A miraculous cure was wrought at Lystra, a city 30 kilometers south-southwest of Iconium. Jesus healed a cripple through the words of Paul the apostle. Some years before this event, Peter, too, had healed in the name of Jesus Christ a man who had been paralyzed from his mother’s womb at the gate of the temple. This healing had caused a great gathering of the people in the courtyard of the temple, where Peter then gave an effectual sermon. As a result Peter was taken to trial before the high council of the Jews.
What happened to Paul in Lystra was identical. As the apostle preached to the multitudes, he observed a life-long cripple. This poor man understood the speaker and believed in the power of Christ. When his eye met with Paul’s, the apostle perceived the will of God. He looked straight at him and ordered him to stand on his feet immediately and walk. The power of Christ worked through the words of Paul the apostle, without his pronouncing of the name of Jesus, and without his taking the cripple by the hand, as Peter had done. The sick man had heard the gospel and believed in the good news of salvation. His faith had saved him.
Lystra was an idolatrous city, whose people had no acquaintance with the one and holy God, before whom all men are guilty. These idolaters believed in many gods and spirits. They believed in the possibility of their gods incarnating themselves and walking among them. They also readily deified celebrities, for the spirits of hell and of lost men do not live separated from one another.
When the multitudes heard Barnabas and Paul and saw how the sick man was healed, they thought that good gods had visited their city. They gave Barnabas the name Zeus, for he had the same characteristics as the father of their gods, the chief god of the Greek Pantheon, in whose fatherly spirit dwelt kindness, silence and prudence. To Paul they gave the name Hermes, the messenger of the gods, who distinguished himself by activity, dynamic action, speech, and strife. Since there was an old temple of Zeus outside the town, the priest of the god Zeus immediately took the hint, thinking it was time for him to bestir himself to do his duty. He excitedly hurried to bring two fat bulls adorned with flowers, wanting to offer sacrifice to the apostles. He called large numbers of the people of the town to come to a banquet of joy, which would be held in the gods’ honor. Such banquets in temples were distinguished by drunkenness, revelries, and adultery. In so doing they thought they were rewarding the gods’ with blessings, by giving all their energies to pleasure and licentiousness.
Paul and Barnabas did not immediately understand the shouts of the multitudes in their native dialect. They were at some distance from them, being held in reverence and veneration. When the two apostles understood what the people were about to do they became disgusted and fearful. They ran into the middle of the crowd and tore their clothes, expressing their anger and their zeal for God. Paul climbed onto a high rock and shouted: “Stop it! You are wrong! We are not gods at all, but are only human beings like you, made of flesh and blood. You have cheated yourselves. Zeus and Hermes did not come to you, for these gods are vanities. They are but inexistent fabrications. All the gods which you worship are nothing but vanities, idle things incapable of reason, unprofitable, powerless, and lifeless.
We are here to preach to you the singular, holy, and true God, who made heaven and earth and all that is in them, all that you see, and even you yourselves. We are all the creation of the good God, who does not compel anyone to carry out His will, but gives up those who resist Him to the lusts of their own hearts, to corrupt themselves by themselves. In spite of peoples’ selfishness, God continues His history with men. He loves not only the obedient but the disobedient as well, and gives them rain, sunshine, heat, cold, and crops at the right times. It is God alone who gives us provision, feast and joy, and not Hermes, Zeus, or any other such spirit, which are all vanities. As such the two apostles spoke to individuals and multitudes, and with much effort prevented them from offering the sacrifice. The priest was angry, and the multitudes, thinking of the pleasure they would miss in connection with their gods, returned resentfully to their houses, as if a thunderbolt had fallen on them from heaven. The entire town spoke about the two apostles and their strange preaching about the one God.