Acts 14:8-18: Paul in Lystra

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1)     Three Short Intro Notes

A)   cf. Iconium vs Lystra

1)     14:1-4 – Iconium

(a)   It is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world.

(i)    Today, more than 2 million people live there.

(b)   Highly cosmopolitan, influential commercial city.

(c)   Established Jewish population

2)     14:5-20 – Lystra

(a)   Completely disappeared from the map for centuries, and there is nothing there today.

(b)   More rural

(i)    They spoke the Lycaonian dialect (14:11). They were less integrated into the rest of the world.

(ii)  Roman writers like Pliny confirm that while Iconium was administratively grouped with Lycaonia by the Romans, culturally and linguistically its people stubbornly identified as Phrygian for centuries. (Gemini)

(c)   There is no mention of a synagogue.

3)     If Paul’s sermon in Pisidian Antioch was his first sermon in the synagogue (and the core of his Gospel message), then what he says in Lystra is his first sermon to a group of Gentiles with no known Jews present.

B)    cf. The lame man (3:1-10 / 14:8-11)

1)     Same or similar

(a)   “lame from his mother’s womb”

(b)   “Peter directed his gaze at him” / “looking intently at him, [Paul]…”

(c)   “Rise up and walk” / “Stand upright on your feet”

(d)   “Leaping up, he stood and began to walk” / “He sprang up and began to walk”

(e)   “They were filled with wonder…at what had happened” / “They lifted up their voices”

2)     POINT: God is doing the same things and offering the same salvation to Gentiles that he offered to Jews in Jerusalem.

(a)   15:12

C)   There is a hilarious misunderstanding that happens in Lystra.

1)     vv. 11-12

2)     Their reaction was not random.

(a)   There was a Roman poet named Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso, 43 BC - AD 17) who wrote a book called Metamorphoses.[1]

(b)   In one section, he tells a story about Jupiter and Mercury, who were the Roman versions of Zeus (the king of all the gods) and Hermes (the spokesman for all the gods, and the god of eloquence and speech).

(c)   Jupiter and Mercury disguise themselves as tired travelers and stop at a city to see what’s going on. They knock on 1000 doors and nobody pays any attention to them except for a very poor, old couple, named Philemon and Baucis.

(d)   This couple welcomes the travelers into their home and feeds with the little that they have, so the gods reveal themselves to the couple and tell them to follow them up a mountain. When they get to the top they turn around and the gods have flooded and killed everyone in the city.

(e)   They turn the old couple’s house into a temple with a golden roof and they tell them that they will give them anything they way. The couple says, “We want to be priests in your temple, and we want to die at the same time, so we don’t have to live without each other.”

3)     So the country people in Lystra grew up with their parents telling them this story at bedtime to try to teach you to be nice to strangers, and then two ragged travelers come into town and miraculously heal a lame man, and one looks like the leader and the other is doing all the talking.

(a)   Reaction: “Oh no! They’re back!”

(b)   vv. 11-13

4)     vv. 14-15. This is where it gets really funny.

(a)   I assume that they were not speaking the same language.

(b)   The people are trying to be nice to the gods so they don’t get mad and kill the whole town.

(c)   And then “the gods” get really upset and start tearing their clothes and yelling at everybody.

(d)   All the people were like, “We’re all gonna die today.”

(e)   It’s kind of like the meme about what a deaf person must think when a person is yawning on an airplane. It’s just a total misunderstanding.

2)     vv. 15-17 – Paul’s sermon

A)   v. 15 – “We also are men, of like nature with you”

1)     First, don’t worship us or anybody (cf. Acts 10:25-26)

2)     This applies to angels too (Rev. 22:8-9)

3)     POINT: We are all people made in the image of God. Don’t elevate people. Elevate God.

B)    v. 15 – “We bring you good news that you should turn from these vain things to a living God”

1)     What is the good news?

2)     That we can turn.

(a)   Same word: Acts 3:19; 9:35; 11:21

(b)   You’re not stuck in some kind of hopeless situation (family, habits, culture).

(c)   They can change their orientation and direction in life.

3)     From vain things to a living God.

(a)   Jer. 10:1-15 – Good summary

(b)   You have the option of turning from a way of life that is empty, futile, and hopeless to something that is real, and that matters in the big picture.

4)     To the Creator of all things.

(a)   David Peterson – “Instead of beginning with the gospel about the saving work of Jesus, they recognised the need to start further back in their presentation of biblical revelation to this audience.”

(b)   This is interesting to me that Paul started here because this is where a lot of modern Evidences are going to start also.

(i)    The Cosmological Argument: Nothing comes from nothing.

(ii)  The Teleological Argument and Fine Tuning. An argument from design.

(iii)          POINT: There is a Creator, and that’s who we’re talking about.

5)     1 Thess. 1:8-10 – This is what the Thessalonians did

C)   v. 16 – “In past generations he allowed all the nations to walk in their own ways.”

1)     This does NOT mean that God accepted their ways of life because it’s what they wanted to do.

(a)   This was one of my favorite ways to teach my kids about bad behavior. When they arched their backs and tried to throw themselves away from me, I would let them go.

2)     It means that if humanity is going to choose to reject God and go completely bonkers and walk off the cliff – He’s going to let you go!

(a)   Rom. 1:18-32 – “God gave them up” (3x)

3)     v. 17 – “Yet he did not leave himself without witness…”

(a)   Acts 17:26-28 – Seek and you shall find, knock and the door will be opened.

4)     How can we see him?

(a)   “…for he did good by giving you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, satisfying your hearts with good and gladness.”

(b)   Rom. 1:19-20 says that we can know God through his invisible attributes, eternal power, and divine nature.

(c)   Acts 14:17 says even more than this. We can know God by his goodness.

(i)    Rains and seasons

(a)   Gen. 8:21-22 – I’ll give you rain without flooding the entire world, and there will be consistency and predictability in the way the world operates.

(b)   Remember that this group of people were likely worshiping Barnabas and Paul because they were afraid that if they didn’t then they might flood the whole city and kill everybody again.

(ii)  He satisfies your hearts with food and gladness.

(iii)          Ps. 145:15-16; 147:7-11

(d)   Put yourself in the shoes of one of the pagans in Lystra. Their idea of the gods was transactional. If you sacrifice to them and bribe them, then maybe they’ll not kill you and give you peace. Paul comes to town and tells them about a God who has already been providing food and gladness for them completely out of his own good nature before the people even knew who he was.

5)     David Peterson – “The expression in the past hints at a new situation in which Jesus Christ brings redemption for Jews and Gentiles alike…”

D)   Summary of the good news

1)     You can turn way from a dead, empty and futile life to a life of service to the true and living God who is the Creator of all things.

2)     And this God is a good God who gives you rain and food and happiness even before you offer him a single thing.

3)     David Peterson – “What we have here is not evangelism in the normal NT sense of proclaiming Christ and his saving work. However, it is a biblical foundation for evangelism in a culture where fundamental presuppositions about God and nature and the meaning of human existence need to be challenged.”

4)     John Stott – “We need to learn from Paul’s flexibility. We have no liberty to edit the heart of the good news of Jesus Christ. Nor is there ever any need to do so. But we have to begin where people are, to find a point of contact with them. With secularized people today this might be what constitutes authentic humanness, the universal quest for transcendence, the hunger for love and community, the search for freedom, or the longing for personal significance. Wherever we begin, however, we shall end with Jesus Christ, who is himself the good news, and who alone can fulfil all human aspirations.”

(a)   Others

(b)   Objective morality and our fairness instinct.

(c)   Redemption. In cancel culture, you are dead forever. In Christianity, there is forgiveness.

[1] https://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Latin/Metamorph8.php#anchor_Toc64106506