Commentary 26 on Acts
Paul and Barnabas went on to Iconium, about ninety miles from Antioch. It was a city so ancient that it claimed to be older than Damascus. As usual, they began in the synagogue, where they had some success; but antagonistic Jews stirred up the crowd, and once again Paul and Barnabas had to move on. They were more and more taking their lives in their hands. The further they went, the further they moved from civilisation. In the more civilised cities, their lives at least were safe because Rome kept order; but, out in the more remote regions, the two evangelists were under the constant threat of mob violence from the excitable Phrygian crowds stirred up by the Jews.
The fact that Paul began the ministry at Lystra by preaching to a crowd may imply that no synagogue was available for him to preach in. While he was speaking, he saw "a man crippled in his feet, who was lame from birth and had never walked" and who was listening to him attentively. Seeing "that he had faith to be healed," Paul commanded him to stand up, and the man jumped up and walked about.
Luke undoubtedly wanted his readers to recognise the parallel between the healing of this crippled man and the healing of another one by Peter (cf. Acts 3:1-8), for the expressions "lame from birth,” i.e., from his mother’s womb, “looked directly at him", and "walking about" are common to both accounts. The text, in fact, heightens the parallel by inserting "I say to you in the name of the Lord Jesus" before Paul's command (cf. Acts 3:6) and by adding "and immediately he leaped up and walked" after it (cf. Acts 3:7-8). But the sequel to the healing of the crippled man here differs from that of Peter's miracle, and it is narrated by Luke with local colour.
At Lystra, Paul and Barnabas were involved in a strange incident. The explanation of their being taken for gods lies in the legendary history of Lycaonia. The people around Lystra told a story that once Zeus and Hermes had come to this earth in disguise. No one in all the land would give them hospitality until, at last, two old peasants, Philemon and his wife Baucis, took them in. As a result, the whole population except for Philemon and Baucis was wiped out by the gods, and Philemon and Baucis were made the guardians of a splendid temple and were turned into two great trees when they died. So, when Paul healed the crippled man, the people of Lystra were determined not to make the same mistake again. Barnabas must have had a noble presence, so they took him for Zeus, the king of the gods. Hermes was the messenger of the gods; and, since Paul was the speaker, they called him Hermes. This passage is especially interesting because it gives us Paul’s approach to those who were without any Jewish background to which he could appeal because they were followers of Greek and Roman gods. With such people, he started from nature to get to the God who was behind it all.
In his seminal book Christianizing the Roman Empire (A.D. 100–400), influential Yale historian Ramsay MacMullen argued that miraculous healing and exorcism were the primary instruments of conversion driving the rapid expansion of early Christianity. He contended that the rapid growth of the church in its first three centuries was not primarily driven by intellectual persuasion, the distribution of literature, or the moral appeal of Christian kindness. Instead, mass conversions were sparked by the perceived power of Christian miracles.
It could be argued that, in saying this that McMullen was echoing what Paul himself had said, e.g., “when I came to you, I was weak and trembled all over with fear, and my teaching and message were not delivered with skilful words of human wisdom, but with convincing proof of the power of God's Spirit” (1 Cor 2:3-4); Paul said that he did not venture to speak of anything except what Christ had accomplished through him to win obedience from the Gentiles, "by word and deed, by the power of signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God“ (Rm 15:18-19); and in 1Thess 1:5, he said he evangelised "not in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction."
