I stumbled upon an interesting word play in my Bible time this morning in Acts 11:23:
Notice:
charin (grace)
and
echarē (joy)
Grace led to joy!
Acts 11 records the birth of the church in Antioch. It was the result of the efforts of witnesses scattered from Jerusalem by persecution. Luke says, "And the Lord honored their efforts, so that large numbers of Gentiles believed and turned to the Lord" (11:21). When news of this reached the church in Jerusalem, they sent Barnabas to look into the matter. When he arrived, he "saw the grace of God" and "was glad." Then he began to encourage the believers there to "cleave to the Lord" (11:23).
I jotted down 3 applications in my journal:
1. Conversion to Christ makes the believer. But cleaving to him makes the disciple.
2. Many a church has never grown to maturity because there is no Barnabas (his name means "Encourager") to exhort young believers to go on with God after their initial encounter.
3. God's grace is always a good reason to rejoice.
Pastor Rudy Ulrich of First Baptist Church Windward in Kailua led me to Christ in 1960 when I was 8. Pastor Jim Cook of International Baptist Church in Honolulu taught me to devotedly cling to Christ all week long. I needed both men in my life. Interestingly, the disciples were first called "Christians" here in Acts 11:26. Many people who call themselves Christians (noun) are not Christian (adjective). The noun needs to become an adjective. Believers are to be more than statistics on a church roll. God would have us become saints. And it is the Barnabases in our lives who are vital if we are to go from Noun Christian to Adjective Christian.