1/12/58

Scripture: Acts 9: 10-31

Text: Acts 9: 27; “Barnabas took him and brought him to the disciples.”

One of the marks of genius in Jesus is that he chose his most trusted followers from ordinary walks of life. Some of them were people without very much formal education, but with a capacity for loyal devotion and growth in attitudes that literally make the moral climate of life. But, of course, the followers of Jesus have not all come from one class of folk, nor from people of one race or color or language, nor from one of the sexes, nor from one age, old or young. They have come from every walk and circumstance and condition of life.

One of the very early followers of the Christ was a man who did not come out of what we call hardship. He was a person of some standing among many people, and a man of property. Since he was known as a Levite, he may have been what we could call a man of letters - at home in the culture of his day. In the King James version of the Bible, he is known as “Joses,” and in the Revised Standard Version he is called “Joseph.” That does not identify him closely, for the name was common. The reader needs much more than his given name to know to which Joseph the account is referring.

You recall that the apostle Peter came to be known not usually by his given name, Simon, but by a nickname given him by Jesus -- “The Rock.” That is the meaning of the name Peter. So it was with the man to whom we give our attention today. He is known throughout Christendom by his nickname. It is very revealing that in the 4th chapter of Acts we read of “Joseph, who was surnamed by the Apostles Barnabas (which means ‘Son of Encouragement.)” [Acts 4: 36].

We may pause to reflect what a fitting title is “Son of Encouragement” when applied to a follower of Christ. For our Lord might be called “Brother of Encouragement” or even “Father of Encouragement.” Jesus put hope into fearful and downcast people wherever he went. “Fear not” and “Be of good cheer” were common expressions from his lips. He saw that fear must be constantly challenged, since he knew that it hounded his friends from birth to death. Jesus was the complete master of his own fears. He had enemies who hurled all sorts of epithets against him. But they never called him a coward. He faced the gravest kind of dangers, but none that shook his poise or shattered his nerve.

Moreover, Jesus not only possessed courage, but he could impart it to others. A man may live his own bravery in a way that helps others to find their own confident courage.

I don’t particularly like to climb in certain high places. When, as a youth, I worked in summer time on my uncle’s farm, I was occasionally sent up the windmill to grease the thing. I was glad when the job was over and I had my feet down on the broad and solid earth again. A steeple jack’s job is not for me!

I admire, all right, the feat of a fellow who went up a 260-foot smokestack in a high wind to rescue a brick mason who had been overcome by smoke. But the thought of undertaking any such job myself would send shivers up my spine unless someone like that could teach me to climb by taking me up with him.

Barnabas, like his Lord, was no lone star performer of dazzling deeds. He was a team worker, putting courage into others and letting them take their rightful place. Let us observe him further. He first appears, in the accounts of the book of Acts, just after Peter and John had been released from prison. The Christian cause was not going well. The leader, Jesus, had been crucified. The first public sermon by his followers had resulted in the imprisonment of the preachers. It was clear to anyone that known followers of Jesus could expect persecution or worse.

Just at this critical juncture, Barnabas appeared with concrete encouragement. He sold some property at his home on the island of Cyprus, and then brought the proceeds of the sale and deposited them in the common treasury of the Christians at Jerusalem. This deed was a lot more convincing than words. In fact, brave people seldom talk about courage. They just do what they are sure needs to be done. Those who live safely and smoothly have little warrant for shouting about courage to folk who are up against the dangers and distresses that try peoples’ souls. The well-to-do Barnabas who comes from the island of Cyprus, does not just send words of encouragement. He comes; he joins up; he puts in his money -- all of this at a time when it appears that the Christians may be crushed.

Some of us remember hearing stories of frantic runs on banks in depression time. Rumor would get around that an examiner was about to close a certain bank. There would be a virtual stampede of depositors standing in long lines, hoping to get their money withdrawn before the cashier’s window closed and the door was locked.

The president and the directors might come out from their offices, trying to calm the fears of the depositors, mingling with the crowd, assuring people that the bank was sound and solvent. But all that did not stop the run. What could really check such a run was to see a man drive up, go in, and make a nice fat deposit. His faith in the bank was worth more than anything else at a time like that.

Christianity, from its very beginnings, has grown more from the contagion of works than by any other form of persuasion. Jesus was a teacher in matchless parables. But what he did was far more than what he said. It was the fact that he invested his entire life, all of his faith, all of his being, enough to die for it, that mostly convinced people. The best way to put heart into other people is to put your heart into them!

Some 17 centuries ago, there lived in North Africa a literary man named Cyprian. He wrote a letter to a friend named Donatus in this wise: “If I climbed some great mountain and looked out over the wide lands, you know very well what I would see. Brigands on the high roads, pirates on the seas, under all roofs misery and selfishness. It is really a bad world, Donatus, an incredibly bad world. Yet in the midst of it I have found a quiet and holy people. They have discovered a joy which is a thousand times better than any pleasure of this sinful life. They are despised and persecuted, but they care not. They have overcome the world. These people, Donatus, are the Christians --- and I am one of them.”

It was the sight of the early Christians, with their serenity in the midst of strife, their joy in the midst of sorrow, their love in the midst of hatred -- it was these observed attitudes which aroused the curiosity and the longing of the pagan world. People began to say: “Those Christians have something good. What is their secret?” Thus, Christianity spread, by the example of Christians, putting heart into people of the cold, pagan world around the Mediterranean Sea.

At first, the early Christian church had no ordained preachers. It was just a company of the friends of Jesus, each one telling what the Christ had done for him. Now the church has its professional aspects, often with trained musicians to voice the emotions, and preachers to preach the word, and to read and interpret scriptures.

Of course we need organization in religion. The early Christians found that out very soon. Some were chosen to teach, some to preach, some to exhort. Somebody was treasurer and purchaser, and so on. And it is a most heartening thing in our day to see so many churches going forward with enlarged budgets and improved buildings. But along with good organization must go the contagion of personal influence and participation by all Christians. I commend to you the spirit of prayer by George Elliot:

May every soul that touches mine -

Be it the slightest contact -

Get therefrom some good;

Some little grace; one kindly thought;

One aspiration yet unfelt;

One bit of courage for the darkening sky;

One gleam of faith to brave the thickening ills of life;

One glimpse of brighter skies beyond the gathering mists-

To make this life worth while, and heaven a surer heritage.

What a contagion of encouragement we can start by setting ourselves toward this goal! Barnabas came from Cyprus to bring encouragement from his background, his resources, himself! We should be glad to belong to his company.

The second time Barnabas appears on the New Testament scene was in a very critical situation. Saul of Tarsus had been the arch enemy of the Christians. But he had experienced a sound conversion on the road to Damascus. Thereupon his colleagues, who were also bent on wiping out the Christians, turned against him. They lay in wait for him at the city gates. Saul had to be rescued from the city of Damascus by his friends, who lifted him over the wall in a basket. But when he got back to Jerusalem, hoping to join the Christians there, they were most suspicious of him and refused to trust him. It is not surprising that this was so. They could not soon forget what he had done. They did not understand his change of heart. After all, the leopard does not change his spots! Just a few days earlier he had been their most dangerous enemy! It had been his publicly-announced purpose to destroy the Christian movement and its adherents. Who was now going to receive him with open arms? They had good memories -- painful memories! They remembered the death of Stephen by stoning and they remembered who took care of the garments of the stoners while they accomplished the bloody job! So when Saul tried to join the Christian disciples, they closed their doors against him. They could not trust so dangerous a man. It was hardly possible that he was really, now, a disciple.

Here is where Barnabas appears in the story for the second time. It was he who sponsored Saul, or “Paul” as he was now called. In the face of intense feeling and suspicion against the former arch enemy, Barnabas took him and brought him to the disciples, explained Paul’s conversion on the road to Damascus, and told how he had been preaching boldly in Damascus before returning to Jerusalem. It took courage for Barnabas to do this. The little band of Christians could not afford to have one traitor, or even a poor risk, on the inside. Barnabas, in sponsoring Paul, was taking a chance on tainting himself with suspicion.

But think how it put heart into Paul to find one who believed in him! How long could he have kept up his own stout courage without an understanding friend? Strong men can put up a lone fight against the world for a while, but they need the strengthening of friends who believe in them. Everyone who has enjoyed the love of another knows how it puts nerve and heart into the soul. To know that there is somebody who believes in you -- mother or father, wife or husband or sweetheart, business associate, classmate, or just personal friend --- is to have strength. To know that someone keeps tryst with you even when absent; to know that someone has a quicker heartbeat when your step is hear at the door -- You know how that helps.

[A man struggled for years in social reforms. He was asked how he could stick to it in the face of strong, constant opposition. His answer was simply: “I had a friend.”

There was once a very able church organist, who had mastery over the instrument and over the music that was played upon it. He also had a considerable mastery over the way it affected worshipping congregations in the church. The time came when he went blind. He knew enough music by heart, and could continue learning by ear, so that he could have carried on for a long time. But he soon lost his touch. Though he was a good technician, he could no longer see the reaction of the music on the congregation and no one thought to tell him of their appreciation for his work. It was his confidence that seeped away. If only the people of that church had thought to tell him of the inspiration his music brought them he could have continued and grown in his work.]

But Barnabas was doing more than showing appreciation for Paul. He was manifesting a spirit of conciliation. Appreciation dispels the discouragement of failure; conciliation dispels bitterness. People need both.

Our news and our conversation is largely filled with the greed, the crimes, the hostile schemes of nations and governments. The result of this is the brewing of bitterness. And bitterness fogs up our thinking like winter condensation on the windows of one’s automobile.

We can dispel some of the bitterness from our minds by talking about the things that make for brotherhood rather than for bitterness. We can follow Paul’s advice: “Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious --- think about these things.” [Philippians 4: 8].

And notice that the conciliation showed by Barnabas is more than appeasement. To appease another, you appeal, or make concession to, his greed. But to conciliate another is to appeal to the generous and good side of his nature. Quite a bit of appeasing has been done in the international realm. But are there not some good qualities in governments and in nations and in other persons that can still be reached by conciliatory measures? In the personal realm, every one of us is in touch with some situations where conciliation could be effective.

A great Episcopal preacher, Phillips Brooks, once addressed these words to his congregation: “You who are letting miserable misunderstandings run on from year to year, meaning to clean them up some day; you who are keeping wretched quarrels alive because you cannot quite make up your mind that now is the time to sacrifice your pride and kill the quarrels; you who are passing men sullenly on the street, not speaking to them out of some silly spite, and yet knowing that it would fill you with shame and remorse if you heard that you could never speak to them after tomorrow morning; you who are letting your friend’s heart ache for a word of sympathy which you mean to give him some day; if you could only know and see and feel, all of a sudden, that time is short; how it would break the spell! How you would go instantly and do the thing which you might never have another chance to do.”

When we speak the reconciling word we join the company of Barnabas, “The Son of Encouragement.”

There was a third time when Barnabas was on the Biblical stage in another difficult situation. Barnabas appears to have become a trouble shooter. A delicate issue had arisen over in Antioch. Some converts were preaching the gospel of Christ to the Greeks there with great success. Many of the Greeks of Antioch were accepting it. But should those Gentiles be received into the Christian movement? The leaders of the church at Jerusalem felt that the Christian church was for Jews, and should be confined to them alone. So Barnabas was sent to Antioch to investigate.

When he arrived at Antioch, he was so impressed by the good that was being done that he threw himself into it whole-heartedly. He sent for Paul, and together they worked there for a year, adding many to the church. Barnabas, who had put heart into the Christians at Jerusalem by his generous gift and his hearty encouragement; who had encouraged Paul by his spirit of conciliation; now puts life and vigor into the Christian movement among the Gentiles.

Here we get a glimpse into the secret of Barnabas’ power to impart courage. It says of him, “He was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith.” Can we fully appreciate the force of the expression, “A good man?” Perhaps some of us would rather be called a good fellow than a good man.

An editor once joshed Ralph Sockman about a speaking engagement the editor had with a group of ministers. Said the editor: “I have no doubt that they are all good men, but I did not see many I’d want to go fishing with.” Sockman joked back at the editor with the remark that he doubted not some of them were better at fishing than at being good.

Some folk seem to think of a good person in negative terms, one who has no vices and does no wrong. Well, Barnabas was more than negatively good. He was dynamically, positively good for something. He showed his force by the way he held to his convictions under all changes of condition.

[A newspaperman has paid a deserved tribute to the people of Britain among whom he served as a reporter during some of the most anxious days of World War II. German bombers were boldly coming through in the daylight over English cities. Almost any foggy morning might find the Germans invading the British beaches. Right at that time, when the House of Commons could have been blown up with one well-placed bomb, the House spent two full days discussing conditions under which enemy aliens were being held on the Isle of Man! Though the island should fall, there appeared to be a determination that there should be nothing that resembled concentration camps in England! That is a mark of goodness! In that kind of sense, Barnabas was a good man. And he maintained his goodness without being rigid or austere.]

High tribute has been paid to Mahatma Gandhi. At the time of his assassination, a newspaper editor said of him: “He was great, yes. But he was more than great, he was good. He troubled the world by his goodness.” His ascetic goodness was an endearing rebuke to a world grown materialistic. He troubled our consciences. But is not there a goodness higher than Gandhi? A goodness that does more than trouble the world by its virtue? A goodness that carries its virtue with such easy grace that it looks attractive to others? Is there not a goodness that puts heart into others?

There is! And Barnabas had it. He got it from Jesus, the Christ whom he served. For it is written: “God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world, through him, might be saved.”

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Delivered in Wisconsin Rapids, January 12, 1958.