Bible Strands
Acts 14:20
But after the disciples had gathered around him, he got up and went back into the city. And the next day he left with Barnabas for Derbe.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — Paul stands outside Lystra after being stoned and dragged from the city, surrounded by his followers while his companions await his next move. The narrative captures the immediate moment after the crowd presumes him dead and before his journey continues to Derbe.
The words — κυκλωσάντων (kuklōsantōn) describes the disciples closing around him, and ἀναστὰς (anastas) records his physical rising from the ground. εἰσῆλθεν (eisēlthen) notes his deliberate entry back into the city walls.
The thread — The narrative of being cast out yet returning mirrors the pattern in Acts 14:6 where Paul and Barnabas flee to Lystra and Derbe. This sequence of expulsion and return also parallels the early church’s experience of suffering without final defeat, as noted in 2 Corinthians 6:9.
Why it lands — The text demands recognition that the mission continues regardless of apparent defeat, requiring the reader to follow the movement from expulsion back into the city and onward to Derbe. It asks for a plain acknowledgment that the narrative records physical recovery and geographic progression before drawing any theological conclusion.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Greek words
King James Version
Howbeit, as the disciples stood round about him, he rose up, and came into the city: and the next day he departed with Barnabas to Derbe.
Cross-references
- 2 Corinthians 1:9 Indeed, we felt we were under the sentence of death, in order that we would not trust in ourselves, but in God, who raises the dead.
- 2 Corinthians 6:9 unknown, yet well-known; dying, and yet we live on; punished, yet not killed;
- Acts 14:6 they found out about it and fled to the Lycaonian cities of Lystra and Derbe and to the surrounding region,
- Acts 16:40 After Paul and Silas came out of the prison, they went to Lydia’s house to see the brothers and encourage them. Then they left the city.
- Acts 20:1 When the uproar had ended, Paul sent for the disciples. And after encouraging them, he said goodbye to them and left for Macedonia.
- Acts 12:17 Peter motioned with his hand for silence, and he described how the Lord had brought him out of the prison. “Send word to James and to the brothers,” he said, and he left for another place.
- Acts 14:28 And they spent a long time there with the disciples.
- Acts 16:1 Paul came to Derbe and then to Lystra, where he found a disciple named Timothy, the son of a believing Jewish woman and a Greek father.
- Acts 20:9 And a certain young man named Eutychus, seated in the window, was sinking into a deep sleep as Paul talked on and on. When he was sound asleep, he fell from the third story and was picked up dead.
- Revelation 11:7 When the two witnesses have finished their testimony, the beast that comes up from the Abyss will wage war with them, and will overpower and kill them.