Expelled from Pisidian Antioch, Paul and his band travel eighty miles southeast on the Via Sebaste. They move across rolling country to Phrygian Iconium, also in the Roman province of Galatia. Iconium, which maintained its Hellenistic culture as a Greek city-state, was a prosperous commercial and agricultural center with five roads radiating from it.

The apostles go to the synagogue first (13:5, 14). In response to their speaking, a great number of Jews and Gentiles [believe]. Luke delights in portraying the effectiveness of preaching in quantitative terms (13:43, 44; 14:21) and the church in a growth mode (2:47; 4:4; 5:14; 6:7; 9:31; 11:21). This is certainly a challenge to church leaders in status quo or declining situations.

Unbelieving Jews, however, engage in counterevangelism. They stirred up the Gentiles and poisoned their minds against the brothers. Literally they "made their souls evil against," pointing to an assault on the feelings not intellect. (The "soul" is that inward place of feeling that may be influenced by others.) The Gentiles, in turn, become hostile toward the missionaries (not all the Christian converts). As in physics every action spawns an equal and opposite reaction, so in the spiritual realm the proclamation of the truth will always encounter opposition (Lk 8:12).