Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Acts 15:36
And some days after Paul said unto Barnabas, 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.
36. visit our brethren ] The oldest MSS. omit the pronoun, and read the brethren only. So R. V. 36 41. A new Mission-journey proposed. Contention between Paul and Barnabas. They separate, and Paul with Silas goes through Syria and Cilicia
Let us go again and visit our brethren – That is, in the churches which they had established in Asia Minor, Act 13:14. This was a natural wish, and was an enterprise that might be attended with important advantages to those feeble churches. Act 15:36
And some days after Paul said unto Barnabas, Let us go again and visit our brethren and see how they do.
Church visitation
Paul felt that he was not called to spend a peaceful though laborious life at Antioch, but that his true work was far off among the Gentiles (Act 22:21). He knew that his campaigns were not ended; that as a soldier of Jesus Christ, he must not rest from his warfare, but must endure hardness, that he might please Him who had called him. As a careful physician he remembered that they, whose recovery from sin had begun, might be in danger of relapse, or to use another metaphor, he said, Come, let us get up early to the vineyards: let us see if the vine flourish (Son 7:12). We notice here for the first time, a trace of that tender solicitude concerning his converts, that earnest longing to behold their faces, which appears in the letters which he wrote afterwards, as one of the most remarkable and attractive features of his character. Paul was the speaker, not Barnabas. The latters feelings might not be so deep, nor his anxiety so urgent. Paul thought, doubtless, of the Pisidians and Lycaonians, as he thought afterwards at Athens and Corinth of the Thessalonians, from whom he had been lately taken (2Th 2:17; 2Th 3:10). He was not ignorant of Satans devices. He feared lest by any means the tempter had tempted them, and his labour had been in vain (1Th 3:5). He stood in doubt of them, and desired to be present with them once more (Son 4:2). We are here reminded of the importance of continuing a religious work when once begun. We have had the institution of presbyters, and of councils, and now we have an example of that system of Church visitation, of the happy effects of which we have still some experience, when we see weak resolutions strengthened, and expiring faith rekindled, in confirmations at home, or in missionary settlements abroad. (J. S. Howson.)
The pastors visit to his flock
Solomon tells us that to everything there is a season, etc. Among these he specifies a time to plant and a time to build up. The husbandman must not only sow, but he must use other arts of cultivation, to ensure the abundant crop; and the architect must not content himself with laying the foundation, but must rear the superstructure. Thus, too, it should be with the ministers of the gospel. There is a season when they are to break up the fallow ground, and one in which they should examine whether their labours have been successful–a season when, having laid the basis, they are to build thereon, and raise to higher elevation that structure which is to grow into a holy temple of the Lord.
1. Christianity is a religion of benevolence. Those greatly mistake its character who suppose that its possessors are to become recluse. Nor does it merely refine and direct our social affections, in reference to the ordinary engagements of life, but it renders their subject solicitous for the best welfare of those by whom he is surrounded. It was on the principle of holy love giving birth to pious zeal, that Paul and Barnabas went among the heathen preaching the gospel of the kingdom. They were solicitous for the improvement of those who had received the truth in the love of it. Here is a test by which to try our ministry–we are not to be content with calling men out of darkness into marvellous light, but we must be anxious for their advancement in religion.
2. Christian ministers and people should stir one another up to works of usefulness. Barnabas was incited to this particular part of his work by Paul. Now this teaches us to provoke one another, to love and to good works. This association is important. It often happens that one has knowledge but no wisdom, ardour but no discretion, and therefore his companion may act as a regulator to the rapid movements of the watch or a machine, etc. Besides which, two are better than one, in counsel, strength, courage, probable success, because, bye combination of their talent and energy, they may accomplish what the solitary individual could never effect.
3. Wherever the disciples of Christ travel, they should endeavour to do some good on the spots which they visit.
4. Expectations of fruitfulness in proportion to the means of cultivation are justly cherished. Paul and Barnabas visited the Churches, hoping to witness the auspicious results of their missionary efforts.
1. Personally.
(1) Sinners! How is it with you? Have you reaped any advantage from the discourses which you have often heard?
(2) Believers! How do you do? What of your knowledge? is it more clear, extensive, deep? What of your faith? does it embrace more firmly the testimony of Jesus? What of your love? is it more fervent? What of your patience? does it bear with more submission the afflictive dispensations of providence? What of your zeal?
(3) Backsliders! How is it with you? Have you seen your error and mourned your departures from God?
(4) Afflicted Christians! How do you do? Are your trials mortifying your corruptions?
(5) Young people! How do you do?
(6) You that are advanced in life! how is it with you? Are you like old trees stretching your fibrous roots wider and deeper into the earthly soil on which you stand?
2. Relative. My inquiry is, whether you whom God has set in families have established an altar in your houses. Is there a spirit and life in your sacred transactions? And are you guarding against those hindrances to these engagements which will multiply upon us without great caution? Do you, mothers, take your little ones alone, and converse with them about Him who says, Suffer little children to come unto Me? Do you, fathers, charge your offspring to fear the Lord in their youth? But, perhaps, some will say, we have no families. Have you any leisure hours? Are you living an idle and a selfish life?
3. Collectively. Suffer me to ask whether as a Christian society you are constantly bearing one another on your hearts before God in prayer–whether you are regular in your observance of the Lords Supper, and are walking in love, as Christ also loved you and gave Himself for you? whether you are sustaining the several institutions connected with your place of worship?
1. It will tend to the removal of obstructions to the prosperity of our Christian society. The artificer and the engineer frequently look into the works of the watch, or the wheels and different parts of the machine, that they may remedy any defect which examination may discover. The husbandman often walks along the fields which he has sown, to notice whether the weeds are growing there; and he cuts down the thistles and nettles, which would hinder the growth of the corn. Thus we may discover and correct those evils which are apt to creep into the best constituted communities on earth.
2. It sets the minds of many at work. The spirit of anxiety on behalf of yourselves will necessarily produce a solicitude on behalf of your families, etc. Thus all reap the benefit.
3. May I be allowed to make a reference to our own ministerial encouragement and satisfaction? You, who are in business, are not content unless you are making a profitable concern of your avocation, and are grieved if you are not making a good percentage on your capital. And do you think that we do not long for success in our occupation of saving souls from death, and winning them to Christ?
4. To all which I will add, that another result will be the extension of such an aspect in the Church, as to produce a favourable impression upon spectators without. They will see that Christianity is not a mere profession, but a real and important business. (J. Clayton, A. M.)
Revisiting the Churches
1. How else could He trust us with such interests?
2. How else could we bear such responsibilities. (Sermons by the Monday Club.)
Pauls second missionary journey
1. Working together. The Council at Jerusalem had been an interruption, but was more profitable to the Church than if the apostles had kept on with their work. For the settling of great principles, at times even a revival may well stop. And the principle which they went to settle was one that strengthened the nerve of revival effort among the Gentiles.
2. Working apart.
(1) The cause of the separation, from which we learn that a quarrel can arise–
(a) Over a very good cause.
(b) Between very good men.
(c) Between very good friends.
(2) The results of separation. A division of the field of labour. By this the whole field was more quickly revisited, and Mark made into a good worker for Christ.
1. The workers increased (Act 16:1).
2. The Churches increased. The Churches were strengthened by the visit, and so increased in number daily. Each day was a birthday of souls. There were no blank days in their books of record.
1. Guided by the Spirit. Twice the Spirit did not allow the missionaries to preach the Word where they were inclined to proclaim it. He suffered them to work in Galatia and Phrygia. In the latter region they gathered some disciples (Act 18:23), and in the former there grew up some Churches as the fruit of their labours (Gal 1:2). But they were forbidden of the Holy Ghost to speak the word in Asia, and when they essayed to go into Bithynia, the Spirit of Jesus suffered them not.
2. Called by the Spirit. Come over into Macedonia, and help us. Now they understood why they had not been permitted to preach in Asia, or to go into Bithynia. God had closed those doors that He might open to them a wider one. The call of the heathen today for the gospel is a call of the Spirit. (M. C. Hazard.)
Pauls second missionary journey
1. The reason for this decision. It shows Pauls zeal. Had he not already done his share of this perilous work? It was very pleasant at Antioch. It needs a missionary fully to understand the sweetness of that simple phrase, with the disciples. It was not only pleasant to abide at Antioch; certainly they were very useful there, teaching and preaching this word of the Lord. Why not let well enough alone? What an appalling mass of work yet remained to be done at home! But God saw that the best thing for Antioch herself was to send forth her best men to distant and still darker fields. The missionary force sent to Antioch, and then to Asia Minor and to Europe, did not weaken–it strengthened–the Church at Jerusalem (Act 15:3-4). It rolled back to the Churches at home accumulating and mighty evidence of the power and faithfulness of their living Lord.
2. The preparations for the journey. Who shall form the party? Important question! It is a vital matter, both for their happiness and their usefulness, that they should be congenial companions–especially that they should feel great confidence in each other. Paul felt that he must be sure of his comrades. Still, it is not strange that Barnabas should have favoured his young relative. They could not agree, and accordingly they wisely decided to divide the field. So, to a great extent, our missionaries do today. It would be somewhat difficult for Methodists and Baptists and Presbyterians and Episcopalians all to work together in the same party and on the same ground. And they need not. The field is large enough to give to each body a place of its own. Yet their hearts are one. Paul chose Silas, already well known and useful, for his companion, and after a farewell meeting in which the Church with prayer and words of love commended them to the grace of God, the two departed.
1. The former fields were revisited.
(1) What did those fields need?
(a) Sympathy. He knew that the converts must suffer much tribulation. And there are tens of thousands of Christian converts in heathen lands today in equal need of sympathy from us.
(b) Inspection. Let us go again and see how they do. Read closely the allusions in the Acts and Epistles to the first Churches, and you will see that they needed careful supervision. These converts had just been plucked out of utter paganism. Even their elders and preachers were in many cases men who had never seen a Christian example except for a few days in Paul. It was inevitable that errors and abuses should creep in. This necessity is the same now.
(c) Instruction. A thousand questions plain to us were new and full of perplexity to them. Discussions about so simple a thing as the meats they might eat arose, and there was need of special warning and teaching respecting some matters of the most ordinary morality (chap. 15:29). Think of Paul in the fulness of his Christian knowledge and his power burying himself for years in remote provinces to teach these weak, dark-minded people the first beginnings of Christian truth on such points as these! It may well rebuke the folly and fastidiousness of any Christians who feel themselves too nicely educated to take a Sunday school class, and the vanity of any preachers who think themselves too gifted to expend their lives on the heathen or even on a country parish in their own land.
(2) What they gave.
(a) Multiplying converts. Paul found that the Churches he had planted increased in numbers daily. His visit gave them a new impulse. The parallel between missions then and now is still maintained. In no part of Christendom today is the rate of increase in the Churches equal to what we see in the Churches planted in heathen lands.
(b) Ripening Christian character. These converts were established in the faith. Notwithstanding the faults to be expected both in Pauls day and ours, there has always been witnessed growth in knowledge and grace, and on every field lives which have filled the hearts of our missionaries with joy.
(c) Most notable help. From the neighbourhood of Derbe came Timothy. The annals of modern missions tell of numbers who, without his advantages, have more than equalled the devotion and courage of Timothy. Have you ever read the life of Quala, the native preacher of Burma, or of Papehia, the first fruits of Tahiti?
2. New fields were opened. Phrygia and Galatia, large provinces north of Lycaonia, are traversed by them. There also Churches sprang up as the result of their labours (1Co 16:1). At a point about a hundred and fifty miles from the coast Paul would stand with Bithynia on his right, mountainous, but wealthy and populous, a favourite region with the emperors of Rome; on his left Asia, with its great ports and cities, Ephesus, Sardis, Thyatira, Laodicea, Philadelphia, Smyrna, with vast populations sunken in idolatry and utterly ignorant of the gospel. What a field! And it is just at hand. It seems a well-laid plan, but it is for some unknown reason forbidden by the Holy Ghost. Paul then turns northward; but again The Spirit suffered them not. Mysia also, under the same Divine intimations, they are compelled to pass by. It must have seemed a strange providence! What is this unknown plan which God has laid? At length they reach Troas. It is a great mercantile city. Is this their destination? No. Thus far all their own plans are thwarted, although no doubt formed with thought and prayer. But they need not mourn. They are now to see Gods plan disclosed. That night there is given to Paul a vision: There stood a man of Macedonia, and prayed him, saying, Come over into Macedonia and help us. Yes, to another continent the seed of the gospel is to be borne. It is to be planted. God shall watch over its growth and spread in those new lands. Then Paul may return and preach in Asia.
(1) It is a circumstance useful for us to notice that even so good a man as Paul is often led by God in the dark.
(2) A lesson is found in Pauls interpretation of the vision. That Macedonian phantom called for help. Upon the wharf at Troas stood four wayworn travellers, unknown, penniless. What succour had Greece to ask from them? There never had been a civilisation on earth equal to hers, and yet there she lay, wretched and guilty beyond anything which we are permitted to describe. What wonder is it that when Paul heard that prayer for help he gathered assuredly that the Lord had called him to preach the gospel unto them! Give the gospel, first of all, if you would give sure help to any people. Would you help a fellowman? Tell him of Christ. Would you help your country? See to it that every village and every lane in her crowded cities is reached by the gospel. Would you help this unhappy world? Then hasten in the spirit and the wisdom of Paul to bear the gospel to every Macedonian shore. (A. Mitchell, D. D.)
Pauls second missionary journey
1. Christianity is essentially missionary in its purpose.
2. God will direct by hindering or helping His servants in doing His work.
3. God wants the best equipped servants for missionaries.
4. God will not allow honest differences among His servants to hinder the gospels progress.
5. God will always give increase in numbers where His people are established in the faith.
6. The gospel will have accomplished its purpose only, when there shall be none to cry–Come over and help us! (J. M. King, D. D.)
Verse 36. Let us go – and visit our brethren in every city] This heavenly man projected a journey to Cyprus, Pamphylia, Pisidia, Lycaonia, Salamis, Paphos, Perga, Iconiam, Lystra, Derbe, Antioch in Pisidia, and elsewhere; for in all these places he had preached and founded Churches in the preceding year. He saw it was necessary to water the seed he had planted; for these were young converts, surrounded with impiety, opposition, and superstition, and had few advantages among themselves. It is not enough that they had sown good seed, but they must take care lest it be plucked up, and tares sown in the stead of it, by the wicked one, Mat 13:19. A husbandmans work is never at an end, neither is the labourers in Gods vineyard. See how they do; not so much looking after their bodily welfare, as how their souls fared, whether they continued in the faith, and integrity of life. 36. And some days afterHowlong is a matter of conjecture. Paul said to Barnabas, Let usgo again and visit our brethrenthe true reading is, “thebrethren.” in every city where we havepreached . . . and see how they dowhether they were advancingor declining, &c.: a pattern for churches and successfulmissionaries in every age. (“Reader, how stands it with thee?”)[BENGEL]. “Paul feltthat he was not called to spend a peaceful, though laborious life atAntioch, but that his true work was far off among the Gentiles.”We notice here, for the first time, a trace of that tender solicitudefor his converts, that earnest longing to see their faces, whichappears in the letters which he wrote afterwards, as one of the mostremarkable and attractive features of his character. He thought,doubtless, of the Pisidians and Lycaonians, as he thought afterwardsat Athens and Corinth of the Thessalonians, from whom he had beenlately “taken in presence, not in heart, night and day prayingexceedingly that he might see their face and perfect that which waslacking in their faith” [HOWSON]. And some days after,…. That Judas was gone to Jerusalem, and which they had spent in teaching and preaching the word of the Lord at Antioch:
Paul said to Barnabas, 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; by the “brethren in every city”, the apostle means the believers in Syria, Pamphylia, Pisidia, and Lycaonia; where he and Barnabas had preached the Gospel with success; where churches were planted and elders were ordained; of which an account is given in the two preceding chapters: and it may be observed, what an affection the apostle had for the young converts, and members of these churches; he calls them “brethren”, they being partakers of the same grace, and of the same faith and family with himself, though they were not in the same office, nor had the same gifts; as also what care he took of them, and of those new planted churches: and which shows, that such are to be visited and looked after, and their cases inspected into; and inquiries should be made of them, how they do, how they go on; whether they continue in the faith, and grow in grace and in the knowledge of Christ; and whether they are lively in the exercise of the graces of faith, hope, love, humility, c. and diligent and fervent in the discharge of duty and this is a work becoming the ministers of the Gospel; and the example of the apostle is worthy of imitation.
Disagreement between Paul and Barnabas. 36 And some days after Paul said unto Barnabas, 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. 37 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. 39 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; 40 And Paul chose Silas, and departed, being recommended by the brethren unto the grace of God. 41 And he went through Syria and Cilicia, confirming the churches. We have seen one unhappy difference among the brethren, which was of a public nature, brought to a good issue; but here we have a private quarrel between two ministers, no less men than Paul and Barnabas, not compromised indeed, yet ending well. I. Here is a good proposal Paul made to Barnabas to go and review their work among the Gentiles and renew it, to take a circuit among the churches they had planted, and see what progress the gospel made among them. Antioch was now a safe and quiet harbour for them: they had there no adversary nor evil occurrent; but Paul remembered that they only put in there to refit and refresh themselves, and therefore begins now to think of putting to sea again; and, having been in winter quarters long enough, he is for taking the field again, and making another campaign, in a vigorous prosecution of this holy war against Satan’s kingdom. Paul remembered that the work appointed him was afar off among the Gentiles, and therefore he is here meditating a second expedition among them to do the same work, though to encounter the same difficulties; and this some days after, for his active spirit could not bear to be long out of work; no, nor his bold and daring spirit to be long out of danger. Observe, 1. To whom he makes this proposal–to Barnabas, his old friend and fellow-labourer; he invites his company and help in this work. We have need one of another, and may be in many ways serviceable one to another; and therefore should be forward both to borrow and lend assistance. Two are better than one. Every soldier has his comrade. 2. For whom the visit is designed: “Let us not presently begin new work, nor break up new ground; but let us take a view of the fields we have sown. Come, and let us get up early to the vineyards, let us see if the vine flourish, Cant. vii. 12. Let us go again and visit our brethren in every city where we have preached the word of the Lord.” Observe, He calls all the Christians brethren, and not ministers only; for, Have we not all one Father? He has a concern for them in every city, even where the brethren were fewest and poorest, and most persecuted and despised; yet let us visit them. Wherever we have preached the word of the Lord, let us go and water the seed sown. Note, Those that have preached the gospel should visit those to whom them have preached it. As we must look after our praying, and hear what answer God gives to that; so we must look after our preaching, and see what success that has. Faithful ministers cannot but have a particular tender concern for those to whom they have preached the gospel, that they may not bestow upon them labour in vain. See 1Th 3:5; 1Th 3:6. 3. What was intended in this visit: “Let us see how they do,” pos echousi—how it is with them. It was not merely a compliment that he designed, nor did he take such a journey with a bare How do you do? No, he would visit them that he might acquaint himself with their case, and impart unto them such spiritual gifts as were suited to it; as the physician visits his recovering patient, that he may prescribe what is proper for the perfecting of his cure, and the preventing of a relapse. Let us see how they do, that is, (1.) What spirit they are of, how they stand affected, and how they behave themselves; it is probable that they frequently heard from them, “But let us go and see them; let us go and see whether they hold fast what we preached to them, and live up to it, that we may endeavour to reduce them if we find them wandering, to confirm them if we find them wavering, and to comfort them if we find them steady.” (2.) What state they are in, whether the churches have rest and liberty, or whether they are not in trouble or distress, that we may rejoice with them if they rejoice, and caution them against security, and may weep with them if they weep, and comfort them under the cross, and may know the better how to pray for them. II. The disagreement between Paul and Barnabas about an assistant; it was convenient to have a young man with them that should attend on them and minister to them, and be a witness of their doctrine, manner of life, and patience, and that should be fitted and trained up for further service, by being occasionally employed in the present service. Now, 1. Barnabas would have his nephew John, whose surname was Mark, to go along with them, v. 37. He determined to take him, because he was his relation, and, it is likely, was brought up under him, and he had a kindness for him, and was solicitous for his welfare. We should suspect ourselves of partiality, and guard against it in preferring our relations. 2. Paul opposed it (v. 38): He thought not good to take him with them, ouk exiou—he did not think him worthy of the honour, nor fit for the service, who had departed from them, clandestinely as it should seem, without their knowledge, or wilfully, without their consent, from Pamphylia (ch. xiii. 13), and went not with them to the work, because he was either lazy and would not take the pains that must be taken, or cowardly and would not run the hazard. He run his colours just as they were going to engage. It is probable that he promised very fair now that he would not do so again. But Paul thought it was not fit he should be thus honoured who had forfeited his reputation, nor thus employed who had betrayed his trust; at least, not till he had been longer tried. If a man deceive me once, it is his fault; but, if twice, it is my own, for trusting him. Solomon saith, Confidence in an unfaithful man in time of trouble is like a broken tooth, and a foot out of joint, which will hardly be used again, Prov. xxv. 19. III. The issue of this disagreement: it came to such a height that they separated upon it. The contention, the paroxysm (so the word is), the fit of passion which this threw them both into, was so sharp that they departed asunder one from the other. Barnabas was peremptory that he would not go with Paul unless they took John Mark with them; Paul was as peremptory that he would not go if John did go with them. Neither would yield, and therefore there is no remedy but they must part. Now here is that which is very humbling, and just matter of lamentation, and yet very instructive. For we see, 1. That the best of men are but men, subject to like passions as we are, as these two good men had expressly owned concerning themselves (ch. xiv. 15), and now it appeared too true. I doubt there was (as usually there is in such contentions) a fault on both sides; perhaps Paul was too severe upon the young man, and did not allow his fault the extenuation it was capable of, did not consider what a useful woman his mother was in Jerusalem (ch. xii. 12), nor make the allowances he might have made to Barnabas’s natural affection. But it was Barnabas’s fault that he took this into consideration, in a case wherein the interest of Christ’s kingdom was concerned, and indulged it too much. And they were certainly both in fault to be hot as to let the contention be sharp (it is to be feared they gave one another some hard words), as also to be so stiff as each to stick resolutely to his opinion, and neither to yield. It is a pity that they did not refer the matter to a third person, or that some friend did not interpose to prevent its coming to an open rupture. Is there never a wise man among them to interpose his good offices, and to accommodate the matter, and to put them in mind of the Canaanite and the Perizzite that were now in the land, and that not only Jews and heathens, but the false brethren among themselves, would warm their hands at the flames of the contention between Paul and Barnabas? We must own it was their infirmity, and is recorded for our admonition; not that we must make use of it to excuse our own intemperate heats and passions, or to rebate the edge of our sorrow and shame for them; we must not say, “What if I was in a passion, were not Paul and Barnabas so?” No; but it must check our censures of others, and moderate them. If good men are soon put into a passion, we must make the best of it, it was the infirmity once of two of the best men that ever the world had. Repentance teaches us to be severe in reflections upon ourselves; but charity teaches us to be candid in our reflections upon others. It is only Christ’s example that is a copy without a blot. 2. That we are not to think it strange if there be differences among wise and good men; we were told before that such offences would come, and here is an instance of it. Even those that are united to one and the same Jesus, and sanctified by one and the same Spirit, have different apprehensions, different opinions, different views, and different sentiments in points of prudence. It will be so while we are in this state of darkness and imperfection; we shall never be all of a mind till we come to heaven, where light and love are perfect. That is charity which never fails. 3. That these differences often prevail so far as to occasion separations. Paul and Barnabas, who were not separated by the persecutions of the unbelieving Jews, nor the impositions of the believing Jews, were yet separated by an unhappy disagreement between themselves. O the mischief that even the poor and weak remainders of pride and passion, that are found even in good men, do in the world, do in the church! Now wonder the consequences are so fatal where they reign. IV. The good that was brought out of this evil-meat out of the eater, and sweetness out of the strong. It was strange that even the sufferings of the apostles (as Phil. i. 12), but much more strange that even the quarrels of the apostles, should tend to the furtherance of the gospel of Christ; yet so it proved here. God would not permit such things to be, if he knew not how to make them to serve his own purposes. 1. More places are hereby visited. Barnabas went one way; he sailed to Cyprus (v. 39), that famous island where they began their work (ch. xiii. 4), and which was his own country, ch. iv. 36. Paul went another way into Cilicia, which was his own country, ch. xxi. 39. Each seems to be influenced by his affection to his native soil, as usual (Nescio qu natale solum dulcedine cunctos ducit–There is something that attaches us all to our native soil), and yet God served his own purposes by it, for the diffusing of gospel light. 2. More hands are hereby employed in the ministry of the gospel among the Gentiles; for, (1.) John Mark, who had been an unfaithful hand, is not rejected, but is again made use of, against Paul’s mind, and, for aught we know, proves a very useful and successful hand, though many think it was not the same with that Mark that wrote the gospel, and founded the church at Alexandria, and whom Peter calls his son, 1 Pet. v. 13. (2.) Silas who was a new hand, and never yet employed in that work, nor intended to be, but to return to the service of the church at Jerusalem, had not God changed his mind (Act 15:33; Act 15:34), he is brought in, and engaged in that noble work. V. We may further observe, 1. That the church at Antioch seem to countenance Paul in what he did. Barnabas sailed with his nephew to Cyprus, and no notice was taken of him, nor a bene discessit–a recommendation given him. Note, Those that in their service of the church are swayed by private affections and regards forfeit public honours and respect. But, when Paul departed, he was recommended by the brethren to the grace of God. They thought he was in the right in refusing to make use of John Mark, and could not but blame Barnabas for insisting upon it, though he was one who had deserved well of the church (ch. xi. 22) before they knew Paul; and therefore they prayed publicly for Paul, and for the success of his ministry, encouraged him to go on in his work, and, though they could do nothing themselves to further him, they transferred the matter to the grace of God, leaving it to that grace both to work upon him and to work with him. Note, Those are happy at all times, and especially in times of disagreement and contention, who are enabled so to carry themselves as not to forfeit their interest in the love and prayers of good people. 2. That yet Paul afterwards seems to have had, though not upon second thoughts, yet upon further trial, a better opinion of John Mark than now he had; for he writes to Timothy (2 Tim. iv. 11), Take Mark and bring him with thee, for he is profitable to me for the ministry; and he writes to the Colossians concerning Marcus, sister’s son to Barnabas, that if he came to them they should receive him, bid him welcome, and employ him (Col. iv. 10), which teaches us, (1.) That even those whom we justly condemn we should condemn moderately, and with a great deal of temper, because we know not but afterwards we may see cause to think better of them, and both to make use of them and make friendship with them, and we should so regulate our resentments that if it should prove so we may not afterwards be ashamed of them. (2.) That even those whom we have justly condemned, if afterwards they prove more faithful, we should cheerfully receive, forgive and forget, and put a confidence in, and, as there is occasion, give a good word to. 3. That Paul, though he wanted his old friend and companion in the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ, yet went on cheerfully in his work (v. 41): He went through Syria and Cilicia, countries which lay next to Antioch, confirming the churches. Though we change our colleagues, we do not change our principal president. And observe, Ministers are well employed, and ought to think themselves so, and be satisfied, when they are made use of confirming those that believe, as well as in converting those that believe not. Let us return now and visit the brethren ( ). Paul takes the initiative as the leader, all the more so if the rebuke to Peter and Barnabas in Ga 2:11-21 had already taken place. Paul is anxious, like a true missionary, to go back to the fields where he has planted the gospel. He uses the hortatory subjunctive () for the proposal (see on 15:14 for this verb). Note the repeated (– and ). There is special point in the use of (shortened form of ), now at this juncture of affairs (cf. 13:2). How they fare ( ). Indirect question, “how they have it.” The precariousness of the life of new converts in pagan lands is shown in all of Paul’s Epistles (Furneaux). So he wanted to go city by city ( ). Let us go again and visit [ ] . Lit., Having returned, let us now visit. The A. V. omits now. See on ch. Act 13:2. In every city [ ] . Kata has the force of city by city.
CONTROVERSIAL ISSUE AND PAUL’S SECOND JOURNEY ACCOMPANIED BY SILAS V. 36-41
1) “And some days after,” (meta de tinas hemeras) “Then after some days (had passed),” perhaps a short time, a few weeks, during which time it is believed Peter made his visit to Antioch, as recounted, Gal 2:11-14.
2) “Paul said unto Barnabas,” (eipen pros Barnaban Paulos) “Paul said to Barnabas,” who had long taught with him in the Antioch church, accompanied him on his first missionary journey, and attended the Jerusalem council with him, Act 13:2.
3) “Let us go again and visit our brethren,” (epistrepsantes de episkepsometha tous adelphous) “Let us then return (go again) and visit the brethren;” The second missionary journey of Paul is here initiated or commences, ending as recounted, Act 18:22.
4) In every city,” (kata polin pasan) “Scattered through out every city,” which was Selucia, Salamis in Cyprus, Paphos, Perga in Pamphylia, Antioch in Pisidia, lconium, Lystra, Derbe, and Attalia, as recounted Act 13:1 to Act 14:28.
5) “Where we have preached the word of the Lord,” (en hais katengeliamen ton logon tou kuriou) “in which we (on our previous tour) witnessed, declared, or proclaimed the word of the Lord,” Act 14:22; Act 14:26-27.
6) “And see how they do.” (pos echousin) “And see how they are,” or have been and are doing in the work of the Lord, in spiritual matters, Jas 1:22; 2Pe 3:18.
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36. Let us visit our brethren. In this history we must first note how careful Paul was for the churches which he had ordained. He laboreth, indeed, at Antioch profitably, but because he remembered that he was an apostle ordained of God, and not the pastor of one particular place, he keepeth the course of his calling. Secondly, as it did not become him to be tied to one place, so he thinketh with himself, that he was bound to all whom he begat in the Lord; therefore, he will not suffer them to want his help. Moreover, the work that was begun in those places could not be neglected; but it would shortly after decay. Yet it is to be thought that Paul stayed still in the church of Antioch, until he saw the estate thereof well ordered, and concord established. For we know and try − (162) what great force principal churches − (163) have to keep other lesser churches in order. If there arise any tumult in an obscure street, or if there fall out any offense, the rumor goeth not so far, neither are the neighbors so much moved; but if any place be excellent, it cannot quail without great ruin, or, at least, but that the lesser buildings shall be therewith sore shaken, both far and wide. Therefore, Paul, in staying a time at Antioch, did provide for other churches; and so we must no less look unto his wisdom than his diligence in this example, because oftentimes the immoderate heat of the pastors in going about matters doth no less hurt than their sluggishness. −
How they do. Paul knew that amidst so great lightness and inconstancy of men, and as their nature is inclined to vice, if there be any thing well ordered among them, it doth seldom continue stable, and for any long time; and especially that churches do easily decay or grow out of kind, unless they be looked to continually. There ought nothing under heaven to be more firm than the spiritual building of faith, whose stability is grounded in the very heaven; yet there be but few in whose minds the word of the Lord doth thoroughly take lively root; therefore, firmness is rare in men. Again, even those who have their anchor firmly fixed in the truth of God, do not cease notwithstanding to be subject to diverse tossings, whereby, though their faith be not overturned, yet hath it need of strengthening, that it may be underpropped and stayed. Moreover, we see how Satan doth assault, and with what subtle shifts he goeth about privily to pull down sometimes whole churches, sometimes every one of the faithful particularly. Therefore, it is not without cause that Paul is so careful for his scholars, lest they behave themselves otherwise than is to be wished; and therefore is he desirous in time to prevent, if there be any inconvenience risen, which cannot be until he have taken view. − (164) −
(162) −
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Experimur,” we know by experience.
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Quantum habeant momenti primariae ecclesiae,” how great weight principal churches have.
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Sine inspectione,” without inspection.
THE THIRD JOHNJOHN MARK
Act 15:36-41.
WE have seldom remembered that the New Testament reveals to us another John, beside the Baptist and the Apostle. The briefer history of John Mark is obscured by the brilliance of his spiritual brothers to whom we have seen the respective compliments paid of calling one a burning and shining light and the other that disciple whom Jesus loved.
But it is a question, whether, after all, the largest profit is always brought from the study of the greatest names. It has long been the custom of uninspired speakers to hold before their auditors great names, saying, See that great one! Act as this great one acted, if you yourself would be great! In religion we are stimulated to spiritual endeavor by illustrations brought from the deeds of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Moses, James and John, Peter and Paul; in matters of philosophy, by pointing us to teachers of Laconic caliber; in questions of State, by reviving the memory of Pitt, Fox, Gladstone, Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln; while in letters, Milton, Dante and Shakespeare are emblazoned by the orators as our ideals, and we have been wont to repeat with fervor that most familiar stanza:
Lives of great men all remind us,We can make our lives sublime,And, departing, leave behind us Footprints on the sands of time.
But have we not noted that the great Teacher who came to us from God, and who revealed to men the most uplifting truths the world has ever heard, never employed this method of speech by which to stimulate and inspire His auditors. He used the names of plainer folks, and employed the history of lowly spirits. To teach men the Divine grace of sacrifice, He did not refer to Abrahams renunciation of wealth at Gods call, nor even to his purpose to slay his only son at the Divine demand, but to the act of a nameless widow upon whom He looked while she cast into the Lords treasury two mites her all. To illustrate the great Fathers love for lost souls, He did not recall the cry of the King, O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! Would God I had died for thee, but rather the case of a nameless father who led an obscure life on a farm, and who had welcomed to his home a son whose prodigal habits had given him the bitterest sorrow, and imposed upon his home the keenest disgrace. To teach men devotion, He did not picture Solomon at prayer in the new temple, but pointed to Mary, sitting humbly at His feet, and said, There is your example. To impress upon His disciples the need of simplicity of life, affection of heart, and guilelessness of character, He did not say, Remember the illustrious Joseph, but instead He took a little child and set him in the midst. When David wanted to excite his own soul, and the souls of his fellows into adoration of God, he pointed toward the burning glories above and said, Look yonder, the heavens declare the glory of God; the firmament sheweth His handiwork. When Christ wanted to impress a similar truth, He looked down at His feet, and seeing the meekest flower of the field growing there, He said, Consider the lilies of the field! If, then, apology were needed for giving half an hour to so obscure a name as this of our text, we might answer, He is more illustrious than most of the names from which Christ brought His best lessons, and most striking truths.
First of all, John Mark was an evangelist by profession. That office in the new church was by Divine appointment. When Paul and Barnabas were ordained, it was to the special work of evangelists. At the same time Philip was known by the same title, the evangelist. When Paul was writing to the Ephesians on a unity of spirit as compatible with a diversity of offices, he said of Christs appointments, He gave some apostles, and some prophets and some evangelists. There is a widespread feeling to the effect that evangelists are unnecessary to the work of Christ, and that the office were better abolished. This feeling has come in part from the unwise and often non-spiritual methods of men who pose as members of that profession. While designing evangelists are not to be endorsed, yet the office of evangelist is not to be abolished. What God has set must stand, and as long as the world has in it unsaved men, and neglected places and classes, there will be occasion for preachers of the Barnabas, Philip and John Mark sortmen whose business it is to evangelize; not to be pastors, feeders of the flock, but moving heralders of the glad good news.
John Bunyan in The Pilgrims Progress has well defined the work of this office. You will remember that when Christian first discovered his lost condition and stood crying in the bewildered sense of sin, What shall I do to be saved? he saw a man named Evangelist coming to him, and saying, Wherefore dost thou cry? It was that same man that gave him a parchment roll, and pointed him to the wicket gate and the shining light, and set his feet toward the Sacred City. Many others helped him in that way, but it was Evangelist who started him right, and so helped him to escape the impending doom. When we reflect that so important a work as that is the real end of this office, we are no longer surprised that when God was appointing the agencies meant to convert men to His Son, He set apart some men to the duty of evangelism. Paul said of the pastorate, He that desireth the office of a bishop desireth a good work, but I doubt if it is either more blessed or more honorable to help men on the way to Heaven who are already started, than it is to start those who are standing either contentedly or wretchedly in sin. To such work John Mark gave his life. It is an office that angels must covet; surely it is not to be despised by man.
No office in the Church of Christ has enrolled more honorable names than that of Evangelist. We have already seen that among the disciples of Christ beside John Mark, Barnabas, Philip and Paul did its work, while the major part of every Apostles life was spent in a similar service. Martin Luther, a clerical college professor, brought on what we term the Protestant Reformation, but while he and Wyclif and Huss and Calvin stirred the religious world to a sense of lost truth and a disordered church, it was such men as George Whitefield, the Wesleys, Rowland Hill and others, who in the eighteenth century moved from village to village, from city to city, and from continent to continent, evangelizing as they went, that popularized Protestantism and set it on the way to triumph over the errors of Rome and the infidelity of the world.
How much the cause of the Redeemer would lose if this office should be abolished! England would be robbed indeed if Booth had never spoken to and for her submerged tenth, if John McNeill had been silenced from addressing the crowds gathered from all classes, if Henry Drummond had been denied the right to gather into groups the best bred of all the British youth. America, how she would have mourned had some pestilential breath swept her soil a half-century ago, silencing a Munhall, a Moody, a Chapman and a Sunday! Unbelievers and infidels often tell us our religion is moving and destined like other faiths, to die at last of inherent weakness. We wonder whence such opinions come, and how some men manage to hold them and seek to propagate them, when we study this problem of evangelization and see what lone men are doing.
A letter just received tells of Uldine Utley, Gypsy Smith, Campbell Morgan and George McNaley, all in Chicago now. What favor could God visit upon Chicago above the work of such evangelists? We believe it is without parallel that a religious demonstration in a large city should throw the mildest political exhibition into the shade, and yet the mayoralty excitement is over, but the tide of religious interest is still rising! There are stars in yon firmament that shine with a feeble and confused light, but shall we strike out the whole constellation of glories and lose Jupiter, Venus, and Mars, because others bring less light? There are stars of mighty magnitude among our evangelists. If we are to believe that text which says, They that turn many to righteousness shall shine as the stars, then in Heaven the glory of some of the evangelists who have wrought in the Gospel shall only be eclipsed by the splendor of the Son of Righteousness. Young men, thinking of the open avenues of life, if evangelism shall seem inviting to your feet, you will set yourselves in a way where there are mighty opportunities to serve your fellows and honor your Lord.
John Marks character had its deficiencies, and his history discovers some faults. He was a man whose spirit was fervent, but whose flesh was weak. Twice in life, at least, this fact was evinced by his conduct. On the night of the Masters apprehension and arrest, when the more intimate disciples all forsook Him and fled, there might have been seen stealing through the darkness a young man, having a linen cloth cast about his naked body, watching with eager, loving eyes the innocent victim of that hour. His affection was such that he came too close to the crowd that bore his Master on, and one saw him and laid hold on him, and in fear he left the linen cloth and fled. There is reason to think that for fear he never returned to witness the end. That young man was John Mark, and that action was an illustration of his character, ardent yet fearful. He showed the same spirit when at Pamphylia his courage failed, and he forsook Paul and Barnabas, and for the time gave up the work, and lost the confidence of the great Apostle.
Who of us are not deficient and fearful? The Pauls who can suffer the most the enemy can inflict, and yet face him next day with a fearless heart are precious few. The Barnabases whose song is heard with Sauls, while yet their feet are in stocks, are not so common as the Peters who dissemble at sight of danger, and disgracefully retreat when the danger grows. Charity covers a multitude of faults, so it is said, and sincerity has this one trait that redeems, it never fails but it carries down with it faith enough to try again. When Judas sold Christ, he parted with the last ounce of heart and hope, and made Satan owner of all. When hope is gone, hell yawns to receive its own. When Peter denied Christ, he was sadly sorrowful, but in the darkest hour, sincerity of heart saved him from despair. He could even then comfort himself somewhat with the very words which he afterward used to convince Christ, Thou knowest that I love thee.
John Mark could do the same. We need not try to defend his weakness as shown in his cowardly retreats. We are foolish if we do not learn from him not to lose heart and quit better endeavor because we have once done wrong. Some men need only to fail in business once in order to reach the conclusion, I can never succeed. Some men profess Christ and then backslide, and the devil presently persuades them it is all folly to try, and tells them they cant do right, and all effort that way would be wasted. Some men aspire to be public speakers, but in an early endeavor break down and fail, and too soon conclude, I cant, I cant. Thank God, Mark was too sincere for that. He knew he had failed. He made no sort of defense of the cowardly act, but he said to his uncle Barnabas, I want to go and try again, and I will go if you will let me. That is manly! That shows sincerity of purpose, and proves that the coward may yet become courageous through his remnant of faith in God. The bee gathers honey from the most unsightly flowers, and man, if he will, can get advantage from the most discouraging events. Have you not seen men make the financial bankruptcy into which they happened to fall at one time, contribute to the wealth they afterward gained? The greatest of modern English orators was hissed out of Parliament after his maiden speech. He went, spitting back at his critics this sentence: I know I have failed, but I will come again, and you will hear me. Robert Hall failed when first he tried to preach; Moody failed, but neither lost heart, and every successive failure they converted into a step to success. Oh, brother, sister, is there the record of a failure in your life, and have you said, seeing it, I cant rise? Yes, you can. God lives, and with His hand to help, there is no load of life too heavy for your remaining strength.
But some one says, My failure is more than that of finance, or backsliding, or breaking down. I failed to go into the Kingdom when its open door invited, and now I am old; life is wasted and I fear Heaven as well is lost. No, not if like Mark you are willing to offer your heart and hand to God now. Mr. Beecher said beautifully enough, When one of my Norway spruces died from the rude handling of winter, instead of rooting it up and throwing it away, I let the ampelopsis take possession of it, and it grew up rapidly through all the branches of the tree, and covered its top with leaves. In the autumn these leaves, which had been green before, were all changed to a brilliant crimson, and the tree in its own life was not half so beautiful as it was when covered with this vine, clad with all the glories of the setting sun. Are you like an old tree that is dead, and has dropped all its foliage and stands with its trunk and branches bare? Let faith and love cover you and you will be more comely and more useful, standing more garnitured than you were, clad in all your former strength. If you have failed for this life, dont fail for the other one too. There is much that may yet be done if now you offer self to God, and believe that God cares for you! Remember, our failures hurt, but only our want of faith can despoil utterly, and destroy. When the New Hampshire troops took Louisburg, the Gibraltar of America, the motto inscribed on their banners was, Never despair with Christ for leader. It is a good motto for life and will stand beside that more common saying as its commentary, If at first you dont succeed, try, try again. John Mark did that, and John Mark did not fail again.
What we preach for our own hearts, we ought to practice toward other lives. If it is right that I should try again after one failure, it is equally right that I should give my friend a second trial after having seen him fail. In that dispute between Paul and Barnabas, respecting Marks desire to be taken into confidence again, Paul was narrow, and Barnabas was charitable. It is a common thing to hear men say of some fellow man, He disappointed me once, he shall never have the chance again. That is what Paul said, but Paul was imperfect, and in that speech the poor, unforgiving humanity shines through his better self in ugly visage. We all always discover our hardness when of others we say, He deceived me once; I will never trust him again. The young man in the bank has overdrawn his salary a few dollars. You are ready to show him the door and publish his disgrace to the world. But wait! If you do that for this first offense, it may be a question whether his account with God will not be straighter than yours. Here is your son who has deceived you into thinking he was in the home of a friend. You find he was in a saloon, a gambling house instead, and has come away penniless. You are about to say, Not another red cent from me. You deceived me once; you will never do it again. Dont do that! Tell him the fault, and entreat him not to be guilty again, but do not let one offense kill all the faith in his good. Give him another chance. Youth is subject to folly, and if God had no more mercy on us than we have on one another, the brightest and best men the centuries have seen would have been lost to history by some early blunder. To err is humanso human that not a one of us escapes the experience; to forgive Divineso Divine that few are large souled enough to accomplish it. When Paul made mistakes, we weaker mortals ought carefully to guard ourselves.
The chance given, Mark employed it to the noblest ends. You say, How do you know that? We have no history of his after work! Oh, yes we have; his history is his Gospel. If you want to see the inner, truer self of John, read Johns Gospel. If you would understand Matthew more perfectly, study his record of those Divine events, and in Marks Gospel, one gets a glimpse of the evangelist. He believed in a Gospel to Gentiles; to them he preached, and to them he wrote. Other men might question the Gentiles right to the Word of Life if they would, but while they disputed about it, Mark was feeding the Gentiles hungry soul, and starting a song of Gospel gladness in which every nation and people would yet have a part. By his Gospel he will preach till the promise is fulfilled to Christ: I will give Thee the heathen for Thine inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth for Thy possession.
There is other history of John Mark. Peter in his first Epistle mentions Mark as his son. He seems proud to send his salutation to the church at Babylon. Paul in writing to the Colossians adds the greeting of Mark, and commends him to the favor of that church. In his Epistle to Philemon he calls Mark his fellow-laborer. In writing to Timothy, he asks that he bring Mark to him, saying, For he is profitable to me in the ministry. That is history enough. It only takes a line to tell volumes sometimes. Only mention the battle of Thermopylae, and the mind recalls the spirit of Leonidas and the history of his brave resistance with his picked three hundred. Only mention Horatius, and some important history runs through your mind. You recall the day when the Tuscan army stood on the banks of the Tiber and threatened to cross and destroy the City of the Seven Hills; the day when Horatius stood at the bridge, and with one helper on either side held the pass against the hordes till night came, and Rome was saved. But when you mention John Mark, remember that though less famed than these, he did a battle that far outshines them both. As an Evangelist, he met and vanquished often the hosts of hell; as the author of one Gospel, he built a bridge across the black Tiber of death and opened up a way to the city of eternal hills; as a soldier of the cross, we have reason to believe he died doing battle for humanity and God. Such a life is not to be despised. He lives well whose history grows toward the end.
If those who have thought about this least illustrious John of the New Testament will seek to avoid his mistakes and strive to emulate his virtues, then the humblest of us may prove the wisdom of Miss Mullocks words, when she says, Out of the warp and woof of common daily experience can be woven a noble and useful life, as any life must be which is a psalm of cheerful labor and obedience, set always to one grand note.
CRITICAL REMARKS
Act. 15:36. Some days (as in Act. 16:12; compare , Act. 9:23) might be weeks or months. After.Subsequent to the departure of Judas or Judas and Silas from Antioch. In visit our brethren substitute the for our. How they do?I.e., how they fare, spiritually. The clause requires an antecedent supplement, and see.
Act. 15:37. Determined.. The oldest MSS. have , wished, which some consider a correction, with a view of softening down the altercation between Barnabas and Paul (Alford and Hackett).
Act. 15:39. The contention was so sharp between them.Better, there arose a severe contention. If the incident described in Gal. 2:11 had occurred in the days preceding this contention (Alford, Lechler, Conybeare and Howson) that incident would help to explain the hotness of the dispute between the two missionaries; but it seems improbable that such a reaction in favour of Judaism as that scene at Antioch represents could have taken place so soon after the decision at Jerusalem (Hackett). They departed asunder one from the other.Not in friendship, but in service. Barnabas.Not named again in Acts, but reported by one tradition to have proceeded to Milan, and died as first bishop of its Church; and by another to have spent some years in Rome and Athens. Took Mark, who afterwards gained Pauls esteem (Col. 4:10; 2Ti. 4:11), and sailed to Cyprus, his native city (Act. 4:36), where, according to the second of the above traditions, he suffered martyrdom. The authenticity of the well known Epistle of Barnabas cannot be defended.
Act. 15:40. That Paul and Silas, on setting forth, were commended by the brethren to the grace of God suggests that the Church at Antioch espoused the side of Paul, as no similar commendation appears to have been given to Barnabas and Mark.
Act. 15:41. Confirming the churches.Not candidates for admission to, but those already in, them (Act. 14:22). Of the founding of these churches in Syria and Cilicia no account has been preserved, but they most likely dated from the time of Pauls visit to those regions (Act. 9:30; Gal. 1:21). One of these churches was probably located at Tarsus.
HOMILETICAL ANALYSIS.Act. 15:36-40
The Second Missionary Journey Commenced; or, the Separation of Barnabas and Paul
I. Pauls proposal to Barnabas.
1. To what it referred. The initiation of a second missionary journey, for the purpose of visiting the brethreni.e., the young converts in every city in which, on their previous tour, they had preached the gospeland inquiring into their spiritual condition. Not only must the work of spreading the gospel never stop, but the equally important business of edifying and building up those who have been converted must never be neglected. A true pastor will not only labour to bring souls into Christs fold, but will watch with assiduity and care over such as are already in.
2. When it was made. Some days after the return to Jerusalem of Judas and Silas (Act. 15:33), or of Judas alone (see Critical Remarks), and after their own evangelistic activity at Antioch had continued for some time, though how long remains uncertain. Perhaps the commencement of this second journey should be dated A.D. 51.
3. How it was received. Obviously Barnabas assented to the proposal, though it had been mooted by Paul rather than by himself. Of jealousy on Barnabass part not a trace appears. Though probably older than Paul he appears to have recognised, with equanimity and satisfaction, Pauls superior genius and greater fitness to be a leader. That they quarrelled before the proposal could be carried out was, doubtless, to be regretted. But meanwhile it may be noted that the cause of that quarrel was nothing connected with the subordinate position of Barnabas.
II. Pauls contention with Barnabas.
1. Quite simply it arose. As great contentions often do.
(1) Barnabas very naturally wished, as before, to take along with them John Mark, his kinsman (Col. 4:10)probably for his own sake, as having a liking for his relative as well as a desire for his society, and probably because Mark, having got over his home-sickness, or, having laid aside his early feeling of offence (see on Act. 13:13), was once more desirous of resuming active service in the cause of the gospel.
(2) Paul, on the other hand, demurred to the proposal of Barnabas, probably because he had not been able to sympathise with Marks motives for going back on the previous occasion, and because he was not yet assured of Marks stability and courage. It is, however, pleasing to observe that Paul susequently took a kindlier view of the young man (2Ti. 4:11), and even accepted him as a companion in travel (Col. 4:10).
2. Very hotly it blazed. The contention became so sharp that the two missionaries felt obliged to separate. Barnabass kinship with, and affection for, the young man would not allow him to yield. Pauls judgment as to the unlikelihood of a fickle character like Mark being of much use in the mission field determined him to hold out. Which was right is not clear. If Barnabas had Christian feeling on his side, Paul had Christian reason. Most likely both erred in exhibiting temper and in not trying to understand each others view of the case. Had they done this, and omitted to do that, they would surely have come to some amicable arrangement.
3. Exceeding peacefully it ended. As they could not agree, they let the matter drop, and took each his own independent course. What a pity they had not done this before the quarrel! It would have saved an unpleasant episode in the history of both.
III. Pauls separation from Barnabas.They parted asunder the one from the other.
1. Not in perfect friendship. There is some reason to suspect that they were a trifle displeased with one another. All the more likely if this occurred shortly after the rebuke which Paul administered to Peter for conduct of which Barnabas also had been guilty. Yet that the present rupture did not permanently estrange the good men appears from the way in which Paul afterwards alludes to Barnabas as a Christian teacher worthy of the fullest confidence of the Churches (1Co. 9:6).
2. But in Christian service. Neither of them retired from his work as a Gentile missionary, as modern Christian workers often withdraw from service altogether when they quarrel with one another. Both continued to labour in the cause of the gospel, but each pursued his own path. Barnabas, taking with him Mark, sailed to his native Cyprus on a missionary tour, thus following the track of his first journey with Paul; Paul, choosing as a companion Silas, who must by this time have returned to Antioch (Act. 15:33), started on a similar journey over the old route, only approaching it from the opposite end, travelling to Derbe and Lystra through the Cilician gates.
3. And with the prayers of their brethren. Although it is only of Paul that it is written that he was commended by the brethren to the grace of the Lord, it is hardly to be supposed that Barnabas would be allowed to depart without the prayers of his fellow-Christians. To infer that he was, because the Church had taken sides in the quarrel and decided for Paul as against Barnabas, is to ascribe to the Church quite an unworthy part. Better far let it be said that Luke has omitted to record anything of the Churchs attitude towards Barnabas, and confined himself to what was done in the case of Paulnot because Barnabas was left to go his way alone and unsympathised with, but simply because Paul was the hero whose future fortunes it was Lukes object to trace.
Learn.
1. That good men are, unhappily, not above quarrelling, though they should be. HINTS AND SUGGESTIONS
Act. 15:36-40. Four Valuable Lessons.
I. For Christian preachers.Never to desist from their holy work of converting sinners and edifying saints.
II. For Christian friends.Never to contend with one another, except in love and Christian activity.
III. For Christian workers.Never to grow weary in well-doing, but to be steadfast and immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord.
IV. For Christian Churches.Never to omit praying for both ministers and missionaries.
Barnabas, Paul, and the Lord.
I. The forbearing love of Barnabas was good.
II. The holy severity of Paul was better.
III. The wisdom of the Lord, converting all things into good, was best.Gerok.
Act. 15:36. Pastoral Visitation.
I. A necessary part of ministerial work.Christs sheep and lambs have not merely to be gathered into the fold, but also to be carefully fed and tended (Joh. 21:15-17).
II. A kindly display of Christian sympathy.If it betokens an amiable and brotherly disposition to ask after each others welfare (Exo. 18:7), much more does it do so to inquire after each others spiritual progress.
III. A profitable form of religious service.Like mercy, it blesses him that gives and him that takes. It benefits those who are visited and them who visit; it contributes to the spiritual upbuilding of both.
Act. 15:39. The Quarrel between Barnabas and Paul illustrates
I. The imperfection of good men. The Quarrels of Good Men
I. Are of more frequent occurrence than they ought to be. THE SECOND MISSIONARY JOURNEY
Act. 15:36Act. 18:22
5254 A.D.
1.
IN ANTIOCH. Act. 15:36-40.
Act. 15:36
And after some days Paul said unto Barnabas, Let us return now and visit the brethren in every city wherein we proclaimed the word of the Lord, and see how they fare.
Act. 15:37
And Barnabas was minded to take with them John also, who was called Mark.
Act. 15:38
But Paul thought not good to take with them him who withdrew from them from Pamphylia, and went not with them to the work.
Act. 15:39
And there arose a sharp contention, so that they parted asunder one from the other, and Barnabas took Mark with him, and sailed away unto Cyprus;
Act. 15:40
but Paul chose Silas, and went forth, being commended by the brethren to the grace of the Lord.
Act. 15:36 When Jesus spoke to the prostrate Pharisee as he lay in the dust of the Damascus road he commissioned him to carry the glad tidings far off among the Gentiles. To the heavenly vision the apostle was never disobedient. And so it came to pass after a few weeks spent in the town of Antioch, that, although his labors were fruitful, and the work pressed on in a happy harmonious fashion, he once again heard the call of the man from across the sea. The faces of those whom he had brought into the kingdom of Gods dear Son haunted him and he longed once again to be with them that he might be assured that the tempter had not tempted them and thus he would have labored in vain.
Act. 15:37-40 These thoughts prompted his suggestion to his co-laborer Barnabas: 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. This plan, however, of a combined visitation of the churches was marred by an outbreak of human infirmity. The two apostolic friends were separated from each other by a quarrel, which proved that they were indeed, as they had lately told those of Lystra, men of like passions with you. When two individuals agree perfectly and manage in a harmonious fashion between themselves it at the same time becomes difficult to agree over the company of a third person. This was the situation with Paul and Barnabas. Although they could work in perfect accord with each other, each respecting the others viewpoint, when a third person entered the union, his feelings and opinions had to be considered and in this, the two good friends disagreed violently. Paul felt that John Mark was very definitely unqualified to enter the work that they were contemplating. Indeed, had he not already turned back upon the same route?
As we said in the previous notes it appears that the decision of John Mark to return to Jerusalem had something to do with the work in which the apostles were engaged. Maybe Barnabas knew John Mark a little more intimately than did Paul. At any rate, we know they were related (cf. Col. 4:10.) John Mark indeed did prove himself to be a profitable servant of Christ Jesus. Paul the apostle acknowledged this (Cf. Phm. 1:24; 2Ti. 4:11; Col. 4:11). The overruling hand of Gods providence is seen in all the circumstances, for not only was the original plan of the apostles fulfilled, i.e. of revisiting all the churches established in the first missionary journey; the churches in Asia Minor by Paul, and those on the isle of Cyprus by Barnabas, but along with it much more was done.
It appears that Barnabas and Mark left first and then Paul and Silas went forth, being commended by the brethren to the grace of the Lord.
534.
What purpose prompted the second missionary journey?
535.
Why did Paul and Barnabas agree for so long and now suddenly disagree?
536.
What objection did Paul have to John Mark?
537.
Why was Barnabas attracted to Mark?
538.
Did Mark ever redeem himself in the eyes of Paul? (reference).
539.
Show the over-ruling hand of God in the whole matter.
(36) And some days after Paul said unto Barnabas.The commonly received chronology of the Acts makes the interval between the Council of Jerusalem and St. Pauls second missionary journey somewhat more than a year.
Let us go again.The proposal was characteristic of one whose heart was ever full of the care of all the churches (2Co. 11:28), ever making mention of them in his prayers night and day (Rom. 1:9; Eph. 1:16; Php. 1:3). We may well believe that it was a desire to know, not only the general condition of the churches, but the spiritual growth of each individual member.
1. Disagreement and Separation of Paul and Barnabas , Act 15:36-41 .
36. Paul said The invitation is given by Paul, and he clearly in Luke’s view is the principal in the expedition. Just as in Act 14:21-25, he turned back to review their former ground, so now his energetic spirit would revisit the scenes of their former labour, and, city by city, ascertain their state, and more fully confirm their faith.
How they do How they hold or prosper.
‘And after some days Paul said to Barnabas, “Let us return now and visit the brethren in every city in which we proclaimed the word of the Lord, and see how they fare.” ’
After some days’ is vague and allows for a considerable amount of time. But eventually Paul suggests to Barnabas a round trip in which they will visit all the cities where they had proclaimed the word of the Lord, in order to ensure that the churches were prospering, and no doubt with a view to ministering to them.
Paul and Barnabas Agree To Separate (15:36-39).
The ministry of Paul and Barnabas now continued in Syrian Antioch for some time. But the question would eventually necessarily arise as to the wellbeing of the churches that they had been used by God in establishing. Thus Paul one day suggested to Barnabas that it was time that they returned to those cities where they had established churches in order to minister to them and see how they fared. And this appears to have been mutually agreed. The date would be around 49 AD.
However, in the event, because of disagreement over John Mark they separated their ministries and by mutual agreement each took responsibility for one section of the work that they had accomplished together. There is no reason why we should not see this as having been accomplished fairly amicably. Christians can disagree on such things without fighting. This would in fact result in a wider work being done than would otherwise have been possible. As in the case of persecution previously, God used man’s weaknesses in order to advance His purposes. He was sovereign in all that happened.
Paul and Barnabas Split Up Act 15:36-41 gives us the account of Paul and Barnabas splitting up over the issue of John Mark.
Act 15:39 Comments – Barnabas was the uncle of John Mark (Col 4:10).
Col 4:10, “Aristarchus my fellowprisoner saluteth you, and Marcus, sister’s son to Barnabas, (touching whom ye received commandments: if he come unto you, receive him;)”
Act 15:40 Comments – Note here that Paul and Silas were sent out by the Church and received the blessings from the Church. Barnabas and Mark just went without being sent and blessed by the Church. Their work appears not to be as effective as Paul’s and Silas’ work.
The Witness of Paul’s Second Missionary Journey (A.D. 51-54) In Act 15:36 to Act 18:22 we have the testimony of Paul’s second missionary journey.
Outline Here is a proposed outline:
1. Paul and Barnabas Split Up Act 15:36-41
2. Timothy Joins Paul and Silas Act 16:1-5
3. Paul at Philippi Act 16:6-40
4. Paul in Thessalonica Act 17:1-9
5. Paul in Berea Act 17:10-15
6. Paul in Athens Act 17:16-34
7. Paul in Corinth Act 18:1-17
8. Paul Returns to Antioch Act 18:18-22
The Beginning of Paul’s Second Missionary Journey.
v. 36. And some days after, Paul said unto Barnabas, 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.
v. 37. And Barnabas determined to take with them John, whose surname was Mark.
v. 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.
v. 39. 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;
v. 40. and Paul chose Silas and departed, being recommended by the brethren unto the grace of God.
v. 41. And he went through Syria and Cilicia, confirming the churches.
After some days, after some time had elapsed, Paul suggested to Barnabas that they return, that they reenter the road over which they had traveled, and visit the brethren in every city in which they had proclaimed the Word of the Lord, to see how they were getting along. A true missionary is not satisfied with merely organizing mission-stations and congregations, but is interested also in their establishment and growth in spiritual knowledge. The suggestion seems to have appealed to Barnabas, but when they were talking over their plans as to companions, he strongly advised taking his nephew John Mark along, and practically insisted upon it. But as even the best of friends map differ on questions of expediency and of personal preference, so it happened here. Paul believed that it was not fair to themselves and to their work to take the younger man along, whose defection at Perga, chap. 13:13, had probably seriously inconvenienced them. Paul may have thought that Mark still did not possess the necessary maturity and strength of character for such difficult work. The difference of opinion proceeded to a point where there was a serious outbreak of anger, causing them to part company. “There is little doubt that severe words were spoken on the occasion. It is unwise to be overanxious to dilute the words of Scripture, and to exempt even apostles from blame. We cannot, however, suppose that Paul and Barnabas parted, like enemies, in anger and hatred. It is very likely that they made a deliberate and amicable arrangement to divide the region of their first mission between them, Paul taking the continental and Barnabas the insular part of the proposed visitation. Of this at least we are certain, that the quarrel was overruled by Divine Providence to a good result. One stream of missionary labor had been divided, and the regions blessed by the waters of life were proportionally multiplied. ” That the estrangement was not permanent appears from the fact that Paul refers to Barnabas as a fellow-worker unto the kingdom of God, Col 4:11; 1Co 9:6, and that he speaks of Mark as profitable to him for the ministry, 2Ti 4:11. But the brethren in Antioch evidently believed Paul to be in the right, for when Barnabas took Nark and sailed for Cyprus, there was no special leave-taking, whereas when Paul chose Silas, the prophet from Jerusalem, as his companion, he was commended by the brethren to, the grace of the Lord. Very likely there was a meeting of the congregation and a farewell service as when Paul left on his first journey. So Paul left Antioch with his companion, traveling by land, in order to visit the congregations of Syria and Cilicia which had been founded either by some of the scattered brethren after the execution of Stephen or by Paul himself at a time concerning which we have no further data, Gal 1:21. wherever the two missionaries came, they confirmed the congregations, they made them firm in faith and trust by proper instruction and exhortation. Visitations of this kind are bound to result in blessings for the congregations thus visited.
Summary
On account of threatening dissension caused by Judaizing brethren, Paul and Barnabas are delegated to the congregation at Jerusalem for advice; an assembly is held, and the results sent to the brethren at Antioch in a letter delivered by Judas and Silas; Paul chooses Silas as his companion on his second journey after an altercation with Barnabas
Act 15:36 . ] see on Act 13:2 .
] because contains a distributive plurality . Winer, p. 134 [E. T. 177].
how their state is , their internal and external Christian condition. The reference to . . depends on well-known attraction. Moreover, Bengel well remarks that is the nervus visitationis ecclesiasticae.
SECTION III Act 15:36 to Act 18:22
A.COMMENCEMENT OF THE JOURNEY PAUL AND BARNABAS SEPARATE ON ACCOUNT OF JOHN MARK; BARNABAS PROCEEDS WITH MARK TO CYPRUS, AND PAUL WITH SILAS TO SYRIA AND CILICIA
Act 15:36-41
36And [But] some days after, Paul said unto Barnabas, Let us go again [Up , let us turn back] and visit [look after] our19 brethren in every city where [in which] we have preached the word of the Lord, and see [om.] and see] how they do [bear them selves]. 37And Barnabas determined to [advised that they should]20 take with them John, whose surname was Mark. 38But Paul thought not good to [deemed it just not to] take him [this one, ] with them, who departed [had fallen away] from them from Pamphylia, and went not [had not gone] with them to the work. 39And the contention was so sharp between them, [Hence ()21 a sharp contention arose, so] that they departed asunder [separated] one from the other: and so [om. so] Barnabas took Mark [along], and sailed unto Cyprus; 40And [But] Paul chose Silas [as a companion], and departed [went forth], being [after having been] recommended [commended] by the brethren unto the grace of God [of the Lord]22. 41And he went [journeyed] through Syria and Cilicia, confirming [and strengthened] the churches [congregations].
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
Act 15:36. The commencement of the second missionary journey of Paul is not stated with chronological precision; it took place some days after. Silas and Judas had, according to Act 15:33, remained for some time at Antioch, and, after their departure, Paul and Barnabas continued in Antioch, Act 15:35. (It is probable that Peters visit to Antioch occurred during this period, Gal 2:11 ff.). Paul now proposed to set forth on another journey. He had undertaken the former by the direction of the Holy Ghost, who spoke by the mouth of certain prophets, Act 13:2. On the present occasion, the suggestion proceeds from Paul, who exhorts Barnabas to unite in the work with him. He appears to have had originally no other purpose than that of visiting the congregations which had been founded during the former journey. This fact is implied by the word , [i.e., re-entering a road that had previously been travelled over), as well as by the language: ; that is, the primary purpose was to visit only those cities in which both had preached the Gospel. They wished to look after the brethren , i.e., to ascertain their present moral and religious state, and their condition in general. [ , because is used in a collective sense, Winer. Gr. N. T. 21. 3. (Meyer).Tr.]
Act 15:37-38. Barnabas appears to have at once expressed a willingness to unite with Paul in visiting the congregations, but he advised (, consulere) that they should take John Mark along, as their companion; Paul refused his consent; he could not approve of the proposition that Mark should accompany them, as the conduct of the latter on the former journey seemed to him to have been a falling off from them both ( taken in a strict sense of the word). The term designates a moral judgment: he does not deserve that we should take him with us; he has made himself unworthy of it. The peculiar mode of expression, moreover, very plainly shows that Pauls indignation on account of that conduct, was avowed with warmth and energy; see Act 13:13, Exeg. note; ( . ). [, at the close: we may well believe that Pauls own mouth gave originally the character to the sentence. (Alf.)Tr.]
Act 15:39-41. Barnabas did not agree with Paul in judging the conduct of Mark with such severity; the latter was, besides, his nephew, Col 4:10. [, consobrinus, Vulg.; relative, de Wette; cousin, Robinson: Meyer.Tr.]. A discussion, conducted with great warmth,a sharp contention ()ensued, and the result was that the two men parted, and took different roads. [There is little doubt that severe words were spoken on the occasion. It is unwise to be over-anxious to dilute the words of Scripture, and to exempt even Apostles from blame. We cannot, however, suppose that Paul and Barnabas parted, like enemies, in anger and hatred. It is very likely that they made a deliberate and amicable arrangement to divide the region of their first mission between them, Paul taking the continental, and Barnabas the insular, part of the proposed visitation. Of this at least we are certain, that the quarrel was overruled by Divine Providence to a good result. One stream of missionary labor had been divided, and the regions blessed by the waters of life were proportionally multiplied. St. Paul speaks of Barnabas afterwards (1Co 9:6,) as of an Apostle actively engaged in his Masters service. (Conyb. &H.; Life, etc. of St. Paul, I. 270272).Luke does not mention the re-union which was subsequently effected (Col 4:10; Philem. Act 15:24; 2Ti 4:11), which would be very surprising, (as Mark was a disciple of Peter), if the opinion of those were correct, who allege that the Book of the Acts was written in order to harmonize Paulinism with Petrinism. (Meyer, ad loc. n.).Tr.]. Barnabas adhered to his purpose, and, retaining Mark, proceeded with him to the island of Cyprus, his original home (Act 4:36),while Paul chose Silas as his companion, who had, according to Act 15:33, returned to Jerusalem [on the omission of Act 15:34, see note 3, appended to Act 15:30-35, and the Exeg. note.Tr.], but, as it would appear, afterwards came back to Antioch. The statement, Act 15:40, that Paul was dismissed in a solemn manner, and commended in the intercessory prayers of the congregation to the grace of the Lord, does not seem to include Barnabas. It is possible that he departed suddenly, or immediately after the dispute with Paul; at least his journey is more directly connected in Act 15:39 with that scene, than that of Paul. It is certain, however, that Barnabas, after sailing to Cyprus, performed precisely the labors which Paul had proposed, Act 15:36. Paul, on the other hand, in company with Silas, travelled by land, and, primarily, visited Syria and Cilicia, so that, like Barnabas, he sought his own early homeland, at first, confined his labors to the Christian congregations which had already been established, and which he strengthened in faith and in the Christian life. [Here we finally lose sight of Barnabas in the sacred record. (Alf).Tr.]
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. Paul seems, at the first view, to have merely followed an impulse of his own mind, in undertaking the second missionary journey, which was of far greater extent than the first, and conducted him even to Europe; whereas, on the former occasion, he was directed by the Holy Ghost to set forth, and was commissioned by the congregation at Antioch. Still, the second journey, which was so abundantly blessed, was not the result of human plans and individual choice. It was, without doubt, from a sense of duty with respect to the congregations in Asia Minor, which had been established during the first journey, or, in consequence of the suggestions of his conscience, which was enlightened and guided by the Spirit of God, that Paul resolved to undertake this journey, and summoned Barnabas to accompany him. He did not at that moment intend to preach the Gospel, primarily, to unconverted mento engage in the work of foreign missions; he rather designed to inquire into the state of those who were already converted, and to encourage thema work allied to domestic missions, or, as it were, the inner mission. It was only during the progress of the journey that he became conscious that more extensive labors were assigned to him. The journey was intended to bear the character of an apostolic visitation; its purpose was: , quomodo, se habeant in fide, amore, spe; nervus visitationis ecclesiastic (Bengel)an apostolic model of a church-visitation; comp. also Act 8:14-15; Act 9:32.
2. Paul practically demonstrated, in the case of Mark, all the keenness and severity of his moral judgment. He regarded the act of the latter in withdrawing from him and Barnabas, and from their common work at that time (Act 13:13), not as a matter of indifference in a moral point of view, but as one which, in his judgment, betrayed an inexcusable want of fidelity and Christian steadfastness Mark did not apostatize from Christ Himself, but from them,the two messengers of Christ ( , Act 15:38). Paul does not condemn him in exaggerated and passionate terms, as if he had become an infidel and an enemy of Christ. But he would not permit Mark to accompany them on the second journey, for he would otherwise have thus conferred on the latter a privilege, a dignity, a distinction (), of which he had rendered himself unworthy. Barnabas does not accord with Paul in pronouncing this stern sentence, but prefers to act in a mild, calm, and forgiving spirit. Each of the two men, doubtless, aided in conducting Mark to the salvation of his soul; the severity of Paul led him to repentance, humbled and warned him, while the gentleness of Barnabas preserved him from despondency. Paul did not, subsequently, remember the affair to his disadvantage, but must have forgiven him, for, otherwise, he would not have conveyed Marks friendly salutations to the Colossians, and recommended him to the congregation (Col 4:10). [See Exeg. note on Act 13:13.Tr.]
3. The scene which Barnabas and Paul exhibited, Act 15:39, was marked by so much heat and passion, as far as we are enabled to judge, that it cannot have left either party, at the close, free from the stain of sin. [Jerome says: Paulus severior, Barnabas clementior; uterque in suo sensu abundat, et tamen dissensio habet aliquid human fragilitatis. Contra Pelag. II. 522. And Chrysostom says: , (Conyb. and H. I. 271. n. 4.)Tr.].Here, again, the word of God, in place of covering the sins of the most worthy servants of God with the mantle of charity, testifies with the utmost sincerity respecting them, for the sake of the truth. The case affords another proof that where sin abounds, the grace of God in Christ does much more abound [Rom 5:20], so that, although so many temptations, and such great infirmity of the flesh may intervene, grace nevertheless preserves, sanctifies and sustains the children of God. Indeed, even this separation, which could not have occurred without sin, nevertheless produced good fruits, in the overruling providence of God, which does all things well, and conducts all to a glorious issue. Not only did Paul, no longer hindered by a companion of equal, or, originally, of superior rank, develop all his powers of action in an independent manner; but, further, the division of the work between himself and Barnabas, promoted the general interests of the cause. He had hitherto labored in common with Barnabas, in only one direction; but now, two missionary journeys were simultaneously undertaken, and, instead of a single pair of missionaries, two pairs now labor, at the same time, in different places.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
Act 15:36. Let us go again and visit our brethren, etc.It is not enough to plant a congregation; it must also be watered and nourished; 1Co 3:6. (Starke).A church-visitation that is judiciously conducted, is necessary, in reference to pastors, as well as to the hearers. (Quesnel).
Act 15:39. And the contention was so sharp, etc.Even the most eminent saints are not without their faults, which should, however, be carefully distinguished from dominant sins, (Starke).But why did this dissension occur, and why is it even recorded here? Will it not, during all succeeding ages, give offence? No! It is precisely in this respect that the scriptural narrative differs from human biographies. The former exhibits a good man to our view, and then proceeds to state his faults, showing, at the same time, the manner in which the overruling grace of God, nevertheless, conducts all to a happy issue. The latter usually dwell on favorable circumstances, and, nevertheless, often leave the reader in doubt respecting the true character of the individual. Mark, who is afterwards found walking in the right way (Col 4:10), may have, on the one hand, been deeply humbled by the rigor of Paul, and, on the other, comforted and encouraged by the indulgent love of Barnabas. The one was as necessary to him as the other. (Rieger).Barnabas occupied the position of a kind and gentle mother, who is very willing to excuse and overlook the faults of her children. Paul acts like a thoughtful father, who applies the rod, and says: The spoiled child must be taught to feel. (Gossner).Paul appears to have entertained a correct view of the case, rather than Barnabas, and Gideon furnished him with a model belonging to the Old Testament, Jdg 7:3. Still, it was not necessary that he should contest the point with such warmth; he might have remembered the example which Abraham gave; Gen 13:8-9. It was well, however, that the two men separated. Those whose characters are so essentially different, can seldom accommodate themselves readily to one another. Even while they remain brethren in Christ, it is better that each should stand alone. (Williger).Let us look away from the errors and infirmities of the saints, which, however, the Scriptures never conceal, and let us rather contemplate the unerring hand of the Lord, which guides all things to a happy end. The severity of Paul did not injure Mark, but rather induced him to be more faithful; and, at a subsequent period, Paul speaks of Barnabas as his faithful associate in the work of the Lord, 1Co 9:6. (Besser).
Act 15:40. And Paul chose Silas, etc.Silas, a Judo-Christian, educated in Jerusalem, the companion of the apostle of the Gentiles! What vast and happy results the occurrence mentioned in Act 15:1, had accordingly produced! (Williger).Recommended by the brethren unto the grace of God.This special attention which the congregation paid to Paul, indirectly shows that the brethren virtually approved of his course, rather than of that of the other. (Rieger).
Human weakness, even in the most experienced Christians: I. That it does exist; II. Consolatory truths of religion in reference to it. (Lisco).The contention of the brethren: I. What was the subject? (a) Both supposed that they were contending for Christ; (b) each contended, unconsciously, for himself and his own will. II. Which one was in the right? (a) Both desired that which was rightthe spiritual welfare of the erring man, and the promotion of the kingdom of God; (b) neither was in the right, as each adhered to his own opinion, without fully examining that of the other; (c) both did right when they voluntarily separated, in order that love might not be subjected to further interruptions, (id.).Why do the Scriptures disclose the weaknesses of the servants of God? I. To mortify spiritual pride, so that none may boastingly say: I shall never be overcome. II. To afford comfort in the midst of human infirmities, by suggesting the encouraging thought: They, too, were flesh of our flesh. III. To render honor to the divine wisdom, which can educe a blessing even from the faults of men.The Lord triumphs, even when his servants exhibit weaknesses: I. Without His grace, even their virtues become failings; the mildness of Barnabas would have otherwise been a weak indulgence; the rigor of Paul, inflexible harshness. II. By His grace, blessings flow even from their faults; the humiliation which Mark endured, aided in restoring his strength and firmness; the separation of the apostles divided the full stream of the Gospel message into two branches, and thus more widely diffused the latter.The divisions of the children of God carry their own remedy with them: for, I. They stand on the same foundation of faith; II. They have the same exalted aim; III. They bow in submission to the same Lord and Master.
Footnotes:
[19]Act 15:36. [H after from G. H., is omitted in A. B. C. D. E. Cod. Sin., Vulg. etc., and is cancelled by recent editors generally.Tr.]
[20]Act 15:37. E [of text. rec. and retained by Alf] is supported, it is true, by only two uncial MSS. [G. H; D. has ], while four of the latter [A. B. C. E., and also Cod. Sin.], and nearly all the versions [Vulg. volebat] exhibit [which Lach. and Tisch. adopt]. But could have far more readily been substituted, as an easier reading, than that it, if the original word, should have been converted by a later correction, into . [The latter was usually interpreted in the sense of ; comp. Act 5:33. (Meyer).Instead of I of text, rec., from G. H., recent editors read I., with A. C. E. Vulg.B. and Cod. Sin. have I.Tr.]
[21]Act 15:39. [For before , of text. rec. from C. E. G. H., Lach. Tisch. and Alf. substitute from A. B. D. and Cod. Sin.Tr.]
[22]Act 15:40. K [from A. B. D. and Cod. Sin., and adopted by recent editors] is preferable to [in C. E. G. H., Vulg.], which seems to be conformed to the parallel passage in Act 14:26.
DISCOURSE: 1784 Act 15:36. And some days after Paul said unto Barnabas, 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.
IT is of the nature of divine grace to be always operative, and never to remit its exertions, whilst there is any good to be done. Under its superabundant influence, Paul and Barnabas were carried through all the labours and difficulties to which they had been expressly called by the Holy Ghost, and for which they had been set apart by the Church at Antioch [Note: Act 13:2-3, with Act 14:26.]. But Paul, not content with having executed the work assigned him, desired to renew his labours, in order to the further advancement of it in all the Churches which he had planted: and for this end he proposed to Barnabas to go and visit all the Churches again, and see in what state they were: Let us go again, &c. &c.
We will,
I.
Consider this proposal, in reference to the Churches then formed
It is impossible not to admire the spirit by which it was dictated, or to withhold our approbation from the proposal itself. It was,
1.
A desirable proposal
[Churches, like plantations in the natural world, are liable to great variations: they may thrive and flourish, or they may be blighted and wither. If we examine all the Churches founded by the Apostles, we shall find, that in some there were abuses, in others errors, in others divisions; and in all there were many things which needed to be checked by apostolic wisdom, and to be rectified by apostolic authority. But in Churches planted by these two Apostles, it might well be expected, that they should possess peculiar influence; because, in addition to the respect with which they would be regarded as Apostles of Christ, they would be considered by every one as standing to him in the relation of a father: and hence there would be in all places a ready acquiescence in their wishes, and a willing obedience to their injunctions. This was the effect which the Apostle expected to be produced at Corinth, when he said, I will come to you shortly, if the Lord will; and will know, not the speech of them that are puffed up, but the power [Note: 1Co 4:19.]: and again, The rest will I set in order when I come [Note: 1Co 11:34.].
Such, we doubt not, was the original design of episcopal visitations: and, if this great end were kept more in view, we have reason to think that the greatest possible good would result from them [Note: If this were the subject of a Visitation Sermon, here would be an excellent occasion for shewing what inquiries should be made as to the spiritual state of the different churches, and the effects produced by the ministry of the word, in awakening the careless, in comforting the afflicted, in sanctifying the corrupt.].]
2.
A benevolent proposal
[This was not a proposal for an excursion of pleasure, but for a service of great difficulty and danger. Conspiracies were often formed against their lives; and at one place Paul had been stoned, and left for dead [Note: Act 14:5-6; Act 14:19.]. In this respect Paul trod in the steps of his Divine Master, who, to the utter amazement of his Disciples, proposed to go up again to Judea, where his adversaries had just before sought to stone him [Note: Joh 11:7-8.]. Like him he counted not his life dear unto him, so that he might but fulfil the ministry which he had received of the Lord Jesus: he willingly endured all things for the elects sake, that they might obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory. Even where his labours were less acceptable, he willingly devoted himself to the service of his fellow-creatures, and would gladly spend, and be spent, for them; though the more abundantly he loved them, the less he were loved. O that such benevolence were more common in the Church! O that every minister could appeal unto God, how greatly he longed after his people in the bowels of Christ, and even travailed in birth with them, as it were, again and again, till Christ should be manifestly formed in them [Note: Gal 4:19.]!]
3.
A beneficial proposal
[Unhappily the proposal was an occasion of a very fierce contention between the two apostles. Not that Barnabas was less delighted to accept the proposal, than Paul was to make it: but Barnabas wished to take with them John, whose surname was Mark; which Paul could in no wise consent to do. Mark had accompanied them for some time in their former journey; but had forsaken them when he found that their work was attended with so much difficulty and danger: and on this account Paul thought him unfit for the labour, and unworthy of the honour, of attending them again [Note: Act 13:2; Act 13:5; Act 13:13. with Act 15:38.]. In this matter neither of the Apostles would give way; so that they separated from each other, and, as far as we know, never saw each other again in this world [Note: Act 15:39.].
To decide between the two, where God himself has not decided, is difficult: yet we apprehend that Barnabas was the more blameable of the two; first, because he seems to have been too much actuated by partiality for his nephew [Note: Col 4:10.]; and next, because the Church at Antioch appear to have sided with the Apostle Paul; commending him with renewed earnestness to the grace of God, whilst Barnabas was suffered to depart without any such expressions of their regard [Note: Act 15:40.]. Still it seems as if Paul himself was not wholly blameless, in suffering the contention to rise to such a pitch; when, if he had proposed to refer the matter to God with solemn fasting and prayer, we can have no doubt but that God would have made known to them his will respecting it.
The separation however was overruled for good: for Paul went with Silas, and Barnabas with Mark, each to his native country [Note: Act 4:36; Act 21:29.], where they hoped to labour with most effect; and thus confirmed and established more Churches [Note: Act 15:41 and Act 16:5.] than they could have done, if they had executed the plan that was at first proposed.]
We will now endeavour to,
II.
Fulfil the design in reference to the Church here present
The design of their projected journey was, to inquire into the state of the different Churches which they had planted: Let us go and see how they do. Now if such an inquiry was necessary among the apostolic Churches, doubtless it cannot be superfluous amongst us. We will direct our inquiry then,
1.
Generally, to the Church at large
[We are called a Christian Church: but are there not many amongst us who have no more of Christianity than the name? In the Church of Philadelphia there were some who said they were Jews, and were not, but did lie [Note: Rev 3:9.]: and so it is amongst us: there are many who name the name of Christ, without ever once endeavouring to depart from iniquity, or truly to give up themselves to him as his disciples. But, to speak rather of those who profess a love for the Gospel, and who therefore more resemble the primitive Church; are there not many who have a name that they live, and yet are dead; or, at least, the gracious dispositions that remain in them are so weak, that they are ready to die [Note: Rev 3:1-2.]? Are there not many who have left their first love [Note: Rev 2:4.], and are relapsed into such a lukewarm state, (neither cold nor hot,) that they are as hateful to God as if they made no profession at all [Note: Rev 3:15-16.]? And are there not many also of whom it must be said, that their works are not perfect before God [Note: Rev 3:2.]: and that, instead of having their last works more than their first [Note: Rev 2:19.], they have lost much of their spirituality and devotion to God? Verily, if we were to address you all, as John did Gaius, and wish your bodies to be in health, and prosper as your souls prosper, we fear that we should be wishing the greater part of you either sick or dead [Note: 3Jn 1:2.].]
2.
Particularly, to different classes of Christians in the Church
St. John divides the members of Christs mystical body into three classes, little children, young men, and fathers. We ask then of the little children, in what state are you? Are you growing in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ? and, in order to the promotion of that growth, are you desiring and delighting in the sincere milk of the word [Note: 1Pe 2:2.]? Are you sensible of your weakness and sinfulness; and looking to the Lord Jesus Christ to cleanse you daily in his blood, and to uphold you by his Spirit? And are you so diligent in every good work, as to make your profiting appear unto all? To the young men, of whom it is said that the word of God abideth in them, and that they overcome the wicked one [Note: 1Jn 2:14.], we next address ourselves: Do you indeed find that the word of Christ dwells richly in you in all wisdom? that the precepts are your guide, and the promises your support? Do you go forth with that word as the sword of the Spirit, to fight with all your spiritual enemies? and do you shew from day to day, that you are gaining fresh victories over the flesh and all its lusts, the world and all its vanities, and the devil and all his temptations? If there be any amongst us who, on account of their long standing and their high attainments in the divine life, are worthy the name of fathers, we would ask of them, are you increasingly growing in an acquaintance with God, so as to walk with him, like Enoch? and are you forgetting all that you have attained, and reaching forth to still higher attainments, and pressing forward for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus?
Let all of every class search and try themselves, that they may know what answer to give to such inquiries as these. The great High-Priest walketh among the seven golden candlesticks, and observes infallibly the state of every lamp, whether it be burning dimly, or its light be bright [Note: Rev 1:14; Rev 1:20.]: and to every one will he give according to his state before God [Note: Rev. 1:23.]. Let this inquiry then lead you all to diligent examination, and redoubled earnestness in the ways of God: for we have no greater joy, than that our children walk in truth [Note: 3Jn 1:4.]: and then we live, if ye stand fast in the Lord [Note: 1Th 3:8.].]
And some days after Paul said unto Barnabas, 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. (37) 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. (39) 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; (40) And Paul chose Silas, and departed, being recommended by the brethren unto the grace of God. (41) And he went through Syria and Cilicia, confirming the churches.
I would pause over this contention of these faithful servants of the Lord, to make all suitable reflections upon it. As God the Holy Ghost hath been pleased to have it recorded in his Church, it may well be supposed, that it will be to our profit, to attend to it. Here then, we see two eminent fellow laborers in the service of their Lord, who had gone for several years, as it should seem together, and with their lives in their hands, and moreover sent forth by the Holy Ghost, to his work; (Act 13:4 ) now separating asunder, upon a point of apparently no great importance. And, this separation was made at a time, when the peace of the Church had been but just established, from the saw of contention having passed over the Church, about the introduction of the law with the Gospel: Act 15:1-2 . Yea, Paul and Barnabas were sent by the Church to Antioch jointly to deliver the decrees ordained by the Apostles and Elders at Jerusalem, on this question of Circumcision, Act 15:22-23 . And, a very blessed time it should seem, they had together at Antioch, on that occasion. But yet, all these things, were not sufficient to suppress the risings of contention between them; but part they would, and part they did. And thus the Church is taught, that the best of men are but men; and, as Paul himself had but a little space before told the people of Lystra, so here was shewn; that they were men of like passions with ourselves, Act 14:15 . Reader! let this be our improvement from it. Look to Jesus. He, and he alone, is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens, Heb 7:26 . Oh! how sweet is the relief, when amidst everything unsatisfying in ourselves, and all creature comforts, we can, look to Jesus; and cease from man whose breath is in his nostrils, for wherein is he to be accounted of, Isa 2:22 .
Let it be observed, however, in the instance of this quarrel, how graciously the Lord overruled it, to his glory, and the promotion of his Church’s welfare. For, by this separation, the word of God was further extended, when Barnabas, by going unto Cyprus, and Paul through Syria and Cilicia, carried the glad tidings of salvation to those places. But, though the Lord’s providences in extracting good from evil, calls upon the Church to adore his Almighty hand, in the grace, manifested; yet we should learn also, that while this ministers to his glory, the evil of sin in our fallen nature remains the same. It is still our infirmity, which produceth such sad consequences. The Lord’s is the sole praise, which, even from the unworthiness of his people, will bring sweet from the bitter, and manifest divine strength to bear up against creature weakness.
We should not, I think, dismiss the subject of this contention of those holy men, without taking into our view of it, what afterwards followed. It is very plain, from the history of the Church, that though Paul, rather than take Mark with him at that time, separated from Barnabas, yet he still loved them both, and afterwards, upon more than one occasion, spoke of them with all the love of a brother. Yea, this very Mark was with Paul just before his martyrdom; and the aged Apostle, then with full prospect of death in view, tells Timothy, that he must bring Mark with him, for, said he, he is profitable to me for the ministry. See 1Ti 4:11 . See also 1Co 9:6 ; Col 4:10 . Grace in the heart will revive as the Corn, though the remaining weeds of indwelling corruption will too often choke it, Hos 14:7 . But how, and from whence is this revival ? Read the last six words of the following verse. From me (saith the Lord,) is thy fruit found. Oh! precious Jesus! how sweet in all things is thy Person, grace, and power?
Chapter 52
Prayer
Almighty God, thy river is full of water; we are consumed with thirst. If we drink of thy living water, we shall never thirst again. It shall be in us a well of water springing up into everlasting life. Lord, give us this water. We have tried all wells and streams, and, behold, they cannot quench the thirst of the soul. They mock our thirst; they do but make the fire burn the more intensely. We turn away with disappointment and sorrow and bitter self-reproach, and ask that we may drink of the river which flows fast by the throne of God. There is a river of life, clear as crystal, holding in its depths all beauteous things, and throwing them back in splendid reflection, and so doubling the very heaven of God. The world is full of sin and sorrow, the earth is ripped up with graves,- and the green things that live upon it wither whilst they grow. The air is full of death. Our friendship is broken by sad good-byes. Our joys will not bear drinking to the dregs. Our life is a sharp and fatal pain; but when we turn to thyself, behold, all things are new. Even death is swallowed up in victory. The winter is preparing for the spring, and all the pain of this mortal life is turned into stimulus towards a nobler existence. In Christ we see things as they really are; in Christ we triumph daily. He is the key which opens every door; he is the answer to every question that troubles the soul; he is the Saviour of the world. In his Cross we trust, to his Cross we look, for his blood we wait there is cleansing in that fountain and in none other.
Help us to grow in knowledge, in love of truth, in devotion to the interests of thy kingdom, and may our latter end be more fruitful than our beginning, and as the years add themselves may they take away nothing from the youthfulness of our souls.
We give thee humble and hearty thanks for all the blessings of this life. We have bread for ourselves, and a portion for him that is hungry. We have houses that are homes, warm with love, and filled with the riches of mutual trust. Upon our business thy sun has shone so that our one talent has become two, and we have ten at the end where we had five at the beginning. Our basket and our store thou hast blessed, as if they were living things, and could love thee for thy smile. What shall we render unto the Lord for all his benefits towards us? We will render our whole unbroken daily love, and always urge ourselves to do some better thing than we have yet attempted. Show us what we may see profitably of the future, and keep back from our eyes sights that would make them blind. Let the future come to us a day at a time, and with it send daily force equal to the stress of the occasion. Comfort us when none other may speak to our dejected souls. Open gates for which we have no key; and when the hill is high and bleak, rising far above the summer line, and setting up a testimony of winter all the year long, help us over the rugged summit, and help us on the very top to build an altar unto God.
Remember our dear ones who are not here. Some are on the sea; some are far away in other lands; some are preaching the Gospel to the heathen; some are on beds of pain; some are wandering into a land where there is nothing to eat but stones, where there is nothing but a great wilderness. We call them prodigals, straying ones. Our short prayer cannot reach them, but thy grace is greater than their sin, and may become a Gospel to them without the help of the words of man.
God save the Queen; establish her throne in righteousness, and prolong her reign in personal and imperial comfort. Upon all her house send a plentiful rain of blessing. Guide our legislators, our highest thinkers, our noblest spirits, and baptize all who need a daily baptism and a double portion of thy Spirit, so that the land may prosper and become a blessing to other empires.
We now wait for the touch we cannot mistake, for the warm breath of heaven, for the outlooking from behind the cloud of the eye of Christ. If we might have one glance of that eye, fixed upon our waiting hearts, we would forget time and space, earth and death, sin and fear, and be lost in an infinite joy. Amen.
Act 15:36-41
36. And after some [G. “certain”] days, Paul said unto Barnabas, Let us return now and visit the brethren in every city wherein we proclaimed the word of the Lord, and see how they fare [Paul’s second missionary journey thus began as a simple visitation of the new churches].
37. And Barnabas was minded [wished] to take with them John also, who was called Mark.
38. But Paul thought not good [G. “right”] to take with them him who withdrew from [G. “apostatized for them”] them [ Act 13:13 ] from Pamphylia, and went not with them to the work [Mark may have vacillated in doctrine also at this juncture, as did Peter].
39. And there arose a sharp contention [” an embittered feeling,” Jer 32:37 ], so that they parted asunder one from the other, and Barnabas took Mark [ Col 4:10 ] with him, and sailed away unto Cyprus;
40. but Paul chose Silas [who had again returned when he had fulfilled his commission of Act 15:33 ], and went forth, being commended by the brethren to the grace of the Lord [see also Phm 1:25 and 2Ti 4:11 ].
41. And he went through Syria and Cilicia [each went towards his native home . 1Co 9:9 ] confirming the churches.
The Separation of Paul and Barnabas
WE are now out in the open air again. For some days we have been in a stifling atmosphere, listening to great men debating and determining the vexed question of circumcision. Now we come into another and quieter region. Surely we now feel more at home than in the council of the Apostles listening to contradictory and irreconcilable voices. We feel our need of rest, after the passionate excitement through which we have gone. We will now live amongst friends, and be quiet and trustful, and will grow silently but surely in our apprehension of Divine mysteries and purposes. Yet this is not to be. We come out of one contention into another. This is life all through and through namely, a series of conflicts. The ground changes, the combatants change their personnel, but the undertone of life is a tone of controversy, disputation, conflict; and a superficial view of life would seem to confirm the suspicion that we do not advance in righteousness, but in mutual distrust and social alienation.
Now, Paul and Barnabas come before us in an undesirable light. Observe Paul’s love of work “Let us go again.” Into that “again” what quiet and throbbing earnestness he threw! It has been well said that Paul was bitten again with mission hunger. He was no stay-at-home; he could hardly be kept within doors; he must go out, either to fight or to build. They only are in the Apostolic succession who are in the Apostolic spirit. Hereditary descent is not to be reckoned with Apostolic succession, in the sense of entering into the very spirit and purpose of Apostolic heroes. He will not have any one with him who has broken down. He says he will take a staff, but it will be a staff that is sound at the core. Paul could not trust a staff that had once snapped in his hands. He himself was earnest; therefore he could not tolerate insincerity. There was no breach in his all but infinite integrity, and therefore a flaw to him was not an accident but a crime in other men.
In his criticism of Mark, Paul gave a criticism of himself. His judgments of other men were revelations of his own spirit. Paul meant his work to be solid and enduring. This was the very purpose he had in view namely, to consolidate young believers and immature thinkers and students; and to take with him, on such a mission, a man who himself had turned back from the plough, was an irony which vexed his soul. If he had been going out to make experiments, he might have taken with him such instruments as lay ready to his hands; but his purpose was to “confirm the Churches,” to make them stronger and stronger; and to be working with an instrument which had already broken down in his hands was not only a contradiction in terms, but a moral irony, from which his very spirit recoiled. Everything depends upon the kind of work you are going to do. For some kinds of work fickle men may serve a useful end. There is a place in the Church for every one, and that is the problem which many Christian communions have not solved. The Papacy has solved it; but the Papacy is, from a statesman’s point of view, the grandest and mightiest organization on the face of the earth. The Papacy can use all sorts of men; Protestantism can use only one or two kinds. We must learn to employ men in proper departments who do not come up to the Pauline standard of excellence. We may be good men, and yet broken here and there. Do not throw away any man for the sake of one fault, or even two. There may be a great deal of soundness in the apple that has upon it one patch of rottenness. We may be working for Christ without being counted worthy to rank with the “first three.”
Barnabas comes out in a new light; he is willing to give a man another chance in life. By so much he was a great man. I love this aspect of his nature. In this respect I love Barnabas more than Paul. From the point of righteous discipline, Spartan sternness, there can be no doubt of the grandeur of Paul; but a man who would give a youth another chance seems to me to have in him the true spirit of the Cross, and to represent the charity of Christ. Some of you are too stern; the sternness may not be righteousness, but selfishness. Take heed how you administer discipline. You turn off your young men because they may injure your business, or jeopardize some of your commercial relations, or hinder you in some purpose in life. Commercially, that is right; but we are not all commercial travellers. We profess to use the balances of the sanctuary, and to imbibe daily the spirit of Christ, and reflect constantly the lovingness of the Gospel. Barnabas may have said in effect, “What you say about my nephew is literally correct, but give him another chance.” Thank God for the few men here and there who are willing to try us again! We owe them our lives: we ought to live for them. Could any man say a word against them, we ought to spring instantly with the weight of our whole energy to their protection and vindication. They are, in the truest sense of the word, our helpers and friends and best philosophers. Barnabas was invincible. We have hitherto considered him only a kind, well-disposed, loving man, who would sit down anywhere, or stand up, or go or come, just as some superior nature might suggest or require. Such are often amongst the sternest men. Barnabas said to Paul, “No!” and even Paul could not change that No into a Yes. Afterwards the judgment of Barnabas was vindicated. Barnabas was in this respect a farther-sighted man than Paul. Thank God, Paul was not infallible! We must not preach an infallible Paul. There is only one infallible person in the Church, and he is its Lord; and it is well to find out the failings of even Pauline heroes, that they may sit down in the presence of the One Immaculate Righteousness and Infallible Wisdom. Paul was but a man at the best; he himself said so. “Who then is Paul and who is Apollos,” said he, “but ministers, servants, and slaves of Christ?” In this respect Barnabas was a greater man than Paul. He is the great man who penetrates character, and he is not necessarily a great man at all who only judges by facts which he cannot dispute. He is the true intellectual reader who says about a young man, before the young man does one stroke of work, “He has the Spirit of God in him, and the indestructible seed of the kingdom.” And he who, twenty years after, simply gives in to facts is not a man of penetration at all. He simply affirms what he cannot deny. “He was my friend” (the old man may say) “who spoke kindly and hopefully to me before I began my work. Looking at me altogether for a man is not all head, or hand, or foot but taking in stature, colors, shape, force, unction, look, voice, he said, ‘This man will do wonders for Christ.'” Another observer says: “We must wait and look and carefully adapt such evidence as the passing days may contribute towards the formation of a judgment.” Twenty years after, the second man said, “After all this long service, I am bound to say that he is a better man than I first supposed.” That is not a judge of character, nor is that a eulogium, nor is that praise worth having. The man that read the soul was the man of prescience, and the man to whom intellectual honour and moral homage must be paid. Young man, live in the warm sunshine of those who hope the best about you. You owe nothing to the men who affirm your excellence when they cannot deny it. Some men found their judgments on what they call proofs. Barnabas founded his estimate of his nephew upon what he believed to be the inner quality and character of the young man’s soul. I am thus at some pains to strip the Apostle Paul of his imagined infallibility. I repeat, there is only One who judgeth righteous judgment, and that is Christ; and the highest archbishop amongst us, if he know himself, will acknowledge that he is a fallible, sinful, erring creature.
There are mitigating circumstances in this controversy both men were honest. It is something to have to deal with honest men, even when they oppose you. I respect an honest opponent infinitely more than an insincere friend nay, he cannot be a friend who is capable of insincerity. Another mitigating circumstance is, that the contention was not about the Master. Paul and Barnabas did not take two different views of Christ. They are not going to found separate theological sects. Another mitigating circumstance is, that the work was not abandoned, but was doubled. Instead of one missionary excursion, there were two. Barnabas went to his native land, and the leonine Paul struck out for regions at once unfamiliar and unknown. The destinations they selected were revelations of the spirit of the men. Barnabas goes into obscurity, Paul rises like a sun into a broader firmament. We have already said good-bye to Peter, so far as the acts of the Apostles are concerned, except incidentally; so now we must say good-bye to Barnabas and Mark. At this point they both retire from the Acts of the Apostles. The withdrawment is in a kind of thunderstorm. Surely this cannot be all; surely the night does not settle so suddenly on Christian friendship and Apostolic brotherhood. Barnabas and Saul played together in the streets of Tarsus as boys: Barnabas was a friend, when Christian friends Saul had none. Barnabas took him by the hand when every one entertained concerning him the most inveterate suspicion. They cannot part in this way! The paroxysm was intense; but men like Barnabas and Paul, lifelong friends, must not be rent asunder, the one from the other, by a comparatively trivial incident like this. Is it so that our choicest friendships may die? May love be lost in anger? May comrades part as foes, hot with mutual displeasure? We must know more about this. In first Corinthians, ninth chapter and sixth verse, Paul says, “Or I only and Barnabas, have not we power to forbear working?” There Paul acknowledges that Barnabas, with himself, had acted a noble part in reference to the Churches, because, whilst they had the right to all the Churches could do for them, in the way of temporal support, they declined to accept the legitimate patronage, and resolved to work for their bread with their own hands. And Mark what became of him? After he had worked with Barnabas in Cyprus, he returned to Peter, his spiritual father; and in his first Epistle, the fifth chapter and thirteenth verse, Peter writes these words: “The Church that is at Babylon… saluteth you; and so doth Marcus my son.” He was not lost, then. But did Paul know about his restoration? Read Colossians, the fourth chapter and tenth verse, where Paul says, “Marcus, sister’s son to Barnabas, saluteth you. If he come unto you, receive him.” This is a touch of love Divine. In writing his short letter to Philemon, Paul says, in what we have marked as the twenty-fourth verse, “Marcus, my fellow-laborer.”‘ They had come together again in service. Now Paul becomes an old man, a grand old warrior; and, writing his second letter to Timothy, he says, in the fourth chapter and the eleventh verse, “Take Mark, and bring him with thee; for he is profitable to me for the ministry.” Well done, Mark! Well done, Paul! The position of the Apostle was not an easy one; for he confessed that in the first instance he had at least acted impulsively, though honestly. Few men have moral courage to correct themselves openly, to acknowledge that they were wrong in judgment and to repair wrongs which, however unconsciously, they once inflicted. Now Paul becomes almost infallible; our whole love goes back to him without stint or grudge. Truly, he is now a great man. Once he said to Mark, in effect, “You shall not go, because you are a bruised reed, or a broken staff; having put your hand to the plough, you turned back and showed yourself to be not fit for the kingdom of God.” But Mark worked on under gentle auspices, recovered himself, and became, for him, quite a little hero in his own way. Paul said, “This is brave, this is good, this is noble”; and he called Mark his “fellow-labourer,” told the Colossians to receive him, and bade Timothy bring Mark with him, because he was profitable to Paul in the ministry.
Acknowledge your faults. If you have done wrong to any young man, or if you were right at the time, and that young man has lived to contradict your judgment, say so frankly to him. Do not take refuge in the mean vanity, the petty and detestable fraud, which will not acknowledge a fault. A young man, then, may redeem his character. I speak to many young men now, and in Christ’s spirit as well as in Christ’s name, I offer them, where they need it, a new chance in life. You did act basely once, but that is no reason why you should continue to act basely to the end of your days. Why not stand up, and frankly acknowledge the baseness, and ask to be forgiven? There is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth. You once spoke a harsh word, and said you would do no more work for the Church, and give no more money or help to it in any way. Even Apostles have before this spoken in paroxysms and excitement, and then, when they came to their true selves, they did their best to obliterate the unworthy past. What say you? You once told a lie; you need not therefore always be a liar. Here is a new day the Lord’s day full of sunlight, and this is God’s house, built within the shadow of Christ’s cross; and here is the Son of God, and he says to each of us, “Try again, do not despair; in my strength pluck up courage and do better next time.” Why, I hope that all young men will spring to the noble challenge, and say, “By the help of God, we will rub out the past and live in Christ’s grace and strength; so that at last we will be called his fellow-labourers, and be received, not by Apostles into a temporary home, but by the ‘general assembly and the Church of the first-born’ into our Father’s house.”
XXII
THE GREAT SOCIAL QUESTION AT ANTIOCH, AND THE SEPARATION OF PAUL AND BARNABAS IN MISSIONARY WORK
Act 15:36-39 We showed in the last chapter that, while it was definitely settled in the Jerusalem conference that a Gentile did not have to be circumcised and become a Jew in order to be saved, there were other important questions that the Jerusalem conference did not settle. While it decided the Gentile’s relation to the Jewish law, it did not decide fully the Jew’s relation to the law, and this social question comes up on the Jew’s relation to the law, viz.: Were the Jews under the Mosaic covenant, as they understood themselves to be, or could they mix freely with the Gentiles and eat with them! It was purely a social question. Admitting that the Gentile can be a Christian and be saved without any respect to the Mosaic law, what about the Jew and his relation to that law? Ought they allow the Jew to mingle freely with the Gentile? How could he go on keeping the Mosaic covenant if he did? That was the question. And why had this question come up? Paul had his way in that Jerusalem conference; he won out on all his points. Evidently there was an impression left on the minds of the strict Jews at Jerusalem after that circumcision question for the Gentiles had been settled, lest there should be a misunderstanding as to what a Jew should do. And so a party of Jews left Jerusalem and came to Antioch, and Paul says that they came from James. And that is nowhere denied in the history. They do not come in surreptitiously, as did that first party, but they came on account of the apprehension in the mind of James that the Jews were straying away too far. “Certain from James,” and Paul states that on his own knowledge. In case of those other men, James disavowed sending them, but no one disavows that this party that now came to Antioch did come from James. They were afraid that some work was going on there in that free and easy way at Antioch. That distinct question with them was a matter of conscience to the Jews. That is why, by whom, and how that question was raised.
The names of the parties who came are not given. Paul just says, “Certain from James.” You understand that now at Antioch are Paul, Barnabas, Silas, Mark, and Peter. They are there when these men come from James. Before these men got there, Peter and Barnabas were mingling freely with the Gentiles, and all of them eating with them. James may have heard of that, but anyhow, when these men came from James, that shocked Peter. You cannot account for the effect on Peter unless you realize that these men came from James, pastor of the church at Jerusalem, the most widely known, the most influential Jew with the Jews, in the known world.
We get the estimate with which James was held by everyone, especially his own church at Jerusalem, by reading Josephus. He attributes the destruction of Jerusalem to the fact that the Jews stoned this James. Everybody knew him. He was an ascetic. He did not eat enough to keep a chicken alive, and had large callosities formed on his knees by his being continually in prayer. John the Baptist, Elijah, the Rechabites, or the Essenes, were never more ascetic than James was.
Before we leave this question we note what Paul says that not only Peter was led away by representatives of this man, but that Barnabas, his old comrade, was overcome. He had been with him on the first tour, and they had mingled I freely with the Gentiles. It looked like this social question was going to practically neutralize all the advantages of the conference. So we see that in a church like Antioch half of the members would be counted as outcasts from the other half. They would let them stay in the same place with them when they went to preaching, but they must not go into each other’s houses must not take a meal together. Very soon, unless human nature was very different then from what it is now, it would have made the biggest kind of a row. Those Gentiles would have said that God is no respecter of persons; that what God had cleansed was not common or unclean, but that the Jews refused to come to their houses; that they could not see how they could have fellowship with them in church relations. So it brought on an extremely acute crisis that lasted for a long time. Certainly, it lasted through Paul’s lifetime.
As this very question had been considered and favorably decided at Jerusalem in the case of Peter himself and Cornelius (Act 11:1-18 ; Act 15:7-11 ), why, under the prompting of James, should it be raised again at Antioch? You know that when Peter, under a vision of the Lord, went to the house of Cornelius, he entered into that house, he took his meals with Cornelius, and Acts II tells us that when he got back to Jerusalem they raised a question with him, saying, “Thou wentest in to men uncircumcised, and didst eat with them.” That is the very question we have here. Peter had a hard time saving himself, but we find his exposition in Act 11 , and very nobly does he appear there. He said, “God has showed me that I must not so construe that old Mosaic law. He showed me that what he had cleansed I must not count unclean, and he sent the baptism of the Spirit on Cornelius,” and when he got through with his speech they agreed with him. As this very question had been considered and favorably decided at Jerusalem in the case of Peter himself and Cornelius (Act 11:1-18 ), why under the promptings of James, should it be raised again at Antioch?
I will give my opinion as the answer to that question. I take it for granted that James saw the difference between a preacher alone just the preacher going in unto Gentiles when he was preaching to Gentiles, and the establishment of a common precedent that would affect all the members of the church. We understand, as Peter was under divine guidance, and being a preacher, like any preacher in China, who is bound to go into that Chinese’s house and eat with him if he ever does him any good. My opinion is that James made a distinction between the preacher’s doing this and the whole church doing this. He was afraid that the distinction between the Jews and the rest of the world would be obliterated if this custom prevailed with the people. That’s my answer to that question.
Does the history indicate a change of conviction on the part of Peter and Barnabas since the Cornelius case, or a weak dissimulation under pressure from Jerusalem? Paul answers it very clearly. He very plainly says that Peter’s convictions on the subject were not changed, and Barnabas was not changed, and that because certain ones came from James, they were led to dissimulate. That is his word, “dissimulate.” Peter held James in great reverence. He was the half-brother of our Lord, and that fleshly relation gave him an undue prominence. It was not a case where Peter would agree with James, for he did not after he got to Antioch this time. He mingled freely with the Gentiles, eating with them so there was no change of conviction, but he did not want to pull loose from James.
Let us see what Paul says about that. I will give the language in order to get its full import. It commences at Gal 2:11 : “But when Cephas came to Antioch, I resisted him to the face, because he stood condemned. For before that certain came from James, he ate with the Gentiles; but when they came, he drew back and separated himself, fearing them that were of the circumcision. And the rest of the Jews dissembled likewise with him; insomuch that even Barnabas was carried away with their dissimulation.” That is pretty plain talk. He was the only man in the crowd that recognized how big that question was.
Paul was the man that saved the situation, and here is his argument. Here is what he says to Peter (Gal 2:14-21 ) : “But when I saw that they walked not uprightly according to the truth of the gospel, I said unto Cephas before them all [he did not take him off privately; just got him in the meeting], If thou, being a Jew, livest as do the Gentiles, and not as do the Jews, how compellest thou the Gentiles to live as do the Jews? [That is the way you have been doing the Jews.] We, being Jews by nature, and not sinners of the Gentiles, yet knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ even we believed on Christ Jesus, that we might be justified by faith in Christ, and not by the works of the law: because by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified. But if, while we sought to be justified in Christ, we ourselves also were found sinners, is Christ a minister of sin? God forbid, for if I build up again those things which I destroyed, I prove myself a transgressor. For I, through the law, died unto the law, that I might live unto God. I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I that live, but Christ liveth in me: and that life which I now live in the flesh I live in faith the faith which is in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself up for me. I do not make void the grace of God: for if righteousness is through the law, then Christ died for nought.”
In other words Paul says, “If your position is correct that you can take the Gentiles in without circumcision and they can be saved in Jesus Christ and if the preacher can go and mix with these people, is Christ a minister of sin? You found sin in something that is not sin.” Then he says, “God forbid, for if I build up again those things which I have destroyed, I prove myself a transgressor.” That is exactly what Peter did. He built up the right thing, as he did in the case of Cornelius, but here in Antioch he is pulling that down. “I through the law died unto the law that I might live unto God. I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I that live) but Christ liveth in me; and that life which I now live in the flesh I live in faith, the faith which is in the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself up for me.” In other words, “This Christian life that I am living I do not live by the Mosaic law. I do not make void the grace of God; for if righteousness is through the law, then Christ died for nought.” He counted it a repudiation of the gospel. That’s who saved the situation and how he saved it.
Let us take James as he is presented to us in Act 21 . When Paul goes to Jerusalem the last time, and goes there loaded down with money that he has raised for those people the poor James comes to him and says not a word of thanks for the money or presents. But, “Brother, you see how many thousands [or, rather, according to the Greek word here meaning myriads, how many ten thousands] there are of the Jews who believe, and they are all zealous for the customs of Moses, and they are under the impression that you are preaching and doing away with the customs of Moses: I suggest that you conform to a certain custom of Moses: Take a vow on yourself and go into the Temple and let all the people see that you are keeping a vow according to the Mosaic customs.” I can conceive of what must have been the feeling of Paul that day, but how as a matter of expediency, where no principle was involved, he said, “While I do not consider this custom binding on me, I am willing to be Jew in observing this law if you do not make the custom a law of salvation in the gospel.”
Look at James as he appears the last time in the Acts, then take his letter and read it through. It is written to the dispersion in this very territory where Paul’s missionary tour is. While in that letter of James there is the clearest evidence that he is a Christian that he does accept Jesus Christ as his Saviour, and while there are many good things and no evil things, there is an absence of some good things that would have come in mighty well if he had said them.
So far, then, as we have light on the history of James, he would have been satisfied for Christianity to have been a sect of the Jews, believing in the Messiah, but holding on to the Temple and all of its rites. That is my impression. That is the reason that in that sermon of mine, “But I Went into Arabia,” I take the position that if it had not been for Paul; if God’s providence had not raised him up to stand by the right view of that question, Christianity would have remained a Jewish sect. You see that Peter was afraid of James; and Barnabas, as great as he was, was also afraid of James, and I suspect that this controversy at Antioch, and Paul’s rebuke, had somewhat to do with the separation of Paul and Barnabas in future work. There was another matter which was the cause of that separation, but we must remember that here were two men out on that first tour, and an issue had come up in the church where they had left, and Paul takes a position that convicts Barnabas of dissimulation. There might have been do not affirm it suggest that there might have been a residuum of feeling in the heart of Barnabas that would have made him willing enough, the next time they go out, not to go together. That would be the way of two of us. If we had had a sharp debate, it would have had that effect on us. Barnabas had as much human nature as we have.
The immediate occasion of that separation was this: Paul had proposed to Barnabas that they go back and revisit all the churches that they had preached to in that first missionary tour, and see how they were getting along. Barabbas gays, “Yes, and I will take Mark along.” Paul says, “No, not Mark; we tried him once and he backed out right at the critical point.” Barnabas says, “He is my cousin; he is all right. If I go, Mark must go.” Paul said, “He cannot go with me,” and so the contention became sharp, and they separated. Barnabas takes Mark and goes back to Cyprus, his old home, the place that Paul and Barnabas evangelized, and in that part of the territory Mark had been faithful. Paul goes to the part of the country that Mark did not visit with them. And this man Silas, one of the deputies sent up by the Jerusalem church, continued to remain at Antioch, and he was very much taken with Paul, and he says, “I will go with you.”
It is hard to say about the merits of the quarrel. I can see how Barnabas was going to hang onto his kinsman, and give him another trial, and, as a matter of fact, giving him that other trial pulled him out all right. Even Paul was satisfied. Later on in his life he has Mark back with him, and was very much pleased with him, and in his letter, he says, “Bring Mark with you. I need him.” So you must judge Barnabas was right, by proving that Mark ought to have another chance.
Brethren, what would become of us, if, when we made a blunder, we did not have another chance? Some of the bitterest things in our memory are when we recall the great mistakes that we have made, and if there is one thing that a good man desires, it is an opportunity to show that he does not want to perpetuate his mistakes, and so with Barnabas. [Perhaps the greatest weakness in many otherwise good men is their unwillingness to forgive and restore an erring brother. Not so with Jesus. The same Peter who, with bitter oaths denied the Master on the night of the betrayal, was upon repentance, at once taken to the Saviour’s heart, and on the day of Pentecost strode like a giant. Editor.] But we must understand Paul. Life to him was a very serious thing, and these missionary enterprises were full of labor and suffering, and very great danger. He wanted to know the people that went with him. He himself was very feeble, never well, continually needing some young man to help him. Now, is it wisdom to start out after a thing, a desperate undertaking, and take a man along that failed the other time? So my view of the merits of the quarrel is that both of these men had enough to justify their views in the case. The fact that one or the other did not yield proves that both of them were still in the flesh. The best man in the world is in the flesh. Well does Paul say later, “I do not count myself perfect, I do not consider that I have laid hold of everything for which Christ laid hold of me; I am trying to forget the things that are behind, and press forward to the things that are before; keeping my eyes on the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” In other words, he says, “I have the standard all right. I won’t lower it, but I do not come up to it.”
The New Testament has not another word to say about Barabbas. His name drops out of the history. What he did when he went to Cyprus with Mark, we do not know. I take it for granted that they did well, but the New Testament does not have another word to say about him. It would have had a great deal to say if he had gone on with Paul. He lost the association with the man that was to shake the world, and fill all future ages. That was a very great loss.
It is as if a man had started out with Sam Houston in the war of Texas Independence, and they had been together up to the time of the fall of the Alamo, of Goliad and Refugio, and there some question had come up and he had separated from Houston. He would have missed by that separation the glory of San Jacinto. I think he would have thought of it on every San Jacinto Day as long as he lived. He may have had the highest and best motives for pulling away, but the children would always say when April 21 came, “Papa, I wish you had kept on with Houston until after that battle.”
The great practical lessons of present value to be derived from these events at Jerusalem and Antioch are:
1. Present-day churches have the same things to confront them as did the Antioch church.
2. Do not multiply the things you say are essential to salvation. Just leave them where God left them. Do not say with the Campbellites that one cannot be saved unless he is baptized, and do not say with the Romanists that he cannot be saved unless he partakes of the Lord’s Supper. Leave things that are essential to salvation Just as you find them, all spiritual regeneration, repentance, and faith, and stop there.
3. Don’t be a stickler for things that, carried out to their legitimate analysis, will nullify a question of salvation. Do not stand for any position that, if it is fully carried out, will block the gospel and divide churches.
4. Whether you think about Paul, Barnabas, Peter, Mark, or James, we have this treasure in earthen vessels. Just think of all the good men that you know and you will be bound to quote Paul.
5. God himself shows that there is a propriety in dividing the work into home missions and foreign missions. When Peter and Paul gave each other the hand of fellowship, Peter went to the Jews, Paul to the Gentiles one to be a home mission man and the other a great foreign mission leader, and God was in that.
6. Division, even when it springs from quarrels, God can overrule to a greater furtherance of the gospel. Associations have been formed sometimes because two brother Baptists could not both be leaders. Look at what great result followed the separation of the Southern Baptists from the Northern Baptists. We never amounted to anything here in the South until the Southern Baptists were organized. The old National Convention never met in the South. We had no personal acquaintance with the secretaries; only a few people in the great states sent contributions, and they were little, piddling contributions. When the Southern Baptist Convention was organized, we had our own assemblies and all the meetings were held in the South from Texas to the Atlantic Coast, and the result was that we multiplied the points of contact between the people, and that division resulted in great good.
If there never had been any split in the school at Old Independence, we would not have Baylor University. This university resulted from the split at Old Independence. A quarrel occurred between the trustees and Dr. Burleson. It is hard to say which was more to blame, but in the great vital points, Dr. Burleson was right, but he ought not to have been crowded like they crowded him on those great questions. He took his entire faculty and moved up to Waco and started Waco University, and the old school began to decline when he left.
I have not mentioned a hundredth part of the practical lessons that can be discovered from these great events, but I will pass on, commencing at Paul’s second missionary tour in the next chapter.
QUESTIONS 1. What are the scriptures and themes of this chapter?
2. What was the great social question raised at Antioch soon after the Jerusalem conference which tended to nullify its decisions?
3. What is the full history of it?
4. Why, by whom and how was it raised?
5. Why had it stronger support at Jerusalem than the question about circumcision, and how account for its effect on Peter and Barnabas?
6. As this very question had been considered and favorably decided at Jerusalem in the case of Peter himself and Cornelius (Act 11:1-18 ; Act 15:7-11 ), why under the prompting of James, should it be raised again at Antioch?
7. Does the history indicate a change of conviction on the part of Peter and Barnabas since the Cornelius case, or a weak dissimulation under pressure from Jerusalem? Explain fully.
8. Who saved the situation, and what his argument?
9. Does the subsequent history of James in Act 21:17-25 , or in his letter to the dispersion, or in Josephus, indicate that he ever reached a clear understanding of the distinction between the old covenant and the new? Discuss.
10. Is it possible that this controversy at Antioch, and Paul’s rebuke, had somewhat to do with the separation of Paul and Barnabas for the future work? Explain.
11. What was the immediate occasion of that separation, and what the merits of the quarrel between Paul and Barnabas?
12. What does the editor of this INTERPRETATION say of a great common weakness and the importance of forgiveness and brotherly love? What illustration cited?
13. What further has the New Testament to say of Barnabas, and what possible loss to him in the separation?
14. What great practical lessons of present value to be derived from these events at: Jerusalem and Antioch?
36 And some days after Paul said unto Barnabas, 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.
Ver. 36. And see how they do ] Whether that wicked one (or troubler, , Mat 13:39 ) hath not cast his club among them, or corrupted their minds from the simplicity that is in Christ, 2Co 11:3 . How soon were the Galatians unsettled by seducers and sect makers, Gal 1:6 . What ill work made those deceitful workers at Corinth, in St Paul’s absence; and the heretics in the primitive Church, and the Anabaptists in Germany, &c. While Moses was but a while in the mount, the people had gotten them a golden calf. When Calvin was cast out of Geneva but for a short time, Sadoletus wrote a very smooth and subtle epistle to the inhabitants, to persuade them to return back to Popery. We ministers seldom find our work as we left it, we had need therefore visit often, and handle our sheep, &c., to see how they do, and whether (as Gaiuses) their souls as well as bodies be in health and prosper, 3Jn 1:2 .
36. . ] How long , we are not informed: but perhaps (?) during this time took place that visit of Peter to Antioch mentioned Gal 2:11 ff. when he sacrificed his Christian consistency and better persuasions to please some Judaizers, and even Barnabas was led away with the dissimulation. On this occasion Paul boldly rebuked him. See, on the whole occurrence, notes to Gal. l. c.
, see above, ch. Act 13:2 .
, because involves a plurality: so Xen. Mem. i. 2. 62, : cf. Herm. ad Viger. p. 40.
Act 15:36 . : second missionary journey commences, ending Act 18:22 . , reversi, cf. Luk 2:39 , W.H [291] , Act 17:31 . The word is so used in LXX, and in modern Greek (Kennedy, p. 155). , see on Act 13:2 . ., see above on Act 6:3 . The word was characteristic of a man like St. Paul, whose heart was the heart of the world, and who daily sustained the care of all the churches. : “in fide, amore, spe nervus visitationis ecclesiastic” Bengel.
[291] Westcott and Hort’s The New Testament in Greek: Critical Text and Notes.
NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Act 15:36-41
36After some days Paul said to Barnabas, “Let us return and visit the brethren in every city in which we proclaimed the word of the Lord, and see how they are.” 37Barnabas wanted to take John, called Mark, along with them also. 38But Paul kept insisting that they should not take him along who had deserted them in Pamphylia and had not gone with them to the work. 39And there occurred such a sharp disagreement that they separated from one another, and Barnabas took Mark with him and sailed away to Cyprus. 40But Paul chose Silas and left, being committed by the brethren to the grace of the Lord. 41And he was traveling through Syria and Cilicia, strengthening the churches.
Act 15:36 “Let us return” It was Paul and Barnabas’ purpose to return and strengthen the new churches which had been started on their first journey. Notice there was not the divine manifestation about this mission as there was for the first one (cf. Act 13:2).
Act 15:38 “Paul kept insisting” This is an imperfect active indicative. Apparently Paul continued to express his reluctance.
“who had deserted them” Exactly why John Mark left the first mission is uncertain (cf. Act 13:13).
Act 15:39 “there occurred such a sharp disagreement that they separated from one another” The root meaning of this term is “sharp,” meaning “to sharpen as a blade.” It is used in a positive sense in Heb 10:24. The verb is also used in Act 17:6 and 1Co 13:5. They really had an argument!
“Barnabas took Mark with him and sailed away to Cyprus” Now there are two mission teams.
Act 15:40 “Paul chose Silas” Paul chose another leader from the Jerusalem church.
“being committed by the brethren to the grace of the Lord” This would have involved a type of dedicatory prayer service (cf. Act 6:6; Act 13:3; Act 14:26; Act 20:32). This implies the whole church, not a select group.
Act 15:41 “Cilicia” Why and how these churches were started is uncertain. Possibly Paul himself started them during his silent years in Tarsus. Cilicia was Paul’s home province.
“churches” See Special Topic at Act 5:11.
some days after = after certain (Greek. tis. App-123.) days.
where = in (Greek. en) which.
have preached. = preached. Greek. katangello. App-121.
do = fare.
36. .] How long, we are not informed: but perhaps (?) during this time took place that visit of Peter to Antioch mentioned Gal 2:11 ff. when he sacrificed his Christian consistency and better persuasions to please some Judaizers, and even Barnabas was led away with the dissimulation. On this occasion Paul boldly rebuked him. See, on the whole occurrence, notes to Gal. l. c.
, see above, ch. Act 13:2.
, because involves a plurality: so Xen. Mem. i. 2. 62, : cf. Herm. ad Viger. p. 40.
Act 15:36. , having returned) A most wholesome plan: and yet Paul was then (afterwards) led even farther, and more and more towards the west.-) A particle of exciting.- , how they have themselves [in what state they are]) in respect to faith, love, and hope. [Paul also afterwards had the same care: 1Th 3:5.-V. g.] The strength (what ought to be the main point) of an ecclesiastical visitation. Reader, How hast thou thyself, in what state art thou?
Act 15:36-41
PAULS SECOND MISSIONARY JOURNEY
Act 15:36 to Act 18:22
PAUL SELECTS SILAS
Act 15:36-41
36 And after some days Paul said unto Barnabas,-Paul takes the initiative as the leader; he had publicly rebuked Peter (Gal 2:11-21) and is anxious to go back to the fields where he has planted churches. He desired to return and visit the brethren in every city where he and Barnabas had preached the word of the Lord. He was anxious to see how the young churches were getting along, and to give them any further instructions that they might need. We must know that the some days and the some time that expired while the church was busy in the development of leaders and teachers kept up the zeal of the church. A commonly accepted chronology of Acts makes the interval between the visit of Paul and Barnabas to Jerusalem and the beginning of Pauls second missionary journey somewhat more than a year.
37 And Barnabas was minded to take with them John-Barnabas wished and willed to take along with them John Mark, his cousin. Mark had started with them on the first tour, but had turned around at Perga (Act 13:13) and returned to Jerusalem. It was to the house of Mary the mother of Mark that Peter went after his release from prison (Act 12:12).
38 But Paul thought not good to take with them him-Barnabas had resolved to take Mark with him, and may have spoken to him and arranged with him to go, but Paul thought it was not best to take Mark since he withdrew from them from Pamphylia, and did not continue with them on their first journey. Here was a difference in judgment; we are not to understand that the Holy Spirit guided either one of these good men, as it was a mere difference in human judgment as to what was expedient in the matter. Since Mark had turned back on the first journey, Paul was not willing to risk taking with them as a helper one who had left them in the midst of the work on their first journey.
39 And there arose a sharp contention,-Contention here comes from the Greek paroxusmos, and is our word for paroxysm in English; it means to sharpen as of a blade, and of the spirit. It seems that the Son of consolation, Barnabas, lost his temper in a dispute over his cousin, and Paul uses sharp words toward his benefactor and friend. It is frequently the case that little irritations of life give occasion for violent explosions. Some think that the incident between Paul and Peter (Gal 2:11-21) was known to Mark, and that Mark took sides with Peter; hence, Paul was not so kindly disposed to take Mark with them; he would have been a hindrance to the progress of the gospel among the Gentiles had he gone with them and held to the view that the Gentiles should be circumcised. However, we do not know any more than is recorded here. The result of the contention determined Paul and Barnabas to separate and each follow his own independent course. We know that Paul held no malice toward Barnabas and Mark. Barnabas is not mentioned again in Acts, but both Barnabas and Mark are mentioned by Paul in a way that showed confidence had been restored, for Paul speaks of them in warm commendation in his letters to Corinth, Colosse, and Timothy. (1Co 9:6; Col 4:10-11; 2Ti 4:11.) Barnabas took Mark with him, and sailed away unto Cyprus. Cyprus was the home of Barnabas; this was the first place visited by Paul and Barnabas on their first tour. Pauls mention of Barnabas in 1Co 9:6 shows that Barnabas was busy in the work of the ministry, and the later mentions of Mark show that Paul had confidence in him and commended him very highly.
40 but Paul chose Silas, and went forth,-Silas had returned to Jerusalem with Judas after his visit to Antioch, but now we find him back in Antioch. Paul was commended by the brethren to the grace of God which shows that his selection of Silas was approved by the church at Antioch. It seems that the sympathy of the church at Antioch was with Paul rather than with Barnabas in the contention between Paul and Barnabas. Silas was a suitable companion for Paul; he had influence in the church in Jerusalem (verse 22) and was apparently a Roman citizen also. (Act 16:37.) Silas, or Silvanus, is mentioned in the epistles by Paul and Peter. (1Th 1:1; 2Th 1:1; 2Co 1:19; 1Pe 5:12.) It is remarkable that Peter mentions both Mark and Silas as with him at the same time. (1Pe 5:12-13.)
41 And he went through Syria and Cilicia,-Paul and Silas went forth on Pauls second missionary tour to confirm the churches and to establish other churches. They are to further the cause of Christ especially among the Gentiles. It is interesting to know that Barnabas went to his native Cyprus, and Paul went to his native Cilicia, each to regions familiar from childhood. Paul and Silas would have to go through a part of Syria in order to reach Cilicia if they traveled by land. The letter from the church at Jerusalem to the Gentile Christians would be of special interest to the churches in Syria and Cilicia, as it was addressed to the Christians in these provinces. (Act 15:23.) The reading of this letter would confirm the churches in these sections, but the presence of Paul and Silas would have great influence on the churches.
Questions on Acts
By E.M. Zerr
Acts Chapter 15
From where did certain men come?
What Jewish ordinance did they advocate?
W this on the basis of national requirement?
What did they say this ordinance was necessary for?
Who disputed with them?
Why was it right for them to have a dispute?
Who are “they” in 2nd verse?
Tell what was determined upon.
Why go up to these men?
By what society were they sent on this mission?
On the way what did they do among the people?
What caused the joy of the Samaritans?
Who received them at Jerusalem?
What sect first raised protest?
State the present profession of these people.
To this what did they demand should be added?
Who had charge of this meeting?
What congregation was in authority?
Was this a Council of churches?
Who was the chief speaker?
Where is the history of that appointment?
What testimony did God give the Gentiles?
How much difference shown between them and Jews ?
By what were the hearts purified?
In what part of Moses’ law is this found?
How might they here tempt God?
Through what must all classes be saved?
Who were the next speakers?
State the subject of their remarks.
Name the next speaker.
To whom does he refer as Simeon?
What words does James say agree with Simeon?
How does all this affect the present controversy?
Whom does he advise not to trouble?
What would he have the Gentiles instructed to do?
Would this result in neglect to law of Moses?
How was all this advice received by the hearers?
What did they arrange to do?
State what was to be sent to Antioch.
Tell what teaching they disavowed.
How public was their decision?
What did they say of Barnabas and Paul?
For what purpose were the other men sent?
What restrictions were laid upon the Gentiles?
Have those re3trictions been released?
Was the letter delivered to private persons?
How did the epistle impress the church?
What did Judas and Silas do to endorse the move?
Who also preached the word here at this time?
State the proposal Paul made to Barnabas.
What third party was considered?
Who was for and who against?
How did it finally come out?
Did Paul and Barnabas teach different doctrines?
Acts Chapter Fifteen
Ralph Starling
Certain ones from Judea came to say
Without circumcision Gentiles cant be saved.
After much discussion they all agreed.
Go to Jerusalem for the apostles and elders decree.
After the apostles and elders had considered,
Peter stood up and a powerful speech he delivered.
He reminded them about his visit with Cornelius.
That God is no repecter of persons among us.
Quietly they listened to the work of Barnabas and Saul.
James stood up and had them to recall.
The prophets had spoken for them to observe
And had written that all this would occur.
With this evidence their decision was,
Trouble them not for it is a good cause,
But we do ask and strongly maintain,
From idols and such they should refrain.
Returning to Antioch the multitude gathered,
And the epistle from Jerusalem was delivered.
When they heard they rejoiced for the consolation,
For this should solved this difficult situation.
Not that a solution was found about the matter,
Paul and Barnabas said it was time to travel.
Barnabas wanted John but Paul disagreed,
So Paul took Silas and all left pleased.
Cir, am 4058, ad 54
Let: Act 7:23, Exo 4:18, Jer 23:2, Mat 25:36, Mat 25:43
in every: Act 13:4, Act 13:13, Act 13:14, Act 13:51, Act 14:1, Act 14:6, Act 14:21, Act 14:24, Act 14:25
and see: Rom 1:11, 2Co 11:28, Phi 1:27, 1Th 2:17, 1Th 2:18, 1Th 3:6, 1Th 3:10, 1Th 3:11, 2Ti 1:4
Reciprocal: 1Sa 17:18 – look 2Ki 4:26 – Is it well with thee 2Ki 4:38 – Elisha Est 2:11 – how Esther did Son 6:11 – to see the Son 7:12 – let us see Joh 11:7 – Let 1Co 9:6 – Barnabas 1Co 14:36 – came Gal 2:1 – Barnabas 1Th 3:5 – I sent
CONSIDER YOUR WAYS
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.
Act 15:36
This was a proposal made by St. Paul to Barnabas after their first missionary journey; he suggested revisiting the Churches they had founded, to see if their members were continuing steadfast in the faith, growing in grace, advancing in the spiritual lifestanding still, or falling away.
It was both a wise and useful proposal. And we, nineteen centuries after, may apply it to ourselves; let us consider our ways, and find out how things stand between ourselves and God; for if ever self-inquiry in religion was needed, it is needed now.
I. Do we ever think about our souls at all?Thousands cannot answer satisfactorily. They never give the subject of religion any place in their thoughts. They are absorbed in the pursuit of business, pleasure, politics, money, self-indulgence; and death, judgment, eternity, Heaven and Hell, and the Resurrection, are never seriously regarded. They do not openly oppose or scoff at religionthey are simply indifferent, and are just nothing at all.
II. Do we ever do anything about our souls?There are multitudes in England who do occasionally think about religion, but never get beyond the thinking. These people are always meaning, purposing, and resolving; they say they know what is right, and hope to be found right at the last; but there is no actual separation from the service of the world and sin; no doing in their religionthey never attain to action.
III. Are we trying to satisfy our consciences with mere formality?How many are making shipwreck on this rock! They are punctual in the observance of the outward forms and ordinances of religion, even the most solemn; yet all this time there is no secret heart in their Christianity. Of these our Lords words are true (Mat 15:9).
IV. Have we sought and received the forgiveness of our sins?Forgiveness has been purchased for us by the eternal Son of God, but man must come to him in faith; without believing, there is no forgiveness.
V. Do we know anything by experience of conversion to God?Without conversion there is no salvation. Sense of sin, deep hatred of it, faith in Christ, and love to Him, hungering and thirsting after righteousness, detachment from love of the things of the worldthese are some of the signs of true conversion.
VI. Do we know anything of practical Christian holiness?Without holiness no man shall see the Lord (Heb 12:14). Holiness is not absolute perfection, freedom from all thoughts. That is for heaven and not earth. Yet Christian holiness is a real thing. But it is never attained or maintained without a struggle, a constant conflict.
VII. Do we use and enjoy the means of grace?God has graciously appointed certain means to be the channels of Divine Grace to mans heart, to maintain his spiritual life. Tell me what a man does in the matter of Bible study, private prayer, public worship, attendance at the Holy Communion, and I will soon tell you what he is, and on what road he is travelling.
Bishop J. C. Ryle.
6
Act 15:36. The term “missionary” is commonly used to mean a worker in new fields, but the present verse says they were to revisit the places where they had been. Hence the “second missionary journey” of Paul does not start until chapter 16, verse 10.
Section 1. (Act 15:36-41; Act 16:1-12.)
The fundamental principle the sovereign will of God.
The character of the message is seen in the messenger, as Paul elsewhere urges. A yea and nay preacher would not commend his preaching as a trustworthy “yea.” (2Co 1:17-19.) A man himself insubject could not expect to lead others into subjection to God. And this is what we start with here in him who is the pattern worker set before us in the scenes in which we are now to accompany him. For him to live was Christ; and that means obedience absolute: that God must be God was his fundamental principle; and this gave him, not freedom from exercise, but assurance as to a path which he could walk in in faith as God’s path -the only thing that can give ability for it. Christ as his Lord alone, the Spirit was for him, as for all others then, sole Guide and Interpreter of his Lord’s will. His conscience was before God and not man, as a right conscience ever must be. Nothing is more plainly seen here than the positive way in which the Spirit guided, often in opposition to the human wisdom and will of the apostle himself. Being forbidden to speak the Word in Asia, they attempt to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit suffers them not. Then follows the vision of the man of Macedonia, and they pass over into Europe. Guidance is by no means in any uniform way; one needs to be on the alert, as well as instructed in the Lord’s mind. Guidance with the eye requires the eye to be in waiting for the look that is to guide; and so Elijah stood before the Lord his God.
1. In the first place we do not hear of any direct word. It is the heart that prompts Paul to think of the brethren in the various places in which he had preached the gospel, with solicitude to know how they have been faring since. He proposes therefore to Barnabas that they should visit them together. Love is the true motive principle, and (where it is divine love) is clear-sighted too. The trouble as to guidance here is to avoid mixtures and counterfeits. That Barnabas should be ready seems a matter of course; but he proposes to take Mark with them, who had failed them on the former occasion, and at the very entrance upon what was the real work. Here was love too, no doubt, but as to his sister’s son, too purely human. Paul being unwilling, there arises a very warm feeling between them, which separates the two so closely attached hitherto. Barnabas, kindly man as he is, now ruffled in his affections which doubtless are mingled with gracious desire that the young man may recover himself, seems to manifest most (as just such kindly spirits, so touched, are apt to do) the impatience which hurries him off with his nephew to his native land; and we lose him from the history. Paul, choosing Silas for his companion, goes forth, commended by the brethren to the grace of the Lord. Barnabas had failed also, just before this, as we learn from Galatians, following Peter’s example upon the Jewish question; and this would naturally add to the seriousness of the matter in Paul’s eyes. Certainly with him it was faithfulness that cost much which could make him stand against the endeared companion of days so happily remembered, and against the solicitations of a heart that knew if any did, the mercy of God towards the weak and erring, but now must be strong in the interests of grace itself to keep it free from all that would hinder its proper testimony among men. To Mark, at a later day, he gladly bears testimony; and he, the failing servant, is privileged, as we know, to give us the story of the Unfailing, Perfect One. Would he not in that after-time be the first to justify the apparent harshness which was only truth to Christ before all else, of the apostle now? And this is true love also, that seeketh not her own, but can be faithful because it is love.
2. But love gives wisdom also; and fullest obedience to Christ will go farthest in all that is permissible to yield to bring men to Him. At Jerusalem the circumcision of the Gentiles had been resisted to the uttermost, and on his new journey into Asia Minor Paul carried with him and delivered to the assemblies the decrees which had distinctly freed them from any imposition of the yoke of the law; yet at Lystra he himself circumcises Timothy, the child of a Jewess and a Greek; and this is for some an inconsistency sufficient to discredit the whole narrative. In fact, it is doubted, however, whether such a step was legally right at all; though if it were not, it is hard to see how it would have conciliated the unconverted Jews, and not rather have been an additional offence to them. The apostle certainly knew well the people he was dealing with, none better; and that would settle the legality of it, in their minds at least. As for his own use of the Jewish rite, he uses it, as is plain in the fullest Christian liberty, which is always liberty to give up one’s privileges wherever the love that constrains us to seek souls for Christ shall be better served by it. He expresses elsewhere carefully the principle that guides him here: “to those that are under the law, as under the law, not being myself under law, that I might gain those that are under the law” (1Co 9:20). Here is the motive of his act in this case, with the assertion at the same time of his own freedom from the law while acting so. It is the wisdom that wins souls that he displays in it. Of Timothy we shall hear much elsewhere. At present we know him only as one to whom witness is borne by the brethren, and whom Paul takes with him as companion and assistant on his journey now. He answers to his name all through, as “one who honors God”; and even the two epistles to him which are preserved to us are in striking accord with this. It is to Timothy that Paul in his very last epistle pours out his whole heart.
The company of travelers thus increased carry with them the decrees determined by the apostles and elders at Jerusalem; and these have happy effect in confirming the assemblies in the faith, and adding to their number. Grace it is that establishes the soul and wins the heart to God.
3. The controlling hand and guidance of the Spirit are here very clearly seen. There was no one method of it, -and this is for our instruction, as well as the fact itself. If the broad commission be to “go into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature,” that in no wise sets aside the fact that there is to be subjection to God as to the way of carrying this out. His personal interest in it is such that He cannot leave to hap-hazard, or to the fallible judgment of men, the questions of time and place, and indeed of any other matters in connection with a work so precious. There is need -even for an apostle, there always was -for every one who would have success in his work to take every debatable point into the sanctuary for guidance. How we shall be guided, we see here to be another matter. They pass through Phrygia and Galatia, where we hear afterwards of disciples who are, no doubt largely, if not altogether, the fruit of their labor at this time. They then turn westward towards proconsular Asia, which included Mysia, Lydia, and Caria, that is, all the western coast, -at another time to be evangelized by Paul from Ephesus with large results. Now, however, they are forbidden of the Holy Spirit to speak the Word there. They seek from Mysia, therefore, to go north-east into Bithynia; but here again, with more of outward restraint apparently, “the Spirit of Jesus suffered them not.” In both these cases we are left without positive means of ascertaining the character of the hindrance: for the first word does not necessarily signify a verbal prohibition. Satan too might hinder, as the apostle says to the Romans; but hindrance by the Spirit would, no doubt, be realized by its character, if not sometimes without serious and profitable exercise: the enemy cannot so well mimic the work of God as to deceive the one who is truly single-hearted. Indeed the unique expression used here -the Spirit of Jesus -may well intimate this: the Spirit in the power of which He walked upon earth; Jesus being the personal Name by which He was known on earth.
Thus they are hindered from going whether to the right or to the left. If they go forward, they must go to Troas. There, almost upon the old battleground between Europe and Asia, they were just opposite Macedonia; and there that vision appeared in the night to Paul, in which a man of Macedonia, representative of the whitening harvest fields beyond, stood and besought him, saying, “Come over and help us!” Immediately they concluded that the Lord had called them to announce the gospel in those parts, and sought to go forth into Macedonia.
Thus, after a time of fruitful and happy work, they are left for awhile to groping and uncertainty, headed off from different roads that seem open to them, yet shut up by this to take the direction in which the Lord was in fact bringing them, until in due time the uncertainty is removed, and they receive definite assurance as to what is in His mind. How comforting to us, conscious of many perplexities, is this little glimpse of the way of one like Paul! It may be said however, that we can hardly expect a vision at last to resolve our doubts, and that thus we are still left without the consolation we might derive from this. But neither did the apostle expect or in general receive a vision to guide him. It is not given to any man to walk habitually in such open light. It would not really encourage faith, which has to do with the unseen and not the seen. And perhaps the record here may serve a purpose of good by preventing our expectation of any one method of assurance, and casting us upon Him to meet us in any way He please; so that we may learn the better His various speech, and be more on the alert to discover Him under whatever apparent disguises. Doubtless the man of Macedonia shows us the appeal to that in us which is, or should be, at all times the motive power; and the weighing of comparative needs, as well as of what in the Lord’s ways He has been leading on to, will have its place in determining the issue for us. After all, no rules can be given which will not probably have large exception in actual working out. The Lord is able to give assurance to the heart that honestly seeks to be subject to Him; and that is the main point.
Another beautiful touch in the narrative is found here: -At Troas we discern, simply by the change of the pronoun used, that the narrator himself has joined the party of Paul. His name is never once mentioned, and it is only by the change from “they” to “we” that we are able to trace him from Troas to Philippi, where he seems to remain until Paul returns, after his long stay at Ephesus, when be rejoins and travels with him to Jerusalem (Act 20:6-38; Act 21:1-18). There, during Paul’s long imprisonment, we lose sight of him again; but upon the apostle’s voyage to Italy, once more he is with him the whole way to Rome (Act 27:1-44; Act 28:1-16). Through all he certainly filled no unimportant place, -one would say more so than others whose names are mentioned; yet he keeps to this reticence which characterizes him all along the way. There is no trace of self-consciousness about him, as one may say; and how beautiful is this in the inspired historian of such a book as this! what an example for us, who are, alas, so apt to give at least their due value to all our doings. It is surely a lesson which we shall do well to take to heart.
SECOND JOURNEY
Though the text of this lesson is long, it will be interesting to read it through at a single sitting, and get the whole journey at one view. The events are clear cut, easily remembered and apparent in their spiritual teaching.
STARTING FORTH
It begins with the contention between Paul and Barnabas men of like passions with ourselves, which was providentially overruled so that two missionary journeys grew out of it instead of one (Act 15:36-41). Note that there were churches in Syria and Cilicia though no account is given of their origin beyond that of Antioch. It is a hint of the activity of the preachers of the Gospel, and the extent to which the gospel may have spread in that early time far beyond the record.
The story of the second visit to Lystra (Act 16:1-3), gains interest from the subsequent prominence of Timothy, of whom further data are found in the epistles Paul afterward addressed to him. His circumcision is no evidence of inconsistency on Pauls part, since no question of principle was involved, but only expediency (Act 16:3). As Timothys father was a Greek, it would be known that he was uncircumcised which would prevent this ministry among the Jews (compare here 1Co 9:20).
The outstanding feature of this journey is in Act 16:6-10 of this chapter. Asia (Act 16:6) was a name given to a large part of the coast of Asia Minor especially on the southeast. Why the Holy Spirit forbade the missionaries to preach there at this time, or the manner in which the prohibition was communicated, is not stated; but we know that later a great work was wrought there especially in Ephesus. The story is repeated with reference to the North (Bithynia), and as the only point of the compass left is the West, they make for the seaport of Troas. The student is urged to identify these localities on the map. At Troas special direction is required, for the sea is to be crossed, and God meets the need in the vision vouchsafed to Paul. At this point interest is added by the pronoun we in Act 16:10, indicating that the author, Luke, has now joined the party.
EXPERIENCES IN PHILIPPI
Their stay at Philippi is full of movement (Act 16:12-40). It was an important city found by Philip of Macedon, inhabited chiefly by Roman citizens, but lacking in a Jewish population as is shown in the fact that it contained no synagogue (Act 16:13). It is unusual to read of a woman (Lydia) as engaged in commercial pursuits on her own account in that early time, but she seems to have been an exporter of Thyatira, noted for its purple dyes (Act 16:14-15).
The case following is that of demon possession, with phenomena not very different from modern clairvoyance or the spiritualistic seance (Act 16:16-18). Of course the resultant proceedings were all illegal (Act 16:19-24), but how greatly was God glorified thereby (Act 16:25-34)! Act 16:35-38 illustrate that a Christian may with dignity insist upon his legal rights. Immunity from corporal punishment was one of the most valued privileges of Roman citizenship, and to impose it was a crime in the eye of the law. No wonder the magistrates were afraid. But learn the lesson of these verses concerning the way of Satan with the gospel. He first applauds and seems to help it along by flattery and with advertisement (Act 16:17), but when his testimony is rejected, he shows his true character (Act 16:19). Pauls preaching aimed at the idol worship of Rome which gave the excuse of Act 16:20-21. Let us also be impressed with the simplicity of the gospel in Act 16:31. To believe on the Lord Jesus Christ is simply to commit ones self to Him to be saved. Nothing else is to be done, for God has put away our guilt in His atonement, and offers reconciliation for our acceptance. Note the reference to the jailers house. No one can be saved except by the exercise of a personal faith in the Savior, but there is great encouragement here for the Christian parent to bring his offspring to the Lord in full assurance.
THESSALONICA TO ATHENS
Thessalonica now claims our attention (Act 17:1-9), a most influential city then and now, located on the Aegean Sea, and on the direct route to Rome.
Pauls method with the Jews is further presented here in Act 17:2-3. He employed the Old Testament scriptures. He reasoned with them, doubtless in the form of questions and answers. They were expecting the Messiah, the Christ, and he showed them that when He came it was necessary according to their own scriptures that he should suffer, die and rise again from the dead. Establishing these points he was then ready to show that this Jesus Whom I preach unto you is the Christ, because He has fulfilled these things. The customary results follow, faith in some, envy and opposition in others, persecution, and removal to another place. The experience is repeated in Berea (Act 17:10-14), and then we find Paul at Athens (Act 17:16-34), still at this time the intellectual and artistic capital of the world. It was also a religious capital, the strongest in Greek mythology, as illustrated in the text. The Areopagus (Act 17:19) was a court somewhat like the roman Senate; and here Paul addressed the philosophers and leading citizens in terms familiar to them. Their unknown God he introduces to them as the Creator of all things and the Lord of heaven and earth, and the future judge of men through His Son Jesus Christ, Whom He hath raised from the death (Act 17:23-31). The poets he quotes (Act 17:28) were Cleanthus and Aratus, whom he tactfully employs against their countrymen, whose boasted philosophy was ignorance (Act 17:30). The times of this ignorance God had winked at thus far, in other words, overlooked. Not in the sense that they would not be held to account or judged for it, but that He had sent them no special revelation of Himself until now. There is no distinctive application of the gospel here, and possibly because Pauls hearers were not prepared for it, but still his testimony was not in vain (Act 17:34).
CORINTH AND EPHESUS
Corinth was the capital of Achaia, the lower peninsula of Greece; and in comparison with Athens, a great commercial center, cosmopolitan in its population, and as immoral as could well be conceived. The record of Pauls experiences here is varied by several details, for example his association with Aquila and Priscilla; the reference to his trade, for all Jewish lads, no matter what their circumstances, were taught trades; the encouraging vision he received; the length of time he remained in the city; the turning of the tables on his enemies; the Jewish vow he assumed, etc. (Act 18:1-18). To speak of the vision, judging by Act 18:5, and also by certain allusions in Pauls two epistles to this church, there was special need of it at this time. He seems to have been much depressed, and the Lord graciously desired him to be without anxiety. This explains why he remained there so long. The event before Gallio brings to mind one of the incidental evidences of the historical accuracy of this narrative. He is called the deputy of Achaia, and as a matter of fact that is what he was only, and not a proconsul, for at this time Achaia was united to Macedonia. Somewhat later it was constituted a province on its own account, and then came to have its own proconsul. The vow which Paul took may have been one of those concessions to the Jews he thought needful for expediencys sake.
Ephesus next reached (Act 18:19-21). Was just across the Aegean Sea from Corinth, and was the capital of the Roman province of Asia, noted for its commerce, but particularly for its temple of Diane (Artemis). There was a large Jewish population there, and they were accorded special privileges by the local government. We shall learn more of Pauls work there in our next lesson.
QUESTIONS
1. What hint does this lesson give of the development of Christianity at this time?
2. Have you read 1Co 9:20?
3. Have you traced this journey on the map?
4. Name the four missionaries in the journey.
5. How were the rights of Paul and Silas infringed upon in Philippi?
6. What is it to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ?
7. What encouragement for Christian parents is found here?
8. What is the meaning of Act 17:30?
9. Tell the story of Pauls stay in Corinth in your own words.
10. What was the geographical relation of Corinth and Ephesus?
Observe here, The pious and prudential care which St. Paul, who had planted churches, takes to visit and inspect them; that he might see and understand how they did thrive and grow in the knowledge of Christ, and in their sincere obedience to him. This great apostle had been sowing the good seed of the word of God: his next care is, to examine and enquire whether the envious ones had not sowed tares in his absence.
A minister’s work, and a husbandman’s business, are never at an end, but run round in a circle: Redit labor actus in orbem; after ploughing and sowing, there must be weeding and watering, before reaping and ingathering.
Accordingly St. Paul resolves upon the visitation here mentioned; 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.
Here note, 1. The visitors, Paul and Barnabas.
2. The visited, our brethren, both the elders and members of the church.
3. The action performed, visiting; the word imports a strict view, a most diligent and solicitous scrutiny, lest some errors in their absence might be crept into the doctrine and conversation of these new-planted churches.
4. The place where the visitation is to be held: In every city where they have preached the word of the Lord.
Where they had planted, they were obliged to water; and where they had begotten any to the Christian faith, they thought it their duty to nurture and nourish them: and therefore, though there were presbyters no doubt in every city, yet Paul and Barnabas challenged to themselves a power of visitation, where they had personally preached. The apostles who first converted them, had a peculiar right to inspect and govern them. Converted souls, and planted churches, mist be farther visited, observed, and watered.
5. The end and design of the visitation: To see how they do, and what they do; to take an account of their faith and practice.
From the whole observe, 1. A disease which the churches of the apostles’ own planting were supposed to be liable and obnoxious to: the purest of churches and best of men in this militant and mortal state, are apt to fall into distempers: witness this chapter. Where we find the Jews nauseating the bread of life, and making it their choice to pick and eat the rubbish off the partition-wall which Christ had demolished; I mean circumcision, and the legal ceremonies, which, though expired at the death of Christ, and by this time had an honourable burial, yet they attempt to pull out of their graves, and give a resurrection to them. Such distempers will be in the purest churches, if we consider the hereditary corruption which is in all by nature; the remains of it in those who are renewed by grace, and the endeavours of Satan to solicit these remains, and invite them forth into act and exercise.
Observe, 2. The remedy resolved upon for preventing and healing of this disease; namely, apostolical visitation, and episcopal inspection, as the word signifies. The constitution of the church is such, that it cannot continue long in repair, without inspection and government: for though the universal church is secure, being built upon a rock, yet particular churches are liable to dilapidations: and accordingly it is the duty of the governors of the church frequently to inspect the authority of those who preach, to examine their doctrines, to enquire into their lives, to give rules for preserving order, and to censure those who neglect those rules, and disturb that order.
In fine, we see the church of Christ must be governed; in that government there must be a superiority in some, and subordination in others: superiors must frequently visit, and narrowly inspect the doctrine, the lives, and manners, both of the ministers and members of the church, according to the practice and example of these two great apostles, Paul and Barnabas; who said, Let us go again and visit our brethren in every city where we have preached the word, and see how they do.
Contention Parts Paul and Barnabas
Paul knew the importance of continued teaching and encouragement for young churches, so he approached Barnabas about visiting the brethren in all the cities in which they had previously preached. Barnabas had a strong desire to take his cousin, John Mark, on the journey. Paul did not want to go with the man who had left them at Perga on their first journey ( Act 15:36-38 ; Act 13:13 ). Both Paul and Barnabas were so firm in their opinions, even to the point of being provoked to anger, that they had to separate.
It should be noted that Paul later used Barnabas as a good example of one who worked to support himself while preaching the gospel. He also described John Mark as one who was useful in ministry ( 1Co 9:6 ; 2Ti 4:11 ). As Coffman says, “the one redeeming note in this otherwise unhappy and regrettable episode is that neither party to the dispute permitted it to hinder the work of God.”
Luke quietly noted that God used the disagreement between these two great men of faith to produce two teams to go in different directions with the gospel. Barnabas went with John Mark to Cyprus, his homeland ( Act 15:39 ; Act 4:36 ). Paul took Silas, one of the leading men among the brethren at Jerusalem ( Act 15:22 ), with him. It appears he had to return from Jerusalem, but Luke does not give us the details of how he and Paul got together ( Act 15:33 ). They went through Syria and Cilicia to southern Galatia. Along the way, they strengthened the churches ( Act 15:40-41 ).
Act 15:36. And some days after After they had continued a considerable number of days at Antioch; Paul Whose active spirit was ever forming some new scheme for the advancement of Christianity; said to Barnabas His former associate; Let us go again and visit our brethren The churches we have planted; in every city Wherever we have preached the word of the Lord; let us go and water the seed sown. Those who have preached the gospel should visit those to whom they have preached it; that they may see what effect their ministry has had, and whether any real and lasting fruit has been produced by it. And see how they do How their souls prosper; how they grow in faith, hope, love; and what is the state of religion among them. And what else ought to be the grand and constant inquiry in every ecclesiastical visitation? As the apostle could not but be sensible of the great danger in which the Gentile converts, in distant countries, were of being perverted by the Jews, and as his zeal for the purity of the gospel would lead him to consider by what means they might most probably be confirmed in the truth, it is likely that another end which he had in view in proposing this journey was, to make these Gentiles acquainted with the decrees which had been ordained by the apostles, elders, and brethren in Judea. For no expedient could appear to him more proper than this, to preserve them from being misled. Accordingly, as we find chap. Act 16:4, he and his fellow-traveller delivered these decrees to them as they went through the cities.
36-41. We have lingered long upon the interval spent by Paul and Barnabas in Antioch. We are now to follow the former upon his second missionary tour. (36) “But after some days, Paul said to Barnabas, Let us return and visit our brethren in every city in which we have preached the word of the Lord, and see how they do. (37) And Barnabas determined to take with them John surnamed Mark. (38) But Paul thought proper not to take with them him who had departed from them in Pamphylia, and did not go with them to the work. (39) Then there was a contention, so that they separated one from the other: and Barnabas took Mark and sailed into Cyprus. (40) But Paul chose Silas, and departed, having been commended to the favor of God by the brethren; (41) and went through Syria and Cilicia, confirming the Churches.” This journey, it should be observed, was undertaken for the prime purpose of revisiting the Churches where these brethren had previously labored, and not, primarily, to preach to the heathen. This shows that the solicitude with which the apostles watched for the welfare of the congregations was not less ardent than their zeal in spreading a knowledge of the gospel.
The desire of Barnabas to take John with them was, doubtless, prompted, in part, by partiality, arising from the relationship which existed between them. John, of course, desired to go, and Barnabas wished to give him an opportunity to atone for his former dereliction. Paul’s reason for refusing to let him go was based upon a want of confidence in one who would, either through fear or love of ease, desert him in a trying hour. Each considered the reason for his own preference a good one; and as neither was willing to yield for the sake of remaining with the other, they ought to have parted in perfect peace. But some unpleasant feeling was aroused by the controversy, which Luke expresses by the term paroxusmos, of which contention is rather a tame rendering, though paroxysm which we have derived from it, would express too high a degree of passion. This incident shows that the best of men may differ about matters of expediency, and that, in contending for their respective conclusions, they may be aroused to improper feelings. But the good man, under such circumstances, will always be distinguished by the readiness with which such feelings will be repressed, and by the absence of all subsequent malice. We know that Paul afterward felt very differently toward John; for, during his first imprisonment at Rome, he mentions him to Philemon as a fellow-laborer there present; and to the Colossians as one who had been a comfort to him; and, during his second imprisonment, he writes to Timothy: “Take Mark and bring him with you; for he is profitable to me for the ministry.” The slight heat engendered between Barnabas and Paul also subsided in a short time; for Paul afterward speaks of him in most friendly terms, in the First Epistle to the Corinthians.
By returning with Mark to his native land, Barnabas revisited a portion of the brethren to whom he and Paul had preached, while Paul visited another portion of them by a different route. Thus, notwithstanding their disagreement and separation, they did not allow the good cause to suffer, but accomplished separately the whole of the proposed work. The separation of Barnabas and Paul is our separation from Barnabas. His name is not mentioned again by Luke. But as we bid him farewell, the sails are spread which are to bear him over the sea, that he may make the islands glad with a knowledge of salvation. The further incidents of his life will yet be known to all who shall sit down with him in the everlasting kingdom.
We turn with Luke to follow the history of him who was in labors more abundant and in prisons more frequent than all the apostles, and to form a better acquaintance with his new companion. The statement that Paul and Silas were “commended to the favor of God by the brethren,” does not imply, as many writers have supposed, that they refused thus to commend Barnabas and Mark, or that the brethren sided with Paul against Barnabas in their contention. It is sufficiently accounted for by the fact that the attention of the writer is fixed upon the detail of Paul’s history rather than that of Barnabas. No doubt the prayers of the brethren followed them both to their distant and dangerous fields of labor.
By a northern route through Syria, and then a westerly course through Cilicia, Paul approached the extremity of his recent tour in the interior of Asia Minor. He was not altogether a stranger along the journey, for he had spent some time in Syria and Cilicia before his first visit to Antioch; and it is most probable that he now revisited, in these districts, Churches which he had planted by his own labors.
Act 15:36 to Act 16:5. Shorter Account of Pauls Journey In Asia Minor.The editors hand is apparent throughout this section. We know from Gal 2:13 the real reason of Pauls difference with Barnabas, which was one of principle; here it is reduced to a personal matter. Instead of Titus, who (Gal 2:3) was not compelled to be circumcised, we have Timothy, who was circumcised by Paul (Act 16:1-3). In Act 16:4 Paul acts as a delegate of the Jerusalem church, handing to the faithful, city by city, the judgments of that church, to which in his epistles he pays no regard. In Act 16:5 the result of the journey is summed up in a general statement such as that at Act 12:24; cf. Act 9:31, Act 11:21; and at Act 16:6 we find we are in the substantial and authentic narrative of the Travel-document, which thenceforward supplies the thread of the story.
Act 15:36. The statement of time is vague; the object stated for the new journey keeps up the continuity of the narrative; Paul may be supposed to have had larger ideas. The difference with Barnabas and that with Mark were afterwards forgotten (Act 13:13*); here the Gr. states, with an emphasis lost in RV, that Paul had a very strong objection to Mark as a companion; he would take anyone but him. He chose Silas, the Jerusalem prophet and leading man, who was his close companion up to Corinth, took part in founding the church there (2Co 1:19), and is associated with Paul as fellow-writer of 1 and 2 Th., after which he appears no more with Paul, but with Peter (1Pe 5:12). Of the journey the account is meagre; it has been told already. The land route is chosen this time, Barnabas taking Mark by the former sea route. Cilicia is traversed, but there is no mention of Tarsus. Derbe, the last stage of the former journey, is now the first, Lycaonia being entered from the south. Companions of travel are enlisted on the way, in particular Timothy (see Moffatt, EBi. 5074). He is a native of Lystra (but see Act 20:4*), and is favourably known among believers there and at Iconium. Pauls circumcising him is contrary to the principle stated in Gal 5:2, and is thought by many eminent scholars to be an invention of the editor to counteract what is said about Titus in Gal 2:3. It is more credible, however, that the circumcision did take place, Timothy being half a Jew by birth, as Titus was not, and Paul seeking to avoid offence to the Jews among whom he was to travel. Act 16:4 belongs to the editors scheme and is scarcely historical. The phrases are those used to describe imperial rescripts (cf. Luk 2:1); the apostles and elders as a supreme authority have ordained them.
15:36 {14} And some days after Paul said unto Barnabas, 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.
(14) Congregations or churches easily degenerate unless they are diligently watched over, and therefore these apostles went to oversee the churches they had planted, and for this reason also synods were instituted and appointed.
The beginning of Paul’s second missionary journey 15:36-41
Some commentators have overestimated the "sharp disagreement" between Paul and Barnabas over John Mark, in my opinion. [Note: E.g., Neil, p. 176; Blaiklock, pp. 118-19; Barclay, p. 128; and Robertson, 3:241.] The text says they disagreed vigorously over this issue, but there is no statement or implication that they ended up disliking each other, as some of the commentators have inferred. It seems that they were both led by the Holy Spirit to arrive at their respective conclusions regarding the wisdom of taking John Mark with them. Their separation, I infer, was friendly. Paul later wrote with respectful admiration of Barnabas (1Co 9:6) and John Mark (Col 4:10; Phm 1:24; 2Ti 4:11). Their decision to go separate ways certainly resulted in greater gospel extension since more people became involved as fellow missionaries, and they covered more area in less time. Some Christians erroneously feel that any disagreement between believers is sinful, but there is no indication in the text that this difference of opinion was sinful.
Barnabas’ desire to offer John Mark another opportunity was certainly commendable and godly even though Paul viewed it as unwise. Many of God’s servants would have dropped out of ministry had it not been for a gracious Barnabas who was willing to give us another chance after we failed.
6. The strengthening of the Gentile churches 15:36-16:5
Luke reported Paul and Barnabas’ efforts to strengthen the churches they had planted in Cyprus and Asia Minor to emphasize the importance of this phase of church extension. He also did so to set the scene for the next major advance of the church. Paul went next into the provinces around the Aegean Sea some of which were on what we now call the European continent.
Chapter 11
APOSTOLIC QUARRELS AND THE SECOND TOUR.
Act 15:36; Act 15:39; Act 16:6; Act 16:8-9
THE second missionary tour of St. Paul now claims our attention, specially because it involves the first proclamation of Christianity by an apostle within the boundaries of Europe. The course of the narrative up to this will show that any Christian effort in Europe by an apostle, St. Peter or any one else prior to St. Pauls work, was almost impossible. To the Twelve and to men like-minded with them, it must have seemed a daring-innovation to bring the gospel message directly to bear upon the masses of Gentile paganism. Men of conservative minds like the Twelve doubtless restrained their own efforts up to the time of St. Pauls second tour within the bounds of Israel, according to the flesh, in Palestine and the neighbouring lands, finding there an ample field upon which to exercise their diligence. And then when we turn to St. Paul and St. Barnabas, who had dared to realise the free-ness and fulness of the gospel message, we shall see that the Syrian Antioch and Syria itself and Asia Minor had hitherto afforded them scope quite sufficient to engage their utmost attention. A few moments reflection upon the circumstances of the primitive Christian Church and the developments through which Apostolic Christianity passed are quite sufficient to dispel all such fabulous incrustations upon the original record as those involved in St. Peters episcopate at Antioch or his lengthened rule over the Church at Rome. If the latter story was to be accepted, St. Peter must have been Bishop of Rome long before a mission was despatched to the Gentiles from Antioch, if not even before the vision was seen at Joppa by St. Peter when the admission of the Gentiles to the Church was first authorised under any terms whatsoever. In fact, it would be impossible to fit the actions of St. Peter into any scheme whatsoever, if we bring him to Rome and make him bishop there for twenty-five years beginning at the year 42, the time usually assigned by Roman Catholic historians. It is hard enough to frame a hypothetical scheme, which will find a due and fitting place for the various recorded actions of St. Peter, quite apart from any supposed Roman episcopate lasting over such an extended period. St. Peter and St. Paul had, for instance, a dispute at Antioch of which we read much in the second chapter of the Galatian epistle. Where shall we fix that dispute? Some place it during the interval of the Synod at Jerusalem and the second missionary tour of which we now propose to treat. Others place it at the conclusion of that tour, when St. Paul was resting at Antioch for a little after the work of that second journey. As we are not writing the life of St. Paul, but simply commenting upon the narratives of his labours as told in the Acts, we must be content to refer to the Lives of St. Paul by Conybeare and Howson, and Archdeacon Farrar, and to Bishop Lightfoots “Galatians,” all of whom place this quarrel before the second tour, and to Mr. Findlays “Galatians” in our own series, who upholds the other view. Supposing, however, that we take the former view in deference to the weighty authorities just mentioned, we then find. that there were two serious quarrels which must for a time have marred the unity and Christian concord of the Antiochene Church.
The reproof of St. Peter by St. Paul for his dissimulation was made on a public occasion before the whole Church. It must have caused considerable excitement and discussion, and. raised much human feeling in Antioch. Barnabas too, the chosen friend and companion of St. Paul, was involved in the matter, and must have felt himself condemned in the strong language addressed to St. Peter. This may have caused for a time a certain amount of estrangement between the various parties. A close study of the Acts of the Apostles dispels at once the notion men would fain cherish, that the apostles and the early Christians lived just like angels without any trace of human passion or discord. The apostles had their differences and misunderstandings very like our own. Hot tempers and subsequent coolnesses arose, and produced evil results between men entrusted with the very highest offices, and paved the way, as quarrels always do, for fresh disturbances at some future time. So it was at Antioch, where the public reproof of St. Peter by St. Paul involved St. Barnabas, and may have left traces upon the gentle soul of the Son of Consolation which were not wholly eradicated by the time that a new source of trouble arose.
The ministry of St. Paul at Antioch was prolonged for some time after the Jerusalem Synod, and then the Holy Ghost again impelled him to return and visit all the Churches which he had founded in Cyprus and Asia Minor. He recognised the necessity for supervision, support, and guidance as far as the new converts were concerned, The seed might be from heaven and the work might be Gods own, but still human effort must take its share and do its duty, or else the work may fail and the good seed never attain perfection. St. Paul therefore proposed to Barnabas a second joint mission, intending to visit “the brethren in every city wherein they had proclaimed the word of the Lord.” Barnabas desired to take with them his kinsman Mark, but Paul, remembering his weakness and defection on their previous journey, would have nothing to say to the young man. Then there arose a sharp contention between them, or as the original expression is, there arose a paroxysm between the apostles, so that the loving Christian workers and friends of bygone years, “men who had hazarded their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,” separated the one from the other, and worked from henceforth in widely different localities.
I. There are few portions of the Acts more fruitful in spiritual instruction, or teeming with. more abundant lessons, or richer in application! to present difficulties, than this very incident. Let us note a few of them. One thought, for instance, which occurs at once to any reflecting mind is this: what an extraordinary thing it is that two such holy and devoted men as Paul and-Barnabas should have had a quarrel at all; and. when they did quarrel, would it not have been far better to have hushed the matter up and never! have let the world know anything at all about it?
Now I do not say that it is well for Christian people always to proclaim aloud and tell the world at large all about the various unpleasant circumstances of their lives, their quarrels, their misunderstandings, their personal failings and backslidings. Life would be simply intolerable did we live always, at all times, and under all circumstances beneath the full glare of publicity. Personal quarrels too, family jars and bickerings, have a rapid tendency to heal themselves if kept in the gloom, the soft, toned, shaded light of retirement. They have an unhappy tendency to harden and perpetuate themselves when dragged beneath the fierce light of public opinion and the outside world. Yet it is well for the Church at large that such a record has been left for us of the fact that the quarrel between Paul and Barnabas waxed so fierce that they departed the one from the other, to teach us what we are apt to forget-the true character of the apostles. Human nature is intensely inclined to idolatry. One idol may be knocked down, but as soon as it is displaced the heart straightway sets to work to erect another idol in its stead, and men have been ready to make idols of the apostles. They have been ready to imagine them supernatural characters tainted with no sin, tempted by no passion, weakened by no infirmity. If these incidents had not been recorded-the quarrel with Peter and the quarrel with Barnabas-we should have been apt to forget that the apostles were men of like passions with ourselves, and thus to lose the full force-the bracing, stimulating force-of such exhortations as that delivered by St. Paul when he said to a primitive Church, “Follow me, as I, a poor, weak, failing, passionate man, have followed Christ.” We have the thorough humanity of the apostles vigorously presented and enforced in this passage. There is no suppression of weak points, no accentuation of strong points, no hiding of defects and weaknesses, no dwelling Upon virtues and graces. We have the apostles presented at times vigorous, united, harmonious; at other times weak, timorous, and cowardly.
Again, we note that this passage not only shows us the human frailties and weaknesses which marked the apostles, and found a place in characters and persons called to the very highest places; it has also a lesson for the Church of all time in the circumstances which led to the quarrel between Paul and Barnabas. We do well to mark carefully that Antioch saw two such quarrels, the one of which, as we have already pointed out, may have had something to say to the other. The quarrel between St. Paul and St. Peter indeed has a history which strikingly illustrates this tendency of which we have just now spoken. Some expositors, jealous of the good fame and reputation and temper of the apostles, have explained the quarrel at Antioch between St. Paul and St. Peter as not having been a real quarrel at all, but an edifying piece of acting, a dispute got up between the apostles to enforce and proclaim the freedom of the Gentiles, a mere piece of knavery and deception utterly foreign to such a truth-loving character as was St. Pauls. It is interesting, however, to note as manifesting their natural characteristics, which were not destroyed, but merely elevated, purified, and sanctified by Divine grace, that the apostles Paul and Barnabas quarrelled about a purely personal matter. They had finished their first missionary tour on which they had been accompanied by St. Mark, who had acted as their attendant or servant, carrying, we may suppose, their luggage, and discharging all. the subordinate offices such service might involve. The labour and toil and personal danger incident to such a career were too much for the young man. So with all the fickleness, the weakness, the want of strong definite purpose we often find in young people, he abandoned his work simply because it involved the exercise of a certain amount of self-sacrifice. And now, when Paul and Barnabas are setting out again, and Barnabas wishes to take the same favourite relative with them, St. Paul naturally objects, and then the bitter, passionate quarrel ensues. St. Paul just experienced here what we all must more or less experience, the crosses and trials of public life, if we wish to pass through that life with a good conscience. Public life, I say-and I mean thereby not a political life, which alone we usually dignify by that name, but the ordinary. life which every man and every woman amongst us must live as we go in and out and discharge our duties amid our fellow-men, -public life, the life we live once we leave our closet communion with God in the early morning till we return thereto in the eventide, is in all its department most trying. It is trying to temper, and it is. trying to principle, and no one can hope to pass through it without serious and grievous temptations. I do not wonder that men have often felt, as the old Eastern monks did, that salvation was more easily won in solitude than in living and working amid the busy haunts of men where bad temper and hot words so often conspire to make one return home from a hard days work feeling miserable within on account of repeated falls and shortcomings. Shall we then act as. they did? Shall we shut out the world completely and cease to take any part in a struggle which seems to tell so disastrously upon the-equable calm of our spiritual life? Nay, indeed, for such a course would be unworthy a soldier of the Cross, and very unlike the example shown by the blessed apostle St. Paul, who had to battle not only against others, but had also to. battle against himself and his own passionate. nature, and was crowned as a victor, not because-he ran away, but because he conquered through the grace of Christ.
And now it is well that we should note the special trials he had to endure. He had to fight against the spirit of cowardly self-indulgence in others, and he had to fight against the spirit of jobbery. These things indeed caused the rupture in the apostolic friendship. St. Barnabas, apostle though he was, thought far more of the interests of his cousin than of the interests of Christs mission. St. Paul with his devotion to. Christ may have been a little intolerant of the weakness of youth, but he rightly judged that one who had proved untrustworthy before should not be rapidly and at once trusted again. And St. Paul was thoroughly right, and has left a very useful and practical example. Many young men among us are like St. Mark. The St. Marks of our own day are a very numerous class. They have no respect for their engagements. They will undertake work and allow themselves. to be calculated upon, and arrangements to be made accordingly. But then comes the stress of action, and their place is found wanting, and the work undertaken by them is found undone. And then they wonder and complain that their lives are unsuccessful, and that men and women who are in earnest will not trust or employ them in the future! These are the men who are the social wrecks in life. They proclaim loudly in streets and highways the hard treatment which they have received. They tell forth their own misery, and speak as if they were the most deserving and at the same time the most ill-treated of men; and yet they are but reaping as they have sown, and their failures and their misfortunes are only the due and fitting rewards of their want of earnestness, diligence, and self-denial. To the young this episode proclaims aloud. Respect your engagements, regard public employments as solemn contracts in Gods sight. Take pains with your work. Be willing to endure any trouble for its sake. There is no such thing as genius in ordinary life. Genius has been well defined as an infinite capacity for taking pains. And thus avoid the miserable weakness of St. Mark, who fled from his work because it entailed trouble and self-denial on his part.
Then, again, we view St. Paul with admiration because he withstood the spirit of jobbery when it displayed itself even in a saint. Barnabas in plain language wished to perpetrate a job in favour of a member of his family, and St. Paul withstood him. And how often since has the same spirit thus displayed itself to the injury of Gods cause! Let us note how the case stood. St. Barnabas was a good pious man of very strong emotional feelings. But he allowed himself to be guided, as pious people often do, by their emotions, affections, prejudices, not by their reason and judgment. With such men, when their affections come into play, jobbery is the most natural thing in the world. It is the very breath of their nostrils. It is the atmosphere in which they revel. Barnabas loved his cousin John Mark, with strong, powerful, absorbing love, and that emotion blinded Barnabas to Marks faults, and led him on his behalf to quarrel with his firmer, wiser, and more vigorous friend. Jobbery is a vice peculiar to no age and to no profession. It flourishes in the most religious as in the most worldly circles. In religious circles it often takes the most sickening forms, when miserable, narrow selfishness assumes the garb and adopts the language of Christian piety. St. Pauls action proclaims to Christian men a very needful lesson. It says, in fact, Set your faces against jobbery of every kind. Regard power, influence, patronage as a sacred trust. Permit not fear, affection, or party spirit to blind your eyes or prejudice your judgment against real merit; so shall you be following in the footsteps of the great Apostle of the Gentiles, with his heroic championship of that which was righteous and true, and of One higher still, for thus you shall be following the Masters own example, whose highest praise was this: “He loved righteousness, and hated iniquity.”
We have now bestowed a lengthened notice upon this quarrel, because it corrects a very mistaken notion about the apostles, and shows us how thoroughly natural and human, how very like our own, was the everyday life of the primitive Church. It takes away the false halo of infallibility and impeccability with which we are apt to invest the apostles, making us view them as real, fallible, weak, sinful men like ourselves, and thereby exalts the power of that grace which made them so eminent in Christian character, so abundant in Christian labours. Let us now apply ourselves to trace the course of St. Pauls second tour.
The effect of the quarrel between the friends was that St. Paul took Silas and St. Barnabas took Mark, and they separated; the latter going to Cyprus, the native country of Barnabas, while Paul and Silas devoted themselves to Syria and Asia Minor and their Churches. The division between these holy men became thus doubly profitable to the Church of Christ. It is perpetually profitable, by way of warning and example, as we have just now shown; and then it became profitable because it led to two distinct missions being carried on, the one in the Island of Cyprus, the other on the continent of Asia. The wrath of man is thus again overruled to the greater glory of God, and human weakness is made to promote the interests of the gospel. We read, too, “they parted asunder, the one from the other.” How very differently they acted from the manner in which modern Christians do! Their difference in opinion did not lead them to depart into exactly the same district, and there pursue a policy of opposition the one against the other. They sought rather districts widely separated, where their social differences could have no effect upon the cause they both loved. How very differently modern Christians act, and how very disastrous the consequent results! How very scandalous, how very injurious to Christs cause, when Christian missionaries of different communions appear warring one with another in face of the pagan world! Surely the world of paganism is wide enough and large enough to afford scope for the utmost efforts of all Christians without European Christendom exporting its divisions and quarrels to afford matter for mockery to scoffing idolaters! We have heard lately a great deal about the differences between Roman Catholic and Protestant missionaries in Central Africa, terminating in war and bloodshed and in the most miserable recriminations threatening the peace and welfare of the nations of Europe. Surely there must have been an error of judgment somewhere or another in this case, and Africa must be ample enough to afford abundant room for the independent action of the largest bodies of missionaries without resorting to armed conflicts which recall the religious wars between the Roman Catholic and the Protestant Cantons of Switzerland! With the subsequent labours of Barnabas we have nothing to do, as he now disappears from the Acts of the Apostles, though it would appear from a reference by St. Paul- 1Co 9:6, “Or I only, and Barnabas, have we not a right to forbear working?”-as if at that time, four or five years after the quarrel, they were again labouring together at Ephesus, where First Corinthians was written, or else why should Barnabas be mentioned in that connection at all.
Let us now briefly indicate the course of St. Pauls labours during the next three years, as his second missionary tour must have extended over at least that space of time. St. Paul and his companion Silas left Antioch amid the prayers of the whole Church. Evidently the brethren viewed Pauls conduct with approbation, and accompanied him therefore with fervent supplications for success in his self-denying labours. He proceeded by land into Cilicia and Asia Minor, and wherever he went he delivered the apostolic decree in order that he might counteract the workings of the Judaisers. This decree served a twofold purpose. It relieved the minds of the Gentile brethren with respect to the law and its observances, and it also showed to them that the Jerusalem Church and apostles recognised the Divine authority and apostolate of St. Paul himself, which these “false brethren” from Jerusalem had already assailed, as they did four or five years later both in Galatia and at Corinth. We know not what special towns St. Paul visited in Cilicia, but we may be sure that the Church of Tarsus, his native place, where in the first fervour of his conversion he had already laboured for a considerable period, must have received a visit from him. We may be certain that his opponents would not leave such an important town unvisited, and we may be equally certain that St. Paul, who, as his Epistles show, was always keenly alive to the opinion of his converts with respect to his apostolic authority, would have been specially anxious to let his fellow townsmen at Tarsus see that he was no unauthorised or false teacher, but that the Jerusalem Church recognised his work and teaching in the amplest manner.
Starting then anew from Tarsus, Paul and Silas set out upon an enormous journey, penetrating, as few modern travellers even now do, from the southeastern extremity of Asia Minor to the northwestern coast, a journey which, with its necessarily prolonged delays, must have taken them at least a year and a half. St. Paul seems to have carefully availed himself of the Roman road system. We are merely given the very barest outline of the course which he pursued, but then, when we take up the index maps of Asia Minor inserted in Ramsays “Historical Geography of Asia Minor,” showing the road systems at various periods, we see that a great Roman road followed the very route which St. Paul took. It started from Tarsus and passed to Derbe, whence of course the road to Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch had already been traversed by St. Paul. He must have made lengthened visits to all these places, as he had much to do and much to teach. He had to expound the decree of the Apostolic Council, to explain Christian truth, to correct the errors and abuses which were daily creeping in, and to enlarge the organisation of the Christian Church by fresh ordinations. Take the case of Timothy as an example of the trouble St. Paul must have experienced. He came to Derbe, where he first found some of the converts made on his earlier tour; whence he passed to Lystra, where he met Timothy, whose acquaintance he had doubtless made on his first journey. He was the son of a Jewess, though his father was a Gentile. St. Paul took and circumcised him to conciliate the Jews. The Apostle must have bestowed a great deal of trouble on this point alone, explaining to the Gentile portion of the Christian community the principles on which he acted and their perfect consistency with his own conduct at Jerusalem and his advocacy of Gentile freedom from the law. Then he ordained him. This we do not learn from the Acts, but from St. Pauls Epistles to Timothy. The Acts simply says of Timothy, “Him would Paul have to go forth with him.” But then when we turn to the Epistles written to Timothy, we find that it was not as an ordinary companion that Timothy was taken. He went forth as St. Paul himself had gone forth from the Church of Antioch, a duly ordained and publicly recognised messenger of Christ. We can glean from St. Pauls letters to Timothy the order and ceremonies of this primitive ordination. The rite, as ministered on that occasion, embraced prophesyings or preachings by St. Paul himself and by others upon the serious character of the office then undertaken. This seems plainly intimated in 1Ti 1:18 : “This charge I commit unto thee, my child Timothy, according to the prophecies which went before on thee”; while there seems a reference to his own exhortations and directions in 2Ti 2:2. where he writes, “The things which thou hast heard from me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men.” After this there was probably, as in modern ordinations, a searching examination of the candidate, with a solemn profession of faith on his part, to which St. Paul refers in 1Ti 6:12, “Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on the life eternal, whereunto thou wast called, and didst confess the good confession in the sight of many witnesses. I charge thee in the sight of God who quickeneth all things, and of Christ Jesus, who before Pontius Pilate witnessed the good confession; that thou keep the commandment without spot, without reproach, until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ.” And finally there came the imposition of hands, in which the local presbyters assisted St. Paul, though St. Paul was so far the guiding and ruling personage that, though in one place {1Ti 4:14} he speaks of the gift of God which Timothy possessed, as given “by prophecy with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery,” in another place he describes it as given to the young evangelist by the imposition of St. Pauls own hands. {2Ti 1:6} This ordination of Timothy and adoption of him as his special attendant stood at the very beginning of a prolonged tour throughout the central and northern districts of Asia Minor, of which we get only a mere hint in Act 16:6-8 : “They went through the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been forbidden of the Holy Ghost to speak the word in Asia; and when they were come over against Mysia, they essayed to go into Bithynia; and the Spirit of Jesus suffered them not; and passing by Mysia, they came unto Troas.” This is the brief sketch of St. Pauls labours through the northwestern provinces of Asia Minor, during which he visited the district of Galatia and preached the gospel amid the various tribal communities of Celts who inhabited that district.
St. Pauls work in Galatia is specially interesting to ourselves. The Celtic race certainly furnished the groundwork of the population in England, Ireland, and Scotland, and finds to this day lineal representatives in the Celtic-speaking inhabitants of these three islands. Galatia was thoroughly Celtic in St. Pauls day. But how, it may be said, did the Gauls come there? We all know of the Gauls or Celts in Western Europe, and every person of even moderate education has heard of the Gauls who invaded Italy and sacked Rome when that city was yet an unknown factor in the worlds history, and yet but very few know that the same wave of invasion which brought the Gauls to Rome led another division of them into Asia Minor, where-as Dr. Lightfoot shows in his Introduction to his Commentary about three hundred years before St. Pauls day they settled down in the region called after them Galatia, perpetuating in that neighbourhood the tribal organisation, the language, the national feelings, habits, and customs which have universally marked the Celtic race, whether in ancient or in modern times. St. Paul on this second missionary tour paid his first visit to this district of Galatia. St. Paul usually directed his attention to great cities. Where vast masses of humanity were gathered together, there St. Paul loved to fling himself with all the mighty force of his unquenchable enthusiasm. But Galatia was quite unlike other districts with which he had dealt in this special respect. Like the Celtic race all the world over, the Gauls of Galatia specially delighted in village communities. They did not care for the society and tone of great towns, and Galatia was wanting in such. St. Paul, too, does not seem originally to have intended to labour amongst the Galatians at all. In view of his great design to preach in large cities, and concentrate his efforts where they could most effectually tell upon the masses, he seems to have been hurrying through Galatia when God laid His heavy hand upon the Apostle and delayed his course that we might be able to see how the gospel could tell upon Gauls and Celts even as upon other nations. This interesting circumstance is made known to us by St. Paul himself in the Epistle to the Gal 4:13 : “Ye know that because of an infirmity of the flesh I preached the gospel unto you for the first time.” Paul, to put it in plain language, fell sick in Galatia. He was delayed on his journey by the ophthalmia or some other form of disease, which was his thorn in the flesh, and, then, utilising the compulsory delay, and turning every moment to advantage, he evangelised the village communities of Galatia with which he came in contact, so that his Epistle is directed, not as in other cases to the Church of a city or to an individual man, but the Epistle in which he deals with great fundamental questions of Christian freedom is addressed to the Churches of Galatia, a vast district of country. Mere accident, as it would seem to the eye of sense, produced the Epistle to the Galatians, which shows us the peculiar weakness and the peculiar strength of the Celtic race, their enthusiasm, their genuine warmth, their fickleness, their love for that which is striking, showy, material, exterior. But when we pass from Galatia we know nothing of the course of St. Pauls further labours in Asia Minor. St. Luke was not with him during this portion of his work, and so the details given us are very few. We are told that “the Spirit of Jesus” would not permit him to preach in Bithynia, though Bithynia became afterwards rich in Christian Churches, and was one of the districts to which St. Peter some years later addressed his first Epistle. The Jews were numerous in the districts of Bithynia and Asia, and “the Spirit of Jesus” or “the Holy Ghost”-for the sacred writer seems to use the terms as equivalent the one to the other-had determined to utilise St. Paul in working directly among the Gentiles, reserving the preaching of the gospel to the Dispersion, as the scattered Jews were called, to St. Peter and his friends. It is thus we would explain the restraint exercised upon St. Paul on this occasion. Divine providence had cut out his great work in Europe, and was impelling him westward even when he desired to tarry in Asia. How the Spirit exercised this restraint or communicated His will we know not. St. Paul lived, however, in an atmosphere of Divine communion. He cultivated perpetually a sense of the Divine presence, and those who do so experience a guidance of which the outer world knows nothing. Bishop Jeremy Taylor, in one of his marvellous spiritual discourses called the “Via Intelligentiae,” or the Way of Knowledge, speaks much on this subject, pointing out that they who live closest to God have a knowledge and a love peculiar to themselves. And surely every sincere and earnest follower of Christ has experienced somewhat of the same mystical blessings! Gods truest servants commit their lives and their actions in devout prayer to the guidance of their heavenly Father, and then when they look back over the past they see how marvellously they have been restrained from courses which would have been fraught with evil, how strangely they have been led by ways which have been full of mercy and goodness and blessing. Thus it was that St. Paul was at length led down to the ancient city of Troas where God revealed to him in a new fashion his ordained field of labour. A man of Macedonia. appeared in a night vision inviting him over to Europe, and saying, “Come over into Macedonia and help us.” Troas was a very fitting place in which this vision should appear. Of old time and in days of classic fable Troas had been the meeting-place where, as Homer and as Virgil tell, Europe and Asia had met in stern conflict, and where Europe as represented by Greece had come off victorious, bringing home the spoils which human nature counted most precious. Europe and Asia again meet at Troas, but no longer in carnal conflict or in deadly fight. The interests of Europe and of Asia again touch one another, and Europe again carries off from the same spot spoil more precious far than Grecian poet ever dreamt of, for “when Paul had seen the vision, straightway we sought to go forth into Macedonia, concluding that God called us for to preach the gospel unto them.” Whereupon we notice two points and offer just two observations. The vision created an enthusiasm, and that enthusiasm was contagious. The vision was seen by Paul alone, but was communicated by St. Paul unto Silas and to St. Luke, who now had joined to lend perhaps the assistance of his medical knowledge to the afflicted and suffering Apostle. Enthusiasm is a marvellous power, and endows a man with wondrous force. St. Paul was boiling over with enthusiasm, but he could not always impart it. The two non-apostolic Evangelists are marked contrasts as brought before us in this history. St. Paul was enthusiastic on his first tour, but that enthusiasm was not communicated to St. Mark. He turned back from the hardships and dangers of the work in Asia Minor. St. Paul was boiling over again with enthusiasm for the new work in Europe. He has now with him in St. Luke a congenial soul who, when he hears the vision, gathers at once its import, joyfully anticipates the work, and “straightway sought to go forth into Macedonia.” Enthusiasm in any kind of work is a great assistance, and nothing great or successful is done without it. But above all in Divine work, in the work of preaching the gospel, the man devoid of enthusiasm begotten of living communion with God, such as St. Paul and St. Luke enjoyed, is sure to be a lamentable and complete failure.
Then, again, and lastly, we note the slow progress of the gospel as shown to us by this incident at Troas. Here we are a good twenty years after the Crucifixion, and yet the chief ministers and leaders of the Church had not yet crossed into Europe. There were sporadic Churches here and there. At Rome and at possibly a few Italian seaports, whence intercourse with Palestine was frequent, there were small Christian communities; but Macedonia and Greece were absolutely untouched up to the present. We are very apt to overrate the progress of the gospel during those first days of the Churchs earliest Church life. We are inclined to view the history of the Church of the first three centuries all on a heap as it were. We have much need to distinguish century from century and decennium from decennium. The first ten years of the Churchs history saw the gospel preached in Jerusalem and Palestine, but not much farther. The second decennium saw it proclaimed to Asia Minor; but it is only when the third decennium is opening that Christ despatches a formal mission to that Europe where the greatest triumphs of the gospel were afterwards to be won. Ignorance and prejudice and narrow views had been allowed to hinder the progress of the gospel then, as they are hindering the progress of the gospel still; and an express record of this has been handed down to us in this typical history in order that if we too suffer the same we may not be astonished as if some strange thing had happened, but may understand that we are bearing the same burden and enduring the same trials as the New Testament saints have borne before us.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
I. Let me offer some prefatory remarks which rise out of the text.
II. Indulge in some close interrogations as to your state.
III. Glance at the advantages which are likely to result from this inquiry.
I. Revisiting the churches. The converts old faults still clung to them in part, and their union in the same Churches stirred up strifes. They were but weak bands in the midst of worldly and licentious communities. No wonder that their spiritual father felt the necessity of confirming their faith (Act 16:36; Act 16:41). Brief report of a large work, parts of which are more fully disclosed in the epistles. Such labours are the main work of every pastor, too commonly underestimated in comparison with revival effort. The evangelist comes to a people with many advantages, and no wonder that he succeeds. But the hardest work yet remains–to lead the new converts from the excitement of revival scenes to the steady activity and growth to daily religion in commonplace surroundings.
II. The new work. Old scenes arouse longings for new service. On the edge of the light the darkness is terribly visible. The better to do this new work, Paul finds a companion to take Marks place in Timothy, who had doubtless been converted with his mother and grandmother during the apostles first visit, and had already gained the confidence and praise of the Church. He is circumcised, simply to avoid needless irritation of Jewish prejudice, and then ordained, making a good profession before many witnesses. The work in Phrygia and Galatia is told in a single sentence, with that inspired reticence which is more surprising than speech. Paul and his companions seem to have been inclined to devote themselves to a region so important and receptive; but God was calling them another way. We note in passing that this heavenly control is attributed first to the Holy Spirit, then to the Spirit of Jesus, then to God. So Ananias and Sapphira are said to lie to the Holy Ghost, unto God, and to tempt the Spirit of the Lord. These unstrained allusions show how deeply fixed in the early Church was the doctrine of the Divine Trinity. Very striking, also, are the disclosures of the Lords guidance of His servants. In planning his journey to this point, the apostle depended upon what we may call business sagacity–his knowledge of the Churches and their needs. Now pushing on to promising work, he is suddenly turned away by direct supernatural interposition. Then comes the most vivid disclosure, calling to strange and overwhelming tasks. How like the Christian life of today! At one period our path leads on in common, uneventful ways. We realise no Divine guidance, no special care or appointed mission. Again, in the thick of useful labours, we are hindered, forbidden. Sickness, loss, failure, etc., sharply arrest us, to our wonder and grief. But there are glorious hours when the call comes divinely clear, as it did to Paul at Treas. The blood of Trojan and Greek had stained the earth where he stood. Xerxes, Alexander, and Caesar had lingered here, and crossed to their conquests. But the grandest event which ever happened on that shore was the vision and the cry which led the gospel of Christ into that continent which ruled for centuries the mind and the heart of the world. Conclusion: One great truth breathes through the whole–the living Christ is always present in His Church.
I. The work resumed.
II. The work prospered.
III. The work enlarged.
I. A new journey decided on.
II. The plan of their journey.
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
Fuente: The Bible of the Expositor and the Evangelist by Riley
2. That when good men do quarrel, they should study to go asunder rather than come to blows.
3. That God can overrule even the quarrels of good men, for good.
4. That Churches should never send forth missionaries without commending them to Gods grace.
5. That ministers and missionaries should not neglect the work of confirming young converts.
II. The danger of success. even for eminent Christians.
III. The grace of God in making the wrath of men to praise Him.
II. Are less deeply lamented than they should be.
III. Are seldom healed as quickly as they might be.
IV. Are more tenderly dealt with than they deserve to be.
V. Are sometimes productive of more good than they promise to be.
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary
THE SECOND MISSIONARY JOURNEY OF PAUL, ACCOMPAINED BY SILAS AND TIMOTHEUS, TO ASIA MINOR, AND EUROPE.
Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange
INQUIRY INTO THE STATE OF THE CHURCH
Fuente: Charles Simeon’s Horae Homileticae (Old and New Testaments)
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker
Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Fuente: The Greek Testament
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Fuente: Grant’s Numerical Bible Notes and Commentary
Fuente: James Gray’s Concise Bible Commentary
Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament
Fuente: Gary Hampton Commentary on Selected Books
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Fuente: McGarvey and Pendleton Commentaries (New Testament)
Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
Fuente: Expositors Bible Commentary