CROSSING INTO THE FUTURE
Dear Friends,
I’ve always had a lot of time for Barnabas.
Real name Joseph, of course – one of a number of guys by that name recorded in the Scriptures as having had a part to play in the unfolding purpose of God: and each of them living up to their name. ‘May He add’ is how the name translates – and it’s quite striking that each of the biblical Josephs, albeit in very different ways, were the means by which the Lord ‘added’ to what He was doing: in each case they were like a ‘bridge’, the ‘musical passage that connects two sections of a song’.
Joseph, the over-bearing, teenage dreamer, who became the bridge into Egypt for the family of Abraham’s descendants and set the scene for the paradigmatic exodus.
Joseph, the carpenter from Nazareth, who became, with Mary, the bridge into our humanity for the eternal Son of God.
Joseph, the secret, Arimathean disciple of Jesus, who, despite his fears, boldly made use of his garden tomb and became the bridge between the death and resurrection of our Lord.
And Joseph, the Levite from Cyprus – aka Barnabas: along with Stephen, he became the crucial bridge over which the gospel would cross from its thoroughly Jewish roots and be planted in the fertile Gentile world.
His was not a headline-making story, but he was undoubtedly a pivotal figure in the progress of the gospel in its early years. Indeed, it’s at least arguable that the whole of the book of Acts hinges on that man’s ministry at Antioch: prior to that, the narrative centres on the witness in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, to which Jesus had referred (Acts 1.8); whereas subsequent to Barnabas’ ministry in Antioch, it’s the story of how that witness then spread ‘to the ends of the earth’.
Barnabas was a bridge, the musical passage connecting those two key ‘sections’ of the Lord’s expanding gospel song. I was going to suggest that his ministry at Antioch was something of a ‘stop-gap’ measure – for at least in its origins it was: not unlike the last nine years that I’ve been privileged to serve the Lord here at Gilcomston, which, at least at its start, was very much a ‘stop-gap’ sort of thing.
But perhaps a ‘bridge’ is the better way to view it: and the analogy with Antioch affords a helpful perspective on our present situation.
The church at Antioch was in a state of flux when Barnabas first arrived. It wasn’t exactly a ‘breakaway’ church, departing as such from the essentially Jewish ‘mother church’ in Jerusalem: but the folk who first comprised that Antiochian church had had their roots in ‘the Kirk’ of the day – and had left the Kirk in the wake of the crisis occasioned by Stephen’s bold and biblical stand on the truth as revealed by the Lord. It doesn’t take a genius to see the obvious parallels with ourselves!
They were still, understandably, both finding their feet as a church and getting their bearings in the strange and exciting new world in which they’d found themselves: and the ministry Barnabas exercised there was very much a ‘stop-gap’ sort of thing, a ‘prelude’ merely to the great orchestral symphony of the Gentile mission which would subsequently be launched from Antioch: a ‘prelude’ as necessary as it was timely, to be sure, but no more than a prelude to something substantially greater and significantly more far-reaching which was still to come.
You’ll see what I’m trying to suggest in teasing out the parallels! As I say, I think it’s a helpful analogy, enabling us to see these coming weeks not so much as a terminal point and much more (as we’ve often suggested) as a significant staging post.
Barnabas brought stability at a turbulent time, where the whole situation was potentially hugely volatile. That was the reason he found himself there – to secure for them all stability as the winds of the Spirit blew. It was, after all, a whole new world, and there wasn’t a ready-made manual for this sort of thing (any more than there’d been for ourselves a comprehensive manual on how to leave the denomination, and what to do when you’d left). Stephen had certainly paved the way with his clear-sighted thinking and Spirit-inspired discernment, translating the truths of the Scriptures into the changed and changing landscape of the post-resurrection world: and Barnabas was very much a kindred spirit with him.
His ministry was, initially at least, a stop-gap sort of thing, as I say, sent off up to Antioch to safeguard for the future all the progress in the gospel there had been. It involved him, first, in assessing the situation and seeing what the Lord was doing: and then, in the context of what was inevitably a fragile and fledgling new church, he exercised there a ministry of biblically-informed and Jesus-centred encouragement: “he encouraged them all to remain true to the Lord with all their hearts.’
His ministry there was a ‘pause’, as it were – a necessary pause in proceedings, as the remarkable explosion of gospel growth in the previous months required now a time of ‘stock-taking’, prayer and reflection: like the chance for a half-time team talk in a match of incessant intensity with a need now for tactical switches. Because however dramatic the previous months may have been – and they were certainly full of excitement and drama and change – the months and years which still lay ahead for the Antioch church would be more significant, vibrant and fruitful by far.
For these were changed and changing days for the early believers, days in which the former centripetal thrust of the work of God had been turned on its head and had become, overnight, essentially centrifugal: the gospel now no longer just the prerogative of Jews and focused on Jerusalem, but a gift of God for everyone, good news beyond compare for a lost and hungry world which was both biblically illiterate and spiritually inept. No small part of Barnabas’ ‘stop-gap’ ministry involved him thus in seeing just what the Lord was actually doing – and seeing what the next steps in securing that would be: articulating a vision and facilitating its outcome.
So off he went to Tarsus, a one-man, single-minded ‘search team’, who’d figured out exactly what the situation needed and hiked around the corner of the Mediterranean Sea to bring back Saul, the man whose gifts and call and ministry, he knew, would be the mighty instrument Christ used to drive His purpose forward in the vast and needy wastelands of the Gentile world. The ‘stop-gap’ man would prove in time to be that ‘bridge’: a bridge between the pentecostal music of the church’s early growth, and the astonishing crescendo of the mission to the Gentile world.
I wonder if these last nine years have not been like that ministry of Barnabas in Antioch. A ‘stop-gap’ sort of ministry to start with (was that not how it all began?), which time will tell became in truth a ‘bridge’ – with Nathan found to be the man whose gifts and call and ministry in Christ He’s pleased to use to move His purpose forward in the changed and challenging context of a culture, which in Scotland now is as biblically illiterate and as spiritually inept as the Gentile world of those early, first century days.
That’s how perhaps we’re needing to see what’s going on in these days. Not in any sense a terminal point: far more a major ‘staging post’, marking again in the grace of God a further, fresh and forward movement in the progress of the gospel, a Spirit-wrought expansion of fresh gospel growth through a man raised up with the God-given gifts commensurate with his call.
That’s the perspective I want to encourage you all to embrace. And integral to such a perspective, there are two very basic truths to which I want to point you.
The first is the grace of humility, a humble recognition that the work of God neither revolves around, nor depends upon, ourselves. It’s Christ’s work, and His church, and He is the one who orchestrates it all, such that the glory is always, emphatically His. We’re not to think of ourselves more highly that we ought, as Paul himself insisted in his letter to the church at Rome; but instead we’re to think of ourselves with ‘sober judgment’, recognizing simply God’s call upon our lives. And that means, as Paul went on to explain, that we learn to ‘honour one another above yourselves’ – or, as he puts it in his letter to the church at Philippi, ‘in humility count others more significant than yourselves.’
Such was the spirit which Barnabas had. A man of no small means himself, and already, it seems, a senior man in the early church, he nonetheless saw that he was but a bridge by which the Lord would launch His ‘stormtrooper’ Saul upon the Gentile world: he humbly, and rightly, counted Saul of Tarsus more significant than himself. As John the Baptist had been quick to acknowledge in regard to the ministry of Jesus – ‘He must increase, but I must decrease’ – so Barnabas, too, was glad to give place to the one whom the Lord had so clearly raised up to be His ‘chosen instrument to proclaim (My) name to the Gentiles.’
That’s how the cause of the gospel invariably grows. Think of how it was in Jonathan’s life, a thousand years before. The crown prince of Israel, radiant, bold and beloved by his men, he nonetheless saw that it was David rather than he himself whom the Lord would use to move His purpose forward in dramatic style. For all his notable credentials, Jonathan was willing to serve as but a bridge: a bridge between the great, revitalizing work of Samuel’s day, and the stunning expansion of the kingdom in the days of David’s leadership.
He went out, from the palace to the desert, with one intent in mind, to ‘strengthen David’s hand in God’ – a pivotal act of Christ-like grace which kept David going and ensured that David would rise to the role God had for him, and usher in the remarkable growth of the kingdom. And the next we read of Jonathan – he’s lying dead on the mountains of Gilboa: the Christ-like grace of humility, laying aside his majesty and in so doing becoming a bridge into God’s future.
It’s that ‘mind of Christ’ we’re exhorted, all of us, to have, that mind whereby He ‘made Himself nothing’: that’s how the work of God invariably progresses. The grace of such humility.
The second basic truth inherent in the narrative of Barnabas’ life is the ministry of encouragement. ‘Barnabas’, of course, was not his name so much as the ‘nickname’ by which he was known, descriptive of the quality which more than any other he displayed: he was ‘the son of encouragement’.
Read through his story and you see how invariably it was that he brought encouragement to others. To the early disciples through his glad and generous giving. To the church at Antioch by his faithful, Jesus-centred teaching.
And to Saul of Tarsus, by his warm and unwavering support of the man from the start. For most of the early believers were more than a little wary (to say the least!) when the now-converted Saul had first pitched up in Jerusalem. Not so Barnabas: he went to Saul, brought him to the apostles, boldly and unreservedly commended his credentials to them all, and helped them see how crucial in the purposes of God this man would subsequently be.
It was exactly the same in Antioch. He brought Saul to the believers there, and enabled them there to find from the start how wholly transforming this ‘servant of the Word’ would be: so transforming, indeed, that within a year the city of Antioch had to coin a new word to describe these vibrant believers!
Barnabas was an encourager: Saul’s number one supporter from the start. And I’d want you to know that that’s how I am in relation to Nathan Owens’ appointment: I’ll be Nathan’s number one supporter, grateful to God for His Spirit’s work in Nathan’s heart, for His evident call on Nathan’s life, for the gifts He’s bestowed in pursuit of that call, and for the hand of the Lord on Nathan’s continuing ministry. He is Christ’s man to take us into the future here, and I dare to believe that the future God has purposed through His people here will be far more expansive than any of us might at present imagine!
The constant encouragement you’ve given myself has been a boon beyond all words: be careful, therefore, always to encourage Nathan warmly too, right from the outset, along with all his family; and rejoice with me in all that in the coming days the Lord will yet accomplish in our midst!
Yours in the glad service of our Lord Jesus Christ,
Jeremy Middleton