Acts 14:5
And when there was an assault made both of the Gentiles, and also of the Jews with their rulers, to use them despitefully, and to stone them, And when there was an assault made both of the Gentiles, and also of the Jews with their rulers, to use them despitefully, and to stone them,
The assault to abuse and stone Paul and Barnabas belongs to their work at Iconium, a city populated by Romans, Greeks, and Jews and much resorted to by pleasure-seekers and persons with no particular object in life. There the work had begun in the synagogues for the Jews as at Antioch, with marked success so that numbers of both Jews and Greeks accepted the gospel. It came in the course of their missionary labor of visiting every place where they could get an entrance, winning souls to Christ, revisiting the churches they had planted over a large territory, and returning to Antioch from which they had been sent. The hostility arose because the preaching won converts and grew increasingly popular, which filled the unbelieving Jews with envy and hatred at the doctrine of Christ. Their opposition only added numbers to the new faith, so they commenced unreasonable opposition against believers, influenced the Gentiles against them as far as lay in their power, and determined to stop the apostles' labors at once, bringing Jews and Gentiles together with their rulers in hostility.
Jews and Gentiles acting with their rulers conspired in an assault to mistreat and stone the apostles and stop their work by violence. The Jewish leaders stirred up the worst passions of the ignorant mob to make a tumult blamed on the apostles' teaching. They went to the authorities with false and exaggerated charges that great numbers were joining the apostles for secret and dangerous designs and that the whole city was in danger of being incited to insurrection, hoping to gain the magistrates' help. They intended to give the apostles no chance to vindicate themselves but to kill them by mob stoning. In consequence the apostles were repeatedly brought before the authorities, where their calm, clear, sensible, and comprehensive defense showed their doctrine made men virtuous, law-abiding citizens. Although the magistrates were prejudiced by the false statements they dared not condemn them, and unprejudiced Jews and Greeks held that the morals and good order of the city would be improved by letting them remain and work there, which raised considerable influence in their favor and gave the doctrine great publicity before a much larger number of unprejudiced hearers than ever before in that place.
The opposition did not turn the apostles aside from their mission, but they continued to speak boldly, and God gave signs and wonders as testimony to the gospel. Warned by friends not uselessly to expose themselves to this fury, Paul and Barnabas departed from Iconium in secret for their lives to escape the mob. They left the faithful and opposing parties to battle while trusting God to give victory to the doctrine of Christ, and purposed to return after the excitement abated to complete the work they had begun. The verse belongs to the whole of Acts 14 that those preparing to be laborers together with God in the last days must study and become familiar with, because they will realize similar experiences of opposition and stoning and must carry the work in the same way, fulfilling the commission to teach all nations and confirming souls by exhorting them to continue in the faith through much tribulation into the kingdom of God. What the apostles suffered at Iconium is what in a degree frequently comes to those who observe and teach the binding claims of God's law; they meet bitter opposition from ministers and people who persistently refuse the light of God, who by misrepresentation and falsehood close every door by which the messenger of truth might have access to the people.