a certain man was a certain man. am a certain man. hope to one day be that certain man.

paul and barnabas

Back in the day there was this guy named Saul.  Saul was the kind of guy you did not want to piss off.  If the mob was around in those days, our boy Saul would probably be one of just a handful trusted confidants around Vito Corleone.   He wasn't the Don, but he was up there.  Saul took pride in taking care of business - no emotions, just do it.  What was business, you ask?  Business to Saul was killing or imprisoning Christians.  This cat didn't mess around.    If Myers-Briggs was around back then he'd probably have many characteristics typical to the NT temperament.

So the story goes that Saul was on his way to Damascus when he was confronted by Jesus in the form of a literally blinding light.   Dude gets called out for killing Christians by the Christ himself and on top of that he goes totally blind.  I'm willing to bet that he messed himself a bit on that road to Damascus.  That's embarrassing when your in kindergarten and all they have are saloon doors between the classroom and bathroom.  It's so much worse when you're a well respected and feared leader in the Jewish community.  Anyways, Saul cleans himself off, gropes his way to Damascus, gets healed of his blindness, yadda yadda yadda, goes against "the family", turns from his life of knocking off Christians, becomes a Christian himself and changes his name to Paul.

So here you have Saul turned Paul, eager to share the new truths that he has learned, trying to get in with the apostles...the very apostles he was tormenting just a short while ago.  Needless to say the apostles weren't exactly jumping up to embrace Paul with open arms and manly bear hugs.  They were skeptical in believing that Paul could be the good guy that he now claimed.

Enter: Joseph.  Well, that's what his mom called him.  His coworkers called him Barnabas, which means "son of encouragement."  His close pals probably just called him Barney.  Barnabas was a church teacher in Antioch who was the kind of guy you just liked to be around.   You could say he was pretty close to an NF temperament in terms of personality types.

Barnabas stood up for Paul, took him under his wing, encouraged him and gave testimony of his genuine conversion to the apostles.  Barnabas spoke.  The apostles listened.  Done.  Paul was welcomed in.

It so happened that Paul and Barnabas grew to become close friends as they worked and traveled together.  After some time, Paul and Barnabas, decided to loop back around to all the villages they had visited earlier to check up on folks to see how they were doing.

Barnabas felt compelled to take a guy named Mark with them on their trip.  Paul wanted nothing to do with Mark because on a previous trip Mark had apparently deserted them.  Paul didn't trust this kid and did not want him traveling along with them.  Both Paul and Barnabas felt strong convictions on this issue of Mark and whether he should be taken along on their journey.  Neither man was budging.  Their disagreement reached such a critical level that they finally decided they were not going to see eye to eye on the issue.  Barnabas took Mark and went on to Cyprus, and Paul took Silas and traveled on to Syria and Cilicia.  This story doesn't end on a bummer note because years later, we learn that Paul writes to Timothy asking him to bring along Mark with him because he was useful to Paul for service.  Paul, the one time anti-Mark apostle, specifically requests Mark realizing his value.

This whole account is just fascinating to me with regard to disagreements among Christians.  As Christians we live our lives with a purpose - that is to give honor to the God who created us.  This means every problem should be considered through prayer and through Scripture to discern whether the proposed solution would fall in line with that purpose.

We know that Paul and Barnabas were both solid Christian dudes who lived out that purpose to bring honor.  We have no reason to doubt that.  We can also infer that when they were faced with this disagreement both of them diligently prayed about it seeking God's will on the matter.

For Barnabas, the situation with Mark was one where he could strengthen, encourage, nurture and restore Mark just like he did with Paul in the early days of their friendship.  Barnabas and Mark were also cousins, so I imagine they got along rather well.  I'm guessing that friendship had something to do with Barnabas' desire to bring Mark in the first place.  The restoration of one sincere Christian was a high priority to Barnabas and was worth the challenge.

For Paul, nothing was of greater importance than preaching.  If Mark jeopardized that mission in any way, he was not welcomed.  Paul appears to have no interest in taking on the burden that young Mark might have posed.  Paul hesitation was understandable given the way Mark acted in the past by bailing out on them.  Why deal with the hassle when I don't have to.

Why did these two men reach two very different conclusions?

Could it be that they were being led in two different paths for a reason?

So often, we think that there is only one right path to take if we want to do God's will.  What if there is only one right destination but multiple paths to get there.  While on these separate paths, what if we are taught and eventually led to the same final destination.

Could the Spirit propose two very different solutions to the same problem:  solution 1 for person 1 and solution 2 for person 2?

Are there other examples of  the Spirit leading two individuals in separate ways?

What are your thoughts?