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At Iconium Paul and Barnabas had great success. Paul and Barnabas preached and a great number of Jews and Gentiles believed in the Gospel. Like usually, religious Jews turned the hearts of Gentiles against the preachers, and wanted to stone them. But Paul and Barnabas stayed there for a considerable amount of time, preaching boldly and doing miraculous signs and wonders. When the opposing crowd wanted to stone them, they left the city untouched.

When they preached, it was on the level of an entire city. They stirred up entire cities. In some cities the atmosphere completely changed with their coming, joy took reign. Some cities were divided, like Iconium. Part of the city stood for their teaching, part stood against, but everybody heard of them. They had such an influence on a city that everyone in the city knew of their teaching and could make a decision whether to follow it or go against it.

Of course, to gather an entire city to listen to something was only possible in those days and in small towns and villages. Inhabitants usually gathered for city-wide events, that was part of their lifestyle. Today, such a crowd can be gathered only on the internet. However, people still go to live events. It would be difficult to get together an entire city to listen about Christianity, because people have preconceived opinions about Christians. But it’s our job to break those negative stereotypes, and show the people around a Christianity as attractive as shown by the apostles.

In the next city, Lystra, Paul healed a crippled man in the name of Jesus Christ. The inhabitants of the city though Paul and Barnabas were gods, and almost offered them sacrifices. Miracles and wonders were such an effective method of evangelization in those days, because that’s what people were looking for. There was nothing you could surprise people with more than with miracles. People were more spiritually sensitive than modern people. They believed in miracles, signs, spiritual forces, much more than people today.

In generations prior to the New Testament, God let people walk their own ways, but continued to show Himself through nature, and caring for people, giving them food, and filling their hearts with joy. But with the coming of Jesus Christ, God started a spiritual regeneration of nations. God never stopped caring for man’s life and body. After the coming of Jesus Christ, he resumed his care for the human spirit. And the first church cared about people’s spirit (sermons), soul (fellowship), and body (food).

Paul and Barnabas barely convinced the inhabitants of Lystra to not offer them any sacrifices. But then came the religious people from Antioch and Iconium. It seems like they put it as their goal to upset the work of Paul and Barnabas everywhere. They convinced the crowd, which regarded Paul and Barnabas as gods a minute ago, to stone them. Sometimes they succeeded. This time was one of those times. This time nobody could save Paul, and he couldn’t escape. They stoned him, but couldn’t kill him. Maybe they even killed him, but God rose him up again, because he was not done with his mission yet. And what does he do after rising up after being stoned? He goes back to the same cities where he was prosecuted. But now they were teaching that we must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God.

On the way back, they appointed elders for the new churches they visited during this missionary trip. It didn’t take long to find pastors for these new churches. Sometimes, when new churches form so quickly, you need to appoint pastors quickly. It doesn’t say whether these new pastors were from other churches or newly converted Christians from local churches. But they prayed about them, and entrusted them into God’s hands.