Getting Stoned

Acts 14:19-23

Have you ever known anyone who got stoned?  Most of you would reply, yes, if we were not in church, and have some amusing stories to tell about yourself or someone who you ran with in high school or college that often got wasted and did things that today they would prefer to forget.  It is amazing how words take on new meaning in our English language, and the word stoned has taken on new meaning, such as intoxicated, or under the influence of drugs, and not a group of people dragging you outside of the city and picking up stones and you being the target until you are dead.  But Dr. Luke is sharing the account of Paul being stoned in these verses. 

How could a guy go from people wanting to worship him as a god one day to being drug out of the city a few days later and the same people wanting to kill him?   Well my worldview is somewhat small, but as a child who grew-up in very small Baptist churches, my dad was a deacon and I saw it happen more than once to a pastor who came to those churches.  In most cases they were young men with zeal and in most cases they spoke what they believed God had put on their hearts to say, but they forgot that Mrs. Smith or Jones, who was over the “WMU” took exception to “truth” when it was one of her pet sins, and she and Mr. Smith, or Jones who was a trustee of the church and never stayed for the preaching, in that the money must be counted so he and the other money counters would often have the preacher for lunch.  As a young boy I watched these preachers go from being the greatest thing that had ever happened to that small church, to being considered the devil himself. And if it had not been illegal to stone them many of them would have taken up stones, for as a child I saw what religious people would do.  Blaise Pascal had this quote on such people; “Men never commit evil so fully and joyfully as when they do it for religious convictions”.

How did this take place in Lystra, where the apostle is so popular? Dr. Luke gives this account,        “But Jews came from Antioch and Iconium, and having persuaded the crowds, they stoned Paul and dragged him out of the city, supposing that he was dead.” (Acts 14:19 ESV)  These religious people cannot rest till they put to death anyone who tells them they are sinners, in fact, religion has a 100% record of putting to death who ever opposes their religious convictions, as they did with Stephen and the apostles, and our Lord.  Often, I remind people that Christianity is not founded in religion, but in a relationship with the Son of God.  And Jesus never taught his followers to do anything but love those who were their enemies.

But God is it not exciting to see “But God” for God was not finished with Paul as His servant and thought the plan was to kill him, but it did not work. “But when the disciples gathered about him, he rose up and entered the city, and on the next day he went on with Barnabas to Derbe. When they had preached the gospel to that city and had made many disciples, they returned to Lystra and to Iconium and to Antioch, strengthening the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to continue in the faith, and saying that through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God.  (Acts 14:20-22 ESV)

Now, most of us who read this story are thinking, he did what the next morning, surely he did not go to another town to preach the gospel, and then he did what, he returned to Lystra and to Iconium and to Antioch, is that not crazy?  Did I read this wrong, aren’t those towns where they wanted to kill Paul?  And what we forget is the “But God.”

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice