1. Separate Ways (15:36-41)
Luke has portrayed the church behaving wisely and faithfully in dealing with the circumcision controversy. But he isn't painting an idealised picture of the church, for he follows up with an incident that shows two great friends and missionary partners, falling out and separating.
Their disagreement centred on John Mark, who accompanied them for some of their first missionary journey but left them to go back to Jerusalem. When Paul suggests revisiting the churches, Barnabas wants to take Mark but Paul disagrees.
Both points of view are understandable. Mark was Barnabas' nephew; he could argue that he knows him and he won't let them down again. Paul, on the other hand, could argue that he needs to gain not simply their trust again but the trust of the churches. That he accepts that Mark can recover is clear when he later speaks well of him (2 Tim 4:11). He isn't saying, 'One strike and you're out' but he is concerned about his suitability.
Is there anything in what Luke says that inclines toward one view and not the other? In v.38 he speaks of Mark having "deserted them"; that word is a very strong one and implies defection or apostasy. That isn't saying Mark renounced the faith but it does show how serious his going back had been. He had abandoned them in the work. And, following the split, we read that the church at Antioch commended Paul and Silas to the grace of God, which perhaps indicates they felt he was more right than Barnabas.
But, as we saw last time, it isn't enough to be right; how we handle ourselves is also very important. Which makes it very sad that Paul and Barnabas "had...a sharp disagreement".
They didn't simply have opposing views but they fell out over them. It goes without saying that we will not always agree with each other; the Christian life is not an exact science and judgements will be necessary.
But where we differ in opinion, we must be mature enough to handle that without the kind of sharpness spoken of here. "It is often hard to voice disagreement within a church, for fear of appearing out of step with the 'truth', or out of kilter with the majority. How good it would be to model the kind of unity which demonstrates to a watching world that Christians don't always have to agree, or conform, to live in love." Mark Greene, LICC's Connecting with Culture, w/e 28/3/03
This is a reminder that even the best, most faithful Christians have their flaws. Paul and Barnabas may be heroes but they are fallen heroes. We need to learn from their weaknesses as well as their strengths.
This scene raises the question of what to do when you cannot reach agreement over an issue. Should one have given way for the sake of the work? In matters of judgement and not principle, that is something we ought to seriously consider. But the sad truth is, their disagreement was so sharp it was almost impossible for them stay together in the work.
Although we can say that in God's providence the situation is used to move the work onto two fronts rather than one, it's hard not to go away from this scene with a heavy heart. It's a reminder to us that we need to pray for ourselves and for all Christian workers that we would work out our differences in grace, with mutual submission and for the glory of God.
2. Paul: Team Player
For some, this scene might support their view that Paul was not a team player, that he was a loner and wanted to be in the limelight. Two things that Luke reports here show that to be a wrong conclusion.
Firstly, with Barnabas choosing to go to Cyprus, Paul asks Silas to go with him on his journey and to share in the work of "strengthening the churches" (v.41). This choice of Silas is clearly a good one. Paul isn't after someone to simply be his bag-carrier; here is a man with a proven ministry, one who will be able to help Paul to explain the letter from Jerusalem. He was also a Roman citizen which would come in useful (see 16:37f).
Secondly, Paul wants to take Timothy with them on the journey (16:3). Some more seasoned campaigners can only see faults in the young; not Paul! Here is someone committed to training younger men and who later encourages Timothy to do the same (2 Tim. 2:2). But it must be the right person at the right stage of maturity. Timothy was ready for it, as the churches recognised; in Paul's view, John Mark wasn't.
Paul wasn't a loner. His passion for God's glory meant he wanted to see churches being established and strengthened. For that to be accomplished, it needed others to share the work but care had to be taken in choosing those people.
3. Paul: All things to all men
So Paul, Silas and Timothy carry on the work of strengthening the churches, delivering the letter from Jerusalem. It is highly significant that wherever the letter was shared, Luke records the fact that the churches were helped by it (15:31,41; 16:4f). This is further confirmation that the Lord had been in the decision and was honouring the wisdom he had given.
But there is something that Paul did that has raised many an eyebrow. In 16:3 he had Timothy circumcised "because of the Jews who were living in that area, for they all knew that his father was a Greek".
Can this really be true, that the man who held out against the Judaizers and had gone to Jerusalem to get the problem sorted has now given in on the issue?
Although they were travelling back to churches they had founded, Paul is conscious they will come into further contact with unbelieving Jews and it is for their sake this decision is taken. The reference to 'Jews' in v.3 is almost certainly to unbelievers.
What Paul is doing here is working out a principle that he lays out in 1 Cor. 9:19-23: "to the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews...I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some." This is not going back on what was settled at Jerusalem; salvation is by grace, not keeping the law. And so there is no need for anyone to be circumcised in order to be saved. The reason Paul has Timothy circumcised is in order not to put a stumbling block in the way of Jews coming to faith.
This issue needs very careful handling. We need wisdom to discern what is negotiable and what isn't. Paul who was completely inflexible on the essentials of the gospel is quite flexible on matters that are of merely cultural relevance. We need to have that kind of flexibility and must ask what the stumbling-blocks may be in our situation that could hinder others coming to faith.
4. Conclusion
The passage that began in sorrow with the disagreement over Mark ends with "the churches...strengthened in the faith and [growing] daily in numbers" (16:5). The split between Paul and Barnabas is deeply regrettable but even where our flaws come to the surface and seem to threaten the work, the Lord is able to overrule and still use us for his glory's sake.
What we need to be, as one commentator has observed on the basis of this passage, is "spiritually fruitful, morally faithful and culturally flexible". God grant we would be such people. Amen!
