The Pulpit Commentary — Galatians — Section 20

previously occupied: "They tarried no little time with the disciples," ta.ken up, that ia to say, with the ministering 88 before among the Antiochian believers (Acts xiv, 28; xv. 35). All this, making it clear, as it does, that the sacred historian has very distinctly present to his mind the character of special envoys sent forth upon a specific mission, as then borne by Barnabas and Paul, renders it also in the highest degree probable that when, in Acts xiv. 4, 14, he makes use of the word ArclcrToA.01 in reciting their personality, he does so with reference to this especial envoyship. Th~ Church envoyship of Bai·nahas and Paul. St. Barnabas and St. Paul, then, are presented here in the character of envoys of the Church. And if, in reference to this procedure in the Divine government of the Church in subjecting St. Paul, who had received immediately from Christ himself the grace of apostleship, to this inferior form of delegation received at the hands of men, we may, without incurring the charge of irreverence or presumption, venture to interpret its motive or purpose; it may be said that, in his going forth with St. Barnabas upon the business of forming new branche11 of the Christian co=unity, it was expedient and even necessary, with a view to the maintenance of the visible organic connection of these new comm.unities witn..the apostolic Church, that their founders should bear the character thus assigned to them of apostles issuing from the already subsisting Christian body. Their apostolate wore an especially sacred character. Not only did it issue from the Church of God sanctified in Christ Jesus; not only was it conferred for the discharge of an eminently sacred function ; but it wu, further, a .direct emanation from the Holy Spirit, declaring his will by direct extraordinary revelation. This circumstance exalted this instance of Church apostleship to an especial eminency above ordinary cases of sacred envoyship; in fact, it raised it to a position of dignity closely approximating to that kingly form of apostleship held by the twelve. Their Church apostleship involved subsequent obligation. It transpµes from the subsequent narrative of the Acts that, although St. Barnabas and St. Paul had" ful- filled the work " for which they had been designated when they returned to .Antioch and gave in their report to the Church expressly convened to receive it, they never- theless regarded themselves as still holding an especial relation to its result.a. For on their return to Antioch from a journey to Jerusalem, on which they had been despatched with other brethren to confer with "the apostles" and the mother Church on the Christian position held by uncircumcised believers, we find (Acts x:v. 36) St. Paul proposing to bis late co-missionary that they should start afresh on a journey of ,·isitation, comprising the round of cities in which, in their former expedition, they had preached the Word of the Lord, to see how their new converts fared . .Anti-Hellenic prejudice lingering in the mind of BarnabaB. We cannot wonder that they should feel this to be a business especially incumbent upon them. Who i;hould so naturally care for the estate of those brethren as they, their fathers, who through the gospel had begotten them? We perceive, however, that St. Paul was the one who both the most quickly recognized and the most heartily carried out this inward, and no doubt Heaven-prompted, yearning of spiritual fatherhood towards those uncircumcised converts. Loving and ingenuously evangelical as St. Barnabas had heretofore proved himself to be, as, for example, most notably when he first came down to Antioch and ,so frankly and gladly welcomed the work of grace in the hearts of Gentiles (Acts :ri. 23), yet, just about this time-a time so fraught with heart-searching conflict for men born and bred in the bosom of Mosaism-his behaviour, as glanced at in eh. ii., proved that he had not been yet able to disenthral his spirit out and out from all remains of J udaistic prejudice. In geQeral ~:\le m&J;im. holds good thl't ~J:i:a  DISSERTATION L xxxiii