Acts 14:16Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Paul says that God permitted it, but he does not yet say why He permitted it. For the moment he dwells on what is most necessary, without even mentioning the name of Christ.

It is said, “He permitted.” But why He permitted this, the Apostle does not yet say. He dwells chiefly on what was urgently necessary, and nowhere yet mentions the name of Christ.

When the preachers of the Gospel learned of this, they were filled with grief. With torn garments they rushed into the crowd to stop their mad attempt. “What are you doing?” Paul said to them. “We are men like you. We have come here to turn you from these worthless idols to the living God, the almighty Cause of all being. Though until now He left men to their own will, so that they might learn how little they can do by their own powers, He never left them without witness to Himself. He sent them everything needed for sustenance and delight.”

The apostles' stay in Lystra was marked, among other things, by the healing of a man lame from birth. Yet this great work of God, performed by the Apostle Paul in the name of Jesus Christ, produced a sad misunderstanding among the pagan inhabitants of the city. It gave rise to the thought that the wonderworkers were gods who had appeared in human form. They wanted to offer sacrifices to Paul and Barnabas, so that the apostles barely succeeded in convincing these foolish zealots of their error. Afterward the apostles preached the word of God there unhindered for some time. But Jews who came from Antioch of Pisidia succeeded in stirring up the population against the apostles even there. This disturbance was so violent that Paul was stoned and dragged outside the city, since they thought he was dead. Therefore, on the next day, he had to leave that city and go to Derbe.

Here it is related how the inhabitants of Lystra, seeing the miracle of the healing of the lame man, took Barnabas and Paul for gods and wished to offer sacrifice to them. Hearing of this, the Apostles rushed into the crowd, saying, “What are you doing? We also are men of like nature with you.” Yet while persuading the inhabitants of Lystra not to sacrifice to them or consider them gods, the Apostles do not forbid us to honor their memory, glorify their struggles, and ask their prayers before the Lord.

Thus, little by little, after compelling the crowd to heed their exhortations, they explained that in past generations God, as it were, permitted all nations to walk in their own ways. He did not give them special revelations. Yet even in those days He did not cease to bear witness to Himself by benefactions, giving them from heaven “rains and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness.”

This preaching about the conversion of the Gentiles to the living God itself implies that their way of life until now has been false. From that way they must turn to the true way. Why is that way false? Because the living God, in accordance with the wise plans of His governance of the world and redemption of all mankind, chose one people from all nations, the Hebrew people. He chose them for special preparation to receive the Messiah, so that they might walk the right and true path, the path of revelation. In past generations He permitted all nations except the Hebrews to walk in their own ways, and not by the path of direct revelation from God. The apostle's speech does not directly say that these ways are false ways. Yet let the one who has understanding understand. Why God permitted this is also not said. Later the great apostle of the Gentiles revealed this (Rom 11:13-36).

Dwelling on the religious condition of his hearers, the Apostle Paul explains God's providential relation to them. Long ago He permitted the nations to come to God by their own ways, that is, by ways they had devised for themselves. Yet He continued to give them rains, the tempering of the air, and the fruitfulness of the earth, which gives food and joy. The apostle spoke neither rebuke nor approval, as he later did in Athens. But he clearly showed that the Gentiles had their own ways to God, and that God had never left them without His own witness. This means that they are not rejected by God even now. Yet the form of service to God that they wished to perform before the apostles, by slaughtering a calf adorned with garlands, could in no way be accepted or approved. "See," says St.