Acts 14:5-7

"The schematic description of the mission in Iconium follows the pattern of the mission in Jerusalem more closely than the pattern of the mission in Antioch of Pisidia." [Note: Tannehill, 2:176.]

The Gentiles and the Jewish rulers took the initiative in persecuting the evangelists. The attempt to stone them appears to have been an act of mob violence rather than a formal Jewish attempt at execution (cf. Acts 7:58-59).

"It would have required a regular Hebrew court to sanction it [a legal stoning], and it would never have been tolerated in a Roman colony." [Note: Foakes-Jackson, p. 128.]

"Paul and Barnabas had no idea of remaining to be stoned (lynched) by this mob. It is a wise preacher who always knows when to stand his ground and when to leave for the glory of God. Paul and Barnabas were following the directions of the Lord Jesus given to the twelve on their special tour of Galilee (Matthew 10:23)." [Note: Robertson, 3:207.]

Consequently Paul and Barnabas moved south into the geographical region of Lycaonia, which was also in the Roman province of Galatia. Lycaonia means "land of the wolf." This became the next area for their ministry. They left one political area to start afresh in another.

"Luke’s accuracy was once severely challenged on this point because abundant records exist showing that Iconium was also a Lycaonian city, and thus no border would have been crossed between Iconium and Lystra. It was careful study of this matter which changed the British scholar William Ramsay into a strong defender of Luke’s accuracy when he discovered that Iconium was Lycaonian earlier and again later, but that Luke’s statement ’was accurate at the period when Paul visited Lycaonia; that it was accurate at no other time except between 37 and 72 A.D.’" [Note: Kent, p. 116. His quotation is from Ramsay, St. Paul . . ., pp. 110-11. Cf. idem, The Bearing . . ., pp. 35-52]