Acts 14:11

_AND WHEN THE PEOPLE SAW WHAT PAUL HAD DONE, THEY LIFTED UP THEIR VOICES, SAYING IN THE SPEECH OF LYCAONIA, THE GODS ARE COME DOWN TO US IN THE LIKENESS OF MEN._ No JFB commentary on this verse....

− 11._Furthermore, the multitude. _This history doth abundantly testify how ready and bent men are unto vanity. Paul uttered not that word abruptly, _Arise; _but he added it as it were a conclusion to the sermon made concerning Christ. Yet the people ascribe the praise of the miracle unto their idols, as if they had heard no word of Christ. Indeed, it is no such wonder, that the barbarous men fell unto superstition which they had learned − (21) from their childhood, so soon as they saw the miracle. But this vice is too common every where, and it is so bred in us, to be perverse and wrong interpreters of the works of God. Hence come such gross dotings of superstitions in Popery, because catching rashly at miracles, they take no heed to doctrine. For which cause we must take the better heed, and be the more sober, lest we happen with the sense of the flesh to corrupt (whereunto we are so b...

8-18 All things are possible to those that believe. When we have faith, that most precious gift of God, we shall be delivered from the spiritual helplessness in which we were born, and from the dominion of sinful habits since formed; we shall be made able to stand upright and walk cheerfully in the ways of the Lord. When Christ, the Son of God, appeared in the likeness of men, and did many miracles, men were so far from doing sacrifice to him, that they made him a sacrifice to their pride and malice; but Paul and Barnabas, upon their working one miracle, were treated as gods. The same power of the god of this world, which closes the carnal mind against truth, makes errors and mistakes find easy admission. We do not learn that they rent their clothes when the people spake of stoning them; but when they spake of worshipping them; they could not bear it, being more concerned for God's hono...

Verse Acts 14:11. _SAYING, IN THE SPEECH OF LYCAONIA_] What this language was has puzzled the learned not a little. _Calmet_ thinks it was a corrupt Greek dialect; as Greek was the general language of Asia Minor. Mr. _Paul Ernest Jablonski_, who has written a dissertation expressly on the subject, thinks it was the same language with that of the _Cappadocians_, which was mingled with Syriac. That it was no dialect of the Greek must be evident from the circumstance of its being here distinguished from it. We have sufficient proofs from ancient authors that most of these provinces used different languages; and it is correctly remarked, by Dr. Lightfoot, that the _Carians_, who dwelt much nearer Greece than the Lycaonians, are called by _Homer_, βαρβαροφωνοι, people of a barbarous or strange language; and _Pausanias_ also called them _Barbari_. That the lang...

THEY LIFTED UP THEIR VOICES - They spoke with astonishment, such as might be expected when it was supposed that the gods had come down. IN THE SPEECH OF LYCAONIA - What this language was has much perplexed commentators. It was probably a mixture of the Greek and Syriac. In that region generally the Greek was usually spoken with more or less purity; and from the fact that it was not far from the regions of Syria, it is probable that the Greek language was corrupted with this foreign admixture. THE GODS ... - All the region was idolatrous. The gods which were worshipped there were those which were worshipped throughout Greece. ARE COME DOWN - The miracle which Paul had performed led them to suppose this. It was evidently beyond human ability, and they had no other way of accounting for it than by supposing that their g

EXPOSITION ACTS 14:1 _Entered _for _went both, _A.V.; _Jews _for _the Jews, _A.V.; _and _for _and also, _A.V.; Greeks for _the Greeks, _A.V. Observe how in every case Greeks are found attending the synagogue. SO SPAKE, etc. This illustrates the statement in Romans 10:17, that "faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God." ACTS 14:2 _The Jews that were disobedient _for _the unbelieving Jews, _A.V. and T.R.; _stirred up the souls of the Gentiles, and made them, _etc., for _stirred up the Gentiles, and made their minds, _etc., A.V. The Jews that were disobedien

AND WHEN THE PEOPLE SAW WHAT PAUL HAD DONE,.... In curing the lame man in so marvellous a manner, and concluding it to be a divine work, and what a mere creature could never perform: THEY LIFT UP THEIR VOICES; not in indignation and wrath, but as persons astonished: SAYING IN THE SPEECH OF LYCAONIA; by which it should seem that Lystra was a city of Lycaonia, since the Lycaonian language was spoken in it; the Arabic version reads, "in their own tongue"; and the Syriac version, "in the dialect of the country"; very likely a dialect of the Greek tongue; THE GODS ARE COME DOWN TO US IN THE LIKENESS OF MEN; they had a notion of deity, though a very wrong one; they thought there were more gods than one, and they imagined heaven to be the habitation of the gods; and that they sometimes descended on earth in human shape, as they supposed they now did....

CHAPTER 14 _ 1. The work in Iconium and the persecution of the Apostles (Acts 14:1)._ 2. In Derbe and Lystra; the Impotent Man healed (Acts 14:7). 3. The Stoning of Paul and further ministries (Acts 14:19). 4. The Return to Antioch (Acts 14:25). Iconium was a Phrygian town, bordering on Lycaonia. Here again the unbelieving Jews stirred up the Gentiles. They abode there a long time, and in spite of opposition and persecution they spoke with much boldness the Word of God. Signs and wonders were also done by their hands. When their lives were threatened by the unbelieving Jews and Gentiles, they fled to Lystra and Der

LYSTRA. Lystra, 25 miles SW. of Iconium, 10 miles off the trade route, in a secluded glen. Lystra and Derbe were the two cities of the Lycaonian region of Galatia; Roman influence was strong there, and Lystra was a Roman colony. The cure of a lame man in connexion with the preaching leads to serious consequences. The incident reminds us forcibly of Acts 3:2; in both cases the lameness is congenital, and the man leaps. In this case, however, faith plays the part it does in the Gospels; it is awakened apparently by Paul's preaching. Of the language of Lycaonia nothing is now known; _the_ mention of it is like a mist over the whole story. It is not asserted that Paul and Barnabas understood that language; but we know that Greek was currently spoken in the district. The recognition of the missionaries as divine beings (cf....

ON TO ICONIUM (Acts 14:1-7)...