Acts 14:8-18
Serving the Message

At Lystra a certain man sat, impotent in his feet, a cripple from his mother's womb, who never had walked. He was listening to Paul speaking, who, fastening eyes on him, and seeing that he had faith to be made whole, said with a loud voice, "Stand upright on your feet!" He leaped up and walked. When the multitude saw what Paul had done, they lifted up their voice, saying in the language of Lycaonia, "The gods have come down to us in the likeness of men!" They called Barnabas "Jupiter," and Paul "Mercury," because he was the chief speaker. The priest of Jupiter, whose temple was in front of their city, brought oxen and garlands to the gates, and would have made a sacrifice along with the multitudes.

But when the apostles, Barnabas and Paul, heard of it, they tore their clothes, and sprang into the multitude, crying out, "Men, why are you doing these things? We also are men of like passions with you, and bring you good news, that you should turn from these vain things to the living God, who made the sky and the earth and the sea, and all that is in them; who in the generations gone by allowed all the nations to walk in their own ways. Yet he didn't leave himself without witness, in that he did good and gave you rains from the sky and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness." Even saying these things, they hardly stopped the multitudes from making a sacrifice to them.

World English Bible

We have in the New Testament a great number of persuasive arguments offered by Paul as evidence of the forgiveness of sins made possible by Jesus Christ. Paul, a brilliant scholar of the Old Testament, frequently proved that Jesus' life, death, and resurrection were part of the plan that God had put in place before time so that we could be restored in complete and holy relationship with God. But how did Paul respond to people that did not know the scriptures?

He answered with what they already knew. To those who worshipped Jupiter, Paul discussed creation, political and military might, and agriculture. Every one of his listeners had puzzled over how the earth was created, and to contrast the mythologies they believed, he provided a more direct and simple answer, one that was reinforced by the crippled man whose feet were healed. Through the eons, faithful followers of false gods had claimed proof of the superiority of their deity by their victory in wars, but Paul challenged that logic and claimed that God's power was not a weapon in the arsenal of a small nation in Palestine. Instead, he observed that God shows mercy and blessing to everyone through the beauty of nature, the blessings of the harvest, and even the joy we feel in our hearts.

What Paul did was to explain to the people of Lystra the Message they had been receiving from God all their lives.

If we look back at the start of this passage, we read that this crippled man had sufficient faith in God to be healed, so much so that when Paul told him to stand, he jumped to his feet. The way the passage is worded describes Paul's role as observing what God had already been doing in this man. God's Message had reached this man, and Paul had the blessing of encouraging the man to act.

Paul understood that the Message was working powerfully, and he simply called attention to that power.

I also believe that Paul's reference to himself emphasized his role of service to the Message. While the WEB records that Paul explained that he and Barnabas were "men of like passions with you", other translations say "men of the same nature as you." This particular Greek word appears only twice in the New Testament, and in the other occurrence in James 5:17, we read that "Elijah was a man with a nature like ours". Of course, part of Paul's purpose in using this phrase was to convince the people that he and Barnabas were not gods and should not be worshipped. However, Paul also wanted to convince the crowd that they, just like he, could know God's blessings and receive God's salvation.

Paul also left this teaching for all of us who are called to serve the Message, that Paul was a person of the same nature as are we. So much of what we read about Paul tells us about his phenomenal understanding of theology, his great knowledge and intelligence, his bold character in confronting those opposed to Christianity, and his persuasive skills in encouraging people to follow God. Paul was undoubtedly one of the most capable and effective evangelists in all of Christianity, and we could never expect to accomplish all that Paul did.

Paul would object to this reasoning. He would tell us that each of us can point out how God is at work, just like he did. He would tell us that we don't have to be educated scholars, impassioned speakers, or compelling debaters, because it is God's Message and our obedience that matters. Paul urged the people of Lystra to see that he was human just like them. In the same way, Paul urges us to see that we can be faithful servants of the Message, just like him.