How did Paul and Barnabas respond? They “shook the dust off their feet against them and went to Iconium.”

Acts 13:50-52.

Note, too, that when the people of Antioch rejected their message, Paul and Barnabas “shook the dust off their feet”​—a gesture that indicated not anger but a disclaiming of responsibility. These missionaries realized that they could not control how others would respond.

4, 5. Why did Paul and Barnabas travel to Iconium, and what happened there?

⁴ Not many days earlier, Paul and Barnabas were thrown out of the Roman city of Pisidian Antioch after Jewish opposers stirred up trouble for them. Instead of becoming discouraged, however, the two men “shook the dust off their feet” against the city’s unresponsive inhabitants. (Acts 13:50-52; Matt. 10:14) Paul and Barnabas peacefully departed and left those resisters to the consequences that would come from God. (Acts 18:5, 6; 20:26) With undiminished joy, the two missionaries continued their preaching tour. Trekking about 100 miles (150 km) southeast, they reached a fertile plateau cupped between the Taurus and Sultan mountain ranges.

⁵ Initially, Paul and Barnabas stopped at Iconium, an enclave of Greek culture and one of the principal cities of the Roman province of Galatia.a This city sheltered an influential Jewish population and a large number of non-Jewish proselytes.