Lystra

Lystra (meaning that dissolves or disperses) was a town in Lycaonia in Asia Minor, situated in a remote and somewhat wild district about eighteen miles south-southwest of Iconium (modern Konya, Turkey). Paul and Barnabas fled to Lystra and Derbe when driven out of Iconium by Jewish opposition during Paul's first missionary journey (Acts 14:6). At Lystra, Paul healed a man who had been lame from birth; the crowd, speaking the local Lycaonian language, took Paul and Barnabas for the gods Hermes and Zeus in human form and attempted to offer sacrifices to them—an episode that prompted the missionaries' impassioned declaration of the living God as creator.

The same crowd, incited by Jews from Antioch and Iconium, subsequently stoned Paul and dragged him outside the city, leaving him for dead—one of the most dramatic reversals in Acts. Lystra was also the hometown of Timothy, whose mother Eunice was a Jewish believer and whose father was a Greek (Acts 16:1). Timothy became Paul's most trusted associate and companion. Paul later referred to the persecutions he suffered at Antioch, Iconium, and Lystra in 2 Timothy 3:11 as examples of endurance and divine deliverance.