Paul performs a miracle in the city of Lystra in Acts 14, healing a man who had been crippled his entire life. The people of Lystra see this and immediately begin worshipping Paul and Barnabas as if they were Zeus and Hermes.
Paul and Barnabas immediately rebuke their worship and idolatry, and implore them to leave their vain worship and turn to the living God. These people were bold in their claims and likely would have been faithful to follow Paul and Barnabas, but their attention was misdirected.
There’s an interesting difference between Paul’s retort here, and the response we looked at in Chapter 13. In Acts 13, Paul was speaking at a synagogue and made a point to show that Old Testament prophecy had been pointing to Jesus all along. In Lystra, they were practicing polytheistic paganism. Paul doesn’t mention Old Testament prophecy at all, because it likely wouldn’t have resonated with this audience.
Instead, Paul urges them to turn their worship to the living God – not to a statue or another ritual. In verse 17 he tries to explain that it is the living God who provides their rain, their crops, their food and their joy, not one of the gods of their pantheon.
Paul dealt with a similar issue in Corinth. In 1 Corinthians 1, Paul rebukes the church for their idolatry. Rather than uniting over faith in Christ, they were dividing over their allegiance to men like Paul and Apollos. It wasn’t just an appreciation for what Paul or Apollos had done in their lives, it had become a divisive issue that led people away from the worship of Jesus.
That’s why Paul says in 1 Corinthians 2 that he came knowing only Jesus Christ, and him crucified. He didn’t come with eloquent speech or wisdom, because he didn’t want their faith to stand on human wisdom.
This all raises an important question for us today. We want to be bold, and we want to be found faithful. But let’s take a minute to evaluate ourselves…what exactly are we being bold about? And who or what are we being faithful to?
Is Jesus truly the central object of our faith? Is our faith built on the power of God or the wisdom of men? As we live in an increasingly distracted culture, let us be bold, faithful, and laser-focused about the central focus of our lives – Jesus Christ, and him crucified.
