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Reading Acts 15:36-41 where Paul and Barnabas disagree with one another over John Mark and end up going in opposite directions as they continue the work in the gospel. Visit wwutt.com for all our videos!
Paul and Barnabas were such a great team together, but then there was some sort of division between them that they end up going their separate ways. We can learn from this division that we wouldn't repeat it when we understand the text.
This is when we understand the text, a daily study in the word of Christ for the sake of the faith of God's elect and their knowledge of the truth, which accords with godliness. Find all our videos and other ministry resources at www .utt .com.
Here once again is Pastor Gabe.
Thank you, Becky. In our study of the book of Acts, we come back to chapter 15. We have finished studying about the Jerusalem council, but there's one last bit of drama that happens here at the end of the chapter, where Paul and Barnabas have a disagreement with one another and end up going their separate ways.
Let me read here verses 36 to 41, hear the word of the Lord. And after some days, Paul said to Barnabas, let us return and visit the brothers in every city where we proclaimed the word of the Lord and see how they are.
Now, Barnabas wanted to take with them John called Mark, but Paul thought best not to take with them one who had withdrawn from them in Pamphylia and had not gone with them to the work.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.
And from this point on, Paul will be with Silas. And we get to chapter 16, they find Timothy who joins their missionary group and then they go on to Philippi, where we have that famous account of Paul and Silas being wrongfully accused, thrown in prison.
There's an earthquake, the Philippian jailer gets saved. We'll begin reading on that chapter tomorrow. But in the meantime, as we finish up chapter 15, this is the end of a years long team up. Remember that it was Barnabas who first believed in the apostle Paul.
Barnabas who was beloved by the apostles, he goes to Antioch and is sharing the gospel there. And there are many who are coming to faith. Barnabas witnesses how the Holy Spirit is moving among them. And even Gentiles are being brought into the kingdom of God.
Barnabas actually left the work that was being done there in Antioch and went to Tarsus to find Paul. This was after Paul's conversion, though he had gone away into Arabia and then returned to Tarsus for a time, it was Barnabas that goes and finds him.
And though the text doesn't tell us why, Barnabas just knew Paul was gonna be perfect for this work in Antioch. So he brings Paul there. They spent over a year there sharing the gospel, seeing the church grow.
And then they are commissioned to go out and spread the gospel elsewhere among Gentiles. Then you have Paul's first missionary journey. What we have chronicled for us in the book of Acts are four missionary journeys.
This is the first and the shortest one. They end up going around through the Southern portion of Asia Minor and then back around to Antioch. They go back through and then even appoint elders in all those churches that they had been in.
And this is a year's long work. Paul and Barnabas have made quite the team, but suddenly there's just this, well, we might see it as a minor disagreement, but the text tells us this is a sharp disagreement between Paul and Barnabas over John Mark.
It looks like such a little thing. Why this causing such a division between us? And again, the text doesn't even really tell us. We don't get any dialogue between the two of them as to why this was such a heated point of contention, but it results in Barnabas and Mark teaming up and going one direction, and then Paul and Silas teaming up and going another direction.
So they are actually doubling their efforts and more people are probably hearing the gospel and being saved, but that doesn't justify the attitude between Paul and Barnabas that led to the division in this way.
It would have been great if they had decided, hey, why don't we go in different directions? Like we'll take this work that we've accomplished and let's cover more ground. So you pick someone and then I'll pick someone and we'll just see how this goes.
And so Barnabas ends up taking his cousin, by the way. Mark is his cousin. I'll come back to that in a moment. And then Paul teams up with Silas. So yeah, the church ends up benefiting from this. More people get saved.
More people hear the gospel and the church grows, but couldn't it have been through a more friendly transaction than what we have here at the end of the book of Acts? This is one of those areas where I believe that Paul was wrong.
And I think that Paul even acknowledges this later on in some other letters of his, not just one, but a few letters. So we'll consider some of that text too. Let me come back to verse 36. After some days, Paul said to Barnabas, let us return and visit the brothers in every city where we proclaim the word of the Lord and see how they are.
Now, this would actually be their third visit back to some of those cities because they had gone to some of those places, shared the gospel, many people came to Christ, many Gentiles come to the Lord and churches are planted there.
And then they would go on and then they would kind of backtrack through, visit those same cities again, appointing elders as we had read and encouraging the brethren. So they're wanting to go back through some of those cities and encourage them again.
Now, nothing wrong with that because this was certainly during a time of great persecution. You wanted to see that those who had come to faith were continuing in the faith. And we see that from some of Paul's letters later on, how he would send Timothy or Titus to bring him a report on how the people were doing and then finding that they had been encouraged.
And so then Paul's heart is rejoicing since those Christians there are persevering even in the midst of hardship. This was especially the case with the church in Thessalonica because Paul wasn't able to stay with them for very long.
And he sends Timothy to check on them. Timothy comes back and gives this report. And Paul says in 1 Thessalonians 3, 6, now that Timothy has come to us from you and has brought us the good news of your faith and love and reported that you always remember us kindly and you long to see us as we long to see you for this reason brothers in all our distress and affliction, we have been comforted about you through your faith.
So Paul was so very good to follow up with those churches and ensure that those believers are encouraged and continuing in the faith. And this became of great encouragement to him as well. The work and the labor that he did in those cities, even the persecution that he faced was not in vain because all of those brethren that came to faith proved themselves to be genuine and faithful and that they were continuing in this faith, in the gospel that Paul had first preached to them.
So we see this a lot with the apostle Paul. It's not unusual for him to want to go back through and visit those places where churches had been planted. But Parnibus, I combined their names together. Their team up was so good and so effective that they deserve to be called Parnibus or Barn-a-Paul.
Anyway, so Barnabas wanted to take with them John called Mark. And as I said, John Mark is Barnabas's cousin. This is the same John Mark we've read about previously in Acts, his mother Mary had a home where the church was gathering for prayer when Peter had been arrested by Herod and was thrown in prison.
We read about that previously. So that was John Mark's mother, Mary. We also had read about how John Mark was a coworker with Peter. Peter was, well, John Mark was there in the house when Peter came to the house.
So we see how they were acquainted with one another. Peter mentions John Mark in one of his letters as having been with him and as theorized by many was one of Peter's scribes. Peter doesn't explicitly say that, but in 1 Peter 5, 13, at the end of his first letter, he says, by Silvanus, a faithful brother, as I regard him, I have briefly written to you exhorting and declaring that this is the true grace of God.
So Silvanus would have been the scribe of Paul's first letter. He says, she who is at Babylon, who is likewise chosen, sends you greetings and so does Mark, my son. Greet one another with the kiss of love, peace to all of you who are in Christ.
And so it is theorized that Mark, who is also the author of the gospel of Mark, was a scribe of Peter's and what Mark effectively wrote as the gospel of Mark is the gospel the way that Peter would proclaim it in the gospel work that Peter would do.
So that's what Mark wrote down as an understudy to Peter. But as I mentioned, Mark is also the cousin of Barnabas. And we get this from Colossians 4 .10. We're at the end of Paul's letter to the Colossians.
He says, Aristarchus, my fellow prisoner, greets you and Mark, the cousin of Barnabas, concerning whom you have received instructions. If he comes to you, welcome him. Now, this would have been several years after these things that we're reading about here in Acts chapter 13.
I think like 10 to 15 years, sorry, not Acts 13, Acts 15, but about 10 to 15 years after the Jerusalem council is when Paul had written to the Colossians. So Paul is reconciled with Mark before then. You'll know that, or you're probably familiar with the fact that at the end of 2 Timothy, Paul mentions that Mark was very useful to him.
This was when Paul knew that he was going to be led away to death. He knew his martyrdom was coming soon. And so he's giving some final instructions to Timothy and regarding Mark, he says, this is 2 Timothy 4 .11, get Mark and bring him with you, for he is very useful to me for ministry.
It's interesting that Paul says that. And often that verse is used to say, see, Paul and Mark eventually reconciled. But we know that Paul and Mark reconciled long before that because of the way that Paul mentions Mark at the end of Colossians.
Again, Mark, the cousin of Barnabas, concerning whom you have received instructions, if he comes to you, welcome him. So Mark is already, he has already been welcomed back into these groups of missionaries that Paul is utilizing and sending out to different places.
So for whatever reason, Paul did not trust Mark at the end of Acts 15. Within a few years time, they will be reconciled with one another and Mark becomes someone that is useful to Paul in the work that continues to be done.
So this unfortunate division that happens here, but eventually it does work out. I have another theory concerning Paul and Mark's relationship and something that Paul said to somebody else. Let me wait on that because I got a few more things to work through here, but I'll present to you another theory concerning this relationship between Paul and Mark.
But as I said, I think this was a mistake on Paul's part. He did wrong here and should not have regarded Mark in this way. And as we can see, especially with the way that Paul talks about him at the end of Colossians and at the end of 2 Timothy, Mark does prove himself to be faithful and the way Peter refers to him also at the end of 1 Peter 5.
Mark very obviously becomes one of the most influential people in the first century church. He writes an entire gospel. Matthew, Mark, the second book in the New Testament is written by this guy that Paul had trouble trusting.
And remember, this goes back to Acts 13. This was where Acts 13 played into this. So in Acts 13, verse 13, Paul and his companions set sail from Paphos and came to Perga in Pamphylia. And John left them and returned to Jerusalem.
But they, Paul and Barnabas, went on from Perga and came to Antioch and Pisidia. So that's the mention right there where John Mark, he's mentioned earlier in the chapter as not John the apostle, but John Mark.
So that's the moment when he left them. They came to Perga in Pamphylia and John left them and returned to Jerusalem. The text doesn't tell us why, but for whatever reason John Mark left, this did not sit well with Paul.
So that this comes back up again when Barnabas wants to take John Mark with them and Paul thought it best not to take with them. The one who had withdrawn from them in Pamphylia and had not gone with them to the work.
That was verse 38. So what had happened there? We don't know, again, no dialogue, no further narration that tells us what happened. Did Mark just get homesick and he wanted to go back to Jerusalem because that's where Mark lived.
Remember that Peter, after his imprisonment, goes to the house of Mary, John Mark's mother, which was right there in Jerusalem. So that's where Mark was from. Did he, was he intimidated? Was it, was the work too hard?
Did he get afraid somehow? Again, nothing is said to us at all, but whatever the details are, it just did not sit well with Paul and he did not want to take Mark with him since Mark had left the work in Pamphylia.
It was not enough to dissuade Barnabas. Now, of course, John Mark is Barnabas's cousin, but Barnabas very clearly has good discernment when it comes to picking who needs to be part of this missionary work.
And you think that Paul would concede to Barnabas's point on that because Barnabas was the one that found Paul, brought him to the apostles after his conversion, and then goes and retrieves him to bring him to Antioch and do the missionary work that was there.
Barnabas, I called him Barnabas again, Barnabas very clearly, at least I would say it for me, Barnabas clearly for me is a good judge of character. And I don't know that Paul is. I have some suspicions there.
What if Paul actually is not really a good judge of character? So I mentioned the end of Colossians where Paul is mentioning several names to the Colossians there. One of the guys that Paul mentions is this dude, Paul says is Demas.
Luke, the beloved physician greets you as does Demas, Colossians 4 .14. Who is Demas? Do you remember what happens with Demas? Well, at the end of 2 Timothy, Paul says about Demas that he abandoned me and he went to Thessalonica because he was too in love with this world.
So Paul didn't wanna take Mark who ends up proving himself faithful, but he takes along this guy named Demas who ends up abandoning Paul in his darkest hour. And by all accounts appears to have left the faith entirely, walked off the mission field and went to Thessalonica because he loved the world more than he loved the kingdom of God.
So it makes me wonder, this among some other things makes me wonder if Paul actually had trouble discerning good character in a person. He passes on John Mark, he accepts Demas who ends up really burning Paul in the end.
So I think that Paul is wrong here. When there was this sharp disagreement that arose between he and Barnabas, why would he just not trust Barnabas? And like I said, Mark eventually does prove himself faithful.
So 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. Remember they're departing from Jerusalem.
So you have the brothers there that include the elders and the apostles who commend to them to go on by the grace of the Lord to keep doing this missionary work that Paul has been called to do. And he went through Syria and Cilicia strengthening the churches, revisiting those churches that he had been in before.
And then we're gonna see Paul expand even farther. We get to his second missionary journey as we come into Acts chapter 16, which we will begin tomorrow. I mentioned to you, I had one other theory that I wanted to share concerning Paul.
Not only do I think that Paul regretted not taking John Mark with him, but I think he even used that as a lesson when addressing Philemon about Philemon's slave named Onesimus. Now, if you're familiar with the book of Philemon, remember that Philemon had a slave.
His name was Onesimus. That guy also happens to be mentioned at the end of Colossians. Onesimus is in Colossians four because it would have been Onesimus who was delivering the letter that came to the Colossians.
But Onesimus had stolen from his master Philemon. He abandoned Philemon and ends up in the company of Paul in Rome. And it's there Onesimus becomes a Christian and Paul ends up appointing Onesimus to the work that he is doing, even delivering letters on behalf of Paul.
But because Onesimus had stolen from Philemon and Paul knew Philemon, he sends Onesimus back to Philemon that they could be reconciled. And when Paul is talking to Philemon about reconciling with his slave, whom he now needs to consider as his brother in the Lord.
Paul says this in Philemon verse 10, I appealed to you for my child Onesimus whose father I became in my imprisonment. Formerly he was useless to you, but now he is indeed useful to you and to me. I am sending him back to you, sending my very heart.
Now, I just have to wonder, and this is a theory, okay? This is a theory on my part. I'm speculating here just based on the language that is used. I know that saying that Onesimus is useful is a play off of his name because that's what Onesimus means.
So there is a play off of his name. But also consider what Paul said about John Mark in 2 Timothy chapter four, get Mark and bring him with you for he is very useful to me for ministry. It's actually the same word that's being used there with regards to Onesimus.
And I just have to wonder, and here's my theory. I just have to wonder if the way that Paul words this with Philemon is almost as if to say to Philemon, don't make the same mistake that I made with John Mark.
Because Paul describes John Mark the same way. He is very useful to me. He describes Onesimus this way to Philemon. He is useful to you. Paul is acknowledging his error and making sure that Philemon doesn't commit the same one, but receives a brother in the Lord and puts him to good work, not as a slave, but now as coworkers together for the kingdom of God in Christ.
And that's my theory, that Paul even learns this lesson to pass it on to somebody else, not to let there be a division caused between you and Onesimus like there was between me and Barnabas or between me and John Mark.
Wonderful to see that these men all eventually reconciled, but we do need to be gracious and think the best of one another when it comes to what we do together as brothers and sisters in the Lord. You know, we can easily excuse this as, well, it turned out to be good because Paul and Barnabas end up accomplishing twice as much work because they went in two different directions.
Yes, but that's by the providence of God. That doesn't mean that these men were in the right when there is this sharp disagreement between them. Oh, that they could have come to this in a more brotherly agreement rather than disagreement, but we need to be patient with one another and where we are wronged acknowledging, sorry, where we wrong, we acknowledge that wrong and we would desire to resolve it and continue as brothers and sisters in the Lord.
I think that's a lesson that we can even take from this short little narrative that we have here at the end of Acts chapter 15. Brotherly love, let's display it among us. In the character of Christ who has received us as brothers and it is through Christ that we have been adopted as children in the kingdom of God.
He who died and rose again on our behalf has brought us into the family of God as his children. Let us continue as brothers and sisters in his example. Heavenly father, we thank you for the goodness that you've shown to us, that you have made us brothers and sisters in Christ and may we continue to labor together for the advancement of your kingdom, that we would grow each other in sanctification and also sharing the gospel with others that they too may hear of the good news of Christ, believe in him and be saved.
We thank you for your goodness and grace in Jesus name, amen.
Thank you for listening to When We Understand The Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. If you'd like to support this ministry, visit our website, www .wutt .com and click on the gift tab in the top right corner of the page.
Join us again tomorrow as we continue our Bible study When We Understand The Text.