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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadGreater Men and Women of the Bible by James Hastings: 628. The Good Man
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The Good Man
The eulogy pronounced upon Barnabas is obviously suggested by his conduct as deputy to Antioch from the Mother Church at Jerusalem, which is recorded in the passage from which the text is taken. But when we turn to the other notices of this companion of the Apostles, we find that they are consistent with this one. In all of them we recognize the same large-hearted man who here acknowledges the presence of Divine grace under forms divergent from the common and approved forms of the religious life, and extends toleration to those who have broken through restrictions long deemed essential. To each of these notices this eulogy might be appended. Barnabas is from first to last a distinctively good man, full of the Holy Ghost and of faith, a man of winning and attractive character.
He was a good man. “Good,” not in the common acceptation of the term, but in the Divine. If a man lives morally; if he pays that which he owes; if he bestows his goods to feed the poor; if he conforms to the rules of society and the forms of religion, whatever his motives for so doing, by universal consent he is denominated “a good man.” Now the goodness of Barnabas involved all this. He was of the tribe of Levi; a son of exhortation, as his name signifies, and as he was surnamed by his fellow-Apostles; and so kind and charitable that he sold all his lands at Cyprus, and laid the money at the Apostles' feet at Jerusalem, that they might distribute to the necessities of the poor. But the goodness of Barnabas was Divine-the creation of the Holy Spirit. His goodness consisted in this, that “he was full of the Holy Ghost and of faith.”
1. He was full of the Holy Ghost.-The character in which Barnabas is here presented to us is that of a person greatly rejoicing in other men's goodness. He was glad when he saw the grace of God in his brethren. This feeling is especially attributed by Holy Scripture to the sanctifying Spirit of God. So that the “charity” which “envieth not” the spiritual attainments of others, is an especial token “of the Holy Ghost and of faith.”
The saints of God illustrate in various ways the fulness of the Spirit. St. Barnabas shows how His illuminating grace may make an able strong man to be kindly, thoughtful and patient, self-surrendering and unobtrusive. Nothing is more beautiful in his life than the way in which the patron of St. Paul was contented to become the second figure in the first missionary journey.1 [Note: D. Jenks, In the Face of Jesus Christ, 436.]
(1) The story in Act_11:1-30 gives an illustration of this. Barnabas went all the way from Jerusalem to Antioch in order to ascertain the truth of the conversion of the Gentiles and to prove its character. And “when he came and had seen the grace of God, he was glad”; that is to say, he rejoiced in the results of the gospel of the grace of God even among the heathen, though it was quite a new thing in his experience. He came, he saw, he rejoiced, and therein he gave one proof of his spirituality and goodness in that he recognized God's work wherever he saw it. As it is a sin against the Holy Ghost to attribute to evil agency the work of God, so it is the very power of the Spirit by which we perceive that work.
Barnabas does not condemn the movement because it is new, or refuse to see its worth because it is not according to “apostolic orders.” He pierces at once to the heart of things, rejoices at the proofs of the working of the grace of God in an unexpected quarter and in unforeseen ways, and, rising to the highest demands of the occasion, prepares the way for a cordial welcome by the guardians of the faith at Jerusalem of this wonderful expansion of original Christianity. That is the new fact. That is what is due to the Holy Ghost. Barnabas sees clearly and sanely; sees clearly what was altogether hidden before, and sees sanely what he saw selfishly before, for his eye is single, and his whole body is full of the Holy Ghost. We may call that “intellectual regeneration,” with Chalmers, if we will, or the spiritualization of the intellect, as it might rather be described; but the fact is this, however we name it-the entrance of the whole man into a new world of thought, his emergence from the lower and darker realms of pure sense and sheer intellectualism on to the highest plane of life and thought, whence his outlook on the contents of experience and possibility makes all things new. Intellectuality and spirituality are two very different things. One man may be keenly intellectual, and yet as blind as a bat to the things of the Spirit; and another may be ignorant of literature, a stranger to the kingdom of culture, and yet a master of the spiritual life. Peter and John are an offence to the ecclesiastical statesmen of Jerusalem because they dare to initiate a revolution whilst they are “ignorant and unlearned men”; but the ages testify that they were the men who were “of the truth” and saw the truth, who knew the forces that make for progress and could wield them, and who had taken possession of and uttered the ideas that have led the life of the world. It is John Bunyan, a man who has the training of a tinker and not of a university, who has gathered at his feet as willing listeners more men, women, and children than any other teacher outside the charmed circle of the builders of the Bible. It is George Fox, a man who owes nothing to the schools, who utters truths of revelation which the Churches have not yet fully understood, although the later years have brought us much nearer to his mind. It has been said, “The decisive movements of the world are accomplished in the intellect.” That is true as it stands of material and scientific progress, but it is comprehensive of all the facts only when we speak of the intellect as quickened, regenerated, and spiritualized, as taught and swayed by the Spirit of God.
In matters of this kind, everything depends upon the spirit of the deputation. Some men have not the requisite sense, because they have not the requisite senses. They have not the capacity for inquiry, because they have not acquired the proper powers of perception. “Except a man be born from above he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Then why send such a man on any errand of inquiry? You would not send a blind man to the Academy. You would not send a deaf man to write a critique upon some oratorio. And in the realm of grace there are some things which the mere reporter can never report. The unequipped reporter would go to Jerusalem and he would see the happenings of Pentecost, and this would be his report: “These men are full of new wine.” He would go to Wales and pass from meeting to meeting, and from town to town, and this would be the headline of his lively and flippant column: “Hysteria!” And such a man would have gone to Antioch, at the outbreak of this great revival, and he would have witnessed nothing but confusion, and he would have heard nothing but the rowdy ejaculations of an alien tongue. “Eyes have they, but they see not.” Yes, we must send the right reporter. If Jerusalem would know what is doing at Antioch, everything depends upon the character and spirit of its agent.1 [Note: J. H. Jowett, in The Examiner, 1905, p. 506.]
“Tell me,” says Dr. Arnot, “what gladdens or grieves a man and I will tell you what sort of a man he is.” Christ was sorry when He saw men despising the way of peace-“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, … how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!” Christ rejoiced when men received His Word-“I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou didst hide these things from the wise and prudent, and didst reveal them unto babes.” And St. John said, “I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth.” St. Barnabas was glad too when he saw a bit of the new heaven and the new earth.2 [Note: F. Harper, Echoes from the Old Evangel, 59.]
(2) The deeper qualities in the character of Barnabas first emerge when he comes into contact with Paul. This was soon after the wonderful transformation on the road to Damascus. When the converted persecutor went up to Jerusalem, he was at first coldly received. People could not believe that he was genuine. They thought his action a ruse, and they fought shy of him. Considering the extraordinary circumstances of the case, this is not at all remarkable. Paul had been the fiercest of the antagonists of the Christians, “breathing threatening and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord.” Had he not gone on a self-chosen mission to Damascus, in order to kindle the fires of persecution in that city? To hear that such a man had suddenly become a follower of the faith which he had been hitherto living to destroy was the most unlikely news. People could not believe it. Then Barnabas came forward and took him by the hand, introducing him to the Apostles, warmly commending him for the good work he had already done in Damascus. This was a doubly generous act.
There is something praiseworthy in a soul which, beholding in another the dim promise of some better, finer thing than he has yet achieved, does not hesitate to defend his cause against the suspicions of others whose goodwill he may alienate and whose judgment he may cross by his daring advocacy. This Barnabas did for Saul.1 [Note: H. S. Seekings, The Men of the Pauline Circle, 37.]
(a) Barnabas as a Hellenist may be reckoned a member of that section of the Church to which Stephen had belonged. It does not appear that the martyrdom of Stephen was a part of a general policy of persecution, although that policy was a direct outcome of it. The provocation was found in Stephen's liberal theology. The Apostles were assiduous in their attendance at the Temple. But Stephen was thought to have spoken disrespectfully of the Temple and the ancient customs it represented. If, then, Barnabas was known to sympathize with the more liberal views, he might have been seized any day as a special object of aversion to the Jewish authorities. Paul had been consenting to the death of Stephen and taking some part in the scene. In the eyes of Barnabas, therefore, Paul would have appeared to be a very dangerous man. Yet Barnabas is the first Jerusalem Christian to welcome him. It is possible that he had known Paul in those early days before the troubles arose. Cyprus is not far from Tarsus, and there was constant communication between the island and that part of Asia Minor where Paul had resided in his youth. Then they were both Hellenists, both Greek-speaking Jews, natives of Greek provinces. Previous acquaintance and local sympathies and similarities may have rendered Barnabas more ready than others to welcome Paul; but they are not sufficient to account for his courageous action. This sprang from his own noble nature. He is full of the Holy Ghost, and so he can believe in so great a wonder as the conversion of Paul by the grace and power of God; therefore he can believe in the genuineness of Paul's new profession of faith. The little, mean soul, narrow in its conception of God, cold in its own relations to the unseen, cannot believe in more than petty movements in religion. A vast volcanic upheaval, such as had taken place in the heart of the notorious persecutor, is wholly beyond its imagination, because it is quite out of the range of its experience. It is the large-hearted Barnabas who can believe in so tremendous a spiritual convulsion as the conversion of Paul.
(b) Barnabas not only receives Paul and believes in his conversion, but he does so at his own expense. There is no reason to doubt that he recognized from the first that Paul would to a certain extent supplant him. The beauty of his character is seen in the gracious spirit with which he allowed himself to be eclipsed by a younger man. There is a resemblance to the case of the two sons of Zebedee in the change that is made with the order of their names during the course of the history. At first the Gospels give us “James and John his brother”; but in the account of the martyrdom of the former we find him described as “James the brother of John.” Similarly at first we read of “Barnabas and Paul,” and this order of the names is kept up till after what we commonly call “the first missionary journey,” the preaching tour of these two in Cyprus and Asia Minor. During the course of this tour the genius and force of character revealed in Paul inevitably brought him to the front, and, consequently, afterwards we find the order reversed, and read “Paul and Barnabas,” though for once in describing a visit of the two companions to Jerusalem, where Barnabas was so well known and so highly honoured, St. Luke reverts to the older arrangement. This recession of Barnabas, like the recession of James, cannot be accidental. But in both cases the transposition is purely relative. There is no reason to think that Barnabas lost ground absolutely; it is only that he ceased to take precedence of Paul, owing to the unique position to which the Apostle to the Gentiles attained. As far as Barnabas himself is concerned, this is not only not derogatory to him, it even helps to bring out that graciousness of spirit which is his crowning virtue.
Barnabas served Christ incomparably by taking a second place. He gave larger opportunity to the Holy Spirit, by bringing Saul from his unsuitable, if not wasteful, retirement. Few see the evidence of the Spirit of God working by them in their having assigned to them an inferior position. Very few would discover a prime condition of the growth of the Church, and the progress of the truth as it is in Jesus, in their own voluntary abandonment of a prominent position, and their equally voluntary effort to bring forward another man, who could more effectively meet the need of the time and place. This it was that Barnabas did. He must have had his heart steadily fixed on the unseen rewards prepared on high, to make him acquiesce thus joyfully in his companion, Paul, receiving so much more of the encouragement provided for apostolical men in this life. Such a mind could hardly be, without deep devotion and forgetfulness of self: such as one may see in John the Baptist, in his way of speaking of our Blessed Lord, concerning whom it was a matter of joy to him to say and think, “He must increase, but I must decrease”; such, again, as in the Old Testament, we read of in the beautiful history of Jonathan and the way in which he so gladly yielded the first place in everything to David. Such self-denial, when regularly kept up, and not indulged only now and then, out of laziness or partial affection, is one of the clearest tokens that God's Holy Spirit is with men, preparing them for eternal glory.
Because he believed Saul was the man to cope with the peculiar nature of the work in Antioch he did not hesitate to bring him from Tarsus, and then he unselfishly stepped aside to allow him the unfettered exercise of his great gifts. There was discernment in that. And there was something greater than discernment; there was magnanimity. And concerning this Dr. Whyte has stated the case in a sentence which, while reading like hyperbole, is really calmest truth: “I would far rather have a little of Barnabas' grace than all Saul's genius.”1 [Note: H. S. Seekings, The Men of the Pauline Circle, 38.]
Ten men would think themselves fit or worthy of the first place, where one would see the greater qualification of another for the honourable eminence of leadership. It needs more grace of God to enable a man to step back in order to bring forward another than to contend for, or to aim at, pre-eminence. Conceit will make a Diotrephes, but only the love of Christ can make a Barnabas.2 [Note: G. B. Ryley, Barnabas, 93.]
(3) We read in Gal_2:13, where Paul writes of the dissembling Jews, that “even Barnabas was carried away with their dissimulation.” The cause of his weakness 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 been 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 as 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 Judaizing teachers.
We have brought before us here the consideration of the imperfect goodness of even the best men. A good man does not mean a faultless man. Of course the power which works on a believing soul is always tending to produce goodness and only goodness. But its operation is not such that we are always equally, uniformly, perfectly under its influence. In Barnabas, his amiability and openness of nature, the very characteristics that had made him strong, now make him weak and wrong. How clearly, then, there is brought out here the danger that lurks even in our good! Every virtue may be run to an extreme and become a vice. Liberality is exaggerated into prodigality, firmness into obstinacy, mercy into weakness, gravity into severity, tolerance into feeble conviction, humility into abjectness. The special form of error into which Barnabas fell is worth notice. It was feebleness of grasp, a deficiency of boldness in carrying out his witness to a disputed truth.
Blessed Francis was sometimes taxed with over much good nature and gentleness, and was told that this was the cause of many disorders which would not have occurred had he been more wholesomely severe. He, however, answered calmly and sweetly that he had always in his mind the words of the great St. Anselm, the glory of our Alps, among which he was born. That Saint, he observed, was in the habit of saying that if he had to be punished either for being too indulgent or being over-rigorous, he would far rather it should be for the former. He gave as his reason that judgment with mercy would be meted out to the merciful, and that God would always have more pity on the pitiful than on the rigorous.1 [Note: J. P. Camus, The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales, 498.]
2. He was full of faith.
(1) Barnabas gave practical expression to his faith in Christ and the Christian Church by selling his land and bringing the money and laying it at the Apostles' feet. There is no preface to the mention in the Acts of the Apostles of the first most notable deed of Barnabas. Yet that first record implies much. There must have been almost from the first very fervent character and peculiarly specialized faith in Christ and love of the brotherhood in Jesus. Barnabas sold his property and gave it all for Christ. The generosity of that deed is measured not by what he gave, but by what he left. That is always so. Generosity is not a sum in addition. It is a sum in subtraction. A poor man's penny is more than a rich man's shilling. Barnabas is the man of generosity, not only because he gave much, but because that much was his all.
Of course it is possible to make too much of this one act of generosity on the part of Barnabas. He will do greater things afterwards. We need not exalt him to the skies simply because this deed is recorded in the Bible, and ignore the fact that more remarkable sacrifices are told us of men in later days. Church history abounds with instances of people who gave up everything and took poverty as their bride. St. Francis not only abandoned his home and all he possessed; he took off his clothes and dressed himself only in the old garments tossed to him as a beggar. Less fantastic and vastly more self-sacrificing was his devotion of his whole life to follow in the footsteps of Christ as exactly as possible. Not less noble is the life of such a man as Francis Crossley-“the modern St. Francis”-who, though a most prosperous manufacturer, who might have amassed a fortune and lived like a prince, chose to spend a simple life among his own workpeople, devoting himself and his large business profits to the good of his fellow-men. But while there is no reason to exaggerate the importance of this one act of Barnabas, it is interesting as exhibiting at the very first the leading trait of his character, his abounding generosity. We may find it the more valuable in this way because it is a concrete action.
Whilst crying, “Lord, increase my faith,” see to it that you use what you have. The godly blacksmith who prays at the family altar in the morning that health and strength may be given for the day's work does not afterwards sit in his chair to wait for the strength to come. He makes for the smithy, turns up his shirt-sleeves, seizes the sledge, and every time it rings on the anvil, his muscles become more like whipcord, and his strength develops. So use your faith.1 [Note: J. G. Stuart, Talks about Soul-Winning, 89.]
(2) Another example of Barnabas' faith may be found in an incident which is generally regarded as the most regrettable fact of his history. The facts are familiar to us. When Paul and Barnabas went out on their mission, they determined to take a young man with them, to assist them, and train him for the work when they should be called away. They determined to take with them John who was surnamed Mark. When they reached Perga he became homesick. His heart failed, and he returned to his native city. A second journey was now to be undertaken, and Mark, who had repented of his former desertion from them, and recovered his spirit, offered himself for the second journey, wishing to show his sorrow by the fidelity with which he would keep to the work in future. This offer was met by Barnabas and repudiated by Paul. Paul said, “He has failed me once, and I will not trust myself with him again.” Barnabas said, “Let us give him one more clean page to write on, one more chance of recovering his reputation.” Both thought that they were right, and neither of them would yield to the other by a hair's-breadth. Each determined to have his own way; the consequence was, “the contention was so sharp between them, that they departed asunder, one from the other.”
As Christina Rossetti puts it in St. Barnabas:-
Divided while united, each must run
His mighty course not hell should overtake;
And pressing toward the mark must own the ache
Of love, and sigh for heaven not yet begun.
For saints in life-long exile yearn to touch
Warm human hands and commune face to face;
But these we know not ever met again:
Yet once St. Paul at distance overmuch
Just sighted Cyprus; and once more in vain
Neared it and passed;-not there his landing-place.
(a) It is not easy, nor is it pleasant, to apportion credit or blame in this story. Each of the Apostles may be honoured for something admirable in the conflict of judgment. Deep tenderness in one and intense earnestness in the other show themselves attractively. But without wronging Paul, it may be fairly enough wished that he had remembered how once he needed a champion and friend, and had found both comforter and advocate in Barnabas. Nor would it have been to Paul's dishonour if he had understood that when Barnabas as good as said, “Give John Mark another chance,” he was doing what was, in spirit, like taking Saul of Tarsus by the hand, and justifying him before the Apostles and elders in Jerusalem. Barnabas, in this contention, is consistent with all that we know of his goodness and kindness to weak and tried brethren; Barnabas was true to the lines of his gentle and more gracious character. Under the shelter of his great charity and tenderness John Mark found a new prospect of consecration to Christ that gave him the opportunity of struggling manfully against the weakness of the past, and proving himself to be one who could “endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.” The charity that hopeth and believeth all things, of which Paul became the great exponent and example, showed its living and life-giving power in Barnabas. It made him, in this instance, the protector and helper of Mark, as once he had been of Saul. By faith he was filled with the Spirit of Christ and judged Mark not from the earthly standpoint of his inefficiency but from the standpoint of Christ, who sees the best in all of us and believes in us.
The difference between the man of real Faith and other people is this, that while they judge of right and wrong by the standard of other men whom they see, the man of Faith judges of it by the standard of Christ, whom we do not see.1 [Note: Literary Churchman (1871), 217.]
(b) Barnabas seems at a later date to find justification for his defence of Mark, and that in the words of Paul himself. As if repenting of his former severity, Paul took pains to say a good word of Mark. To the Colossians he wrote, “Mark, the cousin of Barnabas, touching whom ye received commandment; if he come unto you, receive him.” Then he writes kindly to Philemon of “Mark, my fellow-worker.” And in the last lines he ever wrote, we find the great Apostle still eager to make amends for that old wrong: “Take Mark,” he writes to Timothy; “and bring him with thee, for he is profitable to me for the ministry.”
Thus the man he would not have at the outset, he was glad to have at the close. It is a beautiful proof of how we may outgrow past errors, and become strong in that which is weakest. And it is more beautiful still as showing that Paul had outgrown his early quarrel, and that they were now one in heart. But it is most beautiful of all as an indication that Barnabas was right in his estimate of Mark, and that he was justified in his generosity.
(c) The friendship between Barnabas and Paul was not entirely broken. Barnabas did not become a Judaizer, or in any way discountenance the work of Paul. In the Acts of the Apostles he is not again mentioned. Whether he confined his mission work to his native island, to which he almost immediately sailed with Mark, or whether, as seems to be implied by the allusion in the Epistle to the Corinthians, he extended it more widely, he certainly continued to work on the same principles as before. And though, so far as they erred, the Apostles suffered for their error, God overruled evil for good. Henceforth they were engaged in two spheres of missionary action instead of one, and henceforth also the bearing and the views of Paul were more free and vigorous, less shackled by associations, less liable to reaction. Hitherto his position in the Church of Jerusalem had depended much upon the countenance of Barnabas. Henceforth he had to stand alone, to depend solely on himself and his own Apostolic dignity, and to rely on no favourable reception for his views, except such as he won by the force of right and reason.
Tradition tells us that after, in St. Mark's company, St. Barnabas had returned to his native Cyprus, he once more quitted that island; and rejoining St. Paul was sent by him, with Titus, to Corinth. He has moreover been styled the Apostle of Milan, as of a city where he preached Christ. Nevertheless as the doves to their windows, so did this tender dove-like saint return to his first home; and being full of years put on his martyr's crown where he had dwelt with his father and his mother. In Cyprus his discourses, his miracles, his daily life, set forth the Gospel and won souls to the faith. Thus was God glorified, the Church edified, Satan discomfited. Thus also were certain unbelieving Jews, beforetime his persecutors in Syria, exasperated. These came to Cypriot Salamis, and there stirred up the great men against the apostle. Then was he seized, roughly beset, insulted, tormented, stoned. And anon the mob gazed upon an aged body slain by a defacing death, and the Church bewailed her nursing father taken from her head that day, and holy Angels praised God for a sanctified soul new-born into glory, and even as one whom his mother comforteth the Son of Consolation was comforted.1 [Note: C. G. Rossetti, Called to be Saints, 150.]
Crowned with immortal jubilee
This day, thy soul set free,
From earth to Heaven thou didst pass,
O holy Barnabas.
He, for whose sake, at whose dear call,
Thou gavest up thine all:
He shall thine all, thy treasure be
Lasting eternally.
'Mid fasting, prayer, and holy hands,
Lo! 'mid the saints he stands,
The Spirit's high behest to bear,
Christ's Heav'n-sent messenger.
Thou hast with Paul in labours stood,
Blest bond of brotherhood!
One, in the mandate sent from high;
And one, in charity.
To what barbaric shores away
Did ye that light convey,
When from God's chosen race ye turn'd,
Who faith's glad message spurn'd?
Lord, when to us an offer'd Guest
Shall come that Spirit blest,
Let not our hearts Heaven's bounty slight
Deeming our darkness light.1 [Note: Isaac Williams.]