Acts 14:18Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

For this reason they were still more worthy of wonder. Do you see that their whole concern was to stop this madness?

[...] and He did not cease to bear witness to Himself, because in every generation He did such works as guided men toward truth. Without forcing free will, the Lord allowed all men to walk according to their own judgment. Yet He Himself constantly performed works from which they, as rational beings, could perceive the Creator. The Apostle calls even the yearly rains His witnesses.

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.

“They scarcely restrained them,” and so forth. The passions of the people had been stirred so strongly, and their conviction was so firm, that they had gods, not men, before their eyes.

The uprising against Paul and his stoning show how frivolous the Lystrans were, and how cruel the Jews were who pursued the apostles at every step. It also shows the shameless persistence and falsehood with which they armed themselves against them.

Clearly they understood what danger Christianity posed to their influence over the people, and to their own convictions, rites, and way of life. Thinking Paul had been killed by the shower of stones, they cast him outside the city as a despised public criminal.

But the almighty Lord raised him up, and he who was thought dead soon revived. Thus all the devices of his many enemies were wondrously overthrown. This precious vessel of the Church of God was still needed by her. And behold, he remains preserved by God.