Barnabas and Titus. (2.1)

by Kent Leslie ✉️

Barnabas, whom I mentioned last week, is the guy who first brought Paul to the apostles. His name is Joseph of Kyprios (Cyprus). He’s a Levite; that means he’s a descendant of Levi ben Israel. (בֵּן/Ben is Hebrew, and ܒ݁ܰܪ/bar is Aramaic, for “son of.”)

Levites are Israel’s 13th tribe. I know; everybody talks about “the 12 tribes of Israel,” but the tribe of Joseph, because he had the birthright, turned into two tribes, Ephraim and Manasseh. So Israel really has 13 tribes—but God didn’t give the tribe of Levi any tribal lands. Instead he turned them into Israel’s priestly caste: If you were a male Levite, you were a priest, same as Moses and Aaron and all Aaron’s high-priest descendants.

So as a priest, two weeks a year, you had to serve in temple. Usually doing chores, although John the baptist’s father Zechariah actually got to burn incense. Exceptions were permitted for Levites who didn’t live in Israel, but Barnabas’s family could have traveled to Israel twice a year to serve; it’s expensive, but not impossible.

In Acts 4.36, Luke says Barnabas means “son of encouragement,” but in Aramaic, ܒ݁ܰܪ ܢܰܒ݂ܰܐ/bar-navá literally means “son of prophecy.” Interpreting navá as “encouragement” isn’t wrong: If prophets don’t have to do a ton of correction to a bunch of sinning Christians, pretty much all their messages from the Holy Spirit are gonna be pure encouragement! So Luke’s interpretation isn’t wrong.

Barnabas first comes up in that passage ’cause he sold some property, and gave the money to the apostles to help fund the Jerusalem church. You might not know this: If an ancient Israeli sold property, it wasn’t actually sold permanently. Every 50th year was a jubilee year, and in that year, any property you or your family sold, came back to you and your family. You only sold it for however long it was till the next jubilee year. The only exception was property within a city. If you sold a house in the city, it was sold permanently. And as a landless tribe, the only property Levites owned were in cities. So when Barnabas sold his property, it was sold-sold. Permanently. He totally gave it up for Jesus. That tells us a lot about what kind of guy Barnabas was.

Acts 11.24 also calls him full of the Holy Spirit and faith.

After Paul created a ruckus in Jerusalem, the apostles sent him home to Tarsus in Acts 9.30 and Galatians 1.21, round the year 38. Really soon after that, the apostles sent Barnabas to Antioch, Syria, [Ac 11.22], to go check out a church where some Syrian Greek gentiles had come to Jesus. Barnabas went to Antioch, checked them out, found the Syrians were for-real Christians, and led a bunch more to Jesus. Syria was in fact where Jesus-followers were first called Χριστιανούς/Hristianús, Christians.

But Barnabas needed help! Paul was only 83 miles away and Jerusalem was 300 miles away, so Barnabas went to Tarsus, Cilicia, and got Paul. So when Paul mentions “fourteen years” in Galatians 2.1, he wasn’t just sitting things out in Tarsus all that time; he was busy helping Barnabas. We know it was only a few years between Paul going home in 38, and Barnabas coming to get him, because the prophet Agabus visited their church and said there’d be a famine in Jerusalem, [Ac 11.28] and that famine happened in year 41.

During their time in Antioch, the Spirit sent Barnabas and Paul on their first missions trip to Cyprus and Türkiye in the years 46 and 47. There’s a map.

Now Titus. We don’t know a lot about his background! Most likely he’s from Antioch—he’s one of those Syrian Greeks who became Christian. And he’s gentile: He’s not Jewish; he’s not descended from Abraham; he didn’t convert to Pharisaism then become Christian.

Why this was a big deal to certain Jewish Christians is they wanted him, and any other gentiles who became Christian, to be circumcised.