St. Barnabas 31. Evangelization in Asia.
Continuing our lengthy biography of St.
Barnabas, last week we discussed his and St. Mark’s evangelization on the
island of Cyprus (about 50 AD and following). The next reference in Scripture
is St. Paul’s reference to Barnabas in 1 Corinthians 9 (written about 54 AD)
which, from the context, indicates that the Corinthians (in Greece) must have
known Barnabas first-hand, with the reasonable probability that Paul and
Barnabas had evangelized together.
It is further interesting that in Philemon24, Paul includes Mark in a list of “fellow workers” sending greetings (and
thus there with Paul), but Barnabas is not included. Also, in Colossians 4:10
Paul writes, “Aristarchus my fellow prisoner greets you and Mark, the cousin of
Barnabas (concerning whom you have received instructions–if he comes to you,
receive him).” Paul also says these two, and Justus, are the “only men of the
circumcision among my fellow workers” (Col 4:11) and so Barnabas definitely was
not there. Although scholars differ when and where Philemon and Colossians were
written, we think the analysis of N. T. Wright is most persuasive that they
were written from Ephesus, while he was in prison, about the years of 55-56 AD.
So it seems reasonable to piece together
the following possible history: On Paul’s second missionary journey, and
somewhere during his 18 months in Corinth (Ac 18:11) from late 51-53 AD (when
Paul went to Jerusalem then back to Antioch of Syria, Ac 18:20-22), Barnabas
and Mark may have gone from Cyprus and joined Paul in evangelizing the
Corinthians. (Or they may have come to Corinth to continue the evangelization
after Paul left.) Next, Paul stopped in Ephesus on his way back to Jerusalem,
which was the first time he was in Asia (today’s Western Turkey), and he made
his first convert of Asia, Epaenetus (Ro 16:5). Knowing Paul did evangelization
work in Ephesus at that time, then it is also possible Barnabas and Mark could
have come with Paul to Ephesus, perhaps staying there to continue
evangelization after Paul left.
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| Colossae, Turkey (today) |
We will look at the last Scriptural hint about Barnabas next week.
Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church is located in California City, CA. Visit our website at ollcalcity.org.
Dibby Allan Green has a BA in Religious Studies (Westmont College, 1978) and MA in Theology (Augustine Institute, 2019), is a lay Catholic hermit, and a parishioner of Our Lady of Lourdes Parish.