Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1921-08-13
SABBATH SCHOOL LESSON
BY DR.. MARION NH. HULL
For August 14-Acts IA: 1928

quences. Barnabas and Paul tore
their clothes and ran in among the
crowd, and with great difficulty pre-
vented them from worshipping them.
they preached. 1t had only eighty
five words, but it told them of the
God of nature, who was also the
God of history, the God of provi
dence and the God of grace:
No yellow Streak.
1t might have been a temptation
to these men to allow the homage
to be paid them and by thus gaining
an influence over the people to use
it for the glory of God. The same
temptation came to Jesus when the
people on the shore of the lake
good does not come from evil; the
end does not Justify the means. And
Paul and Barnabas were men enough
to refuse.
Their refusal brought on persecu-
tion the crowd that had wanted to
worship them turned against them.
If they were not gods they must have
duped them. These impulsive Lycao-
mans would probably not have
turned against them so violently had
it not been for the Jews, who ar
rived from Antioch and Iconium just
people," and under their leadership
these Lycaonians stoned Paul until
they thought he was dead, and then
dragged his dead body (as they
thoughO out of the city. How Bar
uabas escaped we do not know.
The disciples were watching help
lessly all the time, and stood about
him as he lay there after the perse-
| cutors left. Young Timothy never
| forgot that sight. When Paul revived
he rose and came into the city, prob
ably to Timothy's home, and spent
icl,+ ;,,:,
doubt by Eunia and Lois. The 10y
atty and love of his friends was
some compensation for the sufferiS g
he had endured. A fellow never
| knows how many Cor how few
friends he has until he gets into
trouble. 1t is worth while suffering
sometimes just to find out how true
some of them are.
There was another compensation
here: for we believe it was this ex-
perience which he tells of in 2 Cor.
12:1-4. The spirit may have left the
to all intents dead, so far as we know
death; but the revelations he saw
were so great that he could not utter
them, and'the thorn in the flesh may
have. been somewhat the result of
that stoning. Paul never forgot that.
Once was I stoned" he wrote, and
he must always have thought of that
other stoning when he was the chief
instigator..
\ He left next day for Derbe, twenty
miles away. His experience did not
stop him; but there, as in the other
places, he preached the gospel and
taught many. Derbe was not very
far from Tarsus, and that way back
to Antioch of Syria was shortest, but
Paul and Barnabas did not take the
short route. They went right back
to Lystra and to Iconium and to An
tioch of Pisidia. They stayed long
enough in each of these places, where
they had suffered, to ordain elders in
bones of the believers. With prayer
and fasting they commended them to
the Lord on whom they had trusted.
Returning to the seacoast, he
preached at Perga, the scattered in
habitants having returned from their
summer outings, and then at Alfalfa,
whence they secured ship for Syria.
And finally coming back to Antioch
they had been commended to the
grace of God for the work that grace
had enabled them to fulfill, they re-
ported what God had done with them,
and how He had, opened the door of
faith to the heather.
Teaching points
1. 80" speak that men may be-
lieve-it is by lifting up the cross of
Jesus the Christ.
2. Lame men are still to be healed,
men who have never taken a step in
| the way of Gods will.
3. 1t takes iron in the blood to be
a real Christian.
4. 1t is grace that calls us out, and
it is grace that completes the work.