Barnabas and Saul at Antioch

“For he was a good man, and full of the Holy Ghost and of faith: and much people was added unto the Lord. Then departed Barnabas to Tarsus, for to seek Saul,” etc. — Acts ix. 24-30.

AT Jerusalem progress was checked. The blood of the martyr Stephen was indeed the seed of the Church; but the seed was scattered abroad, and the harvest sprang in other lands. The apostles seem to have considered themselves bound as yet by the Lord’s command to remain at Jerusalem, but they remained there in comparative seclusion.

There was no great enlargement like that which they had enjoyed after Pentecost. The ruling classes, in alliance with the mob, had succeeded in driving away or silencing most of the disciples; Christ, rejected by his own, had now turned to the Gentiles. So the French rulers, by the massacre of St. Bartholomew, cast a shower of precious seed on other lands, and brought desolation for many generations on their own.

While the apostles were waiting in comparative inactivity at Jerusalem, tidings strange and stirring reached them from a distance. At Antioch, the Eastern capital of the Empire, a great number of the Gentiles believed and turned to the Lord. Immediately the assembled brethren despatched Barnabas as their commissioner to examine the state of affairs, and act according to circumstances. When he came to Antioch he saw the grace of God there. He had the second sight, for he had the new birth, and the spiritual perception was a faculty of the new man. He rejoiced in the progress that the converts had made, and exhorted them to follow on to know the Lord. The result of his preaching was a great number of new conversions.

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The expression employed here to indicate the decisive change is striking and suggestive — “Much people was added unto the Lord.” It occurred before, v. 14. It represents an intimate vital union between the Saviour and the saved, like the union between the vine and the branches.

One fact worthy of special notice emerges here: — the ministry of Barnabas on this occasion was a ministry specifically intended for the edification of believers, and yet, in point of fact, it was eminently effective for the conversion of those who were without. The preacher addressed himself to the converted, and exhorted them to cleave to the Lord; and, as a direct result, many strangers were brought nigh. The word, aimed at the living for increase of grace, strikes the spiritually dead, and awakens them to newness of life.

Those who rightly divide the word of truth, alternate between these two departments of effort. The word is addressed now to those who are within, and now to those who are without. Yet in the ministry of the Sovereign Spirit, sometimes the word meant for edification is effectual for conversion; and sometimes the word meant for converting sinners is used for the growth of grace in believers.

“Then departed Barnabas to Tarsus for to seek Saul.” When the work of the Lord was at its height in Antioch, the worker went away from the city. He went away, although a great door and effectual was opened to him — went away because a great door and effectual was opened. He saw the door so wide and hopeful, that he determined to call in a colleague — a colleague on whom his eye had for some time been set, and of whom he expected great things. Taking advantage of the proximity of Tarsus, he went to that city to summon the lately converted Saul to his aid. His

s own net cast into the sea at Antioch was so full, that he found it necessary to beckon to his partner in another ship for help to draw it to land. So, when a miner in the gold-fields has fallen upon a piece so large that he is unable single-handed to remove it, he leaves it where it lies — leaves the precious lump buried in the ground — leaves it, though his heart is in it, because his heart is in it — and goes away in search of a friend who may help him to bear the treasure home.

I hope the two will not quarrel over the spoil when they come, for there is enough to make the fortune of both. Now there is an opportunity afforded to these winners of souls to make great gain. Not about this work and this treasure did Saul and Barnabas fall out. They agreed to share the labour and the reward: it was about another and a smaller thing that they afterwards quarrelled in a moment of unwatchfulness.

It has been an instinct of true disciples from the beginning hitherto, to concentrate all their available forces on a spot where success has already begun. The specific call for additional labourers is not strongest on behalf of places and populations that merely show great need; it is strongest on behalf of places and populations that are at once needy and promising. The call for help is ever more commanding when you are able to say, not only that there are many out of Christ, but also that not a few are coming in.

This is a beautiful feature in the character of Barnabas. Besides working faithfully himself, he has the skill to enlist others in the work. He doubtless prayed to the Lord of the harvest to send forth labourers; but to his prayers he added pains: he went out and did what he asked the Lord to do.

Of all the disciples of that day, Barnabas was best acquainted with the talents and character of SauL He had already (ch. ix.) introduced the convert to the apostles

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at J erusalem, and now he introduces him to his great work among the Gentiles. At Antioch a mighty two-leaved gate was opened to the Gentiles for the first time, and it was appropriate that the apostle of the Gentiles should there begin to exercise and to magnify his office.

The historian notes, in passing, that the disciples were called Christians first at Antioch. Then and there the disciples began to be known by the name of the Lord that bought them. Looking to the result, this circumstance is memorable. We are not distinctly informed by whom this designation was first applied. We may gather, however, with a considerable measure of certainty, that the term was employed by the Gentile Greeks to indicate the disciples of the Nazarene. The name is not assumed in this book by the Christians themselves; and the unbelieving Jews would not employ it, for in their lips it would seem to concede that Jesus was indeed the Messiah. It is more likely, therefore, that the Gentiles, hearing that name continually from the lips of believers, employed it to designate the sect.

The name is sweet, when it is true. But, alas! it has often been made contemptible in the world through the impure lives of those who bear it. To be called by his name is nothing, unless we be renewed into his likeness.

The other name, most commonly applied in Scripture to designate our Redeemer, has experienced a similar diversity of use in the history of the Church. a How sweet the name of Jesus sounds in a believer’s ear!” And yet a Jesuit has become a synonym for all that is false and cunning and corrupt throughout the civilised world. What ’s in a name? Nothing, even though it be the highest of all names, unless the new nature be formed in him who bears it.

At this time certain prophets from Jerusalem warned the disciples at Antioch of a famine that should afflict the Empire at an early date. It came in the reign of Claudius: it was severely felt in many provinces, but most of all in J udsea.

This announcement is introduced into the narrative not for its own sake, but on account of the fruit which immediately resulted in the form of contributions made out of their abundance by the believing Gentiles in Antioch, to sustain the believing Jews at Jerusalem in the day of their distress. These gifts have the peculiar fragrance of first-fruits. A very great harvest of charity for the sake of the common Head has since been reaped: and the latest reapings have been richest. Never and nowhere have the fruits of Divine love, in the form of help to the needy, grown so great as in the wake of great wars lately waged on the far-separated continents of America and Europe. As the prospect of famine in Judsea drew out the love of Christians at Antioch, and exhibited in the love of brethren a glory to the Lord, so the great wars of recent times have generated a self-sacrificing helpfulness that has, both for its quantity and its quality, become the wonder of the world.

The power of Christ’s love was made peculiarly manifest in the case of these contributions from Antioch, inasmuch as the contributors were mainly Gentiles, and the recipients Jews. What hath the Lord wrought! The sun has gone back on the dial. Surely the partition- wall has at length been broken down, and Gentiles and J ews flow softly into one.

Here too, in the first springs of that stream which ever since has flowed to bless the world, we learn one of the rules divinely prescribed for the management of charities: Among the disciples (1) every man gave; and (2) every man gave as the result of a deliberate determination, a spontaneous act of his own will; and (3) every man gave according to his ability. There was a measure to determine the quantity of the gifts; and that measure was the degree of prosperity that God had given to each. But this measure was not mechanically applied by any external authority: it was determined in every case within the court of conscience, and by the contributor’s own judgment.

The love of Christ, in giving himself the just for the unjust, supplied the power which impelled the early Christians into a life of benevolence; but while in this matter they gladly placed themselves under law to God, they refused to become the servants of men.