Day 47, Acts 14 
This incident of the
healing of the crippled man in Lystra raises some interesting
questions. According to what we read, Paul was preaching "the
gospel" (14:7) in Lystra. Listening to Paul's gospel, a man who had been lame
from birth was inspired with faith that healed him completely (14:9). How is
that? He must have heard something more than just a message about a God who was
offering forgiveness of sins.
Perhaps he heard from
Paul that Jesus never turned away anyone who came to Him requesting healing,
including crippled people, and that He was alive and still doing the same
miracles. Perhaps Paul quoted Isaiah's prophecy that the Messiah would not only
be "pierced through for our transgressions and crushed for our iniquities,"
but that He also "took our infirmities, and carried away our
diseases" and that "by His scourging we are healed" (Is. 53:4-5;
Matt. 8:17). Surely an evangelist whose ministry is accompanied by genuine
miracles will be much more effective than one whose ministry is not. How
effective would Paul have been in Iconium without healings and miracles (14:3)?
Something else worth
considering about this particular story: Luke wrote that the crippled man had
"faith to be made well" (14:9), even while he was still crippled. It
wasn't until Paul told him, "Stand upright on your feet," and he
obeyed Paul's words, that he was actually healed. What an illustration of the
truth that faith without works is dead. The crippled man had to act upon his
faith before it was effectual, a principle the Bible teaches over and over
again. If you want to walk on the water, you have to get out of the
boat. Get going!
And what an
illustration of the power of encouragement! Paul told the crippled man to get
up, while so many preachers would have told him not even to get his hopes up!
Encouragers are the mothers of miracles. I wonder where I would be today
without the past encouragement of family and friends. Now is a good time to ask
yourself, "Am I an encourager?"
After being stoned and
left for dead, Paul was either revived or supernaturally resurrected. Then the
"stonee" walked back into the city of his "stoners." Paul
was no wimp, and what God had said years earlier was becoming a reality:
"He [Paul] is a chosen instrument of Mine....for I will show him how much
he must suffer for My name's sake" (Acts 9:15-16).
In the city of Derbe,
Paul and Barnabas "made many disciples" (14:21). According to the
Bible, a disciple is not just someone who professes to believe in Jesus, but
someone who is a whole-hearted follower of Christ, one who is learning to obey
all of His commandments (see John 8:31-32; Matt. 28:19-20; Luke 14:25-33). This
exposes the fundamental error of much of the modern evangelical church, which
proclaims a false gospel founded on a false grace that results in false
converts. Today we are told that one can be a believer in Christ without being
a disciple of Christ, and that one can gain heaven without holiness! This
faulty doctrine is often derived, at least in part, from isolated verses
extracted from Paul's Galatian letter, which we are about to begin
reading, in context,
tomorrow.
Returning to the
cities where they had recently preached, Paul and Barnabas appointed elders in
every church (14:23). Churches need leaders, and generally speaking, with age
comes wisdom, thus elders were
appointed. Older Jewish converts, in particular, would have been the most
qualified to serve because of their familiarity with Scripture. But none had
spent any time in Bible School or seminary. In the New Testament, the
words elders, pastors, overseers, and bishops all describe the same ministry. They
disciple little flocks.
Keep in mind that
almost everything we read yesterday, and everything we read today, occurred in
the ancient region of Galatia, in modern western Turkey. In particular, take
note that Paul's primary antagonists in Galatia were unbelieving Jews (13:50;
14:2,4-5,19). Also remember that Paul was stoned and left for dead in the
Galatian city of Lystra. This is all important to know as we read Galatians.
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