Acts 14
Read: Acts 14
Starting in verse eight, we have a peculiar story about Paul and Barnabas visiting the people of Lystra. There is a man who had been lame all of his life who listened to Paul and because of his faith, he was healed. When this happened the crowds were naturally amazed! Who could do such a thing like this? They had a few options to consider… It could have all been a coincidence, but that seemed unlikely. There could be a higher power at work, and I think they realized that. Or there could be some supernatural ability that Paul and Barnabas had. The people of Lystra ended up combining the last two options. They concluded that Paul and Barnabas were the higher power at work and seek to worship them and make sacrifices to them.
It is amazing that people are always looking for something to worship other than the one true God. It is sad that people are always giving credit to much lesser things because of their blindness to see God’s hand at work. When faced with a trial in our lives, we often pray to God (whether we believe in him or not). Then when he answers us, we try to rationalize the answered prayer because we can’t make logical sense of it (See Acts 12).
Something I find interesting about this story is the way it ends. The people of Lystra are trying to sacrifice to Paul and Barnabas. The way these two men react shows a lot about their character. Paul and Barnabas were not ministering to these people for selfish ambitions. If they were, they would have let them make the sacrifice. Instead they wanted to point all glory to God. This threw the people into a great confusion. So much so that the Jews from Antioch and Iconium were able to win over the crowd and stone Paul. What a drastic contrast… The people tried to worship him and then quickly changed to trying to murder him!
In verse 22, the disciples were taught that “it is necessary to go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God.” What this means is that following God will not always be the most enjoyable experience. Some people won’t understand you or wrongly assume things about you. Others will despise you and attempt to bring you down. This doesn’t even take into account the powers in the heavenly realms that are against us. We must constantly be on guard and make sure that we keep reminding ourselves that the message of Christ is worth anything we could possibly face in this world. And no matter what we face, we have hope that one day we will no longer experience those hardships because Christ will do away with them in the end.
