Barnabas: On Meeting Saul
In Acts 9, Saul (the persecutor of the Church) was heading to Damascus to arrest Christians. While on the journey from Jerusalem, Saul encounters a vision of Jesus. This intense event left Saul blind for three days.
He is taken to Damascus. A Jew called Ananias (not the one who lied and died in Acts 5, that’s an interesting connection 🤔) meets him, prays for Saul’s sight to be restored and helps him regain his strength.
In the Epistle to the Galatians, we understand Saul then left Damascus and spent time in Arabia.
He returns and starts preaching. He antagonises the Jews in Damascus and flees, escaping by being lowered out of a window in a basket.
When he gets to Jersusalem, he tries to meet with the disciples, but all of them were too frightened to meet him, in case it was a trick. Barnabas finds Saul and brings him to see the Apostles.
Saul and Moses
In the story of Saul, there are several points which link his life with Moses.
Moses meets God in the Burning Bush and similarly, Saul meets Jesus in a blinding light. Their lives are both significantly changed by the encounter and it causes them to embark on a mission.
After Moses fights with the Egyptian guard, he runs away to Midian, in modern Saudi Arabia.
A contemporary map of the time, showed Arabia stretched from the Sinai Peninsula to Mesopotamia.
Reconstructed Pomponius Mela’s Map (AD 40)
Could Saul have journeyed to the area known as Midian (Northern Saudi Arabia today) in Moses’s time as well as going onto the Sinai?
Another surprisingly connection is when Saul returns to Damascus, he antagonises the Jews and needs to flee for his life. He is lowered in a basket from a window. This is reminiscent of Moses being placed in a basket amongst the reeds on the Nile to avoid being killed by Pharaoh’s men.
Moses is then discovered by Pharaoh’s daughter in the reeds, who gives him away to a Hebrew girl. She takes him back to his mother, who acts as a wet nurse for the baby.
In the case of Saul, he goes to Jerusalem and meets Barnabus, who takes him to see the Apostles. Barnabas acts like the Hebrew girl who takes Moses to the wet nurse. The Church and the Apostles act as the wet nurse, nourishing Paul.
Barnabas and Leadership
In Acts 4, we see Barnabas shows the early Church community how to give gifts to God.
In Acts 9, we see him exhibit leadership again. Barnabas shows the early Church how there is enough of God’s grace to embrace even the most reprehensible sinner who repents. And have the confidence to bring them into the community.
Even though some are called to leadership in the Church, all Christians are called to act like Barnabas and encourage friends, family and neighbours to join a community dedicated to Jesus.
Luke’s Narrative in Acts
Modern historical methods were developed in the 19th Century as part of the Enlightenment. Through this, much like other academic disciplines, the study of history was brought into the scientific worldview.
Ancient historians were different to their modern counterparts. They wrote to their contemporary audience to explain why and how the community came to exist. They were not trying to establish objective historical facts.
The crafted narrative was just as important as what objectively happened. The ancient writer would emphasise certain aspects of what occurred and then downplay or even omit other parts.
As we go further through Acts, Paul and Barnabas’s story seems to line up with that of Moses and Aaron.
Was Luke highlighting these aspects of Paul’s life to align him with Moses?
If so, Luke is revealing to the reader that Paul is a ‘Moses to the Gentiles’. And Barnabas, the Levite Jew, is like Aaron.
Admittedly, the events around Paul and Barnabas are not chronologically similar to Moses. But Luke seems to highlight these events on purpose. So a connection is most likely.
When we look back on Paul’s life and his writings, we see they are integral to the development of the Church. Much like how Moses was to the Israelites.