Acts 15:39

Acts 15:39. And the contention was so sharp between them, that they departed asunder one from the other. Neither would yield; they separated for ever. This is the last mention of the generous-hearted Barnabas in the ‘Acts.' However, if the two old friends and devoted servants of God p arted in anger, they soon forgot all bitterness; for, in the first Corinthian letter, Paul speaks in high terms of Barnabas as of one busy in the Master's service, while in later days he writes even of Mark as his fellow-labourer, as of one who was profitable to the ministry, and one of the causes of his (Paul's) comfort (Philemon 1:24; 2 Timothy 4:11; Colossians 4:10-11).

And so Barnabas took Mark, and sailed unto Cyprus. ‘If, as the shores of Asia lessened upon his sight, the spirit of prophecy had entered into the heart of the weak disciple, who had turned back when his hand was on the plough, and who had been judged, by the chiefest of Christ's captains, unworthy thenceforward to go forth with him to the work, how wonderful would he have thought it that by the lion symbol in future ages he was to be represented among men! How woeful, that the war-cry of his name should so often reanimate the rage of the soldier on those very plains where he himself had failed in the courage of the Christian, and so often dye with fruitless blood that very Cypriot Sea over whose waves, in repentance and shame, he was following the Son of Consolation!' (Ruskin, Stones of Venice, ‘The Sea Stories,' chap. 4).

In later times, we know Mark became once more the loved and trusted companion of Paul (see above for New Test. ref.). We find him with Peter at Babylon (1 Peter 5:13). In the closing days of Paul's life, he seems to have been with Timothy at Ephesus (2 Timothy 4:11). That he was long the trusted friend and secretary of Peter was the undisputed tradition of the early Church. Papias, writing very early in the second century, records how John the elder said: ‘Mark, being the interpreter of Peter, wrote down exactly whatever things he remembered, but yet not in the order in which Christ either spoke or did them, for he was neither a hearer nor a follower of the Lord's, but he was afterwards, as I (Papias) said, a follower of Peter.' Another record speaks of Mark as Peter's companion at Rome. Subsequently, church historians relate how Mark founded (probably organized) the Church of Alexandria, and became its bishop, and there endured a martyr's death.