Willing to Be a Barnabas?

You would think that upon returning to Jerusalem after his conversion that Paul would have been greeted as a hero: “Can you believe it? Our worst enemy has now become a follower of Jesus! Isn’t this glorious? Isn’t this wonderful? God has saved the notorious Saul, and he is now a fellow believer!” But that is not what happened at all. In fact, when Paul returned to Jerusalem, the church didn’t believe that he was really converted. They thought it was some kind of trap. Here he was, a new believer, and they didn’t think he was even converted.

Enter an unsung hero, Barnabas. Effectively the believers were saying, “You can’t come to our worship service, Saul. We don’t trust you.” But Barnabas essentially said, “Paul, you come with me.” Then he took him and brought him to the apostles.

That is what we need to do with new believers. We need to take them to church with us, because the greatest danger a new believer faces after making a commitment to Christ is falling through the cracks and going back to their old friends and their old ways. They need a brother or sister in Christ, an Ananias or a Barnabas who will take them and say, “You are coming with me to church.”

Someone did that for me. His name was Mark, and after I became a Christian, he took me to church and took me under his wing. I needed someone like that. Everyone wants to be a Paul or a Simon Peter, but who will be a Barnabas? It doesn’t matter whether you are a hero or an unsung hero; just don’t be a zero. Just do something, and realize that God has a place for each of us to be used for His glory.