Iconium #78

Iconium was a city on the high plateau of central Asia Minor, on the site of the modern city of Konya in Turkey. It was the second stop of Paul and Barnabas in the interior of Asia Minor on their first missionary journey, after Antioch of Pisidia. Iconium is worth knowing about because Luke shows in it, in miniature, the pattern that often followed the apostles: real success in the synagogue, a divided city, and violent opposition.

Biblical Significance

After being driven out of Pisidian Antioch, Paul and Barnabas shook the dust from their feet and went on to Iconium, “and the disciples were filled with joy, and with the Holy Ghost” (Acts 13:50-52). There, as usual, they entered the Jewish synagogue and spoke so effectively that a great number of both Jews and Greeks believed (Acts 14:1). Some Jews who refused to believe stirred up the Gentiles and poisoned their minds against the brothers, yet the missionaries stayed for a long time, “speaking boldly in the Lord, which gave testimony unto the word of his grace, and granted signs and wonders to be done by their hands” (Acts 14:2-3).

The city was split between those who sided with the Jews and those who sided with the apostles. When a plan formed among both Gentiles and Jews, with their rulers, to mistreat and stone them, Paul and Barnabas found out about it and fled to the Lycaonian cities of Lystra and Derbe, and to the surrounding region, where they continued to preach the gospel (Acts 14:4-7). Later, opponents from Iconium and Antioch followed them to Lystra and stirred up the crowd to stone Paul (Acts 14:19). After recovering, Paul went to Derbe, and then, in a bold move, returned to Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch to strengthen the disciples, telling them that “we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God” (Acts 14:20-22).

On his second journey, Paul learned that the believers in Iconium spoke well of Timothy, which was one reason he chose him as a companion (Acts 16:1-2). Years later, he reminded Timothy of the persecutions he had suffered in Antioch, Iconium, and Lystra (2 Timothy 3:11).

Today

Iconium is the modern Konya, one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, with a tradition of settlement stretching back thousands of years. The ancient center lay on and around Alaeddin Hill, which sits in the middle of the modern city. Because the city has been built over so continuously, excavation of the ancient level is difficult, and relatively little of the first-century town has been uncovered.

Konya later became the capital of the Seljuk Turks in the eleventh through thirteenth centuries and is famed today as the burial place of the poet and mystic Rumi. In early Christian tradition, Iconium is the setting of the second-century Acts of Paul and Thecla, a non-canonical work that tells of a young woman who followed Paul’s teaching. Historians treat that text as legendary rather than historical, but it shows that the city remained closely connected with Paul’s memory.