'And Barnabas determined to take with them John, whose surname was
Mark. 38. But Paul thought not good to take him with them, who departed
from them from Pamphylia, and went not with them to the work.'--ACTS
xv. 37, 38.
Scripture narratives are remarkable for the frankness with which they
tell the faults of the best men. It has nothing in common with the
cynical spirit in historians, of which this age has seen eminent
examples, which fastens upon the weak places in the noblest natures,
like a wasp on bruises in the ripest fruit, and delights in showing how
all goodness is imperfect, that it may suggest that none is genuine.
Nor has it anything in common with that dreary melancholy which also
has its representatives among us, that sees everywhere only failures
and fragments of men, and has no hope of ever attaining anything beyond
the common average of excellence. But Scripture frankly confesses that
all its noblest characters have fallen short of unstained purity, and
with boldness of hope as great as its frankness teaches the weakest to
aspire, and the most sinful to expect perfect likeness to a perfect
Lord, It is a plane mirror, giving back all images without distortion.
We recall how emphatically and absolutely it eulogised Barnabas as 'a
good man, full of the Holy Ghost and of faith'--and now we have to
notice how this man, thus full of the seminal principle of all
goodness, derived into his soul by deep and constant communion through
faith, and showing in his life practical righteousness and holiness,
yet goes sadly astray, tarnishes his character, and mars his whole
future.
The two specific faults recorded of him are his over-indulgence in the
case of Mark, and his want of firmness in opposition to the Judaising
teachers who came down to Antioch. They were neither of them grave
faults, but they were real. In the one he was too facile in overlooking
a defect which showed unfitness for the work, and seems to have yielded
to family affection and to have sacrificed the efficiency of a mission
to it. Not only was he wrong in proposing to condone Mark's desertion,
but he was still more wrong in his reception of the opposition to his
proposal. With the firmness which weak characters so often display at
the wrong time, he was resolved, come what would, to have his own way.
Temper rather than principle made him obstinate where he should have
been yielding, as it had made him in Antioch yielding, where he should
have been firm. Paul's remonstrances have no effect. He will rather
have his own way than the companionship of his old friend, and so there
come alienation and separation. The Church at Antioch takes Paul's
view--all the brethren are unanimous in disapproval. But Barnabas will
not move. He sets up his own feeling in opposition to them all. The
sympathy of his brethren, the work of his life, the extension of
Christ's kingdom, are all tossed aside. His own foolish purpose is more
to him in that moment of irritation than all these. So he snaps the
tie, abandons his work, and goes away without a kindly word, without a
blessing, without the Church's prayers--but with his nephew for whom he
had given up all these. Paul sails away to do God's work, and the
Church 'recommends him to the grace of God,' but Barnabas steals away
home to Cyprus, and his name is no more heard in the story of the
planting of the kingdom of Christ.
One hopes that his work did not stop thus, but his recorded work does,
and in the band of friends who surrounded the great Apostle, the name
of his earliest friend appears no more. Other companions and associates
in labour take his place; he, as it appears, is gone for ever. One
reference (1 Cor. ix. 6) at a later date seems most naturally to
suggest that he still continued in the work of an evangelist, and still
practised the principle to which he and Paul had adhered when together,
of supporting himself by manual labour. The tone of the reference
implies that there were relations of mutual respect. But the most we
can believe is that probably the two men still thought kindly of each
other and honoured each other for their work's sake, but found it
better to labour apart, and not to seek to renew the old companionship
which had been so violently torn asunder.
The other instance of weakness was in some respects of a still graver
kind. The cause of it was the old controversy about the obligations of
Jewish law on Gentile Christians. Paul, Peter, and Barnabas all
concurred in neglecting the restrictions imposed by Judaism, and in
living on terms of equality and association in eating and drinking with
the heathen converts at Antioch. A principle was involved, to which
Barnabas had bean the first to give in his adhesion, in the frank
recognition of the Antioch Church. But as soon as emissaries from the
other party came down, Peter and he abandoned their association with
Gentile converts, not changing their convictions but suppressing the
action to which their convictions should have led. They pretended to be
of the same mind with these narrow Jews from Jerusalem. They insulted
their brethren, they deserted Paul, they belied their convictions, they
imperilled the cause of Christian liberty, they flew in the face of
what Peter had said that God Himself had showed him, they did their
utmost to degrade Christianity into a form of Judaism--all for the sake
of keeping on good terms with the narrow bigotry of these Judaising
teachers.
Now if we take these two facts together, and set them side by side with
the eulogy pronounced on Barnabas as 'a good man, full of the Holy
Ghost and of faith,' we have brought before us in a striking form some
important considerations.