You pick up your Bible and wonder, is there more here than meets the eye?
Is there anything here for me? I mean, it's just words printed on paper, right? Well, it may look like just print on a page, but it's more than ink. Join us for the next half hour as we explore God's Word together, as we learn how to explore it on our own, as we ask God to meet us there in its pages.
Welcome to More Than Ink. Hey, you know, I've noticed that some Christians are thinking wrong about something. Yeah, about what?
Well, they think that when they become Christians, then life is just going to be easy. Oh, but we're reading Acts, and that's clearly not the case at all. No, following Christ is great, but there's going to be opposition, and we're going to see that with Paul today on More Than Ink.
More Than Ink. That's right, here we are. I'm sitting across from the lovely Dorothy. And I'm sitting across from my wonderful husband, Jim. Right, and we sit here at our dining room table, literally, reading the Word together and talking about passages that we love, have come to love over the years, and hope you're coming to love too.
So we're glad you joined us. We're going through the book of Acts, and Acts is a blockbuster, action-packed thing, and we're in one of the biggest action-packed sections of it, right in the middle of Paul's very first missionary journey. He and Barnabas have been sent out, and they're doing it. Yeah, and you know, when you're reading Acts, you need a map and sort of a tour guide. You do. You need somebody to tell you who the characters are and where they are and why they're there.
Yeah, yeah. But suffice it to say, if you don't have that map, we're smack dab in the center of present-day Turkey, the country of Turkey. And they've come up from the southern coast of Turkey.
They got there by boat from Cyprus, and they've walked inland quite a bit, gained elevation 3,000 to 4,000 feet, and they're walking in the high mountains in the center of Turkey. And last week, they got chased out of Iconium. Right, under threat of death, right? They wanted to stone them. They were plots. They would have left them for dead.
Plots, yeah, lethal plots of stoning them going on. So they said, we're out of here. So they left and went further, deeper into Turkey.
Further into the mountains, yeah. So they went over to Lystra. So that's where we are today. So if you're following with us, we're in chapter 14 of Acts and verse 8, and we step foot in Lystra. And maybe things, you know, maybe things won't be as contentious as they were last time in Iconium. Let's just hope that's the case.
Well we know that along their way, the Holy Spirit had been granting signs and wonders and miracles at their hands. And so this passage opens with one. And it actually has a very familiar pattern to it. It does. So we better read it. Let's see what happens.
And then comment about that. Lystra. So here we are in chapter 14 of Acts, starting in verse 8. Now at Lystra, there was a man sitting who could not use his feet.
He was crippled from birth and had never walked. He listened to Paul speaking. And Paul, looking intently at him and seeing that he had faith to be made well, said in a loud voice, stand upright on your feet. And he sprang up and began walking. And when the crowd saw what Paul had done, they lifted up their voices saying in Lycaonian, the gods have come down to us in the likeness of men. Barnabas they called Zeus and Paul Hermes because he was the chief speaker.
And the priest of Zeus, whose temple was in the entrance to the city, brought oxen and garlands to the gates and wanted to offer sacrifice to the crowds. Okay, we better stop. We better stop there. Suddenly we're out of control here. This is getting crazy. This is getting crazy.
This is getting crazy. So they get to Lystra and the first thing they do is they heal a crippled man. Well, Paul apparently is just watching and he fixed his eyes on this guy and it says he saw that he had faith to be made well. So that's some kind of riveting eye contact there.
That's fascinating. And I'll point out as well, Paul is famous later on in his writings for saying that faith comes by hearing. By hearing. So he had been. And he says in verse nine, he listened to Paul speaking and then Paul saw he had faith. So something he heard.
And I'll just make an obvious observation about that. The faith we talk about from a Christian, from a biblical perspective, is founded on something that's concrete. It's not just wishful thinking. And so his faith is founded on what he heard Paul say and he believed it and he embraced it. And now he has faith.
Right. Faith always rests on evidence. God never asks us for blind faith. Not blind faith. He gives us evidence on which to rest our faith. Yeah, and faith in secular culture gets a bad rap for that.
That's right. And that this is just not the case right here. So in fact, the root of faith, not to beat this too much, but the root word of faith, it comes really out of the courtroom. It means to be persuaded. Like you heard witness testimony and you're persuaded. And I've come to believe that that's the truth. And you're persuaded about something, an event that you couldn't see, you didn't see, you could not have ever seen, but you're persuaded it's true based on what you hear.
It's the same thing. And based on what we know Paul had preached in the previous cities, he probably has been saying, Messiah came and the lame walked and the blind saw and the deaf heard and he's claiming the things that Jesus did that validated his ministry. So what strikes me about this account though is it's very parallel to one concerning Peter back in chapter three. That's totally right. And Peter, again, fixes his eyes on a guy who had been listening and tells him, I don't have any silver and gold, but here's what I've got in the name of Jesus Christ, get up and walk.
Yeah. And he does. And boy, that causes a stir. Well, it does, because that happens actually right at the gates to the temple. So that's back in Acts three. You can go back and review that. We've been there.
That was a crazy time too. But the whole idea of the lame being able to leap up and walk, that was a recognized sign of Messiah's work. Yes, yes.
There's a famous passage in Isaiah 35 that says that, that the lame will walk and the blind will see and the deaf will hear. Yep, yep. Because these are impossible things, especially this guy. He doesn't just have a sprained ankle from hiking leap before.
Right. He has never walked. Never, never walked.
So that's a whole different, you know, can of worms. You know, talking about someone who's never even been on their feet and here he is walking. Okay. So apparently there's a crowd that sees it because all of a sudden everybody around lift up their voices and start saying, the gods have come down to us in the likeness of men. Right. Well, funny thing, I mean that actually is a little kernel of what Paul was preaching, right? Mm-hmm.
The Son of God has come in the likeness of a man. Right. But this is totally perverted in the wrong direction.
This is completely pagan. Yeah, exactly. And then, you know, that was Greek mythology and it was borrowed by the Romans too is that the gods, even though they're detached and powerful and away from us, periodically they come and do cameo appearances in the flesh. So that's what they think is going on here right now.
And I might point out, it says they were saying these things in Lyconian, which probably Paul and Barnabas did not understand. Okay. Oh, in the other language.
In the other language. Yeah. Oh, you're right. And the reason I say that is because it looks like they're taking a little off guard by this entire thing because it's not until the guy comes up with his oxen before they realize what's going on. And garlands like they're going to sacrifice. Yeah.
Yeah. So, I mean, they're like, what are they saying? What are they saying? Oh, these guys are resistant Hermes. And I don't think they understood what these guys were saying, but I'll tell you, when that priest of Zeus comes up, they're going, okay, wait, wait, wait, wait.
Oh, we got an ox here and some flowers, right? Wrong direction. Wrong direction here. Well, you know, that might be right because in verse 14 it says when the apostles Barnabas and Paul heard it or heard of it. So somebody has translated for them and they understand what it said.
Someone heard of it and says, they probably said, what's this guy saying and why are these oxen here? Right. They think you're Zeus and Hermes. Well, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
We need to fix this. That's why he changes everything in 15. So let's pick up reading in verse 14. When the apostles Barnabas and Saul heard of it, they tore their garments and rushed out into the crowd crying out, men, why are you doing these things? We also are men of like nature with you and we bring you good news that you should turn from these vain things to a living God who made the heavens and the earth and the sea and all that is in them. In past generations, he allowed all the nations to walk in their own ways, yet he did not leave himself without witness for he did good by giving you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness. Even with these words, they scarcely restrained the people from offering sacrifice to them.
Couldn't slow these guys down. Wow. But I like the fact that Paul, if you look at what he just said from 15 to 17, he doesn't appeal to Old Testament scriptures. He appeals to a pagan ideas because in a sense, what you were saying before is sort of right. We're talking about an issue of a living God who's come in the flesh, that's Jesus, right?
But he says, but let me tell you, we're talking about someone you've never conceived of before. This is a living God and that living means active and engaged. Right. And the God who made everything.
Yeah. And he made heaven and earth and the sea and everything that's in them. None of the gods were given that much power, a little bit from Zeus. They made different parts of stuff, but they represent, Paul and Barnabas represent the God who made everything.
This is the top dog, the guy in charge of everything. And he says in 16, he's been a little patient with generations, he's let them kind of do their own thing, but it wasn't that they did not have a testimony. It wasn't like they didn't understand. And this is an argument Paul comes back to in Romans one.
That's right. I was just thinking that. People who haven't heard, well, they're without excuse. Why?
17 here. Because they've seen the witness of creation. What's going on? I mean, he did good giving you rains from heaven. Yes. Yes. Fruitful seasons.
Yes. The same God. The same God. The same God gives you rain and fruit.
And satisfying your hearts with food and gladness. So this same God who created the universe has been actively involved, blessing your crops and giving you rain and sunshine. This is the God I'm talking about. This is the living God who's engaged with you right now.
And you should know about this God based on what you see in nature. So somehow they talked him out of offering sacrifice. So yeah.
I think when you get to the end of 18 we were just looking at it. I'm sure they still don't quite get it yet. Yeah.
Maybe not. Because it says they scarcely restrained them from offering sacrifice. Maybe they talked about the sacrifice, but they still really hadn't gotten the message across. Right.
And so if I was writing this, I would talk about the fact. I would say like we did last time, they decided, well, with that kind of misunderstanding and conflict they decided to stay longer and really dive into this. But as we turn the page into verse 19, they don't really get a chance. Well, you have a feeling that there were people after them on the road all this time. Because in verse 19 it says, But Jews came from Antioch and Iconium and having persuaded the crowds, they stoned Paul and dragged him out of the city supposing that he was dead. Which was their intent.
Well, sure. Well, you know, these guys didn't, they must have been following them. They must have been because, yeah, because Paul's in his opening stuff and all of a sudden, because it said they came into the city and all of this Zeus and Hermes stuff came up and then all of a sudden these guys are right behind them. But what's fascinating, this just isn't the guys from Iconium, which is where we were previously. Clear from Antioch. Antioch and Iconium, right, that is, wow, Antioch, I mean, that's over 100 miles away. So they've gathered up ahead of steam.
Yes. Like, we don't want this guy in our region. Yeah, and in fact, it implies the fact that the guys from Antioch were on the road even while Paul came into Iconium and then they met up with the irate people in Iconium and then kept going further. Like a lynch mob. So it's like a lynch mob. Yeah, it's a lynch mob that's been on the road for days. And so they drag him out of the city and they stone him. And like I said before last time, stoning is remarkably effective in killing people.
Well they've presumed that he's dead because they've left him. So they drag him out of the city, yeah, yeah. That's pretty amazing to me.
Yeah, it really is. And you know, Paul, later on when he writes his second letter to Corinth, he describes all the stuff he's gone through, all these sufferings that we said before he's going to go through. So in 2 Corinthians 11, he says, you know, five times I received at the hands of the Jews, the forty lashes less one, and three times I was beaten with rods, and once I was stoned. So the lashing and the beating with rods, those would have been official synagogue punishments. Right, so that would have been some kind of a court thing happened. Exactly.
But the stoning was like a lynch, like lynching. Once I was stoned, and where was that? Right here.
Right here in Lystra. Yeah. So let's see what happens next, because in verse 20, it says, but when the disciples gathered about him, he rose up and entered the city. And on the next day, he went on with Barnabas to Derby.
Well, that's amazing. I'm just intrigued by that, that here they've stoned him and left him laying there dead. But the disciples, plural, right, the believers, the new believers, gather around him and he rises up. And he rises up. And he doesn't leave the city.
No. He enters the city. He goes back in the city. Remember, they dragged him out. Although the next day is as he leaves. But they dragged him out, because they figured he was dead, and when he rises up, he walks back in.
He walks back in. So I don't know, I'm just intrigued by that, that something is taking place here when the disciples are gathered around him. Are they praying? Are they ministering to him in some way? Are they talking to each other, well, what do we do now? They've killed him.
And he just gets up. We just don't have enough detail. Or are they going to witness a miracle they hadn't anticipated or seen? And that's possible. Yeah. Well, it's some kind of miracle. Yeah.
Well, yeah, at some level. And there's speculation about whether he was actually killed or not. We don't know. We don't know.
Yeah. Because it doesn't say they stoned him and he was dead. But the way he says it in 2 Corinthians, when he says, I was stoned, it strongly implies it was fatal. So yeah, it's a miracle that happens. He walks back in, basically to collect up Barnabas and whoever else is coming with him. And then they go on the next day to Derby.
You can't imagine that he was in any kind of condition to travel. No. You wouldn't think so.
So this is miraculous. Yeah, yeah. So he's on to Derby, which again is deeper still into the mountainous region in central Turkey. They're going forward. They're not going back. They're not going back. They're not quitting. When they go to Derby. Yeah, they're going forward. So I'll read from 21.
Okay. So when they had preached the gospel to that city, talking about Derby, and had many disciples, they returned to Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch. So he's unwinding. He's going back now. He's going back to all the places that threw him out in the first place.
That takes some guts. Always makes me wonder whether he ran into those same mobs he was going back. No. Because he could have been too far behind him, right?
I don't know. That's just amazing to me. Of course, there would have only been one route back to the coast. There's the one road.
Yeah, I looked at that years ago. There's really only one route. So you got to backtrack. But still.
Backtrack into two towns that were demonstrated hostile. Right. That's significant. Yeah. But when he went through those hostile towns, it doesn't say he sneaked through and tried to hide.
No. Look what he did. What did he do in 22?
He strengthened the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to continue in the faith and saying, well, through many tribulations, we must enter the kingdom of God. Well, that's an understatement right there. Oh my goodness. Yeah.
That's crazy. And then he goes forward with establishing these churches and making sure that they know who they are. Because in verse 23 it says, and when they had appointed elders for them in every church with prayer and fasting, they committed them to the Lord in whom they had believed. So Paul isn't just talking to people. He's actually establishing communities of churches through all this.
Right. And he wants to make sure that he leaves someone who's on top of things, elders, which is fascinating because these guys have been Christians for a short amount of time. But there's something about them that Paul looks and says, you know, you need to be here serving the people that are here.
God's called you in a particular way. Well, and something about them was apparent in terms of their care for the whole body. Right. Their oversight. Right.
Because as an elder is an overseer, a shepherd, well, an under shepherd, I guess, under the Lord. Yeah. And, you know, when Paul, his largest concern is strengthening their souls because they've observed what has happened to him and they're like, oh, is that going to happen to me too? Yeah. Right. Yeah. It's very likely in the cities that they are they're going to go exactly down the same kind of path that Paul did in terms of the pushback. So it's required of him to encourage them to continue in the faith and say, look, this is part and parcel of what you signed up for.
Yeah. And that set me thinking of, you know, what Jesus told the original 12 there in the night before he died in John 15, verse 18 says, if the world hates you, you know, it's hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own, but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you, a slave is not greater than his master.
If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. And here's Paul walking it out saying, you know, you need to expect this. Right. Right.
But there's a great, there's a great personal testimony to the fact that God takes us through those things. Because if you think about this for a second, the Antioch and Iconium guys come in behind Paul into Lystra. They kill Paul. They think they've killed Paul. Then they leave town ahead of him and go back to Iconium and Antioch.
Now what would happen when they go back to their towns? Oh, they say, well, he's gone. He's gone. We took care of him. They say, how'd that go? Well, we went there and we killed him and we dragged him out, we dragged his dead body out of the city. He's dead.
Okay. And they tell people that in Iconium and then later in Antioch. I never thought about that. And then boom, boom, boom, boom. Here's Paul walking into town. Sort of looks like a resurrection of sorts. And if that news in Iconium and Antioch got to the Christians who had become Christians because he was coming through, they'd be all depressed and saying, oh, no, man, they killed Paul and we believed what he was saying. And then boom, there comes Paul walking into town. So it makes sense that he would not only encourage them to stay in the faith, in the face of all that, and it has great weight when he says you're going to go through many tribulations. But then he says that you're going to have to go through those as you're entering the kingdom of God. So there he is as a living testimony to the fact that God knows what's going on and God can take care of you. So it's almost like they're seeing another resurrection when this guy comes into town. That's powerful. And the guys in Antioch, it might have been close to a week that they were there before Paul showed up, at least half a week.
And so they're spreading the news that ha, ha, ha, we got the high hand. We killed him. He's dead. We dragged his body.
And then when he comes through town, jaws just go slack and they can't believe what they're seeing. And it's interesting, there is no renewed conflict at that point, which I don't think I would approach Paul at that point because I think, look, we killed him. Maybe we shouldn't mess with this guy anymore.
Maybe. So I mean the whole drama of the thing, I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall to see this return to these towns. The other thing to consider is that he's coming back and meeting with the churches. He's no longer raising a ruckus in the synagogue. Right.
He's coming back and his concern is for those new baby churches full of new believers. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. That's exactly right. And I might emphasize, too, even though in 23, even though he appointed elders, which is the right thing to do, Paul did that a lot, in fact. And even when Paul writes Timothy and Titus both, who he's training to do this very thing in new communities, he tells them what the requirements for the elders are.
So this is a really big deal. This is the polity. This is the government of the church being done here. But it's interesting at the end of 23, he doesn't say that Paul then committed them to the elders.
No. He committed them to the Lord. In whom they had believed.
In whom they had believed. Yeah. So Paul even here is stating the fact that, you know, they're coming to the Lord is the doing of the Lord and they're staying with the Lord and they're being cared for by the Lord. And he is able to care for them. And he can care for them and then he leaves town and goes somewhere else.
It's really a great scene. Wow. Well, we need to wrap up this last section. Okay.
Shall I read them? Verse 24. Verse 24. Then they passed through Pisidia and came to Pamphylia. Now that's downhill, all the way back to the coast.
Going downhill. And when they had spoken the word in Perga, they went down to Italia where they sailed to Antioch. Oh, from there they sailed to Antioch where they had been commended to the grace of God for the work that they had fulfilled. And when they arrived and gathered the church together, they declared all that God had done with them and how he had opened the door of faith to the Gentiles and they remained no little time with the disciples. Yay. End of the first missionary journey.
I love this, right? They come back from where they had been commended to the grace of God for the work that they had fulfilled. So when I first read that, I'm thinking, oh, does that mean being commended to the grace of God for the work means, by definition, there will be suffering? Yes. Yes.
I think so, too. Right. Yeah.
And it doesn't mean that you cannot fulfill the work. Mm-hmm. Right. Right. That they had fulfilled. Right. So they completed the journey and they came back.
They did what they went to do. Yeah. Which was sow the word among these Gentile people in all these remote regions. Yeah. Yeah. Which is really, like I say, that's a brand new thought to most of the believers at the time, how open the gospel is going to be to Gentiles.
Well, and I'm not sure that actively traveling from town to town to gain proselytes for your religion was a thing that was done. I think this was a whole new thing. No, I don't think so.
That's what I think, too. I think this was a brand new thing. So when they left Antioch, which, by the way, that's the one in Syria. Right. Present day. They're back where they started.
Turkey. Yeah. They came back. When they left there and they headed off into Gentile land, I mean, who knows what was going to happen?
Right. They left to go into Cyprus and then up into Turkey. It's like, ah, yeah, I don't know. And they come back and say, well, we fulfilled what we were supposed to do. And interestingly enough, he says, it's amazing that God had opened a door of faith to the Gentiles. God opened this.
And they've walked through it. And so you could tell stories about that. Well, because the Spirit had said to them at the very beginning, set Paul and Barnabas aside for the work that I've called them to.
So they knew there was a specific assignment from God. Right. And they had to walk through it. Right. And they came to a point where he said, well, we're at the end of the road. It's time to go home. It's time to go home. We've done what we went out to do. It's time to rest.
It's 28. They remained no little time with the disciples. They settled down and took a breath. We need to take a breath. Because there is a second journey that's going to show up pretty soon. But in between, it's important for us to realize that God wants us to rest in between his assignments.
I have another strange twisted drama thing in this. When they left Antioch, they left Paul and Barnabas and John Mark. Right. Now John Mark did not go back to Antioch. He went down to Jerusalem.
So I always want to chuckle. He went home. Exactly. He went back to Mommy. So I chuckle about the fact that on the boat they come in to Antioch and they say, hey, look who's back. Oh, no. Where's John Mark?
Oh, surely word would have traveled. I don't know. I don't know. Because there's a lot of going back and forth between the two. And three of these guys left and two of these guys came back. It's like, oh, no.
How bad was it? Oh, that's pretty interesting. I hadn't thought about that.
That's just my drama mind working. Because John Mark did not come back with them. And I wondered if they, of course they explained that probably. But that wasn't the central topic of discussion when they got back to Antioch. The people in Antioch, after they had so clearly set these two guys apart, three guys apart by the Holy Spirit, they wanted to see how that went. And when they came back, they said, you won't believe this. God opened a wide door for the Gentiles, and many of them walked through that invitation.
I think it's just a great picture. The ones the Lord had appointed for salvation. The ones that the Lord had appointed came to faith in Christ. So you know, golly, that just makes me realize God laid out the map. God had gone ahead and appointed ones to become believers. And he said, you guys need to go and bring that work to completion. And it's the work that I'm doing, but you're called, go do it.
It's just wonderful when you have a sense of call or have a clear call from the Lord to know God has already gone ahead. The assignment is clear. Yeah.
And it's not haphazard. Now I might say as we're kind of closing up here, I'd mentioned this before, but a very famous guy in the New Testament comes from Lystra. Now he wasn't mentioned in this first visit to Lystra, but when we go back to Lystra and Paul will go back to Lystra, he'll show up again. And the guy that lived in Lystra, I wonder how much of the Lystra events he saw. And the guy I'm talking about is Timothy. Timothy came from Lystra.
And by the time Paul comes back to Lystra, he's a disciple. So we'll see that. So next time the whole conflicts with the Gentiles is going to continue to brew and they're going to have to go down to Jerusalem to help in a discussion about circumcision. And so come back next time as we talk about that here on More Than Ink. There are many more episodes of this broadcast to be found at our website, morethanink.org. And while you're there, take a moment to drop us a note. Remember the Bible is God's love letter to you. Pick it up and read it for yourself and you will discover that the words printed there are indeed more than ink. This has been a production of Main Street Church of Brigham City.
