The Barnabas Spirit

By Terry W. Benton

Barnabas was noteworthy in the early church as one you could count on to be an encourager. His name and legacy was “Son of Encouragement”. He was part of what made that early church continue to have “one heart and one soul”(Acts 4:32-37). It was surely a time when members needed to keep a “kingdom first”(Matt.6:33) mentality. We always need that even today. Barnabas put the kingdom first. It was a time when the church needed a giving spirit, where all felt that it was more important to given than to receive. Barnabas sold land to make it possible for those new-born babes in Christ who had come from out of town to be able to stay longer and be grounded in the precious faith of Jesus before returning home.

Barnabas was an encourager of resurrection preaching. He knew that the world needed this message of hope because it was true. The gospel is the power of God to salvation to everyone who believes(Rom.1:16). It is the power to make a difference for good now and eternally. What was more important to invest his heart, his money, his energy and life in? This “treasure” was in earthen vessels, men who were invested in preaching the truth of Jesus, His crucifixion for our sins, and His resurrection to verify His deity and our destiny beyond the grave. Barnabas believed this message needed to be supported with all his strength.

BUT

Chapter five of Acts begins to tell a contrast. While Barnabas was a “son of Encouragement” there was a couple in the church that was not so Christ-centered. The word “but” begins to tell a sad story of what was also happening in the heart of another couple in the church. Ananias and Sapphira were conspiring for recognition (Acts 5:1-4). They were not truthful and honest before God. They pretended to be like Barnabas but they were not honest. They pretended to sell property and give the whole amount to the common treasury. The wages of sin is death, even in the age of grace. God exposed the lie and killed them. It will remind the church to be honest before God and to remember that the age of grace does not give us an automatic ticket to sin (Rom.6:1, 23).

God struck fear in the hearts of the church members to take sin seriously, and to be honest before God. Worldly, insincere members are never a help to the church. Their money is no good when their heart is not right. The church can do much better without these kinds of members. When God struck these two dead, a renewed and united sincerity prevailed again to cause growth in the church (Acts 5:12-14).

Your Legacy

The most obvious lesson that the Holy Spirit wants us to see is that we can decide what our own legacy will be in the Lord’s church. We can either choose to be sacrificial encouragers, or we can be selfish and self-centered and pollute the church with weakness, selfishness, covetousness, and sinful pride. We decide whether the church will be stronger because of us or if it will be weaker because of us. Our children and grandchildren surely could use a good legacy in us. The local church sure could be stronger if we were. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link. Are you a strong link in the chain? Are you a person of encouragement to all? Or, are you a link in the chain that breaks the solidarity of the local church too easily? What legacy are you going to leave behind? What do you think God thinks of you right now? Would He call you “child of encouragement”? Or, would He be displeased? It is something to think seriously about right now and always. May God bless those who will take the Holy Spirit’s words to heart. (Via “Answering Religious Error”) &

Commentary on Acts 2:19-21

By Bob Myhan

19 I will show wonders in heaven above And signs in the earth beneath: Blood and fire and vapor of smoke. 20 The sun shall be turned into darkness, And the moon into blood, Before the coming of the great and awesome day of the Lord.

It is this writer’s view that the “day of the Lord” is the day the city of Jerusalem would be destroyed, which would “bring an end to sacrifice and offering” [the worship authorized by God in the Law of Moses]. This was to take place some time after the “seventy weeks” of Daniel 9:20-27.

“Blood and fire and vapor of smoke” often accompanied cataclysmic destruction. Such figures as the sun being “turned into darkness, and the moon into blood” were often used in Old Testament predictions of “catastrophic events and great upheavals” (Johnny Stringer, The Book of Acts, p. 31). For examples of such consider:

The burden against Babylon which Isaiah the son of Amoz saw…. Behold, the day of the Lord comes, Cruel, with both wrath and fierce anger, To lay the land desolate; And He will destroy its sinners from it. For the stars of heaven and their constellations Will not give their light; The sun will be darkened in its going forth, And the moon will not cause its light to shine…. “Therefore I will shake the heavens, And the earth will move out of her place, In the wrath of the Lord of hosts And in the day of His fierce anger.” (Isaiah 13:1, 9-10, 13)

And it came to pass in the twelfth year, in the twelfth month, on the first day of the month, that the word of the Lord came to me, saying, "Son of man, take up a lamentation for Pharaoh king of Egypt, and say to him: 'You are like a young lion among the nations, And you are like a monster in the seas, Bursting forth in your rivers, Troubling the waters with your feet, And fouling their rivers…. When I put out your light, I will cover the heavens, and make its stars dark; I will cover the sun with a cloud, And the moon shall not give her light. All the bright lights of the heavens I will make dark over you, And bring darkness upon your land,' Says the Lord God” (Ezekiel 32:1-2, 7-8)

Jesus, Himself, used such figurative language in discussing the coming destruction of Jerusalem.

Then Jesus went out and departed from the temple, and His disciples came up to show Him the buildings of the temple. And Jesus said to them, "Do you not see all these things? Assuredly, I say to you, not one stone shall be left here upon another, that shall not be thrown down…. Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. (Matthew 24:1-2, 29).

This period, between Pentecost (ca. AD 30) and the destruction of Jerusalem (ca. AD 70), is probably the same as that covered by John the baptizer’s prophecy concerning the two baptisms—Holy Spirit and fire (Matthew 3:10-12; Luke 3:7-17), marking the beginning and end of the period during which the Kingdom of God would be established. The apostles would be baptized in the Holy Spirit at the beginning of this period and the Jews who rejected Christ (at least many of them) would be baptized in fire at the end of this period in the destruction of Jerusalem. If this is the case, the New Testament would be completely revealed, confirmed and documented by AD 70.

21 And it shall come to pass That whoever calls on the name of the Lord Shall be saved.'

In quoting Joel 2:28-32, Peter is not merely explaining the events of the day but is queuing up the first gospel sermon after the facts of the gospel had been accomplished. He ends the quotation with the above statement because it is a perfect thesis sentence for the sermon. His listeners must call on the name of the Lord if they would be saved from “the great and awesome day of the Lord.” But,

How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? (Romans 10:14)

In order to call on the name of the Lord and be saved the listeners must know His identity. We must keep in mind that Peter is addressing a people who did not believe in the Lord but did have the utmost respect for “the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms” (Luke 24:44), which had long before predicted the facts of the gospel. And the easiest way to convince them that Jesus is the Lord on whose name they must call is to establish from their own beloved scriptures that His death and resurrection were the fulfillment of those Old Testament predictions concerning the Messiah. These events had occurred in full public view—not in an obscure corner of the world (Acts 26:26) but at the crossroads of civilization.

Prior to the Day of Pentecost, however, the only publically reported explanation of the empty tomb had been that given by the Roman guards (Matthew 27:62-66; 28:1-15). It is probable that the apostles had been eager to proclaim the fact of the resurrection but they had been told by Jesus, “tarry in the city of Jerusalem until you are endued with power from on high” (Luke 24:49). They will need credentials of the highest order if they are to convince the people of the facts of the gospel, though these facts had been predicted by “all the prophets, from Samuel and those who follow” (Acts 3:23), for not even the inspired men who predicted these events understood “what, or what manner of time, the Spirit of Christ who was in them was indicating when He testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow” (1 Peter 1:11).

(To be continued)

A Lawyer’s Prayer

Author Unknown

We respectively request, and entreat, that due and adequate provisions be made this day and the date hereinafter subscribed, for the organizing of such methods and allocations and distributions as may be deemed necessary to properly assure the reception by and for said petitioner of such quantities of baked cereal products as shall, in the judgment of the Provider, constitute a sufficient supply thereof.”

Interpretation: “Give us this day our daily bread.” &

Appropriative Works

By Bob Myhan

Appropriative works are those by which one appropriates to himself that which is available. We appropriate God’s spiritual blessings to ourselves by meeting whatever conditions He has given. We do not (and could not ever) earn them with meritorious works of human design. (James 2:14-26; Eph. 2:8-10) &