Adored or Stoned

Readings:
I Chronicles 26
Acts 14:8-20

Focus:
Acts 14:11: "When the crowds saw what Paul had done, they shouted, in their native Lycaonian, 'The gods have come down to us in human form!'"

After Paul has healed a man who has been unable to walk since birth, the people of Lystra are so amazed that they believe that Paul and Barnabas are the gods Zeus and Hermes, and the priest of Zeus brings out an ox to sacrifice to them. It is only by hurried persuasion that the apostles are able to avert this.

But when some people from Antioch and Iconium arrive and start swaying the crowd against them, the people actually change their minds so far as to stone Paul, and he only escapes through the protection of the other disciples.

The crowds can be so fickle. General opinion can be changed so easily, for or against God's message. We cannot rely on popular opinion to decide what we think about God. We must instead rely solely upon what we have learned about him in the Bible, because that does not change according to the swing of the pendulum of popular thought.