Acts 14:21

Acts 14:21. And when they had preached the gospel to that city, and taught many. The work at Derbe appears to have been very successful: the converts to the religion of Jesus were numerous, and the apostles evidently met with no opposition in any quarter here. Among their disciples at Derbe was that Gaius, mentioned Acts 4. Paley calls attention to a striking undesigned coincidence between the history of the Acts of this portion of Paul's life and the Second Epistle to Timothy, Acts 3:11: ‘In the apostolic history, Lystra and Derbe are commonly mentioned together; in 2 Timothy 3:11, Antioch, Iconium, Lystra are mentioned, not Derbe. And the distinction will appear on this occasion to be accurate, for Paul in that passage is enumerating his persecutions; and although he underwent grievous persecutions in each of the three cities through which he passed to Derbe, at Derbe itself he met with none. The Epistle, therefore, in the names of the cities in the order in which they are enumerated, and in the place at which the enumeration stops, corresponds exactly with the history.'