Barnabas – Son of Encouragement

Barnabas – Son of Encouragement

This Sunday at CDC, we were privileged to have our own Pastor Micky preach on the topic: Barnabas – Son of Encouragement, as we continued our interesting Character Study series on both Old and New Testament Characters.

Barnabas, one of the great heroes of the early church, is first mentioned in Acts 4:36-37. He was a Levite and his real name was Joseph, but the Apostles called him Barnabas, which means “Son of Encouragement”, and indeed he was a great encourager of the early church in every respect. As Barnabas first enters the scene, he is portrayed as a generous Giver, having sold a piece of land he owned and bringing it for the Lord’s work. In those days, land was very precious, being inherited from generation to generation, and few people ever sold land. However, here was Barnabas, giving willingly, generously, sacrificially and cheerfully. He gave out of love to the poorer Christians and he gave out of gratitude and love for God. In Luke 6:38, the Lord taught his disciples “Give and it be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap.” And indeed, God blessed Barnabas with an amazing and fruitful ministry, and gave him great honor as one of the great men of the early Church and Mission to the Gentiles.

The next scene in Acts 9:27 sees Barnabas taking the initiative and courage to bring Saul to the Apostles. The Christians in Jerusalem were still very wary of Saul because of his past but Barnabas believed in him and took great risk in helping him. We would do well to learn to be like Barnabas, not judging a person by his past, but rather accept him as the Lord would.

After that, we see Barnabas at work again in Acts 11, being sent by the church in Jerusalem to Antioch, where a very powerful work of God was developing among the Gentiles. Barnabas encouraged them, and later brought Saul there as well to help in the new work. And it was at Antioch that the disciples were first called Christians. We too would do well to encourage any new work in the Lord.

Later still, we see Barnabas again in Acts 13, being chosen by God together with Saul for the first missionary journey. Barnabas was a great team player, and did not seek glory for himself but for God. During the initial part of the journey, Luke always addressed Barnabas first – i.e. Barnabas and Saul… but later it was Saul and Barnabas… indicating that Saul had taken over the leadership of the team. Barnabas encouraged the team selflessly, always working for the good of the work, and not for himself.

Finally, we also see Barnabas standing up for Mark before the start of another missionary journey. Mark had deserted Paul and Barnabas during an earlier journey and Saul absolutely refused to take him along again. However, Barnabas kept defending him, saying that he should be given a second chance. Finally, Paul and Barnabas went off with different teams, Paul taking Silas and Barnabas taking Mark. Later, we see that Barnabas’ confidence in Mark proved true and later Paul himself called Mark a great help to him, and Mark too is renown as becoming of the authors of the four gospels.

Through it all, we see the powerful impact Barnabas had in early Christian history, from encouraging the early believers to give to the Lord to encouraging the first missionary work. Furthermore, his encouragement helped bring in two very important persons into the ministry, Paul and John Mark.

In closing, Pastor Micky challenged us to consider:-

1)      Am I an encourager or a discourager?

2)      Who needs encouragement?

3)      How do I encourage? – Words, deeds, friendship, participation, presence.

May the Lord help each one of us to learn to be sons of encouragement, like Barnabas, always selflessly seeking for the good of others and for the Lord.

God bless,

Jason