When the crowd saw what Paul had done, they shouted in the Lycaonian language, “The gods have come down to us in human form!” 12 Barnabas they called Zeus, and Paul they called Hermes because he was the chief speaker. 13 The priest of Zeus, whose temple was just outside the city, brought bulls and wreaths to the city gates because he and the crowd wanted to offer sacrifices to them.14 But when the apostles Barnabas and Paul heard of this, they tore their clothes and rushed out into the crowd, shouting: 15 “Friends, why are you doing this? We too are only human, like you. We are bringing you good news, telling you to turn from these worthless things to the living God, who made the heavens and the earth and the sea and everything in them. 16 In the past, he let all nations go their own way. 17 Yet he has not left himself without testimony: He has shown kindness by giving you rain from heaven and crops in their seasons; he provides you with plenty of food and fills your hearts with joy.” 18 Even with these words, they had difficulty keeping the crowd from sacrificing to them. Acts 14:11-18
I brought a friend to church Sunday who was raised in the church but doesn't believe in it anymore. I guess you could say he echoes a lot of thinkers these days like Joe Rogan, Jordan Peterson, Tom Holland who think Christianity is good for society but not necessarily true. I saw the ribald Book of Mormon on Broadway and that was the message of that play, too. It basically said Mormonism is bogus but it's good for society so let's embrace it. Do I really want to follow something that isn't true, but it works? Not me! That's why it's so important for me to answer intellectual objections to Christianity.
Getting back to my friend, his objection was that the Bible copied other ancient texts. His example came from Revelation where the four horsemen of the apocalypse were taken from Greek Mythology and the gods. Here, in this passage, we see some misidentification of Paul and Barnabas with Hermes and Zeus and Paul quickly refutes this so even back then, 2000 years ago, this threatening amalgamation of Christianity and Greek mythology was present. Today, the Devil is still trying to blur the lines. I asked AI about how to answer this objection and even though I'd never heard it before, it appears to be a common objection. Chat GPT and Perplexity both state that although the imagery of horses is used in both there is no Greek mythology that connects these but rather a direct correlation to Jewish prophetic literature written 400-500BC in Zechariah 1:7-11 and 6:1-8 that it is very similar to. It's nice when a non-biased source that is smarter than all of us can outsmart the Devil's ploys. I sent my friend Chat GPT's response, and he told me Perplexity is better. Perplexity echoed Chat Gpt but rather than argue we ended up talking about battling in Pokemon Go. That's alright. Baby steps.
One significant takeaway from this passage is once again that when given worship, the followers of Christ refused it and said, "Don't worship us, we're mere humans." When angels are worshipped in Revelation 19:10 and 22:8,9 they also say, "Stop worshipping me". Jesus, however, doesn't say this. He allows worship. Why? Because He is God. This is one of the arguments that Bible scholars use for the deity of Christ.
God's word is true! Paul knew this and as we will see next, he is willing to give his life for it. If it wasn't true, as they picked up stones to kill him he would have said, "Just kidding." But he wasn't. Would you give your life for the sake of the truth?
