Acts 15:36-41

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."