A cripple healed at Lystra

This episode sits in Luke’s travel narrative of Paul and Barnabas in Lycaonia. It follows their departure from Iconium and sets up the crowd’s interpretation and the escalating events that immediately follow in the same city context (Acts 14:11–20).

Lystra was a small town within Rome’s provincial system in Asia Minor, where local languages and customs existed alongside wider Greek public culture. A well-known disabled resident would make any sudden change highly visible, and public speech in open settings could rapidly draw a reactive crowd.

Theological significance

The story pauses to spotlight a public healing, describing Paul’s attention, the man’s response, and the sudden visible change. In Lystra, a man is described as crippled in his feet from birth and never having walked. The man listens to Paul speaking, and Paul gives a loud command to stand, after which the man leaps up and walks. This episode sits in Luke’s travel narrative of Paul and Barnabas in Lycaonia. It follows their departure from Iconium and sets up the crowd’s interpretation and the escalating events that immediately follow in the same city context (Acts 14:11–20).