Trust

Acts 9:26

“And when he had come to Jerusalem, he attempted to join the disciples. And they were all afraid of him, for they did not believe that he was a disciple.”

Have you ever given thought to how “trust” effects your life?  Trust is a belief, a hope, a confidence, an expectation, and a dependence on the person trusted.  Many of you have gone into marriage where trust has been broken, or a partnership in business, and to regain faith in that person to be trustworthy does not come easy.  Can you put yourself in the story where this man Saul shows up as a disciple of Jesus Christ, the same Saul who weeks earlier was going to Damascus with the authority of the high priest to imprison all who were disciples of that name.

Now put yourself into Saul’s shoes and you’re in between a rock and a hard place, as an old boss of mine often said, you are now paying for you’re past performance.  Saul needs someone who can witness to what they have seen, and God has such a man named Barnabas, this is what the apostles said about him, Barnabas is the son of encouragement, a man to be trusted.  If you have ever broken trust in a relationship as I have done, learn from this and ask God to send a Barnabas to open doors so that your relationship can be restored.

Picking up the account from Dr. Luke in Acts 9:27, “But Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles and declared to them how on the road he had seen the Lord, who spoke to him, and how at Damascus he had preached boldly in the name of Jesus.”  We do not know but it seems logical that in a small group of disciples, a rumor like what happen to Saul, had reached the ears of the Apostles.  We do know that the disciples of Jerusalem were very fearful of Saul, that is until Barnabas took him to the apostles and told what he had seen and heard, and from that day on Saul walked, worshiped, and preached among the people of Jerusalem, till a group of religious guys who were called Hellenists were planning to kill him.  Hellenists were Jews who spoke Greek and had little to do with the Jews, in fact they had there own places of worship.  Today we might call them posers, they were Jews who wanted to be Greek in life style, but also held to the Jewish customs of worship to some degree, much like many who go by the name of Christian in our time, whose identity is not in Christ, but what identifies them is found somewhere else.

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice