Acts 4:36

Acts 4:36

Barnabas is described as a "good man, full of the Holy Ghost and of faith." Goodness, the Holy Ghost, faith these are the materials out of which sons of exhortation must be made if they would have the equivalent reading, "sons of consolation" registered against their names in the margin.

I. It is notable how Barnabas, after his great success at Antioch, goes to seek for Paul, and brings him there to join in the great harvest. No jealousy, you see, of St. Paul's superior gift. The son of consolation seems to have been absolutely free from all kinds of jealousy and envy; indeed, those people at Lystra were somehow impressed with his dignity and with his majestic bearing, for, though they valued Paul as the chief speaker, they identified Barnabas with Jupiter himself. The simple-minded, humble, unselfish man who perceives the great qualities of other men, and desires to turn those qualities to account for the glory of God, and who has no feeling of envy or jealousy in his own heart this is the highest type of man; at least, I know of nothing better, grander, or more Divine. There is in reality something gentle and lovable in the character of Barnabas, as it shows itself in the passage in his life, which seems open to criticism and blame. He quarrelled for a time, as we know, with St. Paul, and we may not positively say that he was right and Paul wrong; but certainly if Barnabas did err, it was because of his loving feeling towards one who was not unworthy of his love.

II. What Christian name could any one desire more distinctive, more honourable, more full of the spirit of the Gospel of Christ than "the son of consolation." Was it not as the son of consolation that the Son of God came down from heaven in the likeness of human flesh. And though to be a son of consolation is undoubtedly the supreme prerogative of the incarnate Son of God Himself, still in this as in other things, men redeemed by Christ and regenerated by the Holy Ghost, may follow at a distance and try to imitate their Lord. To preach glad tidings to the poor, to proclaim deliverance to the captives, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, to do those things which in the synagogue of Nazareth, Jesus Christ declared that He had been appointed to do who cannot follow Christ in doing acts at least something like these, and men who do these things are sons of consolation.

Bishop Harvey Goodwin, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xxi., p. 369.

References: Acts 4:36. J. Baines, Sermons,p. 227. Acts 4:36; Acts 4:37. F. A. Warmington, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xiv., p. 120; Plain Sermons by Contributors to "Tracts for the Times,"vol. iii., p. 139.