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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadGreater Men and Women of the Bible by James Hastings: 626. Barnabas
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Literature
Bartlett, J. S., Sermons (1870), 138.
Boyd, A. K. H., The Graver Thoughts of a Country Parson, ii. (1865) 72.
Brooke, S. A., Short Sermons (1892), 129.
Brown, J., Sermons with Memoir (1892), 234.
Clifford, J., The Gospel of Gladness (1912), 172.
Deane, A., Friends and Fellow Labourers of St. Paul (1906), 37.
Farrar, F. W., The Life and Work of St. Paul (1897).
Greenhough, J. G., The Apostles of our Lord (1904), 253.
Harper, F., Echoes from the Old Evangel (1899), 58.
Howson, J. S., The Companions of St. Paul (1874), 1.
Jenks, D., In the Face of Jesus Christ (1914), 436.
Keble, J., Sermons for the Christian Year: Saints' Days (1877), 234, 242.
Lee, F. T., The New Testament Period and its Leaders (1913), 234.
Mackay, W. M., Bible Types of Modern Men (1910), 89.
Maclaren, A., Expositions: The Acts of the Apostles i.-xii. (1907), 323, 343.
Maclaren, A., Expositions: The Acts of the Apostles xiii.-end (1907), 91.
Maclaren, A., Last Sheaves (1903), 219.
Newbolt, W. C. E., Words of Exhortation (1900), 92, 105, 245.
Ryley, G. B., Barnabas (1893).
Seekings, H. S., The Men of the Pauline Circle (1914), 33.
Smith, W. M., Giving a Man another Chance (1908), 11.
Stuart, J. G., Talks about Soul-Winning (1900), 82.
Vince, C., The Unchanging Saviour (1875), 263.
Whyte, A., Bible Characters: Joseph and Mary to James (1900), 227.
Wordsworth, J., in Sermons for the People, New Ser., v. (1906) 27.
Young, D. T., Neglected People of the Bible (1901), 201.
Christian World Pulpit, xviii. (1880) 324 (J. Kelly).
Church Pulpit Year Book, ii. (1905) 153.
Churchman's Pulpit: St. Barnabas, St. John the Baptist, xiv. 438 (J. S. Bartlett).
Examiner, May 25, 1905 (J. H. Jowett).
Homiletic Review, lvii. (1909) 69 (J. Silvester).
Literary Churchman, xvii. (1871) 215.
1. Scripture narratives are remarkable for the frankness with which they tell the faults of the best men. This 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-which 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 to, and the most sinful to expect, perfect likeness to a perfect Lord. It is a mirror which gives back all images without distortion.
The interest of such a revelation lies in this, that it gives us an encouragement to do our best with our own lives, by showing us that much may be done by secondary characters and by ordinary means. We cannot expect to reach the glory of St. Peter, St. Paul, and St. John, but we may have more hope of treading in the footsteps of St. Andrew, as shown in the Gospels, or St. Barnabas, as portrayed in the Acts. The description here given is that of a simple character, not of one specially distinguished for strength or commanding personality, for eloquence or dialectic skill.
2. Barnabas has been in a measure eclipsed, or at least overshadowed, by his more distinguished colleague and fellow-soldier. That is not surprising. Paul was much the greater man of the two in intellectual power and perhaps in force of character. With Paul the fine moral and spiritual qualities were united with the gifted mind, the eloquent tongue, the originating genius, and the boundless energy which belong to the makers of history. Such men inevitably go to the front and win the leading place in the world's regard. At first in the Acts of the Apostles, when the two men are spoken of together, Barnabas is placed first. That was evidently the position assigned to him by those who sent them forth. The Church had not then discovered which was the greater man. But the course of events proved it, and Barnabas quietly fell back into the second place, and before long was allowed to drop out of the story.
Yet no one can read the story of Barnabas without seeing that he is one of the saints who have been pressed out of their proper place. Unintentionally they have been dwarfed in history by the greater prominence and wider reach, in visible influence, of some of their comrades. The mental intensity and greatness of Paul, together with the consequently large and permanent publicity of his work, have unfortunately lessened both the recognition and the estimate of the services of Barnabas. It ought not to have been so. The life and work of Paul ought to have been as added light on the lustre of Barnabas. For a true judgment of Paul cannot but aid in giving to Barnabas his proper value; while, at the same time, the right estimate of Barnabas will assign to Paul only additional and more evidently deserved honour. The two are inseparable in some of the most important events in the history of the Church of Christ. They were, in their union and comradeship, involved in such momentous crises of the brotherhood in Christ, and together had so to determine the direction of the Church's action at important turning-points, as to make it more than desirable to judge neither of them apart from the other, but each in his dependence on his brother, for a right valuation of their work in the Lord. They have been regarded almost as moving in separate circles, and as coming only for a little time into influential relationship with each other, Barnabas being but the satellite of Paul. They were, rather, for the most important part of their lives, as twin stars having concentric revolution, of different colour and size, certainly, but therefore all the more interesting in their nearness and companionship, and all the more suggestive to devout thought because of their action and reaction on one another.
Barnabas is one of those minor characters of Scripture, who at once gain and lose by their proximity to a greater figure. He gains doubtless much from his relation to the gigantic figure of Paul, for it was in company with him that his best work was done. And yet, perhaps, he suffers more; for the friend with whom he walks is so colossal that we forget all when we see him. A mountain in Scotland would be a hillock in Switzerland. A Thames in England would be an obscure rivulet if it poured itself into the Amazon.1 [Note: W. M. Mackay, Bible Types of Modern Men, 89.]
And then, when at last we reached the summit of that monster mountain, which summit was like the bottom of an inverted cone situated in the centre of an awful cosmic pit, we found that we were at neither top nor bottom. Far above us was the heaven-towering horizon, and far beneath us, where the top of the mountain should have been, was a deeper deep, the great crater, the House of the Sun. Twenty-three miles around stretched the dizzy walls of the crater. We stood on the edge of the nearly vertical western wall, and the floor of the crater lay nearly half a mile beneath. This floor, broken by lava-flows and cinder-cones, was as red and fresh and uneroded as if it were but yesterday that the fires went out. The cinder-cones, the smallest over four hundred feet in height and the largest over nine hundred seemed no more than puny little sand-hills, so mighty was the magnitude of the setting.2 [Note: J. London, The Cruise of the Snark, 121.]