# Acts Chapter 14
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## Summarrium
Paul and Barnabas preach in the Jewish synagogue at Iconium and a great number believe. However persecution from the Jewish community causes Paul and Barnabas to flee to Lystra and the surrounding country. At Lystra Paul is instrumental in the healing of a man unable to walk from birth.

The men of Lystra then believing gods to have come among them attempt to sacrifice to Paul and Barnabas. Paul and Barnabas reject their praise pointing instead to '*a living God*' who made the heavens and the earth. Paul is eventually stoned by crowds and the Jews from Antioch and Iconium. Paul survives and continues to serve the churches appointing elders to oversee the communities.

## Meditatio
Again we find another passage within which the increase in favour from the Lord, the receptivity of the people to the message is contrasted with persecution. Paul and Barnabas face not only opposition but people seeking directly to do them harm, and in Paul's cause committing actual bodily harm.

It is unclear from the texts if we should assume that Paul has been stoned to death and then is brought back to life again. Or if we should take Paul's stoning as a happy accident where the mob was insufficiently thorough in their work. In any case the events described do not prevent Paul from continuing his work the very next day.

Another interesting point to raise here alongside the escalating tensions is how the term witness is used. It doesn't appear to be being employed in the way we might expect. That is to say in the capacity of someone who offers a first hand account of an event for which they were present. Instead the author appears to use them to describe giving evidence in support of a claim.

The variation is significant given evidence in the latter case need not be a description of evidence but might be a proof in the form of a miraculous act. Let pay attention to some of the instances where 'witness' or 'witnesses' are used[^1].

1. Acts 1:8 - "But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth."
2. Acts 1:22 - "beginning from the baptism of John until the day when he was taken up from us—one of these men must become with us a witness to his resurrection."
3. Acts 2:32 - "This Jesus God raised up, and of that we all are witnesses."
4. Acts 3:15 - "and you killed the Author of life, whom God raised from the dead. To this we are witnesses."
5. Acts 4:33 - "And with great power the apostles were giving their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all."
6. Acts 5:32 - "And we are witnesses to these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey him."
7. Acts 6:13 - "and they set up false witnesses who said, 'This man never ceases to speak words against this holy place and the law,"
8. Acts 7:58 - "Then they cast him out of the city and stoned him. And the witnesses laid down their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul."
9. Acts 10:39 - "And we are witnesses of all that he did both in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree,"
10. Acts 13:31 - "and for many days he appeared to those who had come up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem, who are now his witnesses to the people."
11. Acts 14:3 - "So they remained for a long time, speaking boldly for the Lord, who bore witness to the word of his grace, granting signs and wonders to be done by their hands."
12. Acts 14:17 - "Yet he did not leave himself without witness, for he did good by giving you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness."
13. Acts 22:15 - "For you will be a witness for him to everyone of what you have seen and heard."

A few things have struck me from this list. Acts 1:8 indicates the need for empowerment to be a witness. Acts 1:22 indicates the need to '*become*' a witness; suggesting this is a process. Acts 2:32, 3:15, and 4:22 all point towards the resurrection as the source of empowerment. Finally the Holy Spirit is also referred to as a witness. The point around co-creation is very real this is not something man is charged alone to be. In acts the spirit himself bears witness to the truth of the words spoken by Paul and Barnabas.

[^1]: This list was generated by ChatGPT so should not be considered exhaustive. The LLM believed it to be exhaustive but the reality is it originally omitted the instances from this very chapter. Hence I have a health scepticism. Yet as a tool this particular LLM has aided me on many occasion and I have no concern about using such affordances.