“When he arrived and saw what the grace of God had done, he was glad and encouraged them all to remain true to the Lord with all their hearts” (Acts 11:23).
The church at Antioch wasn’t like any other local church to this point in the Church’s history. It wasn’t founded by apostles, as Jerusalem’s church had been, and it consisted of Gentile converts. It was such an unusual church that the apostles in Jerusalem sent a representative from Jerusalem to check it out. That representative was Barnabas.
Barnabas was an encourager. His friends called him Barnabas because it meant “son of encouragement.” It was what he was called and it was what he did. When he arrived in Antioch and saw this strange, new kind of church he was glad and encouraged the Gentile believers.
Barnabas had the enviable capacity to look at something that was a bit outside the box and recognize that it was the result of the grace of God. It’s difficult for some of us to value something that is different. If we understand it, we can readily affirm it. Barnabas was flexible enough to recognize that this was something God had done.
The church at Antioch became the center of the church’s missionary activity. Its influence would reach all the way to Rome. It would be Paul’s base of operations from Acts thirteen to the end of the book. In many ways that is because Barnabas saw in it something God was doing and was an encourager in that church’s infancy.
