Acts 15:36-41 - God Uses Train Wrecks

You are listening to Recast Church of Madawan's Podcast. Listen in as our lead pastor, Don Sopec, is in a sermon series entitled Solid Foundation, A Journey Through the Book of Acts.

Does anybody want to guess what book of the Bible I'm going to ask you to turn to right now? Acts. Hopefully you're learning from the Book of Acts as we've been kind of marching through that, doing this journey through the Book of Acts.

We are over halfway through the book. I think it was probably a year and a half ago that I started it, so if you do the math you can figure out it's going to take us a little while to get to the second half as well.

But hopefully you're growing in your understanding, you're being stretched in your faith as we continue to grow together in our understanding of how the early church grew, and then looking at Recast and seeing some of the things that God is doing here, that ultimately we recognize that God is the foundation of the church, right?

It's not those who came over from Berean and started this church, or it's not me as a pastor, or Rob, or Zach, or the leadership, or the worship band, or anything like that. It is not my preaching, but it is God who is starting His church.

And so we constantly want to keep focusing in on Him and seeing what He's doing. Now our text this morning in Acts chapter 15, and that's page 791 in the Bible that's in the seat back in front of you.

I'm going to read that here in a few minutes, but I want to introduce it. But 791 in that Bible, so if you want to get there. And that Bible is a free gift from us to you, so if you don't own a Bible you can take that one that's in the seat back with you.

God Uses Train Wrecks in the Church

Our text this morning in Acts chapter 15 verses 36 through 41 is one of the most authentic and real passages in the entire New Testament. Now when I say that, you know, authentic, isn't all the New Testament authentic?

Well in one sense, I mean, what I'm saying, it's all authentic. It's all the real, true Word of God. But what I mean by authentic is that it's something that maybe I wouldn't have included if I were Luke.

Like, it's one of those stories that you might not want to tell. Like, how many of you maybe have a story from your past, or a story from your family, or a story from your childhood that isn't your lead-off story?

You know, you meet somebody at a party and you're like, hey, by the way, I did this. Or my sister did this, or my brother or uncle Bill did this, or whatever. You know, I mean, you know what I'm getting at.

You don't necessarily lead off with those kinds of stories. This is maybe one of those that we wouldn't necessarily lead with. But Luke chose to include it, because what we're going to see is, we're going to see a significant disagreement between Paul and Barnabas.

Paul and Barnabas have been major players, major characters. Everywhere that we've seen Paul go, Barnabas has gone so far. Everywhere that Barnabas has gone, Paul has gone. And we're seeing them just united and together.

Barnabas was the dude who first introduced Paul to the church in Jerusalem. Like, the church in Jerusalem was not going to accept Paul, because he had been murdering Christians and persecuting them. And Barnabas is like, hey, you guys cut him some slack.

He's a good guy. He's actually changed. And they accept him on Barnabas's recommendation. So we've seen them like two peas in a pod. Everywhere that they go, they've done ministry together. It's been significant the way that they work together.

And it's interesting to note that the force of the impact of our text, because we're going to see Paul and Barnabas separate. They're going to part ways. There's going to be disagreement and division between them.

And when I say authentic and real, I say that because I can relate to where they live. How many of you have had an experience of betrayal in your relationships with others? Have you been there? Maybe we have been the betrayer at times, and we have broken faith with others, and we have not compromised and worked things out well together.

Because we're human and we're sinful humans. And so we're going to see that as it plays out. The force and impact of the passage is highlighted because we talked about unity last week. If you were to go back and listen to that message that I preached last week, it was about unity in the church.

And now juxtaposed right up next to this passage on unity is a passage that's going to highlight humanity, reality, real life, where we see sin and its impact in the early church. We're ultimately getting a glimpse at a train wreck of sorts.

Don't worry, there's encouragement. There's going to be encouragement. There's going to be some uplifting things in this passage. God's going to take what is a train wreck in this passage, and He's going to shine His glory in that situation.

And what I'm hoping that we see here is that God can take our brokenness, that He can use messes and train wrecks for His glory. So we're going to see that in the passage. He can work things out for good.

He can use train wrecks and messes. How many of you would maybe be willing to raise your hand and say, I'm glad that God can use messes? All right. I am, personally. I'm glad that He can use people like me, because I don't have it all together.

I'm a sinner just like you, and I'm working. And of course, yes, you're looking at me going, aren't you held to a higher standard? Certainly. James 3 .1 tells me that as a teacher, I'm held to a higher standard.

And I mean, that's something that, believe me, that's a weight on my shoulders. That's something I have to deal with every week. Those of you who teach and lead, you recognize that. It is the whole phrase, practice what you preach.

And that's a pressure, and that's a weight. But He can use people like me, people like you. As I look at Paul and Barnabas, I can easily fall in the mentality. As I look at biblical characters, I can fall into the mentality that they're so much better than me.

Have you been there? You look at some of these people, and you're like, man, I could never attain to that level of, you know, they're persecuted, and they're smiling, and they're singing songs in jail after they're being whipped.

We're going to see that in a few weeks here. I'm like, I don't know that. I don't know. That doesn't reflect me very well. Or they're picking up stones and slaying giants. And I'm like, that's not so much like me, right?

Do you guys relate to that? Am I the only one who reads these pages of Scripture and goes, man, these guys are giants of the faith, and I'm just this guy here. So I can elevate them so much that sometimes I can elevate them incorrectly to the place where I can't relate to them anymore, where their stories don't speak to me because they're Paul, and Peter, and Barnabas, and David, and all of these amazing greats of the Bible, right?

Can you relate to that? I'm getting some blank stares here. Are you understanding what I'm saying? Maybe? Okay, thank you. Sorry. I'm getting a lot of blank stares there. Passages like this bring things back down to reality for us, don't they?

Passages where we get a chance to see the way that life really is, and that these guys were people just like us. Even these guys had struggles. Yet God is going to do some amazing things continuing forward through them despite their stubborn disagreement in our text that we're going to get a first-person glance at.

So let's praise God this morning that God can use even the real messes of life and turn those things for His glory. That I think that as we come to worship this morning, and the band is going to come after I read this text and pray, that I think if we...

Real worship is born in our hearts through really recognizing who we are. I don't know that we can worship with a false, with pretense, with false views of ourselves if we come and approach the throne of God as if we have something to offer Him, as if He needs something from us.

I don't believe we can worship in that context. I don't believe your heart can come to worship Him if you do not recognize your own faults, your own failures, the train wreck that we make of our lives, and how much we need Him because worship is born in the process of needing God.

Do you hear what I'm saying? As we recognize our need for Him, we recognize the mess that we've made of our lives and the glory and the grace that is offered us in Jesus Christ, that should exalt Him.

That should make our hearts so dependent on Him that when we come and we sing these songs, that the songs actually reflect our heart and our desire to bring honor and glory to the only one that really matters, the only one who makes a difference in our lives.

Is that making sense? So let's read this passage together. And as we get a chance to kind of reflect on some of the messiness of our human condition, let's turn that around and look at it from the standpoint of ourselves, recognizing the messes that we make of relationships and that God's grace shines all the brighter, even in the midst of our messes.

Short passage, Acts 15, 36 or 41. And after some days, Paul and Barnabas said, let us return and visit the brothers in every city where we proclaim the word of the Lord and see how they are. Now Barnabas wanted to take with him John called Mark, but Paul thought best not to take with them one who had withdrawn from them in Pamphylia and had not gone with them to the work.

And there arose a sharp disagreement so that they separated from each other. Barnabas took Mark with him and sailed away to Cyprus, but Paul chose Silas and departed, having been commended by the brothers to the grace of the Lord.

And he went through Syria and Cilicia, strengthening the churches. Let's pray. I want to kind of set the stage here a little bit. Last week, we left Paul and Barnabas teaching and preaching in the town of Antioch.

Now we'd had that disagreement that had happened between the church in Antioch and Jerusalem, a council had formed. People down in Jerusalem were telling people in Antioch, hey, you Gentiles, you need to become more like us to follow Christ.

You need to come through our toll booth on the pathway to salvation. And the church got together, had a big debate. And in the end, they came to the conclusion that, no, that's not what grace in Christ looks like.

That's not what salvation looks like. It doesn't look like come and act like us and then you are in. So that decision had been made. We saw that letter delivered up to Antioch. Paul and Barnabas were part of the team that went down to Jerusalem and then came back to Antioch.

And so we left them preaching and teaching the word of the Lord in Antioch at the end of our last section. And then now, after some days, right at the beginning of our passage, we see that Paul hatches a plot.

He comes up with this plan. And he suggests to Barnabas that they return to the churches that they had started back starting in Acts chapter 13. Now remember, they had been sent out by this church in Antioch.

And the Holy Spirit, while they were in worship and prayer, had set aside Paul and Barnabas to this work and basically communicated through prophets that God's call was on their life to go out and start new churches in a Gentile territory.

So they had boarded a ship, went across Cyprus, what is modern-day Cyprus, the 130-mile journey across there, preaching and proclaiming the word of God all the way across with great success. Got on a ship, went to the southern coast of Turkey, started some churches there, went around proclaiming the word of God there.

And so you can imagine that there'd be some kind of connection with them between Paul and Barnabas and these people who they had ministered to, right? They had been there. They had seen them come to faith in Christ.

They had traveled throughout their area. They had even suffered persecution and hardship. At the end of that trip, they then went back through and encouraged those people, setting up leadership in the churches and all of that.

So how many of you think that maybe there's some curiosity on Paul and Barnabas' part about how things are going up there? Would you agree? I mean, there'd be kind of a desire on their part to figure this thing out.

So Paul says, hey, let's go back and check things out there. Now let me remind you that returning to the cities where they had started this church, all of these churches in Southern Turkey is not like returning to an amusement park, okay?

It's not even like going to a family reunion. Now, I don't know how your family reunions are. That can be like an amusement park or not like an amusement park. I don't know. In Antioch, so I should have put a map.

I apologize to you that I don't have a map. Hopefully some of your Bibles have it. There's two different Antiochs that I'm talking about here in the passages. Antioch, where Paul and Barnabas are right now, which is north of Jerusalem.

There's another city, Antioch, that is in modern day Turkey. So two different Antiochs. The Antioch in Turkey where they had started a new church, they had been run out of town there. The text told us that they were kicked out of that district by the Jews.

In Iconium, there was a plot to kill them and they fled for their lives, okay? Not necessarily a picnic in the park going on up in this area. And then to take it a step further, in Lystra, the town of Lystra, Paul was stoned, knocked unconscious, dragged outside of the city, and left for dead.

Not a picnic kind of journey. Not just kind of like, hey, let's go just kind of hang out with some of our friends over here. I mean, what Paul is proposing is, hey, Barnabas, let's get back in the fray.

Let's get back into this here. Remember where they're at. They're at their home church. They're at a place where they're well respected. They've got a ministry. It says that they're teaching the Word.

They're in a safe place. They're needed there. How many of you know, there's places that you go that you have respect, right? Hopefully you have some of those places. There's some places where you go where you have some respect, where people like you and they know your name.

You know, the place where everybody knows your name and they're always glad you came. I didn't come up with that. That's not original with me. But you know what I'm saying. I mean, there's places where you're respected.

And how many of you know it would be comfortable for Paul and Barnabas to hang where they're at, stay there? Are they needed where they're at? Yeah. Yeah, of course they are. I mean, they're teachers.

They're leaders. They're elders in their church. And yet God is going to push them both out here in a moment and we're going to see that they're going to re-enter the freight. One thing that is very important to start off with is the common ground that Paul and Barnabas share because we're going to see, like I said, some division here.

We're going to see a heated debate, a strong disagreement formed between them. So what do they have in common? Paul and Barnabas both share a common desire to see the church grow and for Christ's fame to spread throughout the world.

Pretty significant thing that they hold in common. Would you agree that that's cement? That's some pretty significant reality. Now we might disagree on all different kinds of things from style of music to the type of things that we wear to whatever types of foods that we like.

But we have something in common, don't we? We have Christ in common with one another as brothers and sisters in Christ. And that's a significant cement that holds us together. But we're going to see that there's some cracks that form in that here.

But they have this desire to see the church grow, Christ spread. They both love Jesus. Not only that, but to the extent that they have both risked it all for Him. They've both had their necks on the block.

Either one of them could have been killed at any time in that whole process of planning and starting these new churches. They've risked much together. How many of you know that that kind of intensity of ministry has a tendency to forge strong relationships?

Do you understand what I'm saying? I mean, they faced significant hardship together. So that what we're going to see here in the text is all the more stark, all the more desperate about the human condition, all the more about the depth of our depravity and ability to part ways with friends and close associates and people who are close to us.

They share a lot in common, but there's a conflict. Look at verse 37. Now Barnabas wanted to take with them John Mark. Barnabas wants to take, not just John Mark, there's some important things that you need to understand about John Mark.

It's natural. Paul says, hey, let's go back and go back and visit the churches that we started. John Mark went with them on that very first journey. So he's just basically saying, hey, let's start off the same way we started off last time.

John Mark was our assistant. If you go back to Acts chapter 13, you'll see John Mark went with them across the nation of Cyprus. That province. So he started with them in Salamis or in Antioch, boarded a ship, went over to Salamis on the east coast of the island of Cyprus, and then all the way over and marched across that with them to Pathos.

He was there when the proconsul, the Roman proconsul, leader of the entire island of Cyprus had given his life over to Jesus Christ, had put his faith there. And so John Mark was there. The text told us back in Acts 13 that John Mark was their assistant.

He was a helper to them. Now, some people have said, was he there just to carry the bags? What kind of an assistant was he? It's quite likely that he was a teacher. The word that's used there is that he was actually an assistant in helping with the teaching and the discipleship and working.

So don't think that John Mark is just some immature guy going on here. So he had gone with them and they had crossed that island together. But it says here in Acts 13, if you were to just write that down if you're taking notes, you can just flip back a page if you want or whatever.

But Acts 13, 13 told us that John Mark left them and returned to Jerusalem. Now, where did they start from? Does anybody remember the town, the city where they started their missionary journey from? In Antioch.

So they started in Antioch. So what does it mean that John Mark went back to Jerusalem? Well, one thing that's very interesting is we've already seen earlier in the book of Acts that John Mark had some relatives in Jerusalem.

So he doesn't go back to where they started. He goes back home. And who is his relative that lives in Jerusalem? Any guesses? His mommy. John Mark's mommy lives in Jerusalem. We actually saw Peter and we saw a group of people praying at Mary's house.

Mary is called John Mark's mother in that text and they're praying. And remember, Peter was in prison. Miraculous angel appears to him, breaks the shackles, the gate opens, all the guards are asleep. He walks out and he goes to Mary's house who is the mother of John Mark, the text told us.

So you put all these stories together, you piece it all together and you start to see what's going on with John Mark here? Where did he leave? Why did he leave them? Now, we could speculate all we want about why John Mark left that missionary journey.

By the way, when he left, they had had quite success, quite a lot of success going across Cyprus. They led the entire, the leader of the entire province to faith in Christ. Significant success. At what point does he ditch them?

Just as they enter into hostile territory, just before, as the text is going to tell us here, just before the work began. Cyprus wasn't work for them. Cyprus was a relatively peaceful place, but he's going to take the ship across the Mediterranean Sea to the southern coast of Turkey and once that ship lands, he's like going back to Jerusalem.

Now, like I said, we could speculate all we want, but one thing that we know for sure is that Paul thought he was a sissy. Paul thought that, I mean, that's what's going to go on here between Barnabas and Paul.

And the important thing that you recognize in this, an interesting twist, is that Barnabas is John Mark's cousin. They're blood. Or as my relatives in West Virginia would say, they're kinfolks. And how many of you know that blood is pretty thick, right?

So we're going to see a little bit of that dynamic going on here. That factors in, I think. But Paul saw what John Mark did back in 1313. He saw it as desertion. Luke uses the word desertion here in our text.

He deserted us. In verse 38, the word that we have had withdrawn from. Withdrawn from is another way to translate that is to desert. And so we see a significant way that Paul viewed that. He didn't like it that he had left.

They had depended on John Mark as an assistant. They depended on him. And Mark left before the real persecution began, before the real work of ministry had started. Now I wonder if Paul had a strong view of ministry.

Paul, who was constantly reflecting on the words of Christ, constantly reflecting on the Old Testament. And I wonder if he took quite literally the words of Jesus. If you were to write this reference down, Luke 9, 62, Jesus says this.

Think about how this would have an impact on your view of ministry. Luke 9, 62, the words of Jesus Christ himself. He says, No one who puts his hand to the plow and then looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.

Did Paul take a quite literal tack on that? Is that the way that he viewed that? Now I think there's a little bit more of a figurative interpretation of what Jesus' words mean there. But was Paul thinking, John Mark put his hand to the plow and then looked back and needed something back there and went back home to his mommy.

So we see a division form. And it can clearly be seen by a focus on the verbs here between 37 and 38. These verbs matter. Look at how verse 37 starts. Now Barnabas wanted. Barnabas wanted, but look at 38.

Paul thought best. Barnabas wanted, but Paul thought best. Now thought best doesn't mean, it's not interpreting that he was the right one in this text. It's just that his thoughts are pitted against the wants of Barnabas.

Those things are meant to be parallel in the text comparing one another. So Barnabas wanted, but Paul thought best. And so often we see in our lives that our wants are pitted against the thoughts, the desires of others.

Have you encountered that in your life? I want to watch TV, but my wife thinks it best to sit and have a chat. I want to drive 10 over the speed limit, but the police officer thinks it's best for me to drive safely at the speed limit.

One spouse wants to save money ahead for Christmas and budget that money and plan it out. And the other thinks it best to rack up credit card debt and just take care of it later. At least by their behavior, maybe.

So what we see here in the text is the language of legitimate disagreement. Paul and Barnabas do not see eye to eye on this issue. And in our text, it's personal. It's personal between them. Like I said, Barnabas and John Mark are cousins.

And how many of you know that having relationship involved in a discussion, in a debate, in an argument has a tendency to cloud our judgment and ultimately even heightens the stakes? Do you know what I'm saying?

So things that you might not have been passionate about, all of a sudden you become passionate about because you're talking about my mom, you're talking about my sister, you're talking about my cousin, now the gloves come off, right?

Do you know what I'm talking? Is anybody relating to that? How many of you know, I can say things about my sister that you can't say about my sister. Did you know that? That's the way it rolls. Okay, and that's what's going on here.

Not only that, but as we get to know Paul and Barnabas in the text, over the course of the text, you get a chance to get to know these guys. If you really read it, I think sometimes we have these empty shelves of people in the text and we think that they are merely just tools for us to, you know, they're a nice teaching lesson.

They're a case study for us. These are people with real emotions. Put yourself in the text. I challenge you when you read scripture, let it come alive to you. These are real people with real feelings and real emotions.

And you can get to know Paul through the pages of scripture. You can get to know Barnabas through the pages. I don't even know what the name Barnabas means. That wasn't his original name. He's given that name by the church.

What does the name mean? Son of encouragement. The thing that the church identified the most about Barnabas, the thing that he received his title from was his ability to encourage people. Do you see how maybe that might play into this discussion here?

This argument? This disagreement? Barnabas always wanting to give people a second chance. An encourager. Do you see something of his personality? Do you know somebody who's like a Barnabas? Always eager to give a second chance.

Always gracious. Always merciful. Ready to give a second chance. Paul, on the other hand, is a down-to-business, spitfire type of personality. You read him in the pages of scripture. He's type A. He's driven.

He's fearless. No room for this interpersonal monkey business. Several times in the pages of scripture, just to give you a sense of his view, later on in scripture, this is a positive thing, and it's going to show that there's some grace at the end.

But literally, Paul later is going to say, send John Mark to me because he could be of use to me. He is useful to me. I'm going to think that that's not necessarily the kindest way to address people. You...

I like you because you're useful to me. Do you see? I mean, that's... But that's the kind of personality they have. And there's all different kinds of personalities, right? Is their personality sinful?

Well, I think there's sin in all personalities, right? We can be too gracious. We can be too encouraging. Somebody comes to you and says, I murdered somebody. It's like, okay, it's okay. It's all right.

No, that's not okay. You know, you could be too encouraging, couldn't you? So you look at this, and you see these two personalities develop. Now, how many of you are glad that God saves all different kinds of people?

I am very grateful that He saves all kinds of people. I'm grateful for the driven type A personalities like Paul. I'm also grateful for the encouragers like Barnabas. We need both. The kingdom of God needs both types of people.

In this case, however, I fear that Paul and Barnabas were not very thankful for each other. I think that's an issue that we see here in the text. They're not thankful for one another or each other's viewpoint.

Because verse 39 says that a sharp disagreement arose between them. And the effect of that disagreement is going to be separation. The two friends are going to part ways over this disagreement. That's how cutting this is.

Ironically, the word for disagreement is one of irritation. It is a word for provocation, provoking. It's literally around the time of Jesus Christ, the Bible had already, the Old Testament had been translated into Greek.

So we have the benefit of being able to look at how modern usage of the Greek in that time, how they translated Old Testament words. So we have the Hebrew Old Testament and then we have a Greek Old Testament called the Septuagint.

In the Old Testament Septuagint, this word, this Greek word is used to translate the wrath, the anger, the provocation of God. When Israel sins against God and he becomes angry and upset with them, this word, irritated, aggravated to action.

There's another irony in the use of this word later in scripture, because Paul himself is going to use this same exact word later in a letter to the church in Corinth. And we're going to see in a few weeks, he's going to go to Corinth and then we're going to see that he's going to depart from there and write a couple of letters back to them.

But this word occurs in many weddings. I've read this word in a wedding before because there's a famous passage in 1 Corinthians chapter 13 known as the love passage. All about love, right? And Paul is going to say that love is not this word.

Love is not irritable is the way that it's done in most translations. That's this word for this strong disagreement, this irritability, this aggravation that comes up between them. So you're going to see, I don't know whether Paul practiced what he preached or later on feeling guilty about this situation.

He recognizes that he had been guilty of that because he's going to pen those words later in his life. He's saying love isn't like that. He himself has been guilty of being like that. You see that? This is not a gentle dispute.

And I think it's important for us to reflect on what are they arguing about? Are they arguing about doctrine? No. Are they arguing about the gospel? No. Are they arguing about preferences in ministry?

Yeah. Just preferences. Don't you know that we can be petty? Can we be petty? We can. They could be too. They're arguing about whether or not to take another man along to the lion's den with them. Back into the fray.

Paul thinks it's going to drag them down. Barney thinks that the guy deserves a second chance. This is a personality conflict. And I want to point out, it's okay that Paul and Barnabas don't see eye to eye on this.

I mean, you know that's okay. The point of this passage is not that everybody just always gets along all the time. It's okay that they disagree. But there's a problem here. They're not going to respect each other's opinion.

And even the years of ministry together are not going to bring Paul and Barnabas to an agreement together. They're not going to be able to see past this difference. It's important to acknowledge though that scripture does not take sides here.

Scholars have poured time and energy and hours and hours and hours of study into this text trying to figure out who was right. But the text is silent on choosing who is right. Because that's not the purpose of this text.

How many of you know that in our human nature we want to drive towards the text being about us and our application. And so we look at the text and if we could determine who was right, then what would be our application from this text?

What would we walk away from this text with? Either one way or the other, right? We would be like, don't give people a second chance. That would be our application. If Paul is right, then don't give people a second chance.

And that would just be done with the text, right? Or if Barnabas was the one who was right, then give second chances and we're good to go. And we would just take their specific situation and rather than understanding the principle that what God wants to communicate is something about himself through this text rather than just tell us how to live or what to do.

And so often we look at the text, just give me a nugget, give me something I can do different this week instead of show me who God is. Show me the God of the text should be our call, should be what our heart beats for.

I want to know God deeper through this text, not just simply a list of rules. Could you give me one more thing to tack on the end of my to-do list this week? Boy, I hope you don't walk out of here with one more thing to do differently, but a bigger, broader picture of what God can do through faulty humans like us, like Paul, like Barnabas, that he can still work even despite our sinfulness.

I hope that that's what you get here. I was all a little bit of a sidetrack here and I got to get caught up, figure out where I was. So Paul and Barnabas separate. Paul and Barnabas separate. It's like the band is broken up and it always seems to be the drummer's fault.

Have you noticed that in the band? I can say that because Lee's not here this week, so our drummer's gone, so I just kind of throw that in. But what happens at the end of verse 39 and in verse 40 is redemptive.

It is going to be God purchasing things back in this situation and actually causing good in the midst of sinfulness, even in this tense situation. Because what we have here in our text is an illustration of how God can use our messes and turn them around.

You see, Barnabas is going to take John Mark and head to Cyprus. Now, if you remember, as I said earlier, John Mark had already gone through Cyprus. He had already developed relationships. Can't imagine that they didn't stop in and see how Sergius Paulus, the leader of the entire island, was doing when they got over there.

He's already there, or he's already been there, Barnabas has, and John Mark. So they revisit, and they go through the island. And as Barnabas boards that boat to depart Antioch to head over to the island of Cyprus, as he's on his way over, Barnabas literally sails out of the text of the book of Acts.

We're not going to see him again. This is the last thing that is recorded of this guy's life, is this disagreement, this wrangle with Paul. How many of you know that Paul and Barnabas have been reunited?

They're back together. But this is the last thing that we see of him. We're going to see more of John Mark. John Mark's going to appear, and not Barnabas. Paul sends for Silas back down in Jerusalem. Silas, he had just met recently at that council, and at the council, they kind of became buds, and they talked, and they interacted.