Acts 14:8-13 meaning

Having evaded a plot to stone them to death in the city of Iconium for preaching the gospel (vs. 5-6), Paul and Barnabas now preach the gospel in the city of Lystra, 20 miles south of Iconium, in the Roman province of Galatia (part of modern-day Turkey). 

As in Iconium, where the Lord had performed “signs and wonders” through Paul and Barnabas (v. 3), the Lord will work an incredible miracle in Lystra as well. 

Luke, the author of Acts, introduces to us a disabled man who lived in Lystra:
At Lystra a man was sitting who had no strength in his feet, lame from his mother’s womb, who had never walked (v. 8). 

This man was sitting because he could not walk and had never walked. From the beginning of his life he was lame from his mother’s womb, having no strength in his feet even from birth. It is possible he had something like cerebral palsy or a bone deformity.

This was someone who not only could not walk, but did not know what walking was like, having never done it. This was not a man who once could walk, but was injured. This was a man who had no capacity to walk and could never learn to walk, and probably had no expectation that he ever would walk. 

This man who had never walked in his life was listening to Paul as he spoke about Jesus. Paul notices the man who was lame, and apparently the Holy Spirit reveals something to Paul. Maybe the Spirit spoke and told Paul something to the effect of, “This man believes in the Messiah. This man believes God can make him well, and I will. Tell him.” 

Paul stops in the middle of his teaching, and stares at the man: when he had fixed his gaze on him and had seen that he had faith to be made well, said with a loud voice, “Stand upright on your feet” (vs. 9-10). 

The lame man becomes well. This healing was not simply a showing of God’s power; there is always a reason behind the attesting miracle. The reason for this man’s healing was because Paul had seen that he had faith to be made well (v. 9). Interestingly, the word translated made well is derived from the Greek word “sozo,” which means to “be saved.” It could be translated that this man had faith to be saved. In this case it could be viewed that God healed his physical malady as a sign that He could heal each person’s spiritual malady by forgiving their sins.

So Paul said with a loud voice, loud enough for the crowds to hear what he was saying, “Stand upright on your feet.” This was commanded to a man who had never stood before. What God was giving him was not something he had lost, but something he’d never had. It was not something he could remember once doing, but something beyond his life experience—grace, favor given to him simply because he believed.

The man did not rise in a slow, trembling way, unsure and unsteady while the crowd watched with bated breath. This man had faith to be made well (v. 9), so he responded to Paul’s command with an enthusiastic showing of that faith. He did not simply stand upright as Paul asked him to do. He leaped up! He jumped, he hopped, he went from sitting and from having sat his entire life to leaping upright onto both feet, and then he began to walk (v. 10). 

The Greek root for the word translated leaped is “allomai,” which is the same word in John 4:14 which Jesus used when He described how the eternal life which He offers to anyone who believes is like a well of water “springing up.” Like a sudden, powerful, bursting fountain. This man did not have to learn how to walk like a new toddler. God’s power was so sufficient and extravagant that the man who had never walked could suddenly jump around with strength and stability. 

Similarly, in Acts 3:6-10, God acted through Peter to heal a crippled man, who was cured by God’s overabundant mercy, so that he too was “walking and leaping and praising God.” One of the reasons Luke may have included this mention of a lame man being healed by Paul was because it was similar to Peter’s encounter with the lame man in Jerusalem, both “leaping up” to their feet after they were healed.

It seems likely that Luke wrote the book of Acts in part to authenticate Paul’s authority and influence among the churches all over the world. Paul faced many rivals during his ministry who attempted to make all Gentile believers perform Jewish religious customs. These rivals insisted that the Gentiles become circumcised and obey the Jewish Law. One of the slanders Paul’s rivals routinely slung at him was that he was not a true apostle (Galatians 1:1, 2 Corinthians 10-13). 

By drawing multiple comparisons between Paul and Peter, Luke may have been indicating, “Paul is just as much an apostle as Peter, who followed Jesus during His earthly ministry. Look how God has worked through both in similar ways.” The first part of Acts features Peter and the miracles God worked through him. The last part features Paul, and here Paul is the agent through which God performs the same type of miracle He had performed through Peter. 

The primary difference between the two miracles is that the man Peter healed was Jewish while the man Paul healed was a Gentile. Luke presented Peter as an apostle to the Jewish people, but also noted that it was through Peter whom God opened the gospel to the Gentiles (Acts 10:34, 44). In the next chapter, Peter will mention this fact, and will agree with Paul that it is by grace, through faith, that God saves all humans, whether Jew or Gentile (Acts 15:7-11). 

Paul’s commission to be an apostle of Jesus Christ was given directly by Jesus Himself, and is recorded in the book of Acts three different times (Acts 9:3-20, 22:1-21, 26:2-18). Thus, his authority and teaching was as legitimate as the other apostles, as Luke vigorously documents and defends. This defense was vital in keeping the early churches centered on Christ alone, helping them avoid being captured by a system of religious regulation (Galatians 3:1, 1 Corinthians 9:1-2, Romans 3:21-25).

When the crowds saw what Paul had done in commanding the lame man to walk, they raised their voice (v. 11). Their reaction is understandably one of shock and awe. They shouted to see the man who had been lame since birth now leap to his feet and walk around as if he had always been able to. The crowds who witnessed this healing began saying in the Lycaonian language, “The gods have become like men and have come down to us” (v. 11). 

It is debated what the Lycaonian language was. Since Luke makes note of it, it seems to be different than Koine Greek, the common tongue in the Roman Empire. Some scholars propose it was derived from Assyrian, or a dialect of Greek. The people of Lystra believed in the Greek gods, and decided that Barnabas was Zeus and Paul was Hermes:

And they began calling Barnabas, Zeus, and Paul, Hermes, because he was the chief speaker (v. 12).

Zeus was the foremost god in the Greek pantheon of false gods. He was said to be the ruler over the other gods, living on Mt. Olympus. He was the storm-god who threw lightning bolts. Hermes was the herald god, with wings on his sandals so that he flew throughout the world delivering messages, and was often Zeus’s mouthpiece. The Lystrians called Paul Hermes because he was the chief speaker. 

Paul did most of the talking, like a spokesperson, so it made some sense to consider him the messenger god. Luke does not specify why the Lystrians called Barnabas Zeus. Perhaps because Paul was the chief speaker, by contrast Barnabas did not speak as much, appearing like an authority figure next to a herald speaking his words for him. It could also be that Barnabas had a more impressive physical appearance. Paul was apparently quite unimpressive in terms of his personal presence and speech (2 Corinthians 10:10). 

The people of Lystra had rightly reacted to the healing as being divine and supernatural, but had wrongly attributed it to their own false Greek gods, and worse yet viewed these two Jewish preachers as manifestations of their gods: The gods have become like men and have come down to us! It was not uncommon in Greek mythology for Zeus and the other gods to walk among people in the guise of regular men. 

Again, the people of Lystra were stumbling toward the truth; the divine had become like men and had come down to us, but it was the Son of the Living God, Jesus, who had become not just like a man, but a real man, and come down to His creation to save it from its sin. Paul and Barnabas were mere mortals, speaking on behalf of the true God. 

Because they believed Zeus and Hermes were visiting them, the people of Lystra arranged for a sacrifice to honor these supposed gods:

The priest of Zeus, whose temple was just outside the city, brought oxen and garlands to the gates, and wanted to offer sacrifice with the crowds (v. 13).

There was probably some length of time between verses 12 and 13, but perhaps not much, since the temple for Zeus was nearby, just outside the city. The local priest of Zeus was either in the crowd and witnessed the miracle or heard tell of it, so he pulled together materials to give worship to the supposed gods who were visiting Lystra. 

The oxen which the priest brings to the gates are meant to be slaughtered, because he wanted to offer sacrifice with the crowds who were shouting: The gods have become like men and have come down to us! (v. 11). 

The garlands were decorative ropes to which were tied leaves and fruit, probably hung over the bulls’ necks to dress them up for their march to the sacrificial altar. Multiple remains of pillars have been discovered in Turkey (in cities which used to be within the ancient region of Galatia) decorated with sculptures of bulls wearing garlands.

The Lystrians were reacting to an act of God with worship, but were misinterpreting it through their pagan perspectives. They worshipped the medium of God’s power, Paul, rather than the source of the power, God Himself. Thus, in their reaction they drowned out Paul and his teaching, falling short of learning the truth of what they had seen. Ironically, rather than ask Paul and listen to his explanation, they presumed they already knew and began to impose on these supposed gods. 

This provides an excellent illustration that demonstrates that paganism was primarily based on human pride. The people had no piety toward Paul and Barnabas. They neither showed interest in asking or listening. They immediately defaulted to manipulating. Their proposed sacrifice would appease or petition the gods to do the bidding of the people. This shows that the core belief of paganism was that humans could exploit the gods to get their way. This naturally led to a pagan culture where the strong exploited the weak to satisfy their own appetites.