St Barnabas Day - Rev Dr Andrew Butcher

In the end is our beginning. Just out of camera shot, but so critical to what we’ve just had read to us from the Book of Acts, is the stoning of Stephen and the subsequent scattering of the church. That event was in so many ways a lynchpin for what else followed. What the church needed next was encouragement. And so, Barnabas is sent. And this is what we’re told: He saw what the grace of God had done. He was glad. He encouraged them to be true to the Lord with all their hearts. He discerned the work of the Spirit in the grace of God. He looked at it and said ‘God did this’.