Bible Commentaries

St. Barnabas" Exhortation

Acts 11:22-23

A very great work had been going on in Antioch. There had been many signal conversions. It was after this "Mission" and these conversions that Barnabas, an older minister, came to Antioch.

I. What St. Barnabas Saw.—He saw the real, secret spring, the very essence of it all. "He saw the grace of God," the free workings of God's own love, the decrees of God's sovereignty, the acting of God's omnipotence. "And he was glad." "Glad" not only and so much that men were made happy, or that men were saved, but that God was glorified, that His "grace" was manifested. "When he had seen the grace of God, he was glad." What did he do? He was very jealous that this "grace of God" should continue, continue and be magnified.

II. His Exhortation.—"That with purpose of heart they would cleave unto the Lord." The advice fits Christians of today.

(a) Purpose of heart. This may have many objects in view.

i. Purpose of heart. This may have many objects in Whom you serve.

ii. That some besetting sin may be conquered.

iii. That there shall be greater earnestness in devotion.

iv. That there shall be more love in daily life.

v. That there shall be more regularity and more frequency of attendance at Holy Communion.

(b) "Cleave unto the Lord." To "cleave to the Lord" means to be feeling that He is your very life, that you are making Him your very necessity, and to be always trying to make Him closer, and closer, and closer, till you are actually one with Christ. It is God's word for marriage: "A man shall cleave unto his wife". It is David's cry, when he could not raise his thoughts or disentangle himself from his worldliness: "My soul cleaveth to the dust". It is like the limpet to the rock. It knows that once separated from that rock it dies!

St. Barnabas the Apostle

Acts 11:22-24

After the martyrdom of St. Stephen there followed "a great persecution against the Church," so that its members were scattered abroad into many regions. But those who had been scattered "preached the Lord Jesus" in Phenice, and Cyprus, and Antioch, "and the hand of the Lord was with them; and a great number believed," especially at Antioch. These tidings coming to the ears of the Mother Church at Jerusalem, so gladdened the hearts of its members that they sent Barnabas on a special mission to Antioch; and no better man could they despatch to ascertain the truth or otherwise of what they had heard. The writer of the Acts describes his characteristics.

(1) "He was a good man." "Good," not in the common acceptation of the term, but in the Divine. If a man lives morally; if he pays that which he owes; if he bestows his goods to feed the poor; if he conforms to the rules of society and the forms of religion, whatever his motives for so doing, by universal consent he is denominated "a good man". Now the goodness of Barnabas involved all this. He was of the tribe of Levi; a son of consolation as his name signifies, and as he was surnamed by his fellow-Apostles; and so kind and charitable that he sold all his lands at Cyprus, and laid the money at the Apostles" feet at Jerusalem, that they might distribute to the necessities of the poor. But the goodness of Barnabas was Divine—the creation of the Holy Spirit; for He makes all really good men ( John 1:12-13).

(2) He was "full of the Holy Ghost". Not that he was with the Twelve, when, on the day of Pentecost, "they were all filled with the Holy Ghost"; but it has been surmised that he was one of the converts made on that glorious day. Be this as it may, the same Divine privilege was granted to him. And it had the same sanctifying effect in him, though not accompanied by the gift of tongues.

(3) He was also "full of faith". He was "strong in faith, giving glory to God". And because he believed in God he had faith in his mission. He knew and felt that Christianity was God's living remedy for the world's deadly ills, and therefore must ultimately prove efficacious in healing them. With this firm conviction, the offspring of his faith, he laboured most abundantly to spread it.

Of his visit to Antioch the Acts tells us two things:—

(1) The triumphs of Divine grace made him glad. He saw that the work was genuine, and that precious souls had been converted—that the cross of his despised Lord had prevailed. He was a perfect contrast to Acts 13:2-3) to the moment of his death he was found doing so. Nay, at his death he seemed more than ever the steadfast Apostle of Jesus. According to tradition, he ended his life where he began it—at Cyprus. One day he went into the synagogue of Salamis, and began, as was his wont, to preach Christ to the assembly. Certain Jews, who had come over from Syria to the island to stir up the people against him, laid their hands on him, and confined him in the synagogue until night, when they dragged him forth, stoned him to death, and then tried to burn his body to ashes. But his body is said to have resisted the power of the flames, though it did not that of the stones, and St. Mark buried it. Such a man takes rank as a leader among "the glorious company of the Apostles" and "the noble army of martyrs".

References.—XI:23.—H. Arnold Thomas, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lv. p20. C. Perren, Sermon Outlines, p201. W. G. Rutherford, The Key of Knowledge, p88.

The Character of St. Barnabas (For St. Barnabas" Day)

Acts 11:24

Such, in these few brief words, is the character of St. Barnabas—"For he was a good Acts 11:26

Christian has become one of the vaguest epithets in the language.

—Leslie Stephen, English Thought in Eighteenth Century, vol. ii. p395.

I dare not call myself a Christian. I have hardly met the man in all my life who deserved that name.

—Max Müller.

References.—XI:26.—C. Perren, Revival Sermons in Outline, p328. F. D. Maurice, The Acts of the Apostles, p172. Marcus Dods, Christ and man, p117. Expositor (6th Series), vol. viii. p127. XI:27-30.—Ibid. (5th Series), vol. ii. p114. XI:28.—Ibid. (6th Series), vol. ix. p127; ibid. vol. x. p281. XI:29.—Ibid. vol. ix. p225; ibid. vol. x. p198. XI:29 , 30.—Ibid. vol. iv. p298. XI:30.—Ibid. vol. iii. pp84 , 225. XII.—Ibid. (6th Series), vol. ii. p92. XII:1.—Ibid. (5th Series), vol. iv. p307; ibid. (6th Series), vol. vi. p293. XII:1 , 2.—J. Keble, Sermons for the Saints" Days, p314.