St. Barnabas 8. Early Evangelist.       Last week we talked about St. Barnabas being introduced in the Acts of the Apostles as an example of charity. A couple of years will have passed before Barnabas is again named in Acts, but we can surmise what he might have been doing from the story of the early Church told in Acts.       In the chronology of Acts, the Apostles performed many healing miracles, suffered an arrest but also enjoyed a miraculous release, were re-arrested, testified before the Sanhedrin  Council, again released at the urging of Rabban Gamaliel, and continued preaching undaunted ( Ac 5:12-42 ). The first Deacons were appointed, and eventually St. Stephen the Deacon was martyred ( Ac 6-7 ), and thereafter “a great persecution arose against the Church in Jerusalem,” instigated by Saul ( Ac 8:1, 3 ).       As both Barnabas and Stephen are traditionally considered among the 70 ( Lk 10:1-20 ), they surely w...

  St. Barnabas 7. Example of Charity.       In our continuing series examining the life of St. Barnabas, we now come to the first specific Scriptural references to him in Acts 4:36 . Chronologically, Jesus had been resurrected, had ascended into Heaven, and the Holy Spirit had come at Pentecost. It’s 30 AD. The Apostles Peter and John had, in the name of Jesus, healed a lame beggar at the Temple, Peter had preached, both had been arrested, testified before the Sanhedrin Council, and been released. The Church was now counted at 5,000 men. Peter and John’s meeting strong opposition only served to strengthen the entire Church, and they prayed for greater boldness in preaching and greater healings, signs, and miracles. It was such a fervent prayer that they were all, once again, “filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God with boldness” ( Ac 4:23-31 ). We can assume Barnabas was in that powerful prayer meeting or Liturgy, presumably also at his sister Mary’s h...

  St. Barnabas 6. Disciple of Jesus. As we continue looking at the life of St. Barnabas, the natural question is: When did Barnabas come to believe in Jesus? Many will say it was from the events of Pentecost, but that seems to be based solely on the fact that the first clearest reference to Barnabas in the Bible ( Ac 4:36 ) is shortly after Pentecost.  Yet we have already seen that it is very likely Barnabas lived in Jerusalem during all the years of Jesus’ public ministry, as did St. Paul. But unlike Paul, we have no specific record of Barnabas’ conversion. So what evidence do we have? First, it turns out that some Greek manuscripts of Acts 4:36 have his name as “Joses” instead of “Joseph,” leading some to identify Barnabas with the Joses who was the son of Mary and brother of James the Less ( Mt 27:56 ; Mk 15:40 , 47 ; cf. 16:1 ), elsewhere called the “brother of the Lord.” Interesting thought. But this is quite a small minority opinion, nor does there seem to be an...

  St.  Barnabas 5. Extended Family - Divine Strategy.       Last week we raised the question of what St. Barnabas’ extended family background per the African tradition – his sister Mary, her husband St. Aristobulus, their son St. John Mark, and Aristobulus’ relative Strapola being St. Peter’s wife; all living together in Jerusalem – might mean for Barnabas’ future mission, and for all the Church.       Now let’s add young Saul, friend of Barnabas, and later the converted St. Paul, to the mix. Perhaps he was a frequent visitor to their house as a youth, and certainly later when Paul was in Jerusalem.       In Thomas C. Oden’s The African Memory of Mark , Dr. Oden considers the Lord’s strategy here of bringing these diverse persons together. “Consider the international implications of this group of associates: One [Barnabas] was from Cyprus (a Greek island), one from Tarsus [Paul] (in Roman Asia) and one from C...