What does Acts 14:15 mean?
The story of foreigners performing great deeds in front of villagers and being hailed as gods has become somewhat of a science fiction trope. When those foreigners are Paul and Barnabas, trying to introduce the saving grace of Jesus to the villagers, the adulation is particularly upsetting. Paul has healed one man born lame, and now the priest of the temple of Zeus wants to offer sacrifices to them (Acts 14:8–13).The villagers are eager to show proper honor to Paul and Barnabas, thinking they are Zeus and Hermes. They have tales of the two gods seeking hospitality and flooding an entire town when they didn't receive it. Three years before, in Caesarea Maritima, a similar situation occurred. Herod Agrippa I appeared in a crowded coliseum wearing a silver-threaded garment that reflected the morning sun. As the people chanted, "The voice of a god, and not of a man!" he said nothing to correct them. Five days later, he was dead, worms having eaten his guts (Acts 12:20–23).
Paul and Barnabas have no desire to receive the honor due only to God. They immediately tear their clothes (Acts 14:14) and deny any claim to deity. In fact, they tell the townspeople their worship of Zeus is a "vain thing," which is a bold criticism. They know that the worship of idols is punishment God places on those who reject Him (Deuteronomy 4:25–28). These idols cannot speak, hear, feel, or move (Psalm 115:4–7; Isaiah 46:7), but the people are enslaved to their worship (Galatians 4:8). When Baal did not respond to his priests' frenzied call, Elijah joked he must be asleep, on a journey, or in the bathroom (1 Kings 18:27).
Paul and Barnabas want the people of Lystra to know the living God. Because these people do not study in the synagogue and obviously worship Zeus, Paul can't turn their thinking by showing how Jesus of Nazareth fulfills the prophecies of the Messiah in the Jewish Scriptures. So, he goes to the beginning, as he does in Athens (Acts 17:22–31). He talks about their Creator. In Greek mythology, the creating gods were cruel and violent and several generations removed from the cruel and violent pantheon worshiped by the Lystrans. Paul offers the people a relationship with the real God, the Creator of the universe who loves them and wants a relationship with them.
Paul and Barnabas are not very successful in Lystra. Without a significant Jewish influence to provide context for Jesus the Messiah, the crowd is easily influenced by Paul and Barnabas' antagonists from Pisidian Antioch and Iconium. The locals wind up stoning Paul and leaving him for dead (Acts 14:19). But on Paul's second trip, he meets Timothy, who is from either Lystra or Derbe (Acts 16:1). It may be that Timothy's mother and grandmother are two of the few who respond positively to Paul's message.
