Being a “Barnabas”
What’s your love language?
According to Dr. Gary Chapman, we have 5 primary ways of communicating love: words of affirmation, quality time, physical touch, receiving gifts, and acts of service. To find out your primary love language, you can take this online quiz: https://www.5lovelanguages.com/quizzes.
My primary love language is acts of service. (When I ask Roy what his is, he says “all of them – in large quantities”).
But I also really value words of affirmation.
One of my favourite Bible characters is Barnabas. That wasn’t his real name; his name was Joseph. But people nicknamed him “Barnabas,” which means, “Son of encouragement” (Acts 4:36). Although he isn’t a major character in the Bible stories, there is enough to tell us that he was someone who affirmed and built up those around him to help them reach their full potential.
For example, when Saul, a former persecutor of the Christians, arrives in Jerusalem as a newly converted Christian himself, “he tried to join the followers. But they were afraid of him. They did not believe he was a true follower of Jesus. Then Barnabas took him to the missionaries. He told them that Saul had seen the Lord on the road. He told them also how the Lord had spoken to Saul and how he had preached without fear in Damascus in the name of Jesus. After that he was with them going in and out of Jerusalem” (Acts 9:26-28 NLT).
Saul, renamed “Paul” after his conversion, and Barnabas become partners in ministry, traveling together to share the good news of Jesus wherever they went. But “Some time later Paul said to Barnabas, ‘Let us go back and visit the believers in all the towns where we preached the word of the Lord and see how they are doing.’ Barnabas wanted to take John, also called Mark, with them, but Paul did not think it wise to take him, because he had deserted them in Pamphylia and had not continued with them in the work. They had such a sharp disagreement that they parted company. Barnabas took Mark and sailed for Cyprus, but Paul chose Silas and left, commended by the believers to the grace of the Lord” (Acts 15:36-40 NLT).
For better or for worse, Barnabas believed in his cousin John Mark despite his past failure and gave him another chance, true to his character as the “Son of Encouragement.”
Do you have such a person in your life who encourages, affirms, and cheers you on, even when others don’t? Perhaps it’s a good day to thank them for their faith in you.
Or perhaps it’s a good day to be a “Barnabas” for someone else today. Who can you encourage? Who can you affirm? Who can you give a “second chance” to?
“So encourage each other and build each other up, just as you are already doing…Encourage those who are timid. Take tender care of those who are weak. Be patient with everyone.See that no one pays back evil for evil, but always try to do good to each other and to all people” (1 Thessalonians 5:11,14,15 NLT).
by: Jinha Kim
"But those who drink the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life." John 4:14