Barnabas - Barnabas in The New Testament

Barnabas in The New Testament

Barnabas appears mainly in Acts, a Christian history of the early Christian church. He also appears in several of Paul's epistles.

Barnabas is one of the first teachers of the church at Antioch (Acts 13:1). Barnabas was a Levite. He was a native of Cyprus, where he possessed land (Acts 4:36, 37), which he sold, giving the proceeds to the church in Jerusalem. When Saint Paul returned to Jerusalem after his conversion, Barnabas took him and introduced him to the apostles (9:27). Easton, in his Bible Dictionary, supposes that they had been fellow students in the school of Rabbi Gamaliel.

The prosperity of the church at Antioch led the apostles and brethren at Jerusalem to send Barnabas there to superintend the movement. He found the work so extensive and weighty that he went to Tarsus in search of Paul, "an admirable colleague", to assist him. Paul returned with him to Antioch and labored with him for a whole year (Acts 11:25, 26). At the end of this period, the two were sent up to Jerusalem ( 44) with the contributions the church at Antioch had made for the poorer members of the Jerusalem church.

Shortly after they returned, bringing John Mark with them, they were appointed as missionaries to Asia Minor, and in this capacity visited Cyprus and some of the principal cities of Pamphylia, Pisidia, and Lycaonia (Acts 13:14). With the conversion of Sergius Paulus, Paul begins to gain prominence over Barnabas from the point where the name "Paul," his Roman name, is substituted for "Saul" (13:9); instead of "Barnabas and Saul" as heretofore (11:30; 12:25; 13:2, 7) we now read "Paul and Barnabas" (13:43, 46, 50; 14:20; 15:2, 22, 35); only in 14:14 and 15:12, 25 does Barnabas again occupy the first place, in the first passage with recollection of 14:12, in the last two, because Barnabas stood in closer relation to the Jerusalem church than Paul. St. Paul appears as the preaching missionary (13:16; 14:8-9, 19-20), whence the Lystrans regarded him as Hermes, St. Barnabas as Zeus (14:12). Returning from this first missionary journey to Antioch, they were again sent up to Jerusalem to consult with the church there regarding the relation of Gentiles to the church (Acts 15:2; Galatians 2:1). According to Gal. 2:9-10, Barnabas was included with Paul in the agreement made between them, on the one hand, and James, Peter, and John, on the other, that the two former should in the future preach to the pagans, not forgetting the poor at Jerusalem. This matter having been settled, they returned again to Antioch, bringing the agreement of the council that Gentiles were to be admitted into the church.

It is quite likely, however, that the epistle of Galatians was written prior to the Jerusalem council, and that it refers to a meeting between Paul, Barnabas, and Peter, James, and John that happened earlier. Much of the scholarship of the 1800s assumes that Galatia was a province to the north of the first missionary journey churches started through Paul and Barnabas' ministry as described in Acts 13-14. But archeology and recent scholarship accepts the fact that the province of Galatia included many of the first missionary journey churches. It would have been very strange indeed for Paul to have omitted the fact that the apostles and elders of the Jerusalem church had not laid circumcision as a requirement upon the Gentiles considering the topic of the epistle after it became a controversy in Galatia. It is more likely that the epistle was written some time before the Jerusalem council, and that teachers came from Jerusalem to Antioch teaching the need for it after Paul wrote his epistle to the Galatians, churches from the first missionary journey, addressing this issue.

After they had returned to Antioch from the Jerusalem council and after spending some time there (15:35), Paul asked Barnabas to accompany him on another journey (15:36). Barnabas wished to take John Mark along, but Paul did not, as he had left them on the former journey (15:37-38). The dispute ended by Paul and Barnabas taking separate routes. Paul took Silas as his companion, and journeyed through Syria and Cilicia; while Barnabas took John Mark to visit Cyprus (15:36-41). According to Hippolytus of Rome, John Mark is not Mark the Cousin of Barnabas, and Barnabas did not dispute with Paul because of personal favor to a blood relative, but due to his character as his nickname Barnabas ("Son of Encouragement") indicates.

Barnabas is not mentioned again by Luke in the Acts of the Apostles. However, in Gal. 2:13 a little more is learned about him, that he followed Peter's example of not eating with Gentiles; and from 1 Corinthians 9:6 it may be gathered that he continued to labor as missionary. It is believed that his argument with Paul was resolved.