Lystra. Lystra, 25 miles SW. of Iconium, 10 miles off the trade route, in a secluded glen. Lystra and Derbe were the two cities of the Lycaonian region of Galatia; Roman influence was strong there, and Lystra was a Roman colony.
The cure of a lame man in connexion with the preaching leads to serious consequences. The incident reminds us forcibly of Acts 3:2-8; in both cases the lameness is congenital, and the man leaps. In this case, however, faith plays the part it does in the Gospels; it is awakened apparently by Paul's preaching. Of the language of Lycaonia nothing is now known; the mention of it is like a mist over the whole story. It is not asserted that Paul and Barnabas understood that language; but we know that Greek was currently spoken in the district. The recognition of the missionaries as divine beings (cf. Acts 28:6) and the preparations for sacrifice could, it is true, be understood apart from the language, but not the identification of them with special deities. [*] Barnabas appears to have been the more imposing figure, Paul to have been the speaker of the party. For a description of Paul, see the Acts of Paul and Thecla, which perhaps originated at Iconium (cf. p. 768).
[*] The association of the two gods Zeus and Hermes was familiar in the region around Lystra, see Ramsay, The Bearing of Recent Discovery, pp. 47ff. A. J. G.1
Acts 14:13. Jupiter. before the city: it was usual for the temple of Jupiter to be outside the town; discovery has not yet found such a temple at Lystra. The priest prepares a sacrifice, and brings forward the victims with their wreaths, probably at the gates of the temple, where the crowd follows. The apostles are in the town, but on hearing what is on foot they rush out to hinder the sacrilege. The speech which follows contains the germ of the speech before the Areopagus (Acts 17:22 ff.), in which the main ideas of it are further worked out. It is (in the words of Paul, 1 Thessalonians 1:9) an appeal to abandon idolatry, and turn to the living God. This is the message with which the preachers, evidently human beings (James 5:17), have come to Lystra. The idea of God's longsuffering (Acts 14:16) is found in Romans 2:4; Romans 3:25, and is in Paul's speech at Athens, as is the idea that God leaves not Himself without a witness, though the witness here is found, as in OT and in Stoic thought, in the unfailing liberality of nature, not in the human desire for God.
Acts 14:18. The sacrifice is stopped, but the stay of the missionaries at Lystra soon comes to an end. The Jews of Antioch and Iconium grudge them their success and wreak their hatred on Paul, not apparently on Barnabas, by the Jewish method of stoning (cf. 2 Corinthians 11:25), a case of mob law in the streets of a Roman military colony. The changes of popular mood at Lystra are sudden, and the whole section (Acts 14:8-18) is not free from suspicion; Acts 14:19 reads quite well after Acts 14:7; and Acts 14:8-18 is possibly from a Barnabas source.
Acts 14:20. Derbe: a few miles from Lystra, Lycaonian by population, and belonging to the province of Galatia. No persecution takes place here.