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LYSTRA
City in the region of Lycaonia in the Roman province of Galatia. Events in the town in the NT are confined to the book of Acts (and referenced in 2 Tm 3:11). On Paul’s first missionary journey, Paul and Barnabas encountered opposition at Iconium and fled to Lystra, Derbe, and the surrounding region (Acts 14:6). While at Lystra, Paul healed a crippled man (v 8). This miracle excited the local crowd to cry out that Barnabas must be Zeus, and that Paul was Hermes (later called by their Latin counterparts Jupiter and Mercury in some English versions) because of his role as chief speaker (vv 9-21).
Paul and Barnabas’s Ministry in Lystra
Paul and Barnabas, thrown out of Antioch in Pisidia, descended the mountains, going east into Lycaonia. They went first to Iconium, a commercial center on the road between Asia and Syria. After preaching there, they had to flee to Lystra, 25 miles (40.2 kilometers) south. Paul was stoned in Lystra, but he and Barnabas traveled the 50 miles (80.5 kilometers) to Derbe, a frontier town. The pair then boldly retraced their steps.
The town of Lystra was largely inhabited by the remnants of a small Anatolian tribe who spoke their own dialect, attested today by a number of inscriptions found in the area and still spoken as late as the sixth century AD. Evidently the old Anatolian village system prevailed in this market town even when Roman rule was established there.
The Greek deities Zeus and Hermes were worshiped in that area, and archaeological evidence confirms Luke’s picture in Acts. One inscription records the dedication to Zeus on a statue of Hermes. Another records a dedication to “Zeus before the town,” throwing light on Acts 14:13 with its reference to the priest “of Zeus before the gate.”
Geographically Derbe and Lystra both belonged to the same political region, while Iconium lay in another. Lystra was closer to Iconium than to Derbe geographically, commercially, and socially—in spite of the political boundary separating them. There was evidently a good deal of communication between the two towns. In Acts 16:1-2 Lystra and Iconium are linked together as places where Timothy was well known and respected.