Expositor's Bible Commentary Commentary Acts 14:20

"But as the disciples stood round about him, he rose up, and entered into the city: and on the morrow he went forth with Barnabas to Derbe." — Acts 14:20 (ASV)

Later on certain Jews from Pisidian Antioch and Iconium, disaffected with Paul and Barnabas, came to Lystra to spread their views. Complaining first among the Jewish residents of the city, they managed to gain a hearing with the people. The fickle Lystrans, thinking that if the apostles were not gods they were impostors, stoned Paul and dragged him outside the city for dead. But with the aid of those who had accepted the Gospel, he revived; and, with great courage, he returned that evening to the city where he had almost been killed. The next day, Paul and Barnabas left for the border town of Derbe. Some months later, when Paul wrote the believers in Galatia (again, we assume a “South Galatian” destination for the letter), he closed by saying, “Finally, let no one cause me trouble, for I bear on my body the marks of Jesus” (Galatians 6:17). Some of the marks may well have been scars caused by the stoning at Lystra. And when still later he wrote the Corinthians of his being stoned (2 Corinthians 11:25), it was Lystra he had in mind (cf. also 2 Timothy 3:11).