And the priest of Jupiter who was before the city, having brought bulls and garlands to the gates, would have done sacrifice along with the crowds.
At Lystra an amazing miracle has just been done. The crowd has decided that gods have come down in human form, and now the priest of Zeus arrives with oxen and garlands, ready to sacrifice. It raises two questions. Why did a real work of God end in worship aimed at the wrong object? And what should a servant of God do when the honour lands on him?
Some translations call this god Jupiter; the name in the Greek text is Zeus. He was the chief god of Greek and Roman worship.
Zeus. Supreme god of Greece and Rome, though the religious ideas of the two nations were quite different. At Lystra the pagan inhabitants thought that Barnabas was Jupiter in human form.
Two things explain how fast it all moved: an old story about gods visiting that region, and a temple standing right outside the city.
It was all the more natural that pagans should draw the conclusion the Lycaonians drew. A little while before, a Latin poet (Ovid) of the age of Augustus had spread a legend. It said that these very gods had once been received as guests in a part of Asia Minor... The scene is set before us vividly, as usual. There is the crowd, and the priest of Zeus, whose temple, or statue, stood before the city. The oxen and garlands are all brought ready to the gates — probably the gates of the house or courtyard where the apostles were staying.
The miracle should have made the people listen. Instead they organised a ceremony, and one writer notes the inconsistency.
An amazing miracle of this kind should certainly have drawn people's attention to the message that Paul brought. But Satan cleverly used it to deceive the superstitious residents of the city. They took up the idolatrous idea that Paul and Barnabas were gods come down in human form. Rather than listening to them, they wanted to worship them... If these men really were gods, why were they not quiet, wanting to listen to them? An idolatrous priest of Jupiter is ready at once to offer sacrifices to them.
The priest, the animals and the garlands were ready before anyone asked for them. The human heart resists holiness, yet it never stops making something to bow to.
By nature the same heart is deeply set against holiness and at the same time built for religious observance. Man has an inborn, settled sense that he is not enough in himself. That sense makes him unable to stand simply independent of some power mightier than himself. A god, in some shape, is a natural necessity of man. His natural desire, in his first falling away from truth, is a god after his own heart.
The two men refused the honour on the spot. Their reaction was physical, and the message they put in its place did not start with salvation.
The priest of Jupiter wants to offer sacrifice along with the people. The apostles, Barnabas and Paul, are grieved at heart when they see what the people intend. Far from wanting any honour for themselves, they tear their clothes and run in among the crowd to stop them. They announce the one true God — not, here, salvation.
The garlands are gone; the offer of honour to a preacher is not. One writer names where it still lands — the applause of religious people.
No doubt the enemy was lurking behind this, but the grace of God gave the apostles power to act as they did. There is so much of this kind of idolizing today. Men who claim to be servants of the Lord seek and love the honour and praise of men. It is too obvious to need saying. Seeking honour from men and delighting in the applause of the "religious world" is a deadly thing. It dishonours Christ, to whom all honour and glory belong.
The crowd did not stay in that mood for long, and one writer turns the reversal into a warning.
At Lystra we see how fickle the crowd is. They soon stone the man they would at first have worshipped as a god. Men will idolize you, perhaps; for God has lost His place with them, and it is easily given to another. They will destroy their idol just as easily.
- Ready-made honour. A temple stood outside the city, and a legend was already going around. So oxen and garlands reached the gates the moment the crowd made up its mind.
- Honour misdirected. The miracle should have won them as listeners. Instead it won them as worshippers of the wrong object, and they never listened to the message.
- Honour explained. The heart that avoids holiness is still built for religious observance. Man needs a god of some kind, and he prefers one made to his own taste.
- Honour refused. The apostles were grieved, not flattered. They tore their clothes, ran into the crowd, and pointed people to the one true God.
- Honour reversed. The crowd that would have sacrificed to Paul soon stoned him. Whoever takes the crowd's worship has also taken its stones.
But the apostles Barnabas and Paul, having heard [it], rent their garments, and rushed out to the crowd, crying
The crowd at Lystra had just watched a lame man walk, and drew the wrong conclusion: the gods had come down. Two preachers then tore their own clothes to stop the crowd worshipping them.
The healing should have made the crowd listen to the message. Instead they stared at the messengers. One writer points to who stood behind that switch.
A miracle like this ought to have drawn people's attention to the message Paul brought. But Satan used this to deceive the superstitious people of the city. They took up the idolatrous idea that Paul and Barnabas were gods who had come down in human form. They did not listen. They wanted to worship them, and even named Barnabas Jupiter and Paul Mercury. Mere excitement carries men to foolish lengths. If it was true that these men were gods, why were they not quiet, desiring to listen to them?
Their answer was not only in words. What they did with their clothes made the point too.
Paul and Barnabas wanted nothing to do with that. They used all their powers of persuasion to clear this deception out of the people's minds. They even tore their clothes — hardly what heathen gods would do — and cried out loudly against any worship of themselves.
They may have been resting in their lodgings when the news reached them.
The apostles heard of the plan and stopped it at once. They tore their garments and rushed, or sprang, out — perhaps from the lodgings they had gone back to. Now among the people gathered with the priest and the sacrificial animals, they spoke to them. The homage they declined, and instead of receiving a sacrifice they would teach the crowd.
They refused the honour outright, and still spoke to the people with respect.
On the other hand, Barnabas and Paul rejected this God-dishonouring honour with anger and deep earnestness. (They are named in that order here, in keeping with the place assigned to them.) They sprang forth with garments torn, protesting loudly. Their words were no less uncompromising though courteous.
This refusal was not a one-off. The power was God's, and the honour was never the worker's.
Closely connected with this is a further point. These miracles were kept apart from any honour attached to the persons who performed them. Of course they attested the divine character of their ministry. But they were wholly a testimony to the Living Word, the Lord Jesus Christ, and all He taught... As we have seen, there was no personal relief and no self-advancement. They sought no glory for themselves or for their company. So Paul and Barnabas; Acts 14:14.
The same refusal shows up three times in Scripture.
Cornelius would have worshipped him, but Peter raised him up, saying, "Stand up; I too am a man." Compare this with the anger of Paul and Barnabas when the men of Lystra wanted to offer them sacrifice (Acts 14:14). Compare it also with the words of the angel in Revelation, whom John was ready to worship (Rev. 22:9). These servants knew their place, and what was due to the Lord.
Their refusal points somewhere else too. These men would not take worship. Jesus took it from Thomas.
These were true men. They would not let anyone think that they were more than men. Nor would they, even for a moment, accept adoration, which was God's alone. These incidents in the lives of His servants teach us by inference that Jesus was God when He accepted the adoration of Thomas. If not, what was He?
The verse calls both men apostles. One writer insists the title carries its full weight here.
It would wrong Paul and Barnabas to rank them as mere messengers of the churches, sent with supplies for poor saints. Scripture calls them "the apostles" twice over — not Paul only but Barnabas also — in the same chapter that records their choice of elders. (See Acts 14:4, 14, 23.)
- Miracle. God's power at Lystra should have sent people to the message. Instead the crowd planned to sacrifice to the messengers.
- Misreading. Excitement carried the crowd to foolish lengths. If these men were gods, why not stay quiet and listen?
- Refusal. Torn clothes and a rush into the crowd were the argument itself: gods do not tear their own garments.
- Redirection. These miracles added no glory to the men who worked them. They testified to Christ alone.
- Result. Peter, these two, and an angel all refused worship. Jesus accepted it — so He is God.
and saying, Men, why do ye these things? *We* also are men of like passions with you, preaching to you to turn from these vanities to the living God, who made the heaven, and the earth, and the sea, and all things in them;
A crowd at Lystra took Paul and Barnabas for gods and brought animals to sacrifice to them. The two men tore their clothes and answered with one of the shortest sermons in the Bible: we are only men, and God made everything.
Twice in Acts, people gave a man the honour that belongs to God alone. Both times he stopped them on the spot. One writer sets those two refusals beside a third scene: Jesus accepting worship from His disciple Thomas.
It is remarkable that the Spirit of God has put it on record. Men offered homage to both Peter and Paul, and both stopped it at once and with force. "Stand up; I too am a man," was Peter's command to Cornelius when that centurion fell at his feet (Acts 10:26). The people of Lystra brought sacrifices to offer to Barnabas and Paul. The two men tore their clothes and ran in among the people, crying out, "Men, why are you doing these things? We also are men, of like nature with you." These were true men. They would not allow anyone to think they were more than men. And they would not accept for a moment adoration that belonged to God alone. These incidents in the lives of His servants teach us, by inference, that Jesus was God when He accepted the adoration of Thomas. If not, what was He?
The protest was not polite embarrassment. One writer weighs both its heat and its manners.
On the other hand, Barnabas and Paul rejected this honour that dishonoured God, with anger and deep earnestness. They sprang forward with torn clothes and loud protest. Their words were courteous, but no less uncompromising.
The word behind "turn" is the ordinary word for conversion, and it has two halves — a leaving and an arriving.
At its root the word means "to turn towards," "to turn round," "to turn about." So when it is applied to people, it includes "turning from" their evil ways and sins, and "turning to" God. An example or two will make this clear. Paul and Barnabas urged the people of Lystra to "turn from these vain things to a living God" (Acts 14:15). Paul's mission was to turn men "from darkness to light" (Acts 26:18). The Thessalonians are said to have "turned to God from idols" (1 Thess. 1:9). In the full sense of Scripture, then, conversion means nothing less than the change from the state of a sinner to that of a Christian.
The title "living God" is itself an argument.
To the living God He directed attention. That speaks of one, and only one, divine Being. There are not two living Gods. Israel's fathers had understood what this title meant. It marked out their God, the Lord Jehovah, as wholly different from the idols of the nations. Such had no life. "They have mouths, but do not speak; eyes, but do not see. They have ears, but do not hear; noses, but do not smell. They have hands, but do not feel; feet, but do not walk" (Psalm 115:5-7).
Paul later opened much the same way in Athens. The Lycaonian crowd at Lystra and the educated Athenians were worlds apart, but their need was the same.
But the witnesses of the Lord Jesus are jealous for a living and true God. They refuse to let a sinful personal influence grow at His expense... In substance it was an appeal much like what Paul afterwards spoke to the Athenians on the Areopagus. How degrading pagan religion is! The ignorant Lycaonian and the refined Athenian needed the same message. They are set to spell the alphabet of creation.
Why were Paul and Barnabas in Lystra at all, and why did Paul preach a God these people had never served?
He and Barnabas had come to Lystra to make Him known, because God wants His creatures to know His mind. That was why they were there. They were to turn from idols and acknowledge the living God... They did not know this God and had never served Him. Yet year after year He was thinking of them, caring for them, and providing for them. No pagan religion would have taught them that. It was new teaching indeed. There Paul stopped. Had he missed a chance to present the gospel? We believe not. He was meeting those ignorant pagans on ground they could all understand.
- Refuse. A true servant hands the glory back. Paul and Barnabas tore their clothes rather than take one moment of the worship owed to God.
- Confess. "We also are men" draws the line. Servants refused worship; the Lord Jesus accepted it, and that tells us who He is.
- Turn. Conversion has two halves in this one verse: turning from the vain things, and turning to the living God.
- Living. Idols have mouths, eyes and hands that do nothing. There is one living God, and He made heaven, earth and sea.
- Begin. With people who know nothing of the Bible, Paul starts at creation and at kindness they have already received. Athens later heard the same alphabet.
who in the past generations suffered all the nations to go in their own ways,
Paul and Barnabas are at Lystra. A crippled man has just been healed, and the crowd is sure that gods have come down in human form. The apostles tear their clothes and rush in to stop the sacrifice. Their answer to that crowd holds a startling summary of world history: for long ages God let the nations go their own way. Was He indifferent to them? And what has changed now?
These words look back a long way. Commentators point to the call of Abraham as the moment the split began.
The call of Abram marks a solemn turning point in the history of the world... God turned away from a world that had abandoned Him and chose one man to become the father of a people. The nations around them served empty lies. This people's own glory was to know and worship the true and only God. Meanwhile He left the other nations to their own dishonoured way. (Acts 14:16)
Paul pays no compliment to the religion he found at Lystra. Look at the gods the crowd wanted to honour.
How different this is from the vileness of a Jupiter or a Mercury — one god given to corruption and self-will, the other given to stealing! Was this the best religion and morality the pagans had, making gods just like themselves? Such a being is certainly not the true God. Who can deny that it was all empty, even in the minds of the most civilized and refined of the Gentiles?
God let the nations go, but He did not abandon them. One writer sets what God gave then beside what He sends now.
Who could deny that in the generations gone by He allowed the nations to go on in their own ways? Yet He had shown active goodness to every land and every age. His generous gifts from heaven cover the otherwise barren earth with every good thing for man's life and heart. So when He now sends the gospel about His Son, is that not fully in keeping with the same goodness?
God's witness leaves people answerable for what they received. One writer turns the usual question about the heathen back on the person asking it.
The Christian world is used to debating what divine justice holds for the poor heathen. God will certainly judge them by the witness they received, the witness through which they could have known Him (Acts 14:15-17). But we never hear the Christian world asking about the fate awaiting itself.
The whole force of the verse lies in its past tense. Those generations ended, and God's dealing with the nations changed.
Here the apostle keeps to one point. God did not bring judgment on those times of terrible and inexcusable ignorance. In His goodness He overlooked the past, and now He calls people to repentance... The rejected Christ has now died as propitiation and has been raised. He Himself marks the change that has come: "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations"; "Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation."
Paul did not use one fixed speech. He matched his opening to the people in front of him.
So at Lystra, among ignorant pagans, we find him speaking of the goodness of the living God in giving men fruitful seasons, filling their hearts with food and gladness (Acts 14:15-17). At Athens, among learned pagans, we hear him insisting on the oneness and supremacy of the Creator... With pagans he felt he had to begin at the very lowest rung of the ladder of truth.
- Left — at the call of Abraham, God chose one family to keep the knowledge of Himself. He let the other nations follow their own dishonoured way.
- Witnessed — leaving was not abandoning. Rain and fruitful seasons carried His witness through every land and age.
- Accountable — God judges people by the light they were given. The harder question is not about the heathen, but about those who have the gospel and neglect it.
- Called — those past generations are over. The risen Christ has sent the message to all nations, and what God once overlooked He now meets with a call to repentance.
- Reached — with ignorant pagans Paul began on the lowest rung of the ladder: creation and daily bread. He fitted his starting point to his hearers.
though indeed he did not leave himself without witness, doing good, and giving to you from heaven rain and fruitful seasons, filling your hearts with food and gladness.
A crowd at Lystra had just mistaken Paul and Barnabas for gods, and the two men answered by pointing to rain, harvests and full tables. How far does daily provision count as a message from God, and what does it leave people answerable for?
Paul had no fixed sermon he repeated everywhere. He shaped what he said to the people in front of him.
What is notable, especially for all those engaged in the work of the Lord, is the variety in the character of the apostolic addresses. There was no such stiffness as we often find in preaching today. What monotony! What sameness of routine, no matter who is listening! In Scripture we find people dealt with as they were, with the appeal to conscience that suited their state. The discourse in the synagogue was founded on the Jewish Scriptures. Here, to these men of Lycaonia, there is no reference to the Old Testament at all. He points plainly to what everyone sees and knows: the heavens above them, the seasons that God has assigned from of old, and the constant supply of good things He provides in nature. Even the hardest heart can hardly miss it.
What Paul told them about God was new, though the evidence had arrived every year of their lives.
They owed the God he preached their rain from heaven, and the fruitful seasons which had so often gladdened their hearts. A God they did not know, and had never served, was thinking of them year after year, caring for them and providing for them. No religion in the heathen world would have taught them that.
That God fills hearts with gladness overturns the whole picture of the gods the Lystrans worshipped.
That the gods are envious of human gladness was the lie and curse of paganism. Not such is He who made the heaven and the earth and the sea, and all that is in them. Who could deny that in past generations He let the nations go their own way? He had shown active goodness to all lands and all times. His generous gifts from heaven cover the otherwise barren earth with every good thing for man's life and heart. So when He sent the gospel concerning His Son, was that not fully in keeping with such goodness?
The witness is not one event but a rhythm.
As Creator and Governor of the universe, God delights to lavish His gifts on people, despite their unworthiness and ingratitude. "The LORD is good to all, and his mercy is over all that he has made" (Ps. 145:9)... The seasons come and go with a regularity that stands as lasting evidence of God's gracious interest in His creatures.
One writer sets this open care beside a hidden way God works.
We may consider the providence of God in two ways. In the first, people have the public spectacle before their eyes every day. This providence is on unmistakable display, as the apostle says here. The second providence is hidden in its ways and purpose. People can only recognise it by its final result.
The gifts had a purpose beyond the enjoyment they brought.
Still His goodness was meant, if it might be so, to lead them to repentance. And it is this goodness of His that the apostle refers to as God's perpetual witness in all times and lands.
When people did not answer that kindness, the fault lay in the human heart, not in a silent God.
He does not tell us that any poor heathen ever felt after God like a blind man groping in the dark. But He does let us know why. If it did not happen, the only cause was the deep-rooted hostility of the human heart towards God. By the abundant expression of His goodness He was drawing him to seek Him. By nature people think God is hard, severe and demanding. Even by His providence He convicts everyone of how wicked and wilful those thoughts are. He is kind to the ungrateful and the evil.
The verse still tests us, down to the meal table.
Has anyone acknowledged His hand? How many homes in this so-called Christian England gave thanks at the meal table today? The old-fashioned "grace" is dying out, in keeping with the growing unbelief of our time. If people fail to own God in His lesser gifts, what is their attitude towards the immense gift of His Son?
- Witness — God has never gone silent. Rain, harvests and full hearts are His testimony in every land and age.
- Goodness — the witness is not power on display but active kindness. It contradicts the idea of gods who resent human happiness.
- Reach — this testimony is public and daily, open to anyone. God's other work stays hidden until its final result.
- Aim — the kindness was meant to lead people to repentance. Where it failed, the fault lay in a heart hostile to God, not in a lack of evidence.
- Response — if we will not thank God for rain and food, His smaller gifts, we are unlikely to value His greatest one, His Son.
And saying these things, they with difficulty kept the crowds from sacrificing to them.
In Lystra, Paul and Barnabas healed a man who had been lame from birth, and the crowd decided that gods had come down as men. A priest came to sacrifice to them, and the word "scarcely" carries the verse: their preaching only just held the crowd back.
A full act of pagan worship was already underway. The two men broke into the middle of it.
The people, astonished by the miracle, call Barnabas Jupiter, and Paul Mercury, because he was the chief speaker. Barnabas (as Mercury was servant to Jupiter) is mentioned first in the narrative. The priest of Jupiter desires to do sacrifice with the people. Barnabas and Paul are distressed in heart when they see what the people intend. Far from wanting any honour for themselves, they tear their clothes, run in among the crowd to stop them, and announce the one true God.
The word "scarcely" measures something in the human heart. One writer sees the same instinct alive in the wider Christian world.
The idolatry of the heart is so deep-rooted that the Lord's servants could hardly stop the crowds from sacrificing to them (v. 18). How awful to think that most of Christendom pays divine honours to men who share the same nature as themselves! ... For the truth that marks this time is oneness — not only one God, but one true Mediator. So the enemy's special attack is not to honour more gods than the living God. It is to set up other mediators or intercessors, such as the Virgin Mary, angels, and saints.
Refusing that worship took power the apostles did not have in themselves. The same love of praise still tempts God's servants today.
The enemy lurked behind this, no doubt, but the grace of God gave the apostles the power to act as they did. So much of this idolizing goes on today. Men who claim to be the Lord's servants seek and love the honour and praise of men. It is too obvious to need saying. Seeking honour from men and delighting in the applause of the "religious world" is a deadly thing. It dishonours Christ, to whom all honour and glory is due.
Having refused the sacrifice, they had to give the crowd something true instead. Paul starts with the rain and the crops these Lycaonians of Lystra already knew.
In substance it was the same appeal Paul later made to the Athenians on the Areopagus. How degrading pagan religion is! The ignorant Lycaonian and the cultured Athenian needed the same kind of message. Paul sets them both to spell out the alphabet of creation. Here, though, the theme is not so much the unity of God, or man's true and close relationship to Him set against his absurd worship of idols and his god-making. It is God's active goodness shown to the Lycaonians in rains and fruitful seasons, and in the plenty of food and gladness these brought.
Did Paul miss his chance by stopping there?
There Paul stopped. Had he missed an opportunity to present the gospel? We believe not. He was meeting those ignorant pagans on ground they could all understand — the blessings they had enjoyed as creatures. He was acting in the spirit of the Master, who when on earth spoke to the crowd as they were able to hear it (Mark 4:33). So here Paul dwelt on the goodness of God, showing His desire to do His creatures good by filling their hearts with food and gladness. To quote Old Testament scripture on this occasion would have been out of place. What did these Lycaonians know of a written revelation from God?
That same crowd did not stay friendly for long.
At Lystra we see how fickle the crowd is: they soon stone the man they would at first have worshipped as a god. Men will idolize you, perhaps; for God has lost His place with them, and it is easily given to another. They will destroy their idol too, just as easily. This is the creature, man — and yet God has sent him a message of infinite grace. It is the story of a work more wonderful than anything that ever blessed the ears that hear it. But over this he has the greatest difficulty! What but the power of the Spirit could one trust to make way for the gospel in a world like this?
- Scarcely. A whole sermon only just stopped one sacrifice. That shows how deep-rooted the idolatry of the heart is.
- Refused. Barnabas and Paul tore their clothes rather than take honour that belonged to God. Loving the applause of the religious world is a deadly thing.
- Alphabet. Quoting Scripture would have been out of place here. So Paul set the crowd to spell the alphabet of creation: rain, harvests, food and gladness, all proof of God's active goodness.
- Mediators. The same instinct still works today. It sets up other mediators or intercessors — the Virgin Mary, angels, saints — beside the one true Mediator.
- Fickle. The same crowd that would have worshipped Paul soon stoned him. Men idolize easily and destroy their idol just as easily. Only the Spirit's power makes way for the gospel.