Stoning gives way to return, strengthening, and reporting

Left for dead, then elders, fasting, and a reported door of faith

There come thither certain Jews from Antioch and Iconium who persuade the people, and, having stoned Paul, draw him out of the city, supposing he is dead. Howbeit, as the disciples stand round about him, he rises up and comes into the city. The next day he departs with Barnabas to Derbe. When they have preached the gospel to that city and have taught many, they return again to Lystra, and to Iconium, and Antioch, confirming the souls of the disciples, exhorting them to continue in the faith, and that we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God. When they have ordained them elders in every church, and have prayed with fasting, they commend them to the Lord, on whom they believed. They pass throughout Pisidia, come to Pamphylia, preach the word in Perga, go down into Attalia, and sail to Antioch, from whence they had been recommended to the grace of God for the work which they fulfilled. When they are come and have gathered the church together, they rehearse all that God has done with them, and how he has opened the door of faith unto the Gentiles. They abide there a long time with the disciples.

The opponents who travel to Lystra are particular, not a people. The return combines courage, the disciples standing around a body, local leadership, and sober teaching about affliction. The wording of appointing elders does not settle every later polity debate. The opened door of faith to Gentiles is God's doing, reported to the sending church; it does not erase Israel or cancel the synagogues that first heard the word. Survival after stoning is not a promise against medical care, and it is not a stunt to repeat.