Acts 14:20

But as the disciples stood round about him, he rose up, and entered into the city: and on the morrow he went forth with Barnabas to Derbe.

Why was Paul stoned, and not Barnabas? The Jews were more discerning than the pagans of Lystra; the latter might indeed suppose Barnabas to be the king of the gods and Paul only a spokesman; but the Jews knew better, recognizing in Paul the greatest advocate of Christianity that was produced by the apostolic age. We cannot resist the conjecture that young Timothy was among those disciples that gathered around the battered body of the beloved apostle, and that with others he was overjoyed to learn that he still lived. It is possible that Paul spent the night in Timothy's home.

On the morrow ... Derbe was a good many miles farther toward the border of Galatia; and one is amazed at the physical stamina and endurance exhibited by a man who, having been stoned "to death" one day, was able to travel such a distance on the next. Surely the Lord must have strengthened him.

DERBE

For many years scholars have presumed that Derbe was about "twenty miles" from Lystra;[25] but the New Bible Dictionary has this:

The site of Derbe was identified in 1956 by M. Ballance at Kerti Huyuk, 13 miles North Northeast of Kavaman (Laranda), some 60 miles from Lystra (whence Acts 14:20b must evidently be translated, "and on the morrow he set out with Barnabas for Derbe").[26]

The Greek text will allow the suggested translation, since it was their going forth from Lystra that is said to have occurred "on the morrow," but there is no mention of their arrival at Derbe on the morrow.

It was situated almost on the border of eastern Roman Galatia; any farther east would have taken them into the kingdom of Antiochus. Of the "many disciples" recruited in Derbe, Paul's fellow-traveler Gaius (Acts 20:4) is the only one whose name has come down to us.

[25] H. Leo Boles, op. cit., p. 227.

[26] The New Bible Dictionary, op. cit., p. 306.