Wednesday Bible Study: B is for Barnabas

This week, we are going to look at Barnabas- specifically the "fight scene" between himself and Paul, and the many questions it brings up with it.

First, a little backstory so no one says, "I didn't know there were Victorian vampires in the Bible...".  Barnabas first appears on the scene described as a Levite born on Cyprus, and he sells some of the land in his possession and gives the proceeds to the Apostles for the needy among them- and earns the sobriquet Barnabas, meaning "Son of comfort".  Later, he is serving in Damascus when Ananias is instructed to take Paul- still called Saul- in as a brother.  The problem with figuring out the timelines is that Luke was a great historian, but not a calendar-watcher, and we see the phrase, "after many days" several times in the tale.  And somewhere in this we have to fit in one of the chunks of the Letter to the Galatians we need to fit into this story:

Gal 1:15  But when he who had set me apart before I was born, and who called me by his grace, 
Gal 1:16  was pleased to reveal his Son to me, in order that I might preach him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately consult with anyone; 
Gal 1:17  nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me, but I went away into Arabia, and returned again to Damascus. 
Gal 1:18  Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas and remained with him fifteen days. 

Acts 9 tells us that he met up with Ananias in Damascus first and was cured of his blindness, and "immediately preached" in the synagogues there.  Somehow, in this 3-year period, he managed to spend time in Arabia, and many believe that he was taught by Jesus Himself for a time in the desert- to match the three years He spent with the other Apostles.  Then he returns to Damascus, and somehow- the mechanics there are not explained- Barnabas gets word and brings him to the Apostles, where he spent his 15 days with Peter.  Barnabas begins to work for the Lord in Antioch with those dispersed from Jerusalem after Stephen is martyred, and things go so well there, he needs help- and fetches the returned-to-Damascus Paul to assist.  This is where there glorious partnership began.

But why did it end?

The clue I got to that is that there were TWO main stories in Acts 15.  Before the fight between Paul and Barnabas, there is a battle with the Judaizers- supposed Christians who want the Gentiles to conform to Jewish law.  And when I saw that, I felt it was telling me the stories are linked.

Paul and Barnabas had just returned from their opening missionary journey, and had stopped back "home" in Antioch, only to find a battle raging between those that understood what they were taught- that salvation comes from Christ alone, and the old laws had been fulfilled in Jesus- and those that insisted the dietary and hygiene laws (and circumcision) were still in effect.  So after a big debate, the decided to send P & B back to Jerusalem to report to Peter and the others.  In full assembly, they first heard Peter recount his vision of the blanket and tell them, " Now, therefore, why are you putting God to the test by placing a yoke on the neck of the disciples that neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear? But we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will." (Acts 15: 10-11) Then Paul and Barnabas told them of the missionary journey's success with the Gentiles, and James the Lord's Brother told them, "We will put no other burden on them"

The important thing to note here is the proper way to solve a church problem: Get everybody together, present all the evidence, ask, 'What DID Jesus do?', and reach agreement.  The second half of the story MIGHT not have been done the right way by all involved, as a counterpoint- but before we go there, there's another "after many days" story that Luke left out.

Paul tells us this one in Galatians.  It would seem that the pair returned to Antioch with the Church's decision, and after a bit Peter went up to see how it was going.  But then, some people James sent up after Peter arrived, and a whole thing snowballed...

Gal 2:11  But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. 

Gal 2:12  For before certain men came from James, he was eating with the Gentiles; but when they came he drew back and separated himself, fearing the circumcision party. 

Gal 2:13  And the rest of the Jews acted hypocritically along with him, so that even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy. 

Gal 2:14  But when I saw that their conduct was not in step with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas before them all, "If you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you force the Gentiles to live like Jews?" 

So it would seem that, for some reason, Peter lost his focus when James' "certain men" showed up- and the battle that had JUST been won raged again.  And this time, Barnabas got swept up in it.

So now comes the argument between the two.  Keep in mind, before we hit it, that over the months Barnabas has gone from Paul's mentor and sponsor to his backstop.  Now, he gets to watch, in front of HIS home crowd, Paul take apart his hero.  And right afterwards, Paul brings up the idea of revisiting the churches they had planted.  

This is where Mark comes in.

Now some scholars deny that the Mark that wrote the Gospel (and ran away naked at Gethsemane, Mark 14:51-2), was neither Mark the cousin of Barnabas here, nor the Mark that Paul "finds useful" while in prison in 2 Timothy 4.  I say they are all one man.  Certainly Mark the runaway from the cohort has the same character as Mark the homesick kid that ran back home during the first missionary trip.  And Paul wants no more part of him.

And this, I believe, was Barnabas' last straw.  The fight was WAY heated- the word used is where we get our "paroxysm"- and it would make you think it was something more than just a dispute over a punk cousin coming along for the ride.  This is the part that always mystified me, because I was a big Barnabas fan- and someone was in the wrong here.  But this time, what made me think was a comment in John Wesley's commentary:

And there was a sharp contention - Literally, a paroxysm, or fit of a fever. But nothing in the text implies that the sharpness was on both sides. It is far more probable that it was not; that St. Paul, who had the right on his side, as he undoubtedly had, maintained it with love. And Barnabas taking Mark with him, sailed away to Cyprus - Forsaking the work in which he was engaged, he went away to his own country.

And I realized that my first reaction was, Who SAYS Paul was in the right?  But then I thought about it.  Consider: Peter had just got the same tongue lashing as Barnabas in Antioch over the Judaizers;  and 14 years later he tells us that Paul's writings have the weight of the rest of Scripture (2 Peter 3).  So there's that.  Plus, as Wesley said, Barnabas' reaction was to head back to Cyprus- as if to go back where he came from and get away from it all.  The first story involved a peaceful laying out of evidence; the middle part had a dispute again in front of the group in which the one in the wrong (Peter) apparently repented;  but this last one looks like there was no bringing it to the group, no repentance afterwards, just a simple stomping off.

Mind you, I said looks like.  None of what I said can be proved, though I see after the fact that many of the Commentaries came to the same conclusion.  But I have one last piece of circumstantial evidence to bring up.  Consider: Many have speculated that the Letter to the Hebrews- the only NT book we don't know an author for- was written by Barnabas.  But there is no indication that that is the case.  And Barnabas does not appear again in Acts.  I ask this 'question that we can't answer' this time:  What if the price of willful rebellion was losing his name on the book?  What if that was God's way of giving Barnabas a reprimand- and us a reminder?  I say this because this morning, something in my daily Proverbs chapter really hit home:

Pro 5:11  and at the end of your life you groan, when your flesh and body are consumed, 

Pro 5:12  and you say, "How I hated discipline, and my heart despised reproof! 

Pro 5:13  I did not listen to the voice of my teachers or incline my ear to my instructors. 

Pro 5:14  I am at the brink of utter ruin in the assembled congregation." 

I'm not asking you to ask this, I'm telling myself to ask it:  How much sin, how much hatred of discipline, am I going to show before MY name gets taken off MY ministry?