Verse 37 Barnabus wanted to take John.
Well, his real name wasn’t John. Most Jewish people aren’t named John for some reason.
But it’s a very Hebrew name Hanan.
That’s where we get John who also called Mark Roman name Marcus along with them.
That was it was his cousin. He wanted to take him.
But John John, Mark had already been with them before and he messed up and he abandoned them.
So now he failed. But Barnabas is compassionate. Barnabas is merciful. His name means son of encouragement.
His real name, his born name was Joseph Joseph, but they called him which means son of encouragement because he was an encourager which is great and he was right verse 38.
But Paul kept insisting that they should not take him along who had deserted them in Panphilia and had not gone with them to the work.
Paul thought, wait a minute, this man, we had, we had trusted him.
He was there with us and he abandoned us. We can’t take him and he was right too.
They both were right. They both had a point. He’s saying, listen, missions are serious things.
We kept that people we know who are gonna go through.
They’re not gonna say yes, I’m gonna give my word and then they don’t show up.
It’s like in ministry people say, yeah, I’ll help out, I’ll help out and they don’t show up.
That’s not what God’s looking for. He was right.
You know, there’s, there’s a, a scene in the movie Fiddler on the roof where they go to the rabbi and they say rabbi, the guy, he presents his point and the rabbi, the old rabbi says, you’re right.
But then the other guy says, rabbi, but I did it and, and the rabbi says, you’re right.
A third person says, rabbi, you just said the first one was right.
Then you said the second one was right. They can’t both be right. You can’t do that.
And you said the rabbi says, you know what?
You’re right each seeing a different side of the truth. Now, truth is absolute.
There’s no gray about truth. The word of God is the truth, but sometimes believers get in disputes over different sides of the same object of God.
You know, this is the story is told, you know, it’s an old story, the story of these blind men and they’re trying to figure out what they, what’s in their mist.
And one says there’s a creature and says, or 111 says it, it’s, it’s, it’s like a big tree because it’s a tree trunk.
It’s a very strong thing. And the other one says, no, it’s like a rope.
The other one says, no, it’s kind of like a paper, it’s flapping.
And another way they could go all these things. It turns out it was an elephant.
Each one had a different side of it.
One had the trunk, one had, the one had the, the, the, the, you know, all those, the legs, one had the ears, all that, the one had the tail like a cord.
But the thing is God is bigger than us.
And so often there are big realms where there is more than there is more to it than we can put together with our eyes or our mind.
For instance, God is three. God is one. Can you figure that out?
No, I mean, you know, you can, you can’t figure it all out.
There are ways to kind of try to grasp that.
But you know, there are cults that just will say God is one and not three.
That, that’s a cult because it’s a basic thing or, or they change that.
But there can be two different sides to God, to the mystery. The Bible speaks of righteousness and judgment.
And on the other side speaks of mercy, it speaks of holiness and speaks of grace.
It speaks of predestination and free will. Can they both be right? They can both be right?
Can you put it all together in a system? No. And that’s the problem.
Because there are in the, in the body.
There are those who try to put it together by saying I, I’m gonna, I’m gonna totally put God in this doctrinal box and then they end up falling into era.
In other words, it’s all predestination. No real free will, will minimize that.
That’s hyper Calvinism that ends up going off or if it was all free will and not God, that’s also off.
Imagine if we lived on a one, a two dimensional, we lived on a page.
Every all we can see is, is this all we’re on here with nothing.
And it comes about that there’s an object or there’s a, there’s something falling on the same space and say, wait, you can’t have two things in the same space.
Say wait a minute, there’s a whole other dimension.
This is the shadow of something else on the same thing when you get it.
See God is beyond our dimension.
So, so there are things that we cannot fathom how two things can be both.
So, but they are and we are limited in our minds because it, you know, our minds cannot encompass God or our mind would be bigger than God.
God is bigger than our mind. So sometimes we get into trouble when we don’t accept what God says.
When we try to understand it by taking one side of the mystery and ruling out the other, there is mercy, there is righteousness.
We need both. You have Barnabus. He’s really a merciful person. You got Paul, he’s more into the righteousness here.
They’re both right. But it’s together.
You need, you know, we, when you deal with people, you need both, you need righteousness.
You uphold standards, hold to the standards and you also need compassion for when the standards are messed up, you need truth and you need love.
Truth. Without love is deadly. You can use it like a sword to kill people.
Love without truth, doesn’t do much. You need truth and love mercy without justice, righteousness without mercy.
No, you see and I just, I, I alluded to, but let me give you an idea how that goes.
If I, if we say if there are some people in the body or they all, they focus is on the sovereignty of God and the predestination.
It’s all that. It’s all that. But when you take that to its conclusion, you end up with great error.
You end up saying that God is the author of evil because if everything is God, then God is the author of that.
In fact, that is what it says. It actually says, you know what? There are people who reject God.
Well, that’s God’s choice. Wait a minute. God says, I’m willing that none should perish. Yeah.
But the actual doctrine goes, the classic doctrine goes that God creates people that they could go to hell.
That is absolutely not the scripture, but that’s the, that’s the era you go into when you take away the part of the mystery.
Yeah. On the other hand, if you go the other way, it’s all free will, it’s all.
Where is God being sovereign over everything? You, you don’t have to understand it.
We have to just accept that it is. Listen, don’t worry about it.
Let you know when you try to apply it. Well, oh, you know, listen, God’s already predestined everything.
Therefore, why do I go out and spread the word? Well, that’s not that, that application is not the Bible.
The Bible says God out and spread the word. You let God take care of free destination.
Your part is the free will. That’s his business.
He’ll work it all out together to find out how you can receive more of Jonathan’s teachings to receive special free gifts or get in touch.
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