Acts 14:8-20

    In Lystra there sat a man crippled in his feet, who was lame from birth and had never walked. He listened to Paul as he was speaking. Paul looked directly at him, saw that he had faith to be healed and called out, "Stand up on your feet!" At that, the man jumped up and began to walk.

 

    When the crowd saw what Paul had done, they shouted in the Lycaonian language, "The gods have come down to us in human form!" Barnabas they called Zeus, and Paul they called Hermes because he was the chief speaker. The priest of Zeus, whose temple was just outside the city, brought bulls and wreaths to the city gates because he and the crowd wanted to offer sacrifices to them.

 

    But when the apostles Barnabas and Paul heard of this, they tore their clothes and rushed out into the crowd, shouting: "Men, why are you doing this? We too are only men, human like you. We are bringing you good news, telling you to turn from these worthless things to the living God, who made heaven and earth and sea and everything in them. In the past, he let all nations go their own way. Yet he has not left himself without testimony: He has shown kindness by giving you rain from heaven and crops in their seasons; he provides you with plenty of food and fills your hearts with joy." Even with these words, they had difficulty keeping the crowd from sacrificing to them.

 

    Then some Jews came from Antioch and Iconium and won the crowd over. They stoned Paul and dragged him outside the city, thinking he was dead. But after the disciples had gathered around him, he got up and went back into the city. The next day he and Barnabas left for Derbe.

 

This really happened!

 

A man crippled from birth had never walked, but he paid attention to what Paul was saying. Paul saw that he had faith to be saved. The word can be translated either saved or healed, and because of what follows, the translators chose “healed,” but I think it is important to realize that these two concepts flow together in one word here.

 

All of us who believe in Jesus Christ have faith to be saved/healed. Our hope is that this Jesus who reconciles us to the Father will come again one day and restore our bodies to full life – if we’re dead, that He’ll raise us to perfect life; if we’re alive, that He’ll take away our bodies of weakness and sickness to replace them with bodies of perfect health and indestructibility. In other words, one day all of us will see our faith rewarded even more spectacularly than this crippled man’s body was healed. When Paul called out that he should stand up, he went from a weak body that couldn’t walk to a weak body that could walk. When Jesus comes again and commands us to be healed, we will go from a weak body that gets sick and dies to a perfect body that can’t get sick and will never die. What Paul saw in this man was probably the same faith that he would see in any person who wanted to put his faith in Christ to be saved. This crippled man believed that Jesus could heal him; he may not have expected it until Christ’s coming, but when Paul saw his faith he extended some of Christ’s health to him early as a foretaste to everyone of what is coming for us all!

 

But back to the text. After Paul had demonstrated that God’s power is real and that we can really depend on Him to restore us at Christ’s coming if we will just put our faith in Him, the people totally perverted the interpretation of what they had just witnessed. Rather than believing in Jesus, they believed in Paul and Barnabas! And rather than believing in Jesus, they decided that Paul and Barnabas were manifestations of their own gods – the very gods Paul was denouncing as he told them that Jesus is the one and only Lord of the universe! If anyone knew how to proclaim the gospel clearly, it was Paul – yet they still missed the message. How sad, and yet how comforting for us when people misunderstand the gospel today. It’s not a new phenomenon, and while we could wish to communicate the gospel more clearly, people’s misunderstanding often demonstrates just how twisted and sinful they are – how much they really do need Jesus!

 

When the gospel gets twisted, we should do as Paul and Barnabas did: We should re-double our efforts, get out into the crowd, and urgently clarify the truth that no one is God and Lord but Jesus Christ! We should say as Paul and Barnabas said, that even when people refuse to recognize Jesus as the true God, He is trying to point them to Himself by providing for their needs day in and day out. There is far more, though, that God wants to do for men than just to meet our day-to-day food needs; He offers much more hope than any man or any other so-called “god” can offer – God offers salvation from our sins and a relationship forever with Him, the true and living, good, all-powerful Creator of the universe!

 

But people are really trapped in their sins, as we ourselves were before Christ saved us. Paul and Barnabas had a hard time, even with their extra efforts, keeping the crowd from offering sacrifices to them… and they were the last people on earth who wanted to be honored as gods! What a vivid picture of sin’s grip on sinners!

 

I don’t know whether this happened in a matter of minutes or of days, though I’m inclined to think it took days – the text isn’t clear. But the city of Lystra changed gears. It went from exalting Paul and Barnabas as gods to hating them, spurred on by Jews from other cities who hated Paul and Barnabas and their message. And there in Lystra the people stoned Paul to the point where they thought he was dead, leaving him outside the city. Satan doesn’t care whether sinners love or hate Jesus’ followers, so long as they don’t understand that Jesus is Lord and the only hope of life.

 

God was gracious to Paul. He had been left for dead, but after the disciples gathered around him (probably praying fervently), he got up and walked into the city. He and Barnabas moved on to Derbe, though, the very next day.

 

Father, there’s so much to see here! We will all one day be healed far more completely than this crippled man was – thank You! But we really are in messed up world dominated by Satan’s lies – break through our blindness and our neighbors’ blindness so that we can see Jesus for who He is! In the midst of discouraging situations, help us to trust in You and work our tails off to clear up people’s misunderstandings about You. Give us patience and perseverance and life when we get beat down. Everything in here screams that we need You. Help us, Father. Help us. Make it clear how great You are.