WWUTT 1086 Was Barnabas an Apostle?

In Acts chapter 14, it appears here that Barnabas is referred to as an apostle. Was he an apostle? Exactly how many apostles were there? There's only a fixed number when we understand the text.

Many of the Bible stories and verses we think we know, we don't. When we understand the text as an online ministry committed to teaching sound doctrine and exposing the faulty, visit our website at www .utt .com.

Now here's our host, Pastor Gabe Hughes.

Paul and Barnabas Preach in Iconium

Thank you, Becky. This week we are in Acts chapter 14, where the missionary duo of Paul and Barnabas will be preaching at Iconium, Lystra, and then back to Antioch in Syria. I'm going to start out reading the first seven verses here.

Now at Iconium, they entered together into the Jewish synagogue and spoke in such a way that a great number of both Jews and Gentiles believed. But the unbelieving Jews stirred up the Gentiles and poisoned their minds against the brothers.

So they remained for a long time, speaking boldly for the Lord, who bore witness to the word of His grace, granting signs and wonders to be done by their hands. But the people of the city were divided, some sided with the Jews and some with the apostles.

When an attempt was made by both Gentiles and Jews with their rulers to mistreat them and to stone them, they learned of it and fled to Lystra and Derbe, cities of Lycaonia, and to the surrounding country.

And there they continued to preach the gospel. So right at the start of chapter 14 here, they're in Iconium, in fact, where we're reading about them being through the early part of chapter 14, they're in Galatia, the province of Galatia.

So when Paul would later write his letter to the Galatians, it would be these churches that are in this particular region. So they go to Iconium, where they were previously was at Antioch in Pisidia. So they're venturing further into the province of Galatia, Iconium, Lystra and Derbe are all kind of in that region.

So they're in the central to southern central portion of what is modern day Turkey, sharing the gospel. And just like Paul did with Antioch, he went to the synagogue first and he's preaching the gospel and many Jews and Greeks believe.

But it says in verse two, unbelieving Jews stirred up the Gentiles and poisoned their minds against the brothers. Perhaps you've heard the term poisoning the well. It's an expression that means that you are discrediting someone before they have an opportunity to speak so that when someone listens to them speak, they already have a dim view of them.

That's kind of what was going on here in Iconium. Once many Jews and Greeks believe the message of the apostles, well, there's some unbelieving Jews that are going to poison the well. It's kind of like they're inciting people to hate what it is that Paul and Barnabas are about to say before they even say it.

Nevertheless, verse three, they remained for a long time speaking boldly for the Lord. And here it says, the Lord bore witness to the word of his grace by granting signs and wonders to be done by their hands.

But the people of the city were divided, some sided with the Jews and some with the apostles. Now I want to sit on this here for just a moment. This is one verse that has been used to refer to Barnabas as an apostle, because right now we've just got two men here.

We've got Paul and Barnabas. And verse four says that some people were on the side of the Jews and some people were on the side of the apostles. Does this mean that Luke, as the author of Acts, is referring to Barnabas as an apostle?

Not necessarily, because it could just be a general term. And the term apostles could be applied generally in one of two ways here. First of all, it could be a reference to the message of the gospel, which, of course, was preached by the apostles.

So it's a very general agreement with the message of the apostles. The second way could be as Paul and Barnabas are being referred to as ones who have been sent. So it's not a proper title of apostle.

It is a general title of being a sent one. That's what the word apostle means. In the Greek, the word is apostolos, which means sent one.

R .C.

Sproul points out that in the Roman Empire, a person who was given the power to speak on behalf of the emperor was called apostolos. To disobey an apostle of the emperor was equivalent to disobeying the emperor himself.

Jesus issued this title to his apostles no differently. They are being sent out as ones who are carrying the word of the king. And in this particular case, Paul and Barnabas are preaching that particular message that Christ had appointed his sent ones to preach.

Now in the four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, only the twelve are ever designated with the title of apostle. Now Paul will refer to himself as an apostle just like the twelve, but he calls himself one who is untimely born.

But he meets all of the qualifications of an apostle. There are three qualifications that an apostle must meet. First of all, they had to have seen the risen Lord, and Paul did. He saw Christ on the road to Damascus.

Second, they had to have been personally appointed to be an apostle by Christ himself. And that was certainly the case. Paul is not even the only witness to that. There were other men with him when Christ appeared to him and spoke to him, and they heard the voice of the Lord.

Plus you had Ananias who went to Paul and baptized him. The Lord said to Ananias that Paul is my chosen one, that he was going to send out to preach the gospel to Jews and to Gentiles. And so Paul has been appointed an apostle by Christ himself.

He's seen the risen Lord. He was appointed by Christ. And third, he performed the apostolic signs and wonders. And that's what we see going on here in Iconium. They remained for a long time, and the Lord bore witness through them by granting signs and wonders to be done by their hands, authenticating that the word that they were speaking was the word of Christ, not the word of a man, but that Christ had appointed them to go out and spread the gospel message.

So again, only the 12 are called apostles in the four gospels. There is a general use of that term, apostello, in Luke 10 1, when Jesus sends out the 72. But the word apostle there does not apply as a proper title, but rather like a verb or an adjective as those who had been sent out by Christ.

Only the 12 are designated with that proper title of apostle. So to be an apostle is not merely to have a title of being sent out. It's also been given the authority that when you speak, you're speaking the very words of God.

And this was the same for the prophets of the Old Testament. To disobey the word of the apostles or the prophets of old was to disobey God. And that still holds true today. Like we're still under the authority of apostolic teaching today.

Ephesians 2 19 through 20 says that the church has been built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone. So the church is built upon the message that they preach, that Christ sent them out to preach.

The Number of Apostles and Barnabas

Now, we know that Paul was personally appointed by Christ. But what about Barnabas? If Barnabas was personally appointed, if he really does have the proper title of apostle, then it would have had to have been that he was included among the 500 that are mentioned in First Corinthians chapter 15.

The apostle Paul says that after Christ's resurrection, he appeared to more than 500 brothers before his ascension into heaven. And so Barnabas would have had to have been among those 500 and then personally appointed by Christ to be an apostle.

And of course, we see him here with Paul performing those miraculous signs and wonders. And that's really the only qualification that we can say is clearly presented on Barnabas behalf. That is him performing great signs, apostolic signs and wonders.

We don't have anything in the narrative that says that he saw the risen Lord or that Christ personally appointed him to be an apostle. We only see him performing miraculous signs. And that was not something that was exclusive to the apostles.

Philip was not an apostle. And yet he had performed miraculous signs when he was preaching in in Samaria and his teleportation that it happened when he also had shared with the Ethiopian eunuch. The Lord had put him in that spot to minister to the eunuch and then took him away from there once he had baptized him.

So we see that there were others who were not apostles performing miraculous signs and wonders. Also, only the 12 plus Paul meet all three qualifications, at least as far as the narrative is concerned in acts.

As far as what we are told in Scripture, Paul and the 12 and only they saw the risen Lord were personally appointed by Christ and performed those miraculous signs that verified the message that they preached was from God and not from man.

And these miraculous signs, these miraculous things that the apostles did, they included in other languages, which is what speaking in tongues is. It's not speaking gibberish. Every time we have seen the gift of speaking in tongues given over the course of acts, it's clearly something supernatural.

And it's not just something that the Jews recognize, but also the Gentiles. It's not just something that believers recognize, but also unbelievers. They can see that something supernatural is taking place.

Whenever somebody just starts speaking gibberish, it just looks goofy. Nobody really thinks that something supernatural is going on. But when a bunch of men who are from Galilee and they look like Galileans start speaking a variety of foreign languages, that's what we see in acts to the people can tell something supernatural is happening here because these Galileans would not ordinarily know all of these different languages.

They're not educated men. They're fishermen. They're just men of trade. They don't need to know all these diverse languages. They don't travel around and have to deal with people of many different tongues.

And so when the Holy Spirit comes upon them and they're able to speak these other languages, it is seen as a supernatural sign. When the gift of tongues came upon the Gentiles at Cornelius's house, the Jews who were with Peter recognized the Holy Spirit is genuinely upon these people.

They weren't speaking just gibberish nonsense. They were speaking other foreign languages. So that's one of the apostolic signs. Speaking in tongues, healing diseases, casting out evil spirits. They were also given prophetic visions.

We've seen that in Acts 11. We'll see that come up again in chapter 16. The apostle Paul talks about a prophetic vision that he received in 2nd Corinthians chapter 12. The word of an apostle was considered to be the word of the Lord, equal in authority with the Old Testament scriptures.

One of the passages that I most commonly refer to to make this point is in 2nd Peter chapter 3, where in verses 15 and 16, Peter says that Paul wrote to you according to the wisdom given him as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters.

There are some things in them, in his letters, that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction as they do the other scriptures. So there Peter refers to Paul's words as scriptures and the Old Testament scriptures as scriptures.

So what Paul said was equivalent to what the prophets said in the Old Testament. We also have the statement in 1st Thessalonians 2 .13 where Paul said, we also thank God constantly for this, that when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men, but as what it really is, the word of God, which is at work in you believers, this word that was preached from the apostles.

And since we're talking about Paul and Barnabas preaching in Galatia, consider Galatians 1 verses 11 and 12. For I would have you know, brothers, that the gospel that was preached by me is not man's gospel, for I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ.

So what the apostles said was the very word of Christ himself. Now I've made the argument here for there only being the 12 apostles plus Paul. So there was 13, technically there's 14 because he would have had 12 minus Judas plus Matthias plus Paul.

So 14, although it wouldn't have been 14 all at one time, 12 minus one plus Matthias back to 12 and then plus Paul, which was 13. What are the arguments for more than 12? Like are there any other men in the book of Acts that are referred to as apostles?

Well, not only do you have Barnabas seemingly referred to as an apostle here in verse four in a general sense, but coming up tomorrow, we'll see this in verse 14. There's yet another reference to Barnabas being an apostle.

But when the apostles Barnabas and Paul heard of it, they tore their garments and rushed out into the crowd crying out and then on and on it goes. But that could still be a general title referred to as Paul and Barnabas as those who had been sent out, those who were sent to Galatia.

It's referred to in a general sense, not as a proper title. But nevertheless, you have two occasions here in Acts 14 where Barnabas is also called an apostle. Who else was there? Anybody else that was called an apostle?

Well, possibly James, the half brother of Christ, referred to in church history as James the just. James is referred to as an apostle in Galatians 119. So in in verse 18, Paul says, then after three years, I went up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas and remained with him 15 days.

But I saw none of the other apostles except James, the Lord's brother. Now, those who advocate for there only being 12 apostles plus Paul would say that the apostles, the 12 are referred to here plus James.

So not as not numbering him as among the apostles, but just referring to him as James, the Lord's brother, not James, the Lord's brother, one of the apostles. OK, now there's also a kind of a general reference that Paul makes in First Thessalonians to.

Six.

He says, we did not seek glory from people, whether from you or from others, though we could have made demands as apostles. Of Christ. And there he's not talking about the 12 when he when he's making that reference as apostles of Christ.

But I would still say here in this occasion, in First Thessalonians to six, he's not talking about the proper title of apostle, the 12 apostles, plus the apostle Paul as one who was untimely born. But he's again making it in a very general sense.

We are those who have been sent out by Christ with the gospel. And Paul would have included not just himself, but anyone else that was part of his missionary.

Crew.

There could have been that general reference to one another as being apostles. It would have made no difference to the people in Iconium. They were not thinking of, well, that person's definitely an apostle.

He's qualified. I don't know about the other guy. These guys were sent with the message of the Lord Christ. So just like in Luke 10, one, you have the sending out of the 72 and the word apostle in Greek is used there, though it's not used in the proper sense.

So that's likewise the way that we should understand this here in Acts 14 and other.

Places.

But if you're not convinced by that, if you think, no, Barnabas really is being called an apostle here, James, the Lord's half brother, is really being called an apostle in Galatians chapter one. Well, at best, if you're if you're talking about those in the New Testament who are ascribe the title of apostle, then you would say that there could only be 16.

There would only be 16 apostles total. There's the 12. Judas is replaced by Matthias, add in James and Barnabas and finally Paul. And these are the only men in the whole New Testament who are named apostles.

But I would still argue that the reference to James and Barnabas is very general. It's not in the proper sense. Therefore, the number of apostles is the 12 plus the apostle Paul. However you come at this, you have to receive and understand the argument that Paul was the last one appointed.

It doesn't matter if you want to say, well, there were 500 apostles because Paul mentions that there were 500 brothers who saw the risen Lord before he ascended into heaven. OK, but you can't say that there were any other apostolic appointments after Paul.

He was the last one. And that's the argument that he makes in First Corinthians 15. He goes through a list of people that the Lord Christ appeared to as an evidence of his resurrection between that time that he came up out of the grave and he went up into heaven.

And Paul says as he's going through that list in succession, he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. So as Paul is going through that list of people that Jesus appeared to, Paul is the last one.

And there is not another appearance of Christ to anyone to designate them as an apostle or qualify them as an apostle after Paul. He's the last appointed apostle. So if you encounter anyone today who wants to tell you that they are an apostle or they're part of some new apostolic movement, they are lying to you.

And it is contrary to scripture because there was not going to be any more apostolic appointments after Paul. And I'm quite firm on that. We might disagree on the number of persons who actually get called apostle in the New Testament, but you cannot say that there was any more designation after the apostle Paul.

He was the last one. No one else gets to be called an apostle. If the book of Ephesians chapter two is going to tell us that the church is built on a foundation of the apostles, well, that foundation has to end.

It's not continually being added to because as Peter points out in first Peter two, we are like living stones being built up into a house to the Lord with the foundation being the apostles. Nothing's being added to the foundation.

What's being added to is the building as it's being built up. And that's everybody who comes to believe the gospel of Christ and be added to this house as we are a spiritual place of worship unto our Lord God.

And this building will keep getting bigger as long as the earth is around. Before Jesus returns, we are adding persons to the kingdom of Christ through the sharing of the gospel and believing in what is preached.

That's what the apostles are doing here in Iconium. And we're going to pick up this story as we continue on with it tomorrow with Paul and Barnabas preaching in Lystra and Derby. Let's conclude with prayer.

Our Heavenly Father, we thank you for this gospel message that has come to us, for we have heard it and believed and so have become the children of God through faith in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

I pray that we would with boldness share this gospel with others so that they too may come to believe and escape from the wrath and judgment of God that is to come. And they become citizens of the kingdom of God in Christ.

As we consider these things, may we submit ourselves to the authority of scripture. Nobody else is coming along and adding to the scripture or speaking with the authority of what the apostles had when these pages were penned.

But we have the word, the prophetic word more fully confirmed, as Peter put it in 2 Peter chapter 1. This is no longer being added to. The word is completed and given to us in the providence of God the way that you meant for it to be communicated.

So may we understand every word, apply it to our lives, and lead and teach, exhort and admonish each other according to this as well. And we pray these things in Jesus' name, amen.

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