, not mere enthusiasm: the temple establishment is mobilizing its resources for a full sacrificial ceremony.
v.14: Paul and Barnabas tear their robes — the Jewish sign of horror at blasphemy (cf. the high priest tearing his robes at Jesus’s trial, Mark 14:63). They rush into the crowd with visceral urgency. The missionaries who gladly received the title “apostles” (v.4) are appalled at being called gods. The contrast with Herod Agrippa (12:22–23), who accepted divine acclamation and was struck dead, is stark. Peter refused worship from Cornelius (10:25–26); Paul and Barnabas refuse it from the Lystrans. Authentic servants of God consistently reject the honor that belongs to God alone.
θεὸν ζῶντα (theon zōnta) — vv.15–17: Paul’s speech to the Lystrans is radically different from his synagogue sermon at Pisidian Antioch. There are no scriptural quotations, no references to Abraham, Moses, or David, no citations of the prophets. This is a pagan audience with no knowledge of Jewish Scripture. Paul must start from scratch. He begins with the most basic theological claim: there is a “living God” (θεὸν ζῶντα, theon zōnta) who created everything — heaven, earth, sea, and all that is in them (echoing Exodus 20:11 and Psalm 146:6, though not quoting them explicitly). The “vain things” (ματαίων, mataiōn) are the idols and the false worship the crowd is attempting. Paul does not attack pagan religion with contempt; he redirects their impulse. They sense the divine in the healing; they are right to sense it, but wrong about its source.
v.16: “In the generations gone by he permitted all the nations to go their own ways” — this is a remarkable concession. God allowed the Gentile nations to follow their own paths. The statement implies that the ignorance was tolerated, not endorsed, and that the time of toleration is now ending. Paul will develop this theme more fully in his Athens speech (17:30): “God has overlooked the times of ignorance, but now commands all people everywhere to repent.”
v.17: The evidence Paul offers for God’s existence is not Scripture but nature: rain, fruitful seasons, food, and gladness. These are the universal witnesses — available to every culture, every nation, every language. God did not leave himself “without witness” (οὐκ ἀμάρτυρον, ouk amartyron) even among people who had no access to Israel’s Scripture. The rains that water Lycaonia’s fields are testimony to the living God. This is natural theology — the argument from creation to Creator — and Paul deploys it because it is the only common ground available with a Lycaonian audience. The speech anticipates Romans 1:19–20: “What may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them.”
v.18: “With difficulty they restrained the crowds from offering sacrifice to them.” The crowd is not easily dissuaded. The pull of their cultural categories is powerful: they have seen a miracle, and their framework says miracles mean the gods have arrived. Paul’s insistence that they are merely human barely succeeds. The scene captures the challenge of cross-cultural mission: the same event (a healing) is interpreted through entirely different worldviews, and bridging the gap requires more than translation — it requires a complete reframing of reality.
Paul Stoned at Lystra
19 But Jews came from Antioch and Iconium, and having won over the crowds, they stoned Paul and dragged him out of the city, supposing him to be dead.
20 But while the disciples stood around him, he got up and entered the city. The next day he went away with Barnabas to Derbe.
Translator’s Notes — vv. 19–20:
v.19: The reversal is staggering. The same crowd that tried to worship Paul as a god now stones him and leaves him for dead. The swing from adulation to murder takes a single verse. Jews from Pisidian Antioch (over 100 miles away) and Iconium (roughly 18 miles) have traveled to Lystra specifically to oppose Paul — the hostility is organized and persistent, not spontaneous. They “won over the crowds” (πείσαντες τοὺς ὄχλους, peisantes tous ochlous, “having persuaded the crowds”) — the same crowd that could not be persuaded to stop sacrificing now accepts persuasion to kill. The volatility of the Lystran populace is the point: a crowd that swings between worship and murder is a crowd that does not understand what has happened in its midst.
v.19: Paul is stoned — the Jewish method of execution for blasphemy. He is dragged outside the city (following the Mosaic requirement that executions take place outside the camp, Leviticus 24:14) and left for dead. Paul will later include this in his catalog of sufferings: “Once I was stoned” (2 Corinthians 11:25). He also writes to the Galatians (the very churches he is planting on this journey): “I bear on my body the marks of Jesus” (Galatians 6:17). The scars from the Lystran stoning were likely among those marks.
v.20: “But while the disciples stood around him, he got up.” The understatement is extraordinary. Paul has been stoned to the point that the mob believes he is dead. His body has been dragged outside the city and abandoned. The new converts gather around him — presumably mourning. And he gets up. Luke does not call it a miracle, but the scene has a resurrection quality: Paul is left for dead and rises. Whether this was a miraculous recovery or an extraordinary natural resilience, the symbolic resonance is clear: the preacher who proclaimed the resurrection of Jesus now enacts a kind of resurrection himself. And the next sentence is even more extraordinary: “The next day he went away with Barnabas to Derbe.” He does not rest, recuperate, or retreat to safety. He walks 60 miles to the next city and continues preaching. The commission from 9:16 (“I will show him how much he must suffer”) is being fulfilled, and suffering does not stop the mission.
Derbe and the Return Journey
21 After they had preached the gospel to that city and had made many disciples, they returned to Lystra and to Iconium and to Antioch,
22 strengthening the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to continue in the faith, and saying, “Through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God.”
23 When they had appointed elders for them in every church, having prayed with fasting, they commended them to the Lord in whom they had believed.
24 They passed through Pisidia and came into Pamphylia.
25 When they had spoken the word in Perga, they went down to Attalia.
26 From there they sailed to Antioch, from which they had been commended to the grace of God for the work that they had accomplished.
27 When they had arrived and gathered the church together, they began to report all things that God had done with them and how he had opened a door of faith to the Gentiles.
28 And they spent a long time with the disciples.
Translator’s Notes — vv. 21–28:
v.21: The ministry at Derbe is summarized briefly but positively: they preached and made “many disciples” (μαθητεύσαντες ἱκανούς, mathēteusantes hikanous). Derbe, the easternmost point of the journey, was near the border of the Roman province of Galatia. From here, Paul and Barnabas could have continued east to Tarsus (Paul’s hometown) and returned to Syrian Antioch by a shorter route. Instead, they choose to retrace their steps — back through Lystra (where Paul was stoned), Iconium (where they were nearly stoned), and Pisidian Antioch (where they were expelled). They return to the places of greatest danger to strengthen the churches they planted. This is not missionary tourism; it is pastoral commitment. The churches matter more than the missionaries’ safety.
διὰ πολλῶν θλίψεων δεῖ ἡμᾶς εἰσελθεῖν εἰς τὴν βασιλείαν τοῦ θεοῦ (dia pollōn thlipseōn dei hēmas eiselthein eis tēn basileian tou theou) — v.22: “Through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God.” This is one of the most important pastoral statements in Acts. The word δεῖ (dei, “must,” “it is necessary”) is the word of divine necessity that runs through Luke-Acts. Tribulation is not an accident or a detour; it is the road. Paul does not promise the new converts comfort, prosperity, or safety. He tells them the truth: the path to the kingdom runs through suffering. This is not defeatism; it is realism grounded in the experience of the man who just got up from a stoning and kept walking. Paul teaches what he has lived. His battered body standing before them is the illustration of his message.
χειροτονήσαντες ... πρεσβυτέρους (cheirotonēsantes ... presbyterous) — v.23: “When they had appointed elders for them in every church” — the verb χειροτονέω (cheirotonēō) originally meant “to stretch out the hand,” indicating election by show of hands, though by this period it could mean simply “to appoint.” The appointment of elders (πρεσβύτεροι, presbyteroi) in each church establishes local leadership. These are brand-new churches, only weeks or months old, and Paul entrusts them to local leaders rather than remaining to govern them himself. The model is replication, not dependency. Each church is given its own structure and then “commended to the Lord” (παρέθεντο τῷ κυρίῳ, parethento tō kyriō) — entrusted to Christ’s care through prayer and fasting. Paul trusts the Lord more than he trusts organizational control.
v.26: They sail back to Syrian Antioch, “from which they had been commended to the grace of God for the work that they had accomplished.” The journey has come full circle. The ring structure is complete: commissioned from Antioch (13:1–3), returning to Antioch (14:26). The mission was the Spirit’s work (13:2, 4), and the report will credit God: “all things that God had done with them” (v.27).
θύραν πίστεως (thyran pisteōs) — v.27: “How he had opened a door of faith to the Gentiles” — the metaphor of the “door” (θύρα, thyra) is one Paul uses elsewhere (1 Corinthians 16:9, 2 Corinthians 2:12, Colossians 4:3). The door of faith (πίστεως, pisteōs) is a door that opens into faith, or a door that faith opens. Either way, the image is of access: what was closed is now open. The Gentiles who had no access to the covenant community now have an open door. And the one who opened it is God: “He had opened” (ἤνοιξεν, ēnoixen). The missionaries did not open the door; they walked through the door God opened.
v.28: “They spent a long time with the disciples.” The first missionary journey is over. Paul and Barnabas rest in Antioch, the community that sent them, the church where they had taught for a year before departing (11:26). The journey has taken them through Cyprus, Pisidian Antioch, Iconium, Lystra, and Derbe. They have been worshipped as gods and stoned as criminals. They have planted churches in four cities, appointed elders in each, and returned to report that God has opened a door to the Gentiles. The “work” (ἔργον, ergon) to which they were called (13:2) has been accomplished. The rest in Antioch will be brief: the question of Gentile inclusion is about to explode into the Jerusalem Council in chapter 15.
General Notes on the Chapter
Acts 14 completes the first missionary journey and establishes the pattern that will characterize all of Paul’s subsequent missions. The pattern has four elements: (1) enter the synagogue first; (2) when the synagogue divides, continue ministry among those who believe; (3) face opposition that escalates to violence; (4) move on to the next city and repeat. The pattern is not a strategy Paul chose; it is the pattern the gospel creates when it encounters a world divided between acceptance and rejection. The same message that produces joy in some produces rage in others. Paul’s genius is not that he avoids opposition but that he keeps moving through it.
The Lystra episode (vv.8–20) is one of the most theologically rich scenes in Acts because it presents the gospel encountering a purely pagan worldview. At Pisidian Antioch and Iconium, Paul preached in synagogues to people who shared his Scriptures and his God. At Lystra, he confronts a population whose categories are Zeus and Hermes, whose instinct in the face of a miracle is to offer animal sacrifice, and whose emotional range swings from worship to murder in a single day. The challenge is fundamental: how do you preach the gospel to people who have no biblical framework whatsoever? Paul’s answer (vv.15–17) is to start with creation and providence — the universal evidence of God available to all cultures. He meets the Lystrans where they are, not where he wishes they were. This is the beginning of the contextual preaching that will reach its fullest expression at Athens (chapter 17).
The stoning and recovery of Paul (vv.19–20) is narrated with characteristic Lukan restraint, but the implications are enormous. Paul has now experienced what Stephen experienced (7:58–60) and what Jesus promised (9:16). The persecutor who supervised Stephen’s stoning has been stoned himself. The transformation is complete — not just from persecutor to preacher, but from the one who inflicted suffering to the one who bears it. And his response to being stoned is to get up, walk to the next city, and keep preaching. This is not bravery in the conventional sense; it is the lived conviction that the gospel is worth more than physical safety. Paul’s body, bruised and scarred from the stones of Lystra, is the physical evidence of his theology: “through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God.”
The return journey (vv.21–23) reveals Paul’s pastoral priorities. He could have gone home safely by an eastern route. Instead, he retraces his steps through the cities where he was persecuted, because the new churches need strengthening. His message to them is unflinching: suffering is not optional. His method is structural: he appoints elders in every church, establishing local leadership so the communities can survive without the missionaries’ presence. And his final act is to commend them to the Lord through prayer and fasting. Paul plants churches and then trusts God with them. The combination of practical structure (elders) and spiritual dependence (prayer) is the template for Pauline church planting: organize what you can, and entrust the rest to the one who called you.
The report to Antioch (vv.27–28) frames the entire journey as God’s work, not theirs. Paul and Barnabas report “all things that God had done with them” — not what they had accomplished, but what God had accomplished through them. The “door of faith” has been opened to the Gentiles. The implications of that open door will now demand resolution: if Gentiles are entering the church through faith alone, without circumcision or the Law, what does that mean for the identity of the people of God? The Jerusalem Council in chapter 15 will answer that question. The first missionary journey has created the crisis that the church must now address.