Acts 15:37

The Separation of Barnabas and PaulThe Second Missionary Journey of St. Paul Asia Minor, Acts 15:37 to Acts 16:8.

Acts 15:37. And Barnabas determined to take with them John, whose surname was Mark. Barnabas seems at once to have fallen in with the wishes of Paul, and to have consented to visit again with him those Gentile congregations they had gathered together in their first missionary journey; but Barnabas advised that they should take with them Mark again, as their trusted friend and companion. There is no doubt that Barnabas was influenced by the relationship of Mark to him; still, the conduct of Barnabas on this occasion is strictly in accordance with the rest of the acts of his life, so far as we are acquainted with them. The old kindness of heart which prompted him in old days to seek out Saul, the former persecutor of the followers of Jesus, and to plead his cause with the Jewish Christian leaders at Jerusalem, now induced him to forget Mark's former faint-heartedness, and to welcome him again as a fellow-labourer in the Master's cause.

In the all-seeing wisdom of God, the stern severity of Paul and the gentle love of Barnabas, on the one side seem to have deeply humbled, and on the other to have preserved from despondency, the hitherto weak and vacillating spirit of the young disciple, who became, under the tutelage of Barnabas, subsequently one of the brave Christian leaders of the first days.