Acts 13:51Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Here at last they fulfilled that dread commandment which Christ had given: "If anyone will not receive you or listen to your words, when you leave that house or city, shake off the dust from your feet" (Mt 10:14). Yet they did not do this immediately, but only after they had been driven out by them.

"But they shook off the dust from their feet against them." They did this not without cause, but because they had been driven out by the Jews.

According to the Gospel commandment, the dust is shaken from the feet as a testimony to labor (cf. Mt 10:14), for they had entered their city, and the apostolic preaching had touched those Antiochians. Or the dust is shaken off so that they might receive nothing, not even what is customary for life, from those who rejected the Gospel.

Thus Barnabas and Paul, together with the believing Gentiles, left the synagogue and chose another place for the assembly of believers and of those expressing a desire to believe. From there Christianity spread throughout the whole surrounding area. But the Jews succeeded in stirring up the most distinguished inhabitants of the city against them through proselyte women. Through the women's influence on their husbands, they raised an open persecution against Paul and Barnabas, so that they were forced to leave the city.

From Paphos Paul and his companions sailed to the peninsula of Asia Minor and came to Perga in Pamphylia. John Mark returned from there to Jerusalem, while Paul, with his other companions, continued the journey and went deeper into the interior regions of Asia Minor. He came to Antioch of Pisidia.

Here the preaching of the Apostle Paul concerning Christ made a powerful impression on the inhabitants of the city and turned many Jews and Gentiles to Christ.

Yet the majority of the Jews remained deaf to the apostles’ preaching. They even stirred up a disturbance against Paul and Barnabas and drove them out of the city.

Therefore the apostles went on farther, shaking off the dust from their feet against them, according to Christ’s commandment (Mt 10:14).

But the Jews were powerful in the city, where they held all trade in their hands. Therefore they even managed to have the Roman authorities take their side. The apostles had to withdraw from Antioch and set out for the city of Iconium. There they could rest from the distress they had endured, because the authority of the Roman propraetor no longer extended there. The disciples whom they left in Antioch "were filled with joy and the Holy Spirit."

"Having shaken off the dust from their feet": according to the commandment of Christ (Mt 10:14), as a sign of the breaking of all communion with them, because of their hostility to the teaching of Christ and about Christ. "They went to Iconium": southeast of Pisidian Antioch, a densely populated city at that time. It was reckoned now to Pisidia, now to Lycaonia, and now to Phrygia.

The apostles’ parting from the unbelieving Pisidians is significant. Fulfilling the Lord’s commandment (see Mt 10:14), they shook the dust from their feet as a sign that they wished to receive nothing from them. Therefore they returned to them even the dust that might have been carried away on their sandals.

The shaking off of dust could also signify the ending of all relations because of their great hostility toward the teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ.