Episode 1500: Acts of the Apostles (Part 7, Ch 10-Paul)

Episode 10 returned the trial to the city of Lystra through the testimony of Dion, a citizen who had witnessed one of the most dramatic episodes of Paul’s first missionary journey. Dion described a man crippled from birth who had never walked. After listening to Paul preach, the man was commanded to stand and suddenly rose to his feet. The astonished crowd concluded that the gods had come among them in human form, identifying Barnabas as Zeus and Paul as Hermes because Paul was the principal speaker. Even the priest of Zeus arrived with oxen and garlands to offer sacrifice.

Instead of accepting the adulation, Paul and Barnabas tore their clothes and rushed into the crowd to stop it. Dion remembered Paul insisting that they were merely human and directing the people toward the living God who made heaven, earth and sea and gave humanity rain, harvests, food and joy. Dion was struck by how determined Paul seemed to be ordinary. Yet the crowd soon moved in the opposite direction. Influenced by opponents who arrived from Antioch and Iconium, the people turned against Paul, stoned him, and dragged him outside the city believing he was dead. Dion followed but did not throw a stone. He later saw Paul rise and return to the very city that had tried to kill him.

Varro argued that Lystra was another example of disorder following Paul wherever he went. Paul countered that he had neither encouraged the attempted worship nor commanded the violence that followed. Dion ultimately conceded that neither crowd had been right: Paul was not a god, but neither had he deserved to die. The week therefore ended with Varro’s case becoming more sophisticated. Paul had raised no army, but his message was crossing cultural boundaries, challenging established loyalties and creating followers willing to endure extraordinary costs for their beliefs.