But there was more. Jews from Antioch and Ico'nium came down
and having persuaded the people, they stoned Paul and dragged him out of the
city. They supposed he was dead, but when the disciples gathered around him, he
rose up and entered the city again. Next day he went on with Barnabas to Derbe.
They had preached the gospel to that city and having made many disciples, they
returned to Lystra and to Ico'nium and to Antioch, strengthening the life of
the disciples, exhorting them to persist in the faith, telling them that it is
through many hardships that we enter the kingdom of God. They appointed elders
for them in every church, and with prayer and fasting they committed them to
the Lord in whom they believed.
In a Nutshell
Luke tells us that the Jewish enemies of Paul and Barnabas stirred up the crowd and Paul was stoned, his body dragged outside city limits. But he had not died. And they continued on in the work.
Questions
Think about the dangers faced by young churches. Would they last? How?
The Lystrans were pagan idol-worshippers. Paul called upon them to worship the One true God, the God of Israel who raised Jesus from the grave. But then, Luke tells us, Paul was stoned. Did the Lystrans lose respect for Paul and Barnabas after they refused to be Hermes and Zeus? Is that why they stoned him? No. Luke says something else. The Lystrans did not turn on Paul and Barnabas because of their religious views. Something else happened. Something shocking. The Jewish enemies of Paul and Barnabas came to town, stirring the pagan crowd to murder. We don't hear what happened to Barnabas.
On Cyprus the synagogues had been compromised by a magical craft. In Pisidian Antioch the Jews had stirred up the high-status women and the eminent men among the Gentiles and as a result the entire community, not just the synagogue, was split. It seems they were fanatically opposed to the Christian proclamation. "These Jews" were so far gone from the Law of God that they willingly conspired with idol worshippers in murderous schemes. We have been told they were fired by jealousy. They tried to suspend God's Law, but God's Spirit thwarted them.
This must have been a very sad time for Jewish believers. Think what it meant for them that fellow Jews placed their identity before everything else. Those accepting Jesus as Messiah could not do that. He demanded undivided devotion. Led by God's Spirit, they rejected the idea that Jewish customs had priority for all believers. Jesus insisted that His disciples count the cost. All of life, everything, including one's ethnicity, is in the service of God's Kingdom. Only the Messiah can have precedence. That is what He said. "If anyone would come after me let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me." Some suggest Paul's understanding of how this related to Rome became clearer and clearer as the years passed. They suggest that his letter to the Romans is a challenge to the Caesar cult which was on the rise throughout the Empire. The worship of God was the true alternative. Jesus indicated that He alone is the way to the true worship of God Almighty, the Lord of Israel, the Heavenly Father. To compromise on that is idolatrous. Jesus used a figure from Roman execution to describe the choice before His disciples. But then, Rome was only an Empire. Jesus is God's Messiah.