This story quite honestly is a troubling one to me. Can I say that? Is it okay for me to say that? The reason it troubles me is because up until this point in the book of Acts, when the church had a disagreement (and they had some very significant ones), they worked through them and came to a solution which kept unity among the church. Yet in this circumstance, Paul and Barnabas, after all they had been through together; missionary partners working side by side successfully spreading the good news of Jesus Christ to both Jews and Gentiles. When they decided to return to the mission field and check on the people who had come to the Lord during their travels, they couldn’t get passed a certain issue, and it eventually led to their parting ways. The dividing issue was should they bring John Mark again on their trip. It seems like such an insignificant issue.
If you’ve been reading the Book of Acts this summer, you will remember John Mark, because when Paul and Barnabas started out on their first missionary journey, they took him along with them, but after their first stop to the island of Cyprus, they went to the mainland (Perga in Pamphylia, modern day Turkey), and Acts 13:13 says Mark left them to return to Jerusalem. When we read Acts 13:13 it doesn’t really make it sound like a big deal. It just sounds like Mark had to return to Jerusalem, perhaps it was even missions related. Yet when we read Paul’s comments in our passage this morning we realize Mark had bailed out on them. Our passage says, he "deserted" them. He left unexpectedly. We don’t know why John Mark bailed. He could have had cold feet going to a foreign land which he had never been before. Maybe the mission work was harder then he thought. Perhaps he was home sick and wanted to see his family back in Jerusalem (we know his mother lived there from because the early disciples gathered at her house to pray for Peter when he was in jail, Acts 12:12), or perhaps there was a Jewish festival going on, like Passover, which all Jews were supposed to participate in. We don’t know why he left but we do know that Paul was not happy about it, he was very disappointed in Mark’s departure, and he did not like the idea of taking Mark along only to be disappointed again and have him leave during a crucial part of their mission work. It’s kind of like the saying, "fool me once shame on you, fool me twice...shame on me" (for falling for it again).
The idea of taking Mark along was so objectionable to Paul that these good friends, partners in mission, decided to part ways. What was once a great team was now divided. Both men were passionate about reaching people for Jesus, and making disciples but they couldn’t come to an agreement regarding Mark. Barnabas took Mark and went back to his home island of Cyprus, while Paul took Silas to the Christians they helped lead to the Lord in his home region of Pisidia (Turkey) [Show map].
Disappointment and Disagreement
It’s not just their failure to work out the issue which bothers me. The reason this story doesn’t sit well with me is because it doesn’t seem very grace filled and Spirit driven. They don’t stop to pray, like at other times. They just argue, make a decision, and go with it. In the back of my mind I wonder, but what is God’s will, and where is God’s grace toward Mark? I don’t blame Paul for feeling the way he did, I probably would have felt the same way if I were in his situation. But was Paul responding out of the grace filled leading of the Holy Spirit or out of his fleshly disappointment in Mark? Yes, I know Paul and Silas went on to do some great missionary work together, expanding the kingdom of God, but what about Mark?
Really this brings up the question for us, what do we do when other Christians disappoint us or fail us? All of us have had another person disappoint us, even other Christians (for the sake of this message I focus on Christians because they too follow Christ and are filled with the Holy Spirit). At some point in our life, a pastor, a parent, a grandparent, a brother or sister, a friend, someone from church had disappointed us. They didn’t live up to our expectations, they made a mistake, or perhaps worst of all they fell from grace and sinned. What do we do? Do we just part ways? Do we put up those invisible emotional walls to block this person out? You know what I’m talking about, we start distancing ourselves from this person emotionally and if possible physically, talking with them less and less, avoiding them. Or do we let them back in and trust them? Where do we draw the line?
I remember when I was in college participating in a campus ministry (which is basically a UM church on campus) and my pastor at the time invited my friend John and I over to his house, which wasn’t a big deal since we were pretty close with him. When we got there he seemed fairly troubled. You can tell when someone has something on their mind they want to share. And he shared with us that he was leaving the ministry because he had an "inappropriate relationship" with a college student. How do you respond to something like that?! What do you say when someone you look up to, who believed in you disappoints you? I don’t remember what I said, I just remember being shell shocked. So...I know disappointment. It hurts. And the closer they are to us the more painful it is. It’s easy to distance ourselves.
Being a Barnabas, Offering Encouragement and Grace
Paul’s decision put up a wall, he didn’t want Mark on his team. It’s not that he didn’t like Mark, he just didn’t trust him. He made a pragmatic (common sense) decision because the spreading of the gospel shouldn’t be compromised by one person’s lack of commitment. But I can’t help but wonder, did Paul make the right decision? How do we balance pragmatism with grace when it comes to Christians who disappoint us? Paul leaned toward pragmatism. Barnabas leaned toward grace, he believed Mark deserved a second chance because he had a lot to offer the church.
How do we know when to offer grace and encouragement and when to be pragmatic and not to be "fooled" again? I wish I had an easy 3 step process, but I don’t. We need the discernment of the Holy Spirit, and the discerning of other Christians. It is a matter of prayer. Having said that, there are a few markers which can help us. We can ask: 1) Is there evidence of sorrow over past behavior? 2) Has there been a change of behavior? 3) Has this person grown spiritually closer to Christ, or have they matured spiritually after the incident?
If yes, than we need to be willing to extend the same grace and mercy Jesus extends to us. Even though we continue to sin (hopefully less and less), and we disappoint Jesus with our selfishness rather than doing unto others, yet when we repent (make an effort to turn from sin), and ask for forgiveness, he forgives (1 Jo. 1:8) and renews a right Spirit within us. Even though we make mistakes he looks past ours . Shouldn’t we do the same for other Christians? Paul himself writes in Ephesians 4:32 "Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you."
I was just reading an article this week from a pastor who had a hard working tithing couple in his congregation who came to him one day and (as he writes) "with folded arms and wrinkled foreheads made it clear that if they continued to let a certain young lady come to church, they would leave," along with their money of course. This young lady had hurt their daughter as well as others in the church including the pastors daughter, but the pastor was reminded of the words of Jesus about forgiving someone 70 times 7 if they repented and asked for forgiveness, and he reminded the couple that this young girl appeared to have genuinely repented, and demonstrated sorrow for what she had done. So no, he wouldn’t tell her to leave. The couple left the church hardened, angry, unwilling to offer grace, yet the young lady is still walking with Jesus because a church offered her grace. Do our actions demonstrate we are persons of grace?
Paul seemed to forget his own story of grace extended to him. I’m not just talking about the saving grace of God through Jesus Christ, but the grace of other Christians. You may remember that Paul (Saul at the time) was a persecutor of the church, but when the resurrected Jesus Christ appeared to him on the road to Damascus, he was changed, transformed into a new person by grace. Yet even though he had this radical conversion, when he went to Jerusalem to meet the leadership of the church, they wouldn’t touch him with a 10’ foot pole. They were afraid it was a trick to lure them out to be thrown in jail or worse, maybe he was just pretending to be a Christian to get them, like a sting operation where Paul was undercover. They didn’t realize he really had been changed by Jesus. But someone extended grace to Paul, listen to what the Scripture says he did.
NIV Acts 9:26 When he [Saul] came to Jerusalem, he tried to join the disciples, but they were all afraid of him, not believing that he really was a disciple. 27 But Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles. He told them how Saul on his journey had seen the Lord and that the Lord had spoken to him, and how in Damascus he had preached fearlessly in the name of Jesus.
When no one else would believe in Saul (Paul), who believed in him? Barnabas. He extended grace to him and stuck up for him even bringing him to the Apostles. Do you know that Barnabas wasn’t even his real name? His real name was Joseph but the Apostles called him Barnabas which means "Son of Encouragement" (Acts 4:36). Here was Barnabas being an encourager.
Yet I find it ironic that it was Paul, the one who had been shown grace, who was now refusing to give the young man, Mark, a second shot in the mission field. And once again it was Barnabas who believed in Mark and wanted to encourage him in his leadership and his passion for missionary work. Even though Barnabas had discerned Paul’s (then Saul) transformation, Paul did not trust Barnabas’ discernment on Mark. It’s important to listen to those around us who have the gift of discernment, who are good judge of character. Paul wouldn’t listen to Barnabas, even though he had a track record of being good at discerning people. Sometimes we get so emotionally wrapped up in a situation that we fail to have perspective. It helps to have another person whom we respect, who is a good judge of character. I know for me it’s my wife because she’s has a gift of discernment. When I am not sure
With my pastor who had an "inappropriate relationship" he had invited my friend and I over that day as a way of showing his regret, his sorrow for the decision he had made. Fortunately, he went on to reconcile with his wife, but he did leave the ministry. Unfortunately, very few of us students or even his colleagues extended grace to him because we were caught up in our disappointment. The pastor of another denomination also at our campus ministry, and a close colleague of his, was so upset she wouldn’t let it go. She continued to be very angry and her bitterness was obvious not just toward him, but to others, including the next UM pastor who had to part ways with her ministry.
The Rest of the Story
Kind of like Paul Harvey’s the rest of the story, what happened to that young man Mark whom Barnabas had extended grace and encouragement? We never hear about Barnabas or Mark for the rest of the book of Acts, because it focuses on Paul and his mission work, so we don’t know for sure what happened after their parting of ways. But from what we can piece together through Paul’s letters in the NT it is very clear that Paul had a change of attitude about Mark, and that Mark became an important leader and helper in Paul’s mission work.
At the end of two of Paul’s letters in the Bible, Colossians and Philemon, he writes:
Colossians 4:10 My fellow prisoner Aristarchus sends you his greetings, as does Mark, the cousin of Barnabas. (You have received instructions about him; if he comes to you, welcome him.)
Philemon 23 Epaphras, my fellow prisoner in Christ Jesus, sends you greetings. 24 And so do Mark, Aristarchus, Demas and Luke, my fellow workers.
In other words when Paul wrote both of those letters, Mark was there with him, helping him in his mission work.
In the last letter Paul wrote before his death to his fellow missionary and spiritual son Timothy, he writes "Only Luke is with me. Get Mark and bring him with you, because he is helpful to me in my ministry (2 Timothy 4:11)."
The same Paul who refused to take Mark with him on his second missionary journey because he was afraid he would desert him actually asks Timothy to get Mark and bring Mark to him because of how helpful he was to Paul’s ministry. Notice he didn’t say, Mark will be helpful to be in my ministry, but he is helpful. Somewhere in the time between the division of Paul and Barnabas and the writing of 2 Timothy, approximately 18 years later, Paul had a change of heart toward Mark. Mark, through the encouragement and grace of Barnabas, became helpful to the ministry of the church in its missionary work of sharing the Good News of Jesus Christ. Paul even wanted Mark to be with him during his last days on earth, he was that important to him. According to tradition, it was the same Mark who went on to write the Gospel attributed to his name in our Bible, which is thought by scholars to be the first of the four gospels written.
As it turned out Barnabas was right after all to give Mark a second chance. What would have happened to Mark if Barnabas hadn’t believed in him? Paul would have missed a great helper in the mission field, and we might not have Mark’s gospel, which became the groundwork for the gospel of Matthew and Luke.
What might the result be if we extend grace and encouragement to those believers who have disappointed us? What might God do in their life through our act of grace? Is there a Christian(s) whom God has brought to your mind that you have written off, you have put barriers up to, or thought about parting ways with? Might God be inviting you to be His avenue of grace to them?
