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Rev Graham Harrison           Sunday June 6th a.m. 1999

Barnabas

And Joses (or Joseph), who by the apostles was surnamed Barnabas, (which is, being interpreted, The son of consolation,) a Levite, and of the country of Cyprus, Having land, sold it, and brought the money, and laid it at the apostles' feet [Acts 4:36-37].

I want to call your attention this morning to this man Barnabas. You might have noticed that he was mentioned towards the end of that eleventh chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, verse twenty two through to the end of the chapter, but my text, if that is what it is, comes at the end of the fourth chapter of the book of the Acts of the Apostles. You remember it had been in one sense it had been the first crisis that had come upon the New Testament Church. The previous chapter, chapter three, describes a wonderful miracle that the Apostle Peter was able to perform on a crippled man, at the Beautiful Gate of the Temple. The result of that miracle and the preaching that Peter gave himself up to following the miracle, was that Peter and John were arrested and brought before the supreme Jewish court of the Sanhedrin and they were given a strict warning never to teach or preach again in the name of Jesus. They indicated that was something that they could not possibly agree to. Being released they went back to their own company, the church and a most remarkable prayer meeting ensued. There was actually even some physical acknowledgement, you might say, from God. The very place was shaken as a token that God had heard and was going to answer their prayers. Great power came upon the Apostles: 'And with great power gave the apostles witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus: and great grace was upon them all' [Acts 4:33].

Then we read something very remarkable that happened: 'Neither was there any among them that lacked: for as many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the prices of the things that were sold, And laid them down at the apostles' feet: and distribution was made unto every man according as he had need' [Acts 4:34-35]. In other words they seemed to have pooled much of their resources and they gave to individuals what they needed so that in fellowship they were able to live together. then there comes the first mention of this man that I want to preach to you about: 'And Joses (or Joseph), who by the apostles was surnamed Barnabas, (which is, being interpreted, The son of consolation,) a Levite, and of the country of Cyprus, Having land, sold it, and brought the money, and laid it at the apostles' feet' [Acts 4:36-37].

Now that I say is the first mention that we have in the New Testament of this man Barnabas and it is a very beautiful little picture that we are given of him. There he was, he was not a person who had been brought up in Jerusalem. He had actually been born in Cyprus; he had relatives in Jerusalem, indeed that will become apparent in the course of what I have to say. He was a Levite, that means he came from the tribe of Levi. He was not actually a priest, the tribe of Levi was the tribe from which the priests were drawn - they were some of the actual sons and descendants of Aaron, but the rest of the tribe, way back in the Old Testament, they had to perform certain functions to assist the priests. For example, in the wilderness period when the Tabernacle had to be transported, it was the Levites who, after the priests had prepared the furniture of the Temple and covered up things like the Ark and some of the other ornaments of the Temple, had to had to carry it through the wilderness and then it would be set up again at the next camping place. Then when they eventually got to the Promised Land, and after some hundreds of years the Temple was built, so there was no need to go shifting a Tabernacle, a tent, around the place any more, the Levites they used to perform certain lesser duties there in the Temple. Later on again we read of them engaging in teaching and preaching to the people. So these were the Levites and this man, Barnabas, or Joses, Joseph, he came from that tribe of Levi, having been born and brought up in the country of Cyprus.

But here he is in Jerusalem and obviously he becomes a Christian. His Christianity very soon shows itself in a most practical way. He had a plot of land, whether it was in Judea or back in Cyprus we are not told. He decided to realise the capital that was locked up in that land and so he sells the land. He was not under an obligation to do it but he brought the money and in company, of course, with many of those other Christians in Jerusalem he put it at the Apostles feet so that the generality of the church and those who were perhaps particularly in financial need, would be able to benefit from it.

It is interesting if you were to read on into the next chapter, you come across two of the saddest individuals of whom we read in the New Testament, a Mr and Mrs Ananias and Sapphira, who tried to hoodwink that they had done the same thing. They sold some property and they said that they had brought all the money and they were devoting it to the church - but in actual fact they were not giving all the money, they had kept back part of it for themselves. Not that they were under any obligation to give it all, but what was wrong was that they said that they were giving it all when they were only giving part of it. They wanted the reputation of being very devoted and very godly but they were not willin g to pay the price that was involved in that. You remember how the judgment of God came upon those two people.

Well, here is Barnabas and you might say that he stands out all the more sharply by way of contrast with those two individuals, who are the next two who are mentioned then in the Word of God. It immediately tells you something about this man. I want first of all just to run very quickly through the passages in the Acts of the Apostles that recount to us something of the character and the story of this man, Barnabas.

You read of him next time in the ninth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles. By this time Saul of Tarsus, as he was, has been converted as he was going to Damascus to apprehend and persecute Christians and there in Damascus, of course, he preaches and eventually they have to let him out of the city by night, lowering him over the walls by a basket because the Jews were out to kill him. Eventually he comes back to Jerusalem and you can imagine the situation. You put yourselves, for example, in the place of those Christians there in Jerusalem. The last time you had seen this man - and it is described for us back at the end of chapter eight and the beginning of chapter nine of the Acts of the Apostles - the last time you had seen this man was when he had been leading a party of soldiers and Temple police to move in onto your home, hauling some of you off to prison, perhaps even having some of you killed, just as Stephen, the first Christian martyr, had been killed. You knew that many of your own loved ones, your relatives, they had been forced to flee from Jerusalem if their lives were going to be preserved.

Here he is, he has come back to Jerusalem and, lo and behold, he turns up in the service on the Lord's day. You recognise him and your immediate suspicion is, well, we have heard about this man that he is supposed to have been converted in Damascus - but you know that is a long, long way away and perhaps we have come across this trick before. These are the authorities from the Temple, they are trying to infiltrate, they are trying to find out who is who, which of us is really a Christian - and what better way to do it than by planting someone who is supposed to be one of us but is not really one of us. So when Paul, Saul, comes back to Jerusalem, we read: 'And when Saul was come to Jerusalem, he assayed (he tried) to join himself to the disciples: but they were all afraid of him, and believed not that he was a disciple.' Then at that point we get the next mention of this man Barnabas: 'But Barnabas took him, and brought him to the apostles, and declared unto them how he had seen the Lord in the way, and that he had spoken to him, and how he had preached boldly at Damascus in the name of Jesus' [Acts 9:26-28].

In other words Barnabas is vouching for the Apostle Paul. He is saying: 'It is alright! He is one of us. You need not be afraid of him - we know what he was like in the past but now he is a converted man. Everything is different. This is not the old Saul of Tarsus, this is Paul and the grace of God has worked in him. So obviously they then received Paul - not that he lasted long amongst them because this time it was the Jews that turned on him, and well, in order to preserve his life the Christians had to send him away. They sent him down to Caesarea, and then back across the Mediterranean to Tarsus, which is where he had originally come from. So that was the next mention that we have of this man, Barnabas.

Then again, and this brings me to the portion of Scripture that I read to you, the eleventh chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, still the scene is back in Jerusalem, word comes that as the result of the persecution that has brought about this scattering of Christians to different places - some went to Phenice, some went to Cyprus, some went to Antioch - word comes back that there has been a remarkable turning to the Lord, there in Antioch. A great number of people have believed and become Christians. So here was the church at Jerusalem and they wondered, 'Well, what shall we do? They will need help; they are babes in the Lord Jesus Christ. There are lots of problems that are going to come to them. they will need somebody who will be able to teach them. Who can we send?'

And they thought, 'Barnabas, he is the man!' 'Then tidings of these things came unto the ears of the church which was in Jerusalem: and they sent forth Barnabas, that he should go as far as Antioch. Who, when he came, and had seen the grace of God, was glad, and exhorted them all, that with purpose of heart they would cleave unto the Lord. For he was a good man, and full of the Holy Ghost and of faith: and much people was added unto the Lord' [Acts 11:22-24).

Then Barnabas, when he is there in Antioch, he realises that this situation is too big for him to cope with. He cannot manage it on his own! A great number had believed and he just was not able to deal with the whole situation. So off he goes to Tarsus, to try and find Saul - and he does find him. And when he has found him he brings him back to Antioch. And for a whole year they gathered with the church, and taught much people. And that is where they were first called Christians.

Then as you come to the end of that chapter, you read of this man who was a prophet, a man by the name of Agabus. He came up from Jerusalem to Antioch and the Spirit of God led him to prophesy that there was going to be a great famine. And it actually came to pass in the days of Claudius Caesar. Perhaps some of you, years ago, saw the television programme, I Claudius, well it is the same Claudius that is being talked about there. So these Christians up in Antioch thought, 'Well, those poor Christians down in Jerusalem they are going to need help'. So they took up an offering and they said, 'We want somebody reliable to take that money down to them'. So they got these two men, Barnabas and Saul, and back they go to Jerusalem, taking the money with them.

Then at the end of the next chapter, chapter twelve, you read how Barnabas and Saul returned from Jerusalem, and they bring with them a third character this time John, John Mark, the man who has written Mark's Gospel, and they take him with them to Antioch. Actually he was the cousin of Barnabas. In the Epistle that Paul writes to the Colossians Paul says: 'Aristarchus my fellowprisoner saluteth you, and Marcus,' and then the Authorised Version reads 'sister's son to Barnabas' it should actually be 'cousin to Barnabas' [Colossians 4:10]. Mark was obviously related to Barnabas; his mother Mary lived there in Jerusalem and this time he has gone back to Antioch with them.

As you come into chapter thirteen you discover that Barnabas and Saul are there amongst the leadership of the church in Antioch. 'Now there were in the church that was at Antioch certain prophets and teachers; as Barnabas, and Simeon that was called Niger, and Lucius of Cyrene, and Manaen, which had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch, and Saul. As they ministered to the Lord, and fasted, the Holy Ghost said, Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them. And when they had fasted and prayed, and laid their hands on them, they sent them away. So they, being sent forth by the Holy Ghost, departed unto Seleucia; and from thence they sailed to Cyprus' [Acts 13:1-4]. And what has begun is what we know as the first missionary journey of the Apostle Paul. Or actually it was the missionary journey of Barnabas and Saul and that is described for us in chapters thirteen and fourteen of the Acts of the Apostles.

Just one thing in passing before I move on from that, I often think it is worth commenting on this, you have in that opening verse a list of all the leaders in Antioch: Barnabas - well he did not come from Anti och, we know came from Cyprus via Jerusalem. Simeon that was called Niger, he was obviously a negro from Africa. Lucius of Cyrene, well Cyrene is not Antioch and Manaen, which had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch, well that is down in Judea - and Saul. Saul was from Tarsus, not from Antioch. So the entire leadership of that particular church did not have one Antiochine amongst it - which I think say something very remarkable about the spirituality of the church. I have known instances of churches where really you have to be able to trace your genealogy about three generations back before they will let you take up the collection! You almost have to have a certificate of nationality before you are admitted. Well, it was not like that in the New Testament Church. When God raised up men with gifts they were glad to recognise them, whether you might say they were home born and bred, or whether in this remarkable instance not one of them had come from the city of Antioch and from the church at Antioch.

So here are Barnabas and Saul and they are off on this great missionary journey. They go across to the island of Cyprus, taking John Mark with them, and they work their way through that island and then they sail north across the Mediterranean, to the south of what today we would call Turkey, and their intention is to go up into the interior. But at that point a crisis arises - John Mark decides that he has had enough and he is not going any farther! So back he goes to Cyprus and then back to Antioch and that leaves just Barnabas and Saul. Off they go and they work their way up into the centre of Turkey, the region of Galatia, and they conduct this remarkable ministry with God's blessing upon them and churches are established. The most wonderful things are told us about their ministry; it is with great peril to themselves that they exercise this ministry. They are set upon; Paul is stoned and left for dead - but he has not actually died, God raises him up and then they come back down and eventually they sail back to Antioch and they report once more to the church what God has done through them.

Then a crisis has arisen. The crisis this time has come from Jerusalem. You will remember what the New Testament Church was like - originally it would have been composed entirely of Jews. But something had happened in Antioch. There were people who did not come from a Jewish background who had been converted. It was not the first time it had happened; the scripture that I read to you, Acts eleven, and the preceding chapter Acts ten, tell us of how Peter was used to bring a man called Cornelius and his Gentile friends into the kingdom of God. But it happened on a big scale there at Antioch and these people have come up from Jerusalem and in effect they are saying, 'Well, we are not really happy about this! How can you be a Christian without first becoming a Jew. If you are a man and you want to become a Jew, you have got to be circumcised. In any case there are all sorts of food regulations and restrictions that you should be submitting to!'

These people who came up from Jerusalem began to cause dissensions and argument there in the church at Antioch. You can understand how it happened, they were relatively speaking new Christians in Antioch, coming as they did from a Gentile background they would not have been as intimately acquainted with the Old Testament as the Jews were and so perhaps there was some plausibility that attached to what was being said these emissaries, as they would have styled themselves, from Jerusalem. But Paul and Barnabas realised that this is dangerous heresy. You cannot say that in order to become a Christian you must first become a Jew. You become a Christian simply by believing on the Lord Jesus Christ and that and that alone is the way into the kingdom of God. You do not have to become a Jew.

So the church at Antioch said, 'Well, there is only one way to sort this out. We have got to right back to Jerusalem, we will send our delegates down, we will send Paul and Barnabas and they can go down to Jerusalem and meet with the Apostles, the elders, the church there at Jerusalem. That is where this trouble has come from and we will get it sorted out once and for all!' So Barnabas and Paul back they go down to Jerusalem. Barnabas seems to be the leading spokesman at that time, Barnabas and Paul they tell the 'miracles and wonders God had wrought among the Gentiles by them' [Acts 15:12]. Acts chapter fifteen describes to us how, yes, that assembly there in Jerusalem they were convinced and persuaded by what Barnabas and Paul said and they realised that it would be absolutely wrong even to suggest that a person had to become a Jew in order to become a Christian. It was faith in the Lord Jesus Christ by means of which a sinner was justified.

Then this counsel at Jerusalem, as it is described, they want this to be promulgated amongst the churches and so they send the message around. Paul and Barnabuds are bsack in Antioch and they are 'teaching and preaching the word of God with many others also' [Acts 15:35]. Then Paul comes to Barnabas, and he says, 'Look here, it is some years since we went on that missionary journey together - you remember to Cyprus and then up into the region of Galatia, central Turkey. Do you not think it is time that we went back - see how those churches are doing? They are there; they are isolated; they probably need help; they need encouragement.' 'Let us go again and visit our brethren in every city where we have preached the word of the Lord, and see how they do.'

And then we read: 'And Barnabas determined to take with them John, whose surname was Mark' I do not know if you could imagine it but I can picture Paul throwing his hands up in horror. 'No way! We are not taking him! You know what happened last time - we just got to the coast of Turkey and he had had enough! He went back. He abandoned us; he just left the two of us on our own. The whole point of taking him was that he was going to attend to our needs - and when we entered the most dangerous part of our journey he was not willing to come with us! Once bitten, twice shy! We are not going that road again! We are not taking Mark with us.'

Barnabas said, 'Well. I want to take Mark with us! You know people make mistakes but they can be recovered. I expect by now he has learned something of the difficulty and the affliction that comes to us because we are Christians. He is not the man that he was; he is more mature. It is years since that happened. You do not want to hold that against him. I think we ought to take him.' And Paul says, 'We are not taking him! The result was that there was a contention. 'And the contention was so sharp between them, that they departed asunder one from the other: and so Barnabas took Mark, and sailed unto Cyprus; And Paul chose Silas, and departed, being recommended by the brethren unto the grace of God. And he went through Syria and Cilicia, confirming the churches' [Acts 15:39-41]. That was the end of the joint missionary activity of Barnabas and Saul.
It was unfortunate, it was sad and undoubtedly there was sin there. I do not think that the Word of God enables us to apportion blame and to say, 'Well, it was so many percent Paul's responsibility and so many percent Barnabas's responsibility. Probably they were both involved. I can imagine Paul saying to Barnabas: 'Look here, I know why you want to take him! He is your cousin, isn't he! Blood is thicker than water and that is no way to operate the church of God. If he was not your cousin you would not want to take him! You are going soft towards him just because he is in your family.' And Barnabas saying, 'No! It is not that at all! God's grace can come to people, even when they have backsliden and have failed. God can restore them and we do not want to hold these things against somebody right through the rest of their lives.' I suppose that you could say that there was some justification perhaps on both sides. But it was sad that it happened.

Yet it is a wonderful illustration of the way in which God makes even the wrath of men to praise Him and what from a human point of view could have been quite devastating and could have ended the ministries of both of these men, it did not happen like that. God blessed both of them. God blessed Barnabas and Mark; God blessed Paul and Silas. You might say that the kingdom of God was actually more greatly expanded as the result of these two pairs of missionaries going out to proclaim the gospel than would have been the case had just Paul, Barnabas and Mark, a threesome, gone off as Barnabas originally suggested. It does not justify the sin but it shows how great our God is that he overcomes men's mistakes and turns something that Satan must have been rejoicing over, turns it to the glory of God and to the extension of the kingdom of God.

Well that is just about all that we know about Barnabas. There are one or two other references in the epistles. I have given you one of them from Colossians 4. In the first epistle to the Corinthians chapter nine Paul mentions him again. This time it is in order to establish the fact that they that preach the gospel are intended to be supported by the Lord's people. What Paul is saying is that he and the other Apostles they had the right to do this. In fact he said: 'Or I only and Barnabas, have not we power to forbear working? [1 Corinthians 9:6]. He is obviously mentioning there - this time it is years on of course from the previous incident - he is mentioning Barnabas as somebody who is still highly esteemed by the Apostle and has been engaged in pioneer missionary work just as Paul had been doing. But that I think is the total reference that we have to Barnabas in the New Testament.

Now why should we look at a character like this, or indeed at some of these other characters that maybe God willing we shall do? Well you see Christianity is not just theory. It is theory, the theory we call doctrine, teaching, and the Bible is full of it and it is very, very important. But Christianity is not just theory, it is practice. It is what you believe put into action in how you live. And there is no better way of seeing that than to observe the lives lived by men who have believed the doctrine and who preach the doctrine. It is always a perfectly legitimate thing for somebody out there in the world to look at those of us who claim to be Christians and say, 'Well, I hear what he says - but I want to see what he is. You know as well as I do, of course, that very often, perhaps sometimes unjustifiably but sadly on too many occasions with justification, people out there are able to say, 'Well, he says one thing but you ought to see the sort of life that he lives.' Or, 'Look at him on Sunday and he looks all prim and proper as he goes along to that church and you would think that he is a little angel. But you see him in work on Monday morning; you catch him speaking unadvisedly and them you will discover that there is a disparity between his theory and his practice.'

So by looking at some of these characters what we are able to do is to see in actual daily living what it is to be a Christian. The truth is lived out. Especially you might say that this is the particularly valuable thing about doing it in the New Testament - here are men and women who live in an exceedingly hostile environment. That becomes evident, does it not, as you read the history of the New Testament. The world is against them. The world hates the name of Christ. The world is actually breaking out in physical persecution upon these Christians. Paul and Barnabas they were to know it in their own lives - the violent physical persecution, the antipathy and antagonism that came against them. Not because they were evil men - but because they were Christians and followers of the Lord Jesus Christ.

So you want to look at these men - how did they cope with it? How did they react to all these pressures. We know pressures in our own little way; they are nothing compared with the pressures these sort of men and women had to put up with, but we know a little bit about pressure. How do we cope with it? Well let us see how they coped with it. Let us see how they faced these challenges, how they overcame them. Do you know the other thing that you can say is that the Bible is a very honest book. You see if it were not an honest book the end of that fifteenth chapter would have been expunged. The editor would have said, 'Well, we do not want that in. That does not reflect creditably on either Paul or Barnabas and we do not want any shadow to be left, as it were, hovering over the reputation of either of those men. So we will not mention that!' But the Bible does because the Bible is an honest book and it gives us the reality. It tells us something of the great blessing that came through these men but it also tells us in that instance of, yes, the tension that resulted in a disagreement and an argument and a division between these Christians.

But above all what it does is to show us what the grace of God can do. Here is a man, an ordinary man, a man of flesh and blood just as we are - and the grace of God takes hold of him. The grace of God does something very wonderful in him and to him. So we are able to come to a man like this and we are able to see the transforming power of God's grace. That is one of the great reasons why from time to time we ought to look at the very human characters of these men, and women, of God that are mentioned for us here in the New Testament. It is not strictly a text in the sense that I would normally have a text but back in Acts chapter four you have this first mention of Barnabas: 'Joses (or Joseph), who by the apostles was surnamed Barnabas,' and then in brackets you have the explanation of that '(which is, being interpreted, The son of consolation,)'[Acts 4:36]. Or possibly if you have another translation it might say: 'the son of exhortation'.

So his name originally was not Barnabas. You might argue that Barnabas was his nickname. Joses or Joseph would have been the name that he had answered to. Then he turns up with this money. 'I have sold some land', he says, 'And this is what I have got for it. I want to give this to the common fund of the church.' The apostles they notice this man and they noticed the characteristics of this man and they said, 'Well we need a name for him. There is something outgoing about him, he is concerned for others. He is always seeking to help others, to console them, to comfort them, to help them. Sometimes he exhorts them, he encourages them. Barnabas - that is what we ought to call him! Barnabas - the son of consolation, the son of encouragement.' If I asked you who was Joses, I doubt very much if any or many of you would have been able to put your hands up and say who he was. But if I had said Barnabas you would have immediately said, 'Ah yes! Was he not one of the companions of the Apostle Paul?' And you might have been able to have quoted this verse to me. So this is the name that has stuck with him - Barnabas, which is, being interpreted, The son of consolation, the son of encouragement.

It is a very beautiful description, is it not? Here is a man and this seems to be his great characteristic. He sees some of his fellow believers and they need help, they need comfort - and he is able to give it to them. He sees others perhaps they need exhortation and he comes and he gives them that. He stirs them up and leads them on and it is something so typical of the man. This Barnabas, his name describes what he is. You can see him functioning as I say in that capacity repeatedly in those instances that I have mentioned to you. When Saul comes back from Damascus and nobody will believe that he has really been converted - it is Barnabas that gets alongside him, investigates the situation and then comes back to the church and says: 'Look! It is alright, there is no need to get disturbed. He really is a converted man.' He is encouraging the church and I suppose you could imagine him, yes, consoling the Apostle Paul.

You put yourself in the position of the Apostle Paul. You have just had this escape from Damamscus, you have had to do it in the middle of the night in a rather undignified way, being let down over the wall in a basket. You have come back to Jerusalem, you do not know what is going to happen to you there. Last time you were in Jerusalem you had these letters of authority from the chief priests to get these Christians and drag them back to Jerusalem and maybe they would go the same way as Stephen. Now you were coming back, not only empty handed, but your reputation would have gone before you. If you cannot beat them, join them - and that was what he had done up there in Damascus and he could well have imagined the fury of the religious establishment against him. But he thinks it will be, 'The Christians will receive me!'

But when he comes to the Christians he discovers that is the last thing they want to do. 'We do not trust this man! We fear that he is a infiltrator. He has come here to spy us out.' Can you imagine how dejected you must have felt. 'If I go to the Jews they are going to kill me. The Christians? well they do not want me! What is left for me!' Along comes this Barnabas and you are able to pour out your heart to him. You tell him and he says, 'I believe you, Paul! Come on, I will take you. I will vouch for you!' He has lived up to his name - Barnabas, the son of consolation, the son of encouragement or exhortation. He comforts the Apostle Paul, he exhorts the church there in Jerusalem.

Then when the church wanted somebody they could trust to go back up to Antioch at the time of need, Barnabas is the man that they send. 'Who, when he came, and had seen the grace of God, was glad, and exhorted them' - it means he encouraged them 'that with purpose of heart they would cleave unto the Lord'. Then Luke, the writer of the Acts of the Apostles adds this little bit about him: 'For he was a good man, and full of the Holy Ghost and of faith' - and the result - 'and much people was added unto the Lord' Acts 11:23-24]. It is a beautiful picture, is it not, that we are given of this man, Barnabas. He is able to come, he is able to help and to encourage the people of God. What a beautiful picture we are given of this man!

But then you see there is something else that is very, very significant about Barnabas. Sometimes you know there is a significance in the order in which we say things. Perhaps sometimes you have introduced somebody and you realise that you have put your foot into it. You have not introduced them perhaps in the order of precedence that should obtain. Well as Luke writes the Acts of the Apostles and mentions Barnabas and Saul, that is the order in which he begins by referring to them - Barnabas and Saul. Acts chapter thirteen, verse two: 'As they ministered to the Lord, and fasted, the Holy Ghost said, Separate me Barnabas and Saul ...'. Then as you read on in that first missionary journey, you discover that is the order in which they are mentioned. 'Sergius Paulus, a prudent man; who called for Barnabas and Saul, and desired to hear the word of God' [Acts 13:7]. But you do not get very far in that missionary journey before it is reversed and it is not Barnabas and Saul, it is Saul and Barnabas. The newer convert has taken precedence over the older more experienced man. Barnabas does not seem to resent it at all. Once or twice you get the original order resumed, for example when the church at Antioch sends them back down to Jerusalem, it is Barnabas who is the main speaker. You can understand why that is, because he had the reputation there stretching back years in Jerusalem. But normally is Saul and Barnabas, subsequently.

Now how would you like that? You have been as it were the leader, the instigator, the person who everybody looked up to, the older, wiser Christian. You have taken this other younger Christian under your wing, you have been helping him and you have been very encouraged by him - but suddenly you discover that he is becoming more prominent than you and God seems to be using him more than he is using you. Or at least he is having a greater reputation than you are. Would you not be tempted to feel resentment and jealousy? But you do not get anything of that from this man Barnabas. there is a little couplet, it runs like this:

It takes more grace than I can tell,
To play the second fiddle well.

It was not that he was perfect! Indeed I have mentioned to you from the end of Acts fifteen one of his imperfections. He and Paul ought not to have had this disagreement. They ought to have agreed amicably together, even if they had agreed to go their separate ways they should not have had what seems to have been virtually a blazing row between them. They should have said something like this: 'Well look Paul I can see that if I bring Mark he is going to be a perpetual irritant to you and it might be better if you go with somebody else and I take Mark and I will try and rehabilitate him. Perhaps they ought to have sorted it out like that. But they did not. They had this row together. Undoubtedly Barnabas was at least partly to blame.

So there it is, you might say, warts and all in the Word of God - marvellously overcome by the grace of God, the sovereign grace of God. You see as well what Barnabas was able to do was something like a rescue job on John Mark because one of the lovely things that you read in the very last letter that we have from the hand of the apostle Paul in 2 Timothy. There he is languishing in prison in Rome, waiting his execution and he says this: 'Only Luke is with me. Take Mark, and bring him with thee: for he is profitable to me for the ministry' [2 Timothy 4:11]. That is the same John Mark that turned from them and went back and left them there to face all the fury of the opposition in central Turkey, in Galatia. 'Take Mark, and bring him with thee: for he is profitable to me for the ministry'. Obviously what had happened was that God had dealt graciously with John Mark. God had restored any backsliding, God had made him a man that, yes, the Apostle Paul who earlier, you might say, would never have imagined himself saying something like this, Paul is able to say: 'Take him and bring him with thee: for he is profitable to me for the ministry'. The restoring grace of God - undoubtedly ministered through this man Barnabas. He was able to see, 'Yes, this man has fallen! He has made a mistake. But I believe in the grace of God that is able to pick him up and restore him and make him a good and profitable instrument in the service of the kingdom of God.

So there is this man Barnabas, he is a beautiful character. Not a perfect character but one who encourages us. Let me just quote what one of the commentators says about him:

Barnabas stands out as one of the choicest saints of the early Christian church. He had a gracious personality, characterised by a generous disposition and possessed a gift of insight concerning the spiritual potential of others. He excelled in building bridges of sympathy and understanding across the chasms of difference that divided individuals classes and races. He lived apart from petty narrowness and suspicion and had a largeness of heart that enabled him to encourage those who failed and to succour the friendless and needy. He did have his faults and shortcomings but those faults arose out of the very traits that made him such a kind and generous man, his ready sympathy for others' failings and his eagerness to think the best of everyone.

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