My greetings to all of you, in the name of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
If you look at the great personalities of this generation, you will find that they each had loyal mentors. And their mentorship took them to great heights.
For example, Mark Zuckerberg who is co-founder of Facebook, his mentor was Apple’s co-founder Steve Jobs. Bill Gates who is co-founder of Microsoft, his mentor was the world’s greatest investor Warren Buffet. And Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Atlantic Airlines, was mentored by Sir Freddy Laker, the founder of Laker Airways.
Similarly, in the Bible we can see Barnabas as a mentor to Paul and Mark. Barnabas was very distinguished among the apostles, because of his nature. The apostles named him Barnabas, meaning “son of encouragement”.
About three years after the conversion, Paul went to Jerusalem and tried to join the disciples. But everyone was afraid of him because of his past history of persecuting the church. At that time Barnabas was the one who spoke to the apostles and verified the story of Paul’s conversion. And finally, Paul was accepted within the church. After this Paul stayed with them in Jerusalem and preached about Jesus Christ. When the Jews tried to kill him, the believers sent him to Tarsus, his homeland. (Acts 9:26-30)
Nearly nine years had passed since these events and Paul still lived in his homeland Tarsus. Who knows what was going through his mind at that time? Was he waiting for God’s time? Was he dropping out of the picture of the New Testament? Was he going to settle in his motherland and become a professor? We do not know what his plans were. The only thing we know is that Barnabas went looking for Paul in Tarsus and found Paul. He brought him to Antioch and encouraged him in active Christian ministry which changed his life and the rest of history. Barnabas did not write even a single word of the New Testament. But Barnabas played a faithful mentor in Paul’s life. He encouraged Paul. Later we can see that this Paul wrote about fifty percent of the New Testament books. Barnabas was the driving force through which Paul reached the heights of the life of faith.
When Paul offered Barnabas a second missionary trip, differences arose about Mark. Paul refused to take him as Mark departed in the middle of the first missionary journey and returned to his mother’s home in Jerusalem. In Paul’s view, Mark was a cowardly and unreliable person. But Barnabas, who encouraged others, insisted on taking Mark with him. This incident separated Paul and Barnabas. (Acts 15:36-41)
Barnabas took Mark with him and encouraged him in Christian service. This young man later became a worthy servant of Christ, and even later Paul accepted this. In 2 Timothy 4:11, Paul says, “Get Mark and bring him with you, because he is helpful to me in my ministry.” Later, Mark also wrote a New Testament book. Mark also achieved the heights of the life of faith.
Barnabas had no ambition to make himself big. He cared more for the fame and success of others than himself. The disciples in Jerusalem saw Paul’s terrible history. Paul saw a previous failure in Mark. But Barnabas saw a bright future in both.
May God help us in the coming days to become trusted mentors of many youth of our generation and encourage them in Christian service. God bless you all.
