Acts 14:8-27 – In Lystra and Derbe
- “It takes conviction to convince”
- Fairly straightforward story but the background helps me understand Paul’s new challenge.
- The ancient legend in that city was that Zeus and Hermes had once visited disguised as ordinary men. Everyone had rejected them apart from one seemingly insignificant home. The gods had made that home their temple and destroyed every other home in the area.
- So you can see why it was so hard to stop the people showing their worship to Paul and Barnabas.
- Paul needed to work extra hard to convince them of the truth of God in 3 ways;
- Firstly: teaching - the NT Greek word for faith used here when Paul looks at the crippled man and sees he has faith to be healed is Pistis - meaning persuasion from Pitho - meaning to convince or “to be convinced”. It was Paul’s teaching that gave the man the faith! He was so learned and convincing that he helped raise the man’s faith. See my blog on 17th Sept “if only I could see a miracle”.
- Secondly: sacrifice - the apostles tore their clothes! This was a huge gesture on their part. For the Jews to tear their clothes was a sigh of incredibly anguish! It was also very costly to them. Clothes were a prized possession; you would only voluntarily destroy them in great distress.
- Thirdly: courage – after being stoned and left for dead, Paul returns to the city. Why? A day later and he leaves. So why go back for such a short time when you are planning to leave anyway? Because he wanted to show he was not intimidated! He wanted to physically demonstrate that he really did believe that “greater is He who is in me than he who is in the world”
- Want to test whether you can convince others of your beliefs and vision?
- Then look at yourself and see if:
- You learn and speak with conviction.
- You are moved to sacrifice because of your conviction
- You demonstrate that you have been empower to be brave by your conviction.
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