Today's Scripture Reading (February 25, 2021): Galatians 2
There are always people that we
are indebted to, people who made us who we are. For me, my list includes
parents, pastors, teachers, and significant friends who bothered to invest in
me while I was young and some who decided to invest in me when I was much
older. We all have a list. None of us became who we are all by ourselves,
regardless of how big we might believe we have become. Someone saw something
that others didn't see and encouraged us to become something that we often thought
was impossible. And in the life of Paul, one of those people was Barnabas.
Paul's biography is an interesting
one. He was a student at the school of Gamaliel (Acts 22:3), a coveted place of
study for any Jewish Rabbi. He is introduced to the Christian audience as the
great persecutor of the church (Acts 8:3). But the plan that Paul had for his
life was changed on the Road to Damascus (Acts 9:3-7), as God personally issues
his challenge to the disciple of Gamaliel.
Paul goes to Damascus, where he is
educated in the Christian faith by a disciple named Ananias (Acts 9:10ff). Paul
based his activities out of Damascus for the next three years before making his
first trip since his encounter on the Damascus Road to Jerusalem. "Then after three years, I went up to
Jerusalem to get acquainted with Cephas and stayed with him fifteen
days. I saw none of
the other apostles—only James, the Lord's brother" (Galatians
1:18-19).
And then Paul went home to Tarsus. No one is sure why, but
for the next decade, the one who would eventually become the apostle to the
Gentiles lived out his existence in obscurity in and around Tarsus, a city
located in modern-day central Turkey. Approximately ten years passed before
Barnabas, the son of encouragement, "went to Tarsus to look for Saul, and when he found him, he brought him
to Antioch. So for a whole year Barnabas and Saul met with the church and
taught great numbers of people. The disciples were called Christians
first at Antioch" (Acts 11:25-26).
And then, fourteen years after Paul's first visit, Paul
returned to Jerusalem, this time with Barnabas and Titus. But the question that
burns in my imagination is, "what if Barnabas had not gone to Tarsus to
find Paul." What if he had gotten busy with the gospel and the work at
Antioch and had decided that he didn't have time to go and find the Rabbi he
had met a decade earlier. What was it that after ten years caused Barnabas to
decide that it was time to go Tarsus and find this disciple called Saul?
The answer is God. God had a job for Paul, and it was time to
get the disciple of Gamaliel back into the game. Gentile believers were going
to need to hear the gospel from him, as did the church in Jerusalem, who were
beginning to follow a path designed by man and not a route ordained by God. They
all needed to be shaped by Paul, even if Paul didn't realize it at the time.
Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Galatians 3
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