Barnabas, Paul & John Mark: a rough start & a pleasant surprise

And the interesting thing was, culturally, we find from archaeological studies that that actually matches the area. The person who was the spokesman was assumed to be Hermes, and the person who was more quiet was assumed to be Zeus. And that was the pattern that you see there. So it fits into the culture. These people were thinking in terms of the way these guys behave, hey, they've dropped right into the into the categories that we've got here. Alright, good. But what else can we say about Barnabas? Yeah? Yes, he certainly did.

And that's actually the pivotal issue that we're looking at here this morning. He had a sharp disagreement with Paul over John Mark. Because let's get to this point. John Mark, what do we know about him? Okay, he was young, okay. We frequently see him called John or Mark and we get the connection there because John who is called Mark is one of the phrases that comes out there. So, you ever had more than one name, nicknames and that sort of thing? That's the situation we have here. But basically we get that connection real clearly in the Book of Acts.

So here's this guy John Mark. He's young What else do we know about him or maybe reasonable to assume? What else do we know about the guy? We mentioned earlier that Paul and Barnabas went on the first missionary journey together. How does John Mark fit in the situation? Pardon? Okay, he went along and worked out hunky-dory, right? He what? Oh no! That's terrible! Okay, why'd he do that? We don't know, it doesn't say. We could interpolate. One of the things we also find, I believe it's Acts chapter, oh boy, I think it's 12, but I better be careful about that.

The connection is made that at least in Acts there was a room where the disciples all met and it was John Mark's mother who owned the place. It may well be the same place as is identified on the day of Pentecost where they were in this room. It may have been the upper room where Jesus last met with the disciples and observed Pentecost and the Lord instituted the Lord's Supper. Those latter connections are probable but not certain. Nonetheless, it is clear from at least the one place there in Acts where it says that this room where they were meeting belonged to John Mark's mother.

It is assumed that John Mark's father is not in the picture because there is no mention of him and the mother is the one listed as having the ownership. There is also something else here too. In the Gospel of Mark, in the Garden of Gethsemane, is a mention, it's again not something certain, but put the points together here and I think you come to a reasonable likelihood.

There is a young man who is in the midst of the soldiers coming to take Jesus. They grab a sheet that is on him and he runs away with nothing on. This is a gospel streaker. So this guy runs away. Interestingly, Mark is the only gospel that records that. None of the other gospels record that event. So that connection doesn't lead to a certain conclusion. It leads to what's a probability or a likelihood. Here's this one recording.

And he describes him as a young man. So here's John Mark, would have been young, It would have been a situation where he's seen what's gone on he fled from the scene Why he's running around with nothing but a sheet on I can't tell you but and then here is in a situation where he has an opportunity to start off in this missionary journey and Just they get off the island of Cyprus and they get into port there at the southern part of what we now call Turkey and he bails and Some have speculated that here's a mama's boy, basically. I'm his mom. I'm his home. And that drew him back. He didn't stick around. Now, James mentioned the sharp division that takes place here. Paul and Barnabas have been on the first missionary journey together. They went through the churches that we see here.

They started off at Antioch, went to Seleucia, which is the port near Antioch. Antioch was vying with Ephesus, which is about the third largest city, and later on passed it up. Ephesus held its numbers and Antioch grew. Antioch was the first major connection to the Roman Empire from the Silk Road trade. The Silk Road trade coming in from China and India. Antioch is where they would first come in to the major city in the Roman Empire. From there it would fan out into different parts of the Empire, some going by land and through Ephesus and what's not shown in there is also through Colossae and that valley. So here's Antioch.

Barnabas and Saul are taking off from that port going through Cyprus, which is Barnabas' home, right? So Barnabas knows it like the back of his hand. So now, they head from there up to the southern part of what is now Turkey, and that's where John Mark bails. For reasons undisclosed, we can speculate reasonably, but that's as far as we can go, John Mark heads home. He's bailed on them. Paul and Barnabas stick it out and stay through these churches that are in the middle of Turkey. The next two missionary journeys of Paul, the third and fourth journeys, he would go through those same cities and meet with those same churches. Also note that he made a loop in this journey with Barnabas.

Acts 14.23, when the return loop, they went and appointed elders in each of the churches. So now, here's the second missionary journey, and here's where they start off. They begin with the idea that Barnabas and Paul are going to do this together. Hey, we did it before, we're going to do that again. What's the problem? Where's the snag? There isn't one? What's the problem here? Ah, Barnabas wants to take John Mark. Hey, let's take John Mark with us!

And Paul was just delighted at the thought, right? Just rejoicing. Of course! Napped. Okay? There was, at that point, sharp division. How come? Yeah, look, we tried taking this guy before. We got halfway through, we got through Cyprus where it was kind of your home territory. And what's the family relationship between Barnabas and John Mark? Okay, cousins. All right. So there's a family connection there that gives Barnabas kind of a different personal and emotional connection than Paul would have.

Alright, so as they're heading up north, this division takes place. What's interesting is that Luke uses a rather rare New Testament word to describe this division. It's only used one other place in Hebrews, and there the word is used to stir up love. But in this context here, Luke just says it's a sharp division. He doesn't elaborate any further on what happened, what was going on in their hearts, what was the motivation behind it. He just says sharp division.

And I think it's worth our taking a look at that though, because let's think about this. Barnabas and Paul initially intended to go on this journey together, and it's at that suggestion that they went separate ways. Was this a sin problem on the part of one or both of them? Was the division a good thing that was a part of God's will, or was it a bad thing in which they just flat out blew it, one or the other of them? What do you think? I'm sorry, what? Let's think about what happened after this.

Paul went on his journey and he just had a horrible time, right? Didn't affect anybody, nobody was brought to the Lord, nobody was taught, right? Is that what happened? No. As a matter of fact, what ended up happening is we see the Lord directing Paul.

Paul not only went to these churches that they originally had founded on the first journey and made a return loop, so this would have been the third visit that we know of to those churches, and he went up here. He was initially planning to go up into this area that 1 Peter was written to. So far as we have record, Paul never did go up into this area. But churches apparently got established because 1 Peter was written to the believers in that area. So what happened is, while Paul's intent was to go other places, the Holy Spirit clearly directed him, no, you are to come up here, up into Philippi and Thessalonica and over into Macedonia. That was the introduction of biblical Christian faith into the European continent.

Establishing churches there, he wrote a letter to the church at Philippi, two to the church at Thessalonica, of the Bereans, Acts 17.11. It was said that they were more noble and that they examined the scriptures daily to see if what Paul said was true. From there, Paul left Timothy and others as he went down to Corinth, a place where he established a church, wrote two letters to them. There was a lot going on here, wasn't there? A lot happened as a result of this division.

Now, what we don't know that much about is what happened to Barnabas. One of the things that we noted early on is the Book of Acts is not an even-handed, objective account of what happened to all the apostles and all the people that were involved, is it? It focuses on the first 15 chapters, and after that is silent about Peter, and then from basically chapter 9, although Saul or Paul is mentioned earlier, you see Paul getting the emphasis, and there's some period of overlap, and then after Acts 15, Peter's name drops off, and Paul is the primary focus of the book of Acts to the end. Now, so you look at this situation here. Here is Paul, and we have good record of what happened to him.

We don't have good record of what happened to Barnabas and John Mark. So is it a story where we don't know the ending? Is it a story where it's a bad ending? Good ending? What do we know? Seems like it would be a good ending. And why do you say that, Bob? What Paul accomplished. Ah, okay. What Paul accomplished. Notice what we do have revealed in Paul's side of the account were some very good things.

As a matter of fact, his third missionary journey is interesting. The first one, he established churches, made a loop back and appointed elders, and went back and continued to teach them. The second missionary journey, which he made without Barnabas, he now goes through those same churches, but then establishes more churches. The third missionary journey is very little evangelism, almost entirely supporting the churches that are there.

But good things came of it. You're correct. Good things came of Paul's subsequent journeys after the division with Barnabas. Yeah? Could it be that John stayed with Barnabas as he was an immature? I mean, Barnabas was one who made an encouragement. And we know that John was mature, and so maybe this was a good time for him.

Let's think this thing through. Put yourself in Barnabas' shoes. Think about this. You're a Levite from Cyprus. That may be hard to imagine, but do that. You're a Levite from Cyprus. Put yourself in Barnabas' shoes. You're going to step into the circumstance.

You've got a cousin named John Mark. He's been on this first journey and stepped off the boat into the water. Fell into the water, so to speak. John Mark slipped. Barnabas was there. Paul was there. They knew it. Here's the cousin. Barnabas is looking at John Mark. Has John Mark, from anything we can tell, got a father figure in his life? No. Has John Mark demonstrated that he is a believer, but obviously with some weakness and stumbling?

Yeah, yeah. So here's Barnabas, he's thinking, and we've already seen, he's a guy who's willing to take on the tough one. He's somebody who's willing to take on the underdog. We saw that with Paul, right? So here he comes along and he says, you know, I'm going to take on John Mark. And I'm going to take him on because he's the tough case. He's the underdog in this case. He is one who has not had the father figure from anything we can tell.

And so, by family connection, by character of ministry, here's Barnabas stepping into this role and saying, I see the Lord appointing me in John Mark's life. Now, I think we need to go back and revisit this little sharp division between Barnabas and Paul.

What's the character of that division? Was it something where, boy, they just blew it and from then on both of them were just totally wiped out spiritually? Horrible outcomes? No. Isn't that interesting? They have a sharp division and following that, both Paul and Barnabas carry out some ministry that is positive. You have to say profoundly positive. Isn't that interesting?

Could it be that the sharp division was not a dividing point over matters of sin, but over differences of ministry? It may be that the Lord would appoint them to different ministries, and maybe they had a tough time recognizing it, There may have been some sorting out in terms of recognizing the differences. Initially, they'd worked together, but the Lord had pointed a difference.

It brings me back to a point one time. This was many years ago. The Bible church where I grew up, one of the pastors there, his name was Bill Dempster, and he had been there a while. I remember I'd gone on vacation Bible school outreaches into the middle of Nevada. That was before I ever knew I was going to live there. This was like I was the latter part of high school or early part of college and we went you know places and so anyway one one week the elders brought Bill Dempster and you know kind of sit down with them and they Kind of said, you know, you're just doing great things here and here and here and here and here and here and we'd like you to leave And at first you might think my heavens what's wrong and And they said, well, we see a need for a ministry over here, and it happened to be a South San Jose area, and there's another fellow whom we'd like to have you work alongside. And we'd like to have the two of you establish a church down there.

And Bill Dempster was kind of taken aback by the whole thing, but he prayerfully considered it and said, yeah, I think that's right. So here was a point where it was kind of a startling division, but the division was not a bad thing. And so it's interesting, as we look at this thing, if we were to just kind of look like a blinders, we might say, we've got a division here and this is just nasty. And yet we look at the long-term outcome from the division, and probably you'd say the roughest part was them recognizing what the Lord was doing with them separately. And if you were to say, you know, what needed to happen or what might have happened differently, they'd probably both look back on it and say, you know, we could have gone separate ways a little better. How they handled it may have been more the issue than a question of whether they did the right thing. It appears from the outcome, it appears from all the information we have, that they both made a good choice.

But the process of arriving at that was the one that later on they probably had a different perspective about. It's interesting that Luke doesn't elaborate on it. It's almost as if the rest of the New Testament gives you enough of the account. So let's take a look at that. I'd like us to take a look. This is on page 2. Here's Paul. He's going off into these other places in the second journey. And he's going into some tough places, is he not? And he is also doing things, for example, he left some people up in Thessalonica while he went down to Corinth.

Are you going to want to do that with somebody who is kind of untried and unproven and has demonstrated in the past that they're going to bail? No, you don't want to do that. Paul needed to have somebody with him that he could count upon even if he was not there. So to bring somebody along who had departed when he was there was the last thing he wanted to do.

Barnabas, on the other hand, saw John Mark himself as ministry. See the difference there? So Paul needed somebody who upon whom he could count with certainty. John Mark, however, was not just looking at, you know, where are we going to go and spread the gospel and teach, but he looked upon John Mark himself, his ministry.

The other thing that comes here when we look at the rest of the story, this is the bottom of page two, Paul Barnabas, with one possible exception, didn't write any New Testament letters. Paul is the one who records about Barnabas and John Mark subsequently. Colossians 4, 10 and 11, this is on page 3, says, Aristarchus, my fellow prisoner, sends you his greetings and also Barnabas' cousin Mark, about whom you received instructions.

If he comes to you, welcome him. Interesting. We don't know the if, whether that was some kind of a conditional thing, or whether there was some question still in Paul's mind. Is this guy going to follow through? We aren't told. But it's interesting, there is a connection there. He still has some kind of contact and does say welcome him. So that seems to be neutral to positive in terms of the mentioned there.

2 Timothy 4.11 Only Luke is with me. This is Dr. Luke, the author of the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts, over a quarter of the New Testament content written by this Dr. Luke. Pick up Mark and bring him with you for he is useful for me in service. Ah, useful. Wow.

Now here's a guy that previously Paul says, I won't even think of going with him. And now, after this connection, and by the way, where does 2 Timothy fit in the sequence of New Testament books by Paul? Yes, very likely the last book. And matter of fact, Paul is even at the end of that letter saying, my life is poured out. He's giving indications he's towards the end here. It may have been within a very short time of the end of his life.

And so who is he calling for? He says, look, my days are very short. Who are you going to call for? When the days are short, when you haven't got a whole lot of time left, who are you going to ask for? And so who did he call for? John Mark. How about that? How about that? Phenomenal. Bring him to me because I'd like to give him some last words. I'd like to really let him have it. I'd really like to blast that kid. Okay? No. Bring him. He's useful.

I might also point out that John Mark, if you make the assumption that he was likely a teenager or something of that sort during the gospel era, by this time was, you know, well into his thirties. perhaps approaching 40, something of that sort. So there's some growing up there. And then Philemon 23 and 24, another one of Paul's prison epistles. Epaphras, my fellow prisoner in Jesus Christ greet you as do Mark, there he is, Aristarchus, Demas, and then Luke, my fellow workers. Who's a fellow worker? John Mark. How about that? Here's a fellow worker, John Mark.

And then we have the last note here. 1 Peter was, as I mentioned before, was written to the churches up in this area, a place that, so far as we have record, Paul never went, but the gospel spread by other means from anything we have record of. 1 Peter 5.13, and that's the last chapter of 1 Peter, right? So here's Peter writing at the end. She who is in Babylon, and that's something we won't get into because there's more than we have time to tackle, but chosen together with you sends you greetings and so does my son Mark. Now it was common for the apostles to have those who were close to them to call them sons. Paul calls Timothy my son. So Peter is not referring, I don't believe, to his physical son, biological son, but rather a spiritual son, someone who stuck with him. What we have outside of scripture and church history records that John Mark spent the last of Peter's days with Peter, and that he was the author of the Gospel of Mark.

So now, let's take a look on page four. We've got a timeline there. Here's the timeline in the middle of page four. Mark escapes naked in the Garden of Gethsemane. I would state that that's a likelihood, a presumption, but probable. And so that would be about 30 AD. Then we have Mark leaves Paul in Barnabas around 46-47 AD, somewhere in there. About 50-51, Mark goes with Barnabas to Cyprus. And then we have no further record of how that follows. And then in the early 60s, mid-60s, we have several events.

One, Mark is in Rome with Paul, because after all, he requested it. And then Paul asks for Mark, and Mark is with Peter, are the next things in sequence here. We find John Mark having gone from a guy who was unstable, and apparently some I guess should characterize it as immaturities, perhaps emotional, likely spiritual as well, having gone from that to someone who is my fellow worker, who is youthful, for service, and now someone who is an associate of Peter and remained faithful until Peter was taken home with the Lord.

Yeah, James? Likely so. Yeah, that's the connection. And the extra-biblical connection, because it's interesting, we have a few authors of the New Testament books who are not apostles directly. And so what's looked at there is their apostolic sponsorship. And for example, Luke would have been sponsored by Paul. The Gospel of Mark is looked upon as being sponsored by Peter, the one who accompanied Mark. And Peter testifies that Mark is with him in 1 Peter 5. So those would be a few examples. I would suggest to you, various people will claim various things.

I don't know that we will ever be able to know with certainty, lacking some additional evidence. Who is the author of Hebrews? My own personal inclination, and I'll have to leave it at that, would be to say it may well be Barnabas, and that would be again another instance of an apostle sponsoring a book, but Barnabas is not officially one of the apostles. Yeah? I don't know offhand. I was looking at it last night and it just didn't fix in my mind. I think it's around chapter 10. I'm not certain of that. It's one where it talks about stirring one another up to love.

Now, why would I say it's likely that, in my opinion, and this is only an opinion, that Barnabas should be considered as a possible author of Hebrews? Two primary reasons, and we'll throw three in there if it's okay. One is he at the end mentions that Timothy is in prison, which it would indicate, as we see in these other letters, that Paul and Barnabas continued to have a relationship, and that the connection with Timothy and Paul now would have been mentioned by Barnabas. So that fits. But aside from that, Barnabas was, as Rachel mentioned, and I think she had to leave here, but as Rachel mentioned, Barnabas was a Levite, and what you find a lot of in the book of Hebrews is a lot of things about the Levitical service, and so that background seems apparent.

The writing style appears to have some differences from what the way Paul typically writes, so that would also fit with Somebody else having written it and the other thing is Cyprus was where it was from right lots of port access on Cyprus being an island So I mean practically everywhere you go You don't go very far and you're next to the ocean one of the things that we mentioned a few chapters back and in Acts Was there's lots of nautical terms lots of ship terms throughout the book of Hebrews and that's exactly what we find in in Barnabas background and we also know well that he traveled on ship So anyway some things that seem to connect up there. I would certainly not claim that that's absolutely the case But seemed to make a good connection.

That's the quick version the thing I think as we look at here is is here is an instance where if you were to if you were to say from John Marks early record Is this guy someone that you'd call a fellow worker? Is this someone you would say he's useful to me it would you as Paul did in a very last Who knows days weeks months of his life writing a letter to Timothy? Would you say send John Mark because it's useful Not based on the earlier record But something happened, and we don't have all the details, but we've got enough to say that Barnabas' choice to spend time with John Mark appears to have been pivotal in John Mark's life. After that, even Paul, who earlier said, I am not taking that guy with me, was asking for him, calling him a fellow worker.

And that's neat stuff. That's wonderful stuff. because it shows that a believer can stumble and be restored. It shows that there is a place for growth at various levels, and certainly spiritual growth. And there is a place for the Lord to work. It also means that we as believers may make decisions that put us on different directions, and it may not be bad. It may be only a difference of ministry. Paul needed, as he went off on that second journey, people he could absolutely count on even if he was in another city.

Barnabas, however, felt by reason of family connection, by reason of knowledge of perhaps what John Mark didn't have in his life, by reason of character. We know he's kind of a front-end guy taking on the tough guy, the underdog, the tough case. It was the character of Barnabas' ministry, and as has been mentioned earlier, being the son of encouragement. And by the way, that encouragement is not just encouragement, but also includes exhortation.

Calling John Mark along. That each of the men, in spite of that sharp division, and we don't have a lot more detail on what that division was like, each of those men made the right choice. And each of them carried out the ministry that the Lord had them. And it was beneficial for Paul to have made the choice that he made. It was beneficial for Barnabas to have made the choice that he made. And interestingly enough, we have testimony of Peter that Mark is with him. And we have the Gospel of Mark as well. Testimony that the Lord indeed is faithful even when we're not. and the Lord has ministry.

It also underscores to me what Paul himself wrote to the church at Colossae, Colossians 1.28, where he says three times, every man, and by the way, that's Anthropos, it's not just masculine, every single person, every single person, every single person brought to maturity in Christ. No exceptions. That is God's intent, that every believer be brought to maturity in Christ. It's not just for the elders or the pastor or whatever other kind of labels you want to put on somebody.

Every single person in the Church of Jesus Christ, and Paul says in Colossians 1.29, to this end, and he uses agonizomai, I put forth an athletic level effort to the point of exhaustion, is the meaning of the word. I put forth an effort to the point of exhaustion all the way while empowered and energized by God himself, to the end that every single person in the body of Christ be brought to maturity. That's really cool. That's really neat. And it goes way beyond No Child Left Behind. Yes?

One thing that I wondered about, the maturity of the early Christians in the early church, certainly they didn't have all the tools that we do today. How about their maturity as compared to our maturity? Where are we in comparison to where they were and vice versa? The question that Art asks has to do with our maturity and their maturity during this New Testament era. I think you can find examples all over the place. By the way, Demas, one of the guys that we see on this list here, later on we find he did fall away. And we don't know the outcome from that. He may have been restored at some point. We don't know.

But one thing that's clear is that we have before us right now the entire New Testament Scriptures. The early church was given in lieu of the completion of the New Testament, have expressed in the church today to kind of help them along in this process. We have the unique privilege of having the entire New Testament revelation before us. and having that clearly laid out, we have the opportunity to grow and mature that is certainly different from what they had during the New Testament era.

Here's Paul and Barnabas, for example, heading out on their first missionary journey, and what scriptures do they have to work with? Basically, by that time, largely, the Old Testament. And what they taught that were things that had, from anything we have evidence, had not been put to writing yet. So here they are, they're teaching from the Old Testament, explaining, for example, here's how the Old Testament showed this and this and this about Christ. And they would certainly have a lot to refer to, but they didn't have the New Testament revelations. Things that Paul wrote to the church at Corinth and to the church at Ephesus.

You've been sealed with the Holy Spirit. That was a new thing. And the Old Testament really doesn't lay that out. The fact that you've been identified with Christ in His death, burial, resurrection, ascension, and seeding. There was a foreview, Psalm 22 and Isaiah 53 would be two examples of Christ's death, and other passages pointing to His resurrection. But not the full sense of, you know, we as believers here in the Church have been identified with Christ and His death, burial, resurrection, ascension, and seeding.

Those were new things. I would say that while they had both mature and immature believers then, and we have that now, we certainly have a unique and special opportunity with the full revelation of the New Testament Scriptures to grow in a way and to behold the Lord Jesus Christ in a way that's very special. I would say on the flip side of that, imagine what it would be like to either have been one of or talked face-to-face with one or more of the people that had seen the Resurrected Jesus Christ. That's got to be pretty special too. They grew spiritually in that era. Their spiritual growth was brought about in a different character. That's probably the best way to characterize it.

Can you imagine, like even in the days when they're meeting in the temple, obviously the temple hasn't existed for over 19 centuries, but can you imagine meeting in the temple and one of the guys says, I saw Jesus Christ crucified and resurrected, and about 12 other people raised their hand and said, me too. And that was one of those years where false testimony is going to get you stones. So you don't claim that falsely. So here they are being able to testify personally of what had taken place in Jesus Christ.

This is wonderful stuff. So they had some unique ministry among themselves. We have tremendous opportunity and a perspective of things that is unique and valuable as well. Have I answered your question? Both of them are very special, and yet at the same time I have to look at it and say, boy, it sure would have been neat to either have been or to have talked to somebody who actually saw the resurrected Christ. It was enough that the evidence we have was that Jesus' brother James turned from unbelief to belief, and likely Jude as well. Phenomenal changes took place, and those are hard to set aside as inconsequential. Yes, right, yeah. Yes, yes. Yeah, and notice the way I've tried to characterize it is not that, you know, they were more mature or were, you know, more mature. What you can definitely say is that the path toward maturity is different.

But there isn't any, I mean they're a part of the church as well, and even before the New Testament was completed, Paul says, you know, I, with every single person, pursue the maturity of believers. And he wrote to the church at Ephesus, and he says, as a corporate body, you know, you are to pursue that maturity. And that's without the completed New Testament. So, and we look to that now. So there's a, you're correct, there's a commonality in the maturity We're not talking about a different church and a different maturity.

How it came about was done differently during the New Testament era than we would look to now. We do not have some of those miraculous gifts. We don't have people we can talk to and, you know, they'd raise their hand and say, I saw the resurrected Jesus Christ.

I'll stake my life on it. On the other hand, we have the completed scriptures and there's no question, but the Lord intended and intends maturity for every believer. We're not given all the details there, but it's clear that from what we have on the road to Emmaus, those people had their eyes opened.

That was a phenomenal thing. Did they have the whole New Testament before them? No, they had none of it. Did they have the living, resurrected Lord Jesus Christ walking beside them and telling them from the scriptures? Yes, they did. To the point where they were awestruck. They didn't sleep that night, by the way. The whole night. Whoa! When it hit them, they just They couldn't lay their head on the pillow and go to bed and go to sleep. It was just awesome. Wonderful things. It's interesting.

I don't know exactly how I'll spend every moment as we walk through heaven's gates, but there will be some special times that believers have had with the Lord when they didn't have much else. There were people who became believers and shortly thereafter went home to be with the Lord without having seen any of the New Testament. We're at the other end of the stick, so to speak, where we've got the entire New Testament revealed. How wonderful are both of those things? Imagine if you were someone who was on in years, and you said, you know, I don't know what else the Lord's going to do here. They haven't seen the New Testament. But they could say as they close their eyes for the last time, I saw the risen Lord. Let's pray. Lord, as we look here, these are wonderful and awesome things.

You have worked in hearts and lives and those are so tremendous and so awesome as we look at things here this morning. You have radically changed people. Paul from the leader and chief spokesman in many ways for the law, turning from that to a very prominent spokesman for grace. Grace all the way. Nothing but grace. We've seen John Mark going from someone on whom no one could count to one whom Paul would say, in my last days send John Mark, he's useful. And Lord, we just marvel at your faithfulness. Thank you for the examples that you've set before us here, inspired by the apostles and those who wrote alongside them. We thank you, Lord, in Jesus' name. Amen.