Acts 14:19-23 meaning

Paul and Barnabas are preaching the gospel in Lystra, a city in the ancient Roman province of Galatia, now modern-day Turkey. After healing a lame man, Paul and Barnabas found themselves mistaken for Greek gods by the Lystrians, who wanted to sacrifice bulls to them because of the miracle. Paul and Barnabas, with great difficulty, prevented this sacrifice from taking place. 

In the following verse, Luke, the author of Acts, writes a shocking, awful turn of events in plain, concise language:

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 (v. 19).

The Jews who came from Pisidian Antioch and Iconium were doubtless members of the groups who opposed Paul and Barnabas in each city. 

In Pisidian Antioch, Paul and Barnabas had preached the gospel to great effect; many Jews, Gentile proselytes, and pagan Greeks were believing in Jesus (Acts 13:43, 48-49). But some Jews, with the support of influential women and men in the city, began a persecution against Paul and Barnabas. The persecution was successful. Paul and Barnabas were driven out of Pisidian Antioch (Acts 13:45, 50). 

The missionaries had then proceeded to Iconium, and there too they found success in leading many local Jews and Gentiles to faith in Jesus. But some of the Jews of Iconium had also stirred up hatred in their neighbors and city leaders, and plotted to stone Paul and Barnabas (Acts 14:2, 5). Paul and Barnabas heard of the plot and departed from Iconium, bringing them to their current location of Lystra. 

Apparently now some of the Jews from Pisidian Antioch journeyed to Iconium and joined forces with the Jews there. They shared a common hatred of these traveling preachers who taught about faith in Jesus the Messiah. This mob followed Paul and Barnabas to Lystra. 

After arriving, they somehow won over the crowds to their side. Perhaps because the crowds of Lystra had been denied their desire to sacrifice bulls to Paul and Barnabas, they were easily persuaded then to turn on Paul and Barnabas for speaking out against their gods and preventing a pagan celebration (vs. 15-18). 

With the majority of Lystrians on their side, this coalition of hostile Jews at last got their wish. They seized Paul, and they stoned Paul. They had just recently wanted to sacrifice to Paul as a god, now they wanted to stone him. They threw rocks at him until he fell, and dragged him out of the city of Lystra. They apparently abandoned his body somewhere, perhaps in a nearby rubbish heap or a ditch, supposing him to be dead. 

They thought they had killed him with their stones, and well they might have. Stoning was a brutal, effective way to end someone’s life. One stone to the head can kill even the strongest of men (1 Samuel 17:49). It could be that Jesus raised Paul from death. At the least, it would seem God healed him of severe injuries. 

Paul now had suffered physically for the sake of the gospel of Jesus. It will not be the last time (2 Corinthians 11:25-27). In this instance, he had suffered to the point where his persecutors thought they had slain him. 

Perhaps he should have and would have died, but the Lord intervened and sustained his life despite the trauma his body endured. Perhaps he did die and Jesus raised him. Luke does not say, but the fact of the matter was that even though the enemies of Paul had stoned him to the point where they thought he was dead, he was not dead. They abandoned his body somewhere outside the walls of Lystra. 

But the believers in Jesus, probably led by Barnabas who had somehow escaped the stoning, went and found Paul’s body where it lay. After they gathered around him, most likely thinking him dead and mourning him, Paul opened his eyes, and stood up: 

But while the disciples stood around him, he got up and entered the city (v. 20). 

Not only was Paul not dead, he boldly returned to the city of Lystra. The Lystrian people who had formerly tried to sacrifice to him for performing a miracle had now stoned and left him for dead. But he is now standing in their midst, creating another profound testimony of God’s power. However, it does not appear the people believed, as he departed soon after to preach the gospel elsewhere: The next day he went away with Barnabas to Derbe (v. 20). 

In one sense, it is reasonable that Paul and Barnabas left Lystra to preach in Derbe. A mob of enemies had followed them all the way from Pisidian Antioch to Lystra, a journey of some 120 miles. They had killed or nearly killed Paul. But there are details here that hint that Paul and Barnabas were not defeated by the attack on Paul. 

The fact that Paul got up and entered the city of Lystra where he had just been stoned earlier that day would have been astonishing to the Lystrians. Not only was this man—who they thought they saw stoned to death—still alive, but he came back to the place where the attempt on his life happened, and remained there until the next day. 

Paul spent another night in Lystra. And after preaching in Derbe, Luke writes that Paul and Barnabas returned to Lystra (v. 24). Luke does not comment any further on Paul’s stoning, nor his continued time spent in Lystra, despite this probably shocking the Lystrians. We can suppose, but cannot know, that the fact that Paul was not dead may have given Paul a reputation that protected him thereafter in the city. 

The Lystrians had already seen him heal a man who was born lame, and had mistakenly thought he was the god Hermes. Now they had participated in his attempted murder by stoning him, and he walked back into the city and did not leave until the following day. 

It is not difficult to imagine the pagan Lystrians realizing that this man was protected by God or the gods. Perhaps they did not do further harm to him because he seemingly could not be killed. And it would be a mistake to further persecute a man who healed the lame and survived his own stoning. 

The fact that Paul got up on his own, and walks all the way to Derbe the following day, shows that he was still able to walk without assistance, and had not suffered any debilitating injury from his stoning. Again, this is inferred; the text does not say any of this directly. It seems likely that he was permanently scarred from this assault. 

In the conclusion of his letter to the Galatians, Paul mentions that he bears brand-marks of Jesus on his body, like a slave who has a symbol or initials burned into his skin to show who he belongs to. Paul may be referencing the scars he wears from that stoning, physical evidence of his devotion to Jesus, or from any of the many beatings and floggings he endured throughout his ministry (2 Corinthians 11:24-25)

But there is a strong case to be made that Galatians was one of Paul’s earliest letters, and it is possible that one of the churches receiving it was the church in Lystra (which is in Galatia). Paul may have been reminding the Lystrians of this event when he signed the Galatian letter. He urges the Galatians to walk in the Spirit and not follow teachers who have misled them. He closes with: 

“From now on let no one cause trouble for me, for I bear on my body the brand-marks of Jesus” (Galatians 6:17). 

The subtext of his statement may have been something like, “You have troubled me by following these false teachers—follow them no more. I have already suffered in Galatia; you saw my enemies stone me and know the scars on my body because of it, for Jesus’s sake.” 

Scars or not, there is a strong suggestion that Paul was strengthened by God so that he could immediately continue teaching the gospel without lasting damage. 

Here, it seems that it was God’s hand that preserved Paul’s health. Anyone who survived a stoning would be expected to need a period of time to recover, and would typically suffer a permanent brain injury—but Paul stood up and carried on, walking back into the city in defiance of his persecutors, and then afterward walking the 60 miles (a three-day journey) to Derbe. This was miraculous. 

Derbe was a city near the eastern edge of the province of Galatia (now part of modern-day Turkey).

Luke summarizes Paul and Barnabas’s ministry in Derbe as being without incident, as well as their return journey, where they retrace their steps through all the cities in which they had preached the gospel:

After they had preached the gospel to that city, Derbe, and had made many disciples (many of the Derbeans believed in Christ and became followers of His teachings), Paul and Barnabas returned to Lystra and to Iconium and to Antioch (v. 21). 

This return journey would add up to approximately 180 miles from Derbe back to Pisidian Antioch.

The threat from the Jews who sought to kill them seems to have disintegrated, perhaps because Paul survived his stoning. His reemergence in Lystra after they dragged his supposed-corpse out of the city may have sent a shockwave of fear and hesitance through those who formerly tried to destroy this man.

In each city, Paul and Barnabas were 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” (v. 22). That they would endure tribulations had already proved true. The community of believers in Lystra knew it firsthand, having witnessed Paul’s stoning and survival.

Surely the disciples in Iconium and Pisidian Antioch would have heard of Paul’s stoning; it is possible that some of those who had participated in the attempted murder had returned home and boasted of what they had done. Then Paul (very much alive) returning to both Iconium and Pisidian Antioch may have caused the same stir as his return in Lystra. It would be a shock to those who wanted him dead and a relief to those who believed in Jesus from his teaching. 

As new believers in Jesus, the Galatians in these cities would have been horrified to hear that the man who brought them to faith had been murdered a few towns over. It likely would have both strengthened and encouraged them to see him return to them alive and preaching the same gospel, undeterred. 

In any case, Paul and Barnabas were helping foster the continual spiritual growth in the faith in the souls of these new disciples (“followers, learners”) of Jesus. When believers first come to faith in Christ, we are born anew spiritually, we are given new life, we receive the Holy Spirit, and we are declared righteous in the sight of God (Romans 5:1, 6:4-6, 1 Corinthians 6:19-20). This is the gift of eternal life. 

Then, as children of God we are called to continue in faith, that we might gain the reward and experience of eternal life. This is a theme of many of Paul’s letters to the churches he had planted. Most of Paul’s writings are aimed at encouraging believers in Jesus to continue in faith. In Romans 1, in what could be considered the theme verse of Romans, Paul writes to them to continue to walk in faith, that they might experience the righteousness of God in their daily walk,

“For in [the gospel] the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, ‘But the righteous man shall live by faith.’”
(Romans 1:17)

Our lives as disciples of Jesus require a daily choice to trust God’s ways are for our best, and to follow the Spirit rather than the sinful desires of our flesh. God calls us to walk in faith through depending on Him rather than upon religious rituals (Galatians 3:2-3). 

In so many of the letters in the New Testament written by Paul and the other apostles, there is a theme of encouragement, because many believers in the early church were facing many tribulations, and some were giving up (Hebrews 2:1, 10:23-25). 

Paul would eventually write a letter to the Galatian churches because they were being led astray by men who were motivated to avoid tribulations by succumbing to religious pressure, “simply so that they will not be persecuted for the cross of Christ” (Galatians 6:12). 

But Paul and Barnabas are up front with these new communities of believers, that “Through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God.” Being saved from eternal separation from God comes only through faith in Jesus the Messiah; the simple faith like that of the dying Israelites in the wilderness who were offered the choice to look on Moses’s raised bronze serpent and believe it would heal them (John 3:14-15). But we, as Christ-followers in a world that hates Christ, will face many tribulations if we follow Jesus’s commands (John 15:18-19). 

To enter the kingdom of God refers to receiving the reward of the inheritance of the kingdom (Colossians 3:23, Matthew 19:23). A picture of this can be found in Matthew 8. There Jesus painted a word picture of “sons of the kingdom” who would not enter in to the reward banquet of the kingdom of heaven, but Gentiles who showed great faith would be seated at the head table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Matthew 8:11-12). For more on the kingdom of God, see our commentaries on Matthew 25:31-46, Matthew 8:5-13 and our article “The Kingdom of God.”

While he is not mentioned in this chapter, Timothy, Paul’s future protégé, is from Lystra or Derbe. He will join Paul in his ministry when Paul returns to Galatia a couple of years later (Acts 16:1). Timothy became well known and well-liked by the believers of Lystra and Iconium in the years between Paul’s visit, and possibly became a believer due to Paul and Barnabas’s first mission trip to this region. 

He may have witnessed the events of this chapter, the attempted sacrifice and the stoning of Paul. Timothy was someone Paul considered his “true child in the faith” and would eventually become a pastor of the church in Ephesus (1 Timothy 1:2-3). Paul would later write two letters to Timothy which are preserved in the New Testament (1 Timothy, 2 Timothy).

Paul and Barnabas help organize leadership for each assembly of believers in each city:
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 (v. 23).

They appointed elders, older men of good reputation, to lead the believers in every church. This is the first reference to elders being appointed to lead a Christian church, though there were elders in Jerusalem mentioned in Acts 11:30. In that passage, Paul and Barnabas delivered charitable donations from Syrian Antioch to the elders of the Jerusalem church, to prepare for a famine.

Paul and Barnabas decided who to appoint as elders over these Galatian churches after having prayed with fasting, seeking God’s will while dedicating their time to communing with Him, talking with Him, asking for His guidance, and temporarily setting aside earthly concerns like eating. This follows the example of Jesus, who prayed all night prior to selecting the twelve disciples He named as apostles (Luke 6:12-13). 

Years later, in a letter, Paul instructed his fellow worker Titus to appoint elders in the church of Crete, and outlined qualifications for the office (Titus 1:5-9). The Greek word translated as elders is “presbyteros.” This word applies to those of an older age as well as leaders of a community. “Presbyteros” is used in scripture to refer to Jewish elders who were community leaders (as in Mark 14:53, Luke 7:3, Acts 4:5). 

After making the decision of who should be appointed, Paul and Barnabas commended them [the believers in every church] to the Lord in whom they had believed, because they were leaving that region for the foreseeable future. Here the Lord refers to Jesus Christ, who is also Lord of all (Acts 2:36). 

So Paul and Barnabas hand off each church in Derbe, Lystra, Iconium, and Pisidian Antioch to the newly appointed elders to lead them when they gather together. In doing this, they are trusting the Lord to watch over His new followers. 

In this, Paul and Barnabas reflect the self-governance pattern directed in scripture. When God set up the nation of Israel, He designed it to be self-governing, under the rule of law, with no king but Himself (1 Samuel 8:7). These new Christian churches are also set up as self-governing bodies, with a plurality of leaders who are accountable to God. Peter calls elders to shepherd their flocks well, noting that they will give an account to the Chief Shepherd, who is Jesus (1 Peter 5:1-4).