Restored

DEVOTION

THE BOOK OF ACTS

RESTORED

Acts 14:19-20

19 Then some Jews came from Antioch and Iconium and won the crowd over. They stoned Paul and dragged him outside the city, thinking he was dead. 20 But after the disciples had gathered around him, he got up and went back into the city. The next day he and Barnabas left for Derbe.

NIV

How fickle the crowd is, first wanting to sacrifice to their gods who had come down to them, Zeus and Hermes who were actually just Barnabas and Paul, then they are won over by others wanting to stone them. So are they gods or criminals that should be stoned? How easy it is to be won over by the ways of the world rather than by the truth of God. But before we spend too much time on the fickleness of man or rather the foolishness of man, we should note that when a stoning occurs it continues until the stoned person is dead. It is also true that a person stoned to death would most likely have a great deal of broken bones, at least a very beaten and battered body, with bruises, cuts, and broken bones. The stones were not little pebbles, but large heavy stones meant throw in such a way as to kill a person. So it is most likely Paul was in fact dead, but with his friends, the disciples who gathered around him and prayed, although we are not told they prayed, it is assumed, he rose, God restored him, and he was restored to his former condition before he was stoned, walking back into the city so as to show them the power of the living God. This is a lesson we can take hold of. It does not matter want men to do us, what the world offers us, or takes from us, if we are walking with God, he will restore us. There are times in our life when the world may think we are very special and offer us sacrifices of sorts. But then that very same world can take all we have, even as in the case of Paul, our very life. But God is able to so abundantly more. This should tell us that we would be wise not to put too much, if any faith in mankind, in the world, in the ways, of the world. We should not allow the customs of our culture or norms of our society to influence the way we live. These customs and norms are forever changing. As those people went from sacrificing to Paul to stoning him, the norms have gone from being a nation under God, with some sense of moral fiber, to one of evil and human degradation. Why would we adapt any of its ways? The scripture, God’s word, is opposed to man’s ways, as are man’s ways opposed to God’s word and his ways. We would be wise to be more like Paul and Barnabas then like those who flow with the trends of society. Yes, it might cost us at times, but we can be assured that God will always sustain us, always restore us, as long as we are walking with him. Walking with God, is walking restored.