Becoming Barnabas: The Example Of Encouragement (Part 4): The Encourager Behind The Scenes

by on June 10, 2026 | Comment

When you think of your house, what is the first part that comes to mind? You probably envision the things you can more readily see. You think about the siding and how pretty your home looks from the outside. Or you think about the inside walls with all your personal decorations that turn this house into your home. You likely do not think first about the foundation or even the frame.

Despite all the reasons to appreciate these outward and obvious features, what would happen to your house if it had no frame or foundation? Nothing would stand. Your siding would collapse into a disheveled pile, and your walls would fall in on themselves with nothing to hold them. Although we love the obvious and more visible cosmetic features, they depend on the parts we cannot see. As attracted as we are to what pops and demands our attention, we have to rely on the less noticeable.

Barnabas’s ongoing ministry plays out in several events recorded in Acts 12–15. Since Saul and Barnabas go together, our focus normally fixes on Paul, with his bold proclamation of the gospel, carrying the message of salvation to the ends of the earth. We might easily forget that Barnabas was even with Paul since Barnabas in some ways fades into the background of the story and does not occupy center stage in the same way that Paul does in these accounts.

Sometimes pursuing a biblically noble role means pursuing a place that is not obvious and completely noticeable. It means, at times, not being at the center of attention. It may even mean pressing for someone else to get more attention than you do.

The risk of being an encourager might mean that we may not be the most famous. We all have a longing for recognition and need to be appreciated. Sometimes our need is not met by being the headliner. This essay’s main point is that we make our best contribution by encouraging those who need it. More specifically, we should encourage those who need it, even if that means they are celebrated and we are not.

Accomplishment

Barnabas’s ministry with Paul throughout Acts 12–15 includes four key events on their first missionary journey. Proving the point here, Paul’s contributions are more fully in focus in each case. As this ministry gets going, Barnabas and Saul come to Antioch with John called Mark. Our best understanding is that this Mark is the Mark who wrote Mark’s Gospel. In our next installment, Mark’s role will be an important factor, so we should note here how the author of Mark’s Gospel accompanied Barnabas and Saul on this missionary trip.

The other thing to note from Acts 13:2 is that the Holy Spirit directly commissioned Barnabas first for this mission, with Saul accompanying him. We get the sense that Barnabas was the senior partner, by the Holy Spirit’s appointment, and the apostle Paul is the other contributing half.

Nevertheless, as the next few chapters unfold, we have no recorded words belonging exclusively to Barnabas. We have a few places where the same words are attributed to Paul and Barnabas, such as when they reject the claim of the crowds in Lystra that they are gods. In the events in Acts 13:42–52, after Paul’s public sermon, both Paul and Barnabas were invested in discussing the gospel with those who were interested. Acts 14 continues the story. In Iconium, both Barnabas and Paul are said to speak boldly for the Lord. In Lystra, Paul speaks to heal people. Interestingly, as the people mistook them for Greek gods, they perceived Barnabas as Zeus, the king of the gods, and Paul as Hermes, the mere messenger god. Eventually, they ended up back in Jerusalem for the Jerusalem council in Acts 15, where they would debate and recognize the significance of God including the Gentiles among his people.

Each instance builds toward an important trend in Barnabas’s life. Barnabas clearly had greatness. He was tied into the achievement that Paul accomplished. He was recognized as being superior to Paul. Still, Barnabas never insisted on claiming a center-stage position. Barnabas saw that accomplishment is as much in what you help others achieve (perhaps even more) than in how we garner focus on ourselves.

Attention

Greatness does not require attention. It requires quality. Barnabas has a profound lesson to teach us about how to be an encourager precisely in terms of how we relate to other people. We have to learn how to navigate when to step up and when to hand things over for someone else, who will get the attention.

In the previous case, we saw how Barnabas stood up for Paul with the Jerusalem apostles. In other words, he encouraged Paul by using his position to defend him and encourage him by speaking in his favor. We thought about how that means we need to be ready to say encouraging things. In our age, one of the greatest ways to come alongside someone else is to make sure we keep lines of spoken encouragement coming at them.

But in these instances, we see how encouragement at times means letting someone else spread their wings. We know already that Paul was capable of speaking boldly. We also know that Barnabas was, as some discreet moments in these events remind us, a powerful preacher too.

We could imagine Paul’s sense of this situation. Barnabas was the renowned encourager among the Jerusalem apostolic circle. He was able to speak and secure Paul’s acceptance among Christians in Jerusalem. He was resourceful, effective, and established in ministry. He was seemingly appointed the lead pastor on this ministry team. We can imagine Paul thinking, “Okay, I need to sit back and just watch Barnabas at work. How can I compete with him?”

In this respect, Barnabas gives us his key insight. He was not interested in competing with Paul. He did not desire attention just to have attention. He would accept attention when it was the best way forward for the sake of the gospel or to help other Christians. For most of these opportunities throughout their known world, Barnabas seemed to take the posture of “Go get them, Paul. You are more than capable and will knock this out of the park.”

Barnabas teaches us that encouragement can often come from behind the scenes but is absolutely essential. Paul needed Barnabas. He was never a Lone Ranger apostle. He always had friends. Had Barnabas not been the guy behind the scenes keeping him encouraged, who knows how his missionary trips would have turned out. Certainly, God is sovereign over the effects of these events. He was also sovereign over making sure that Paul had his Barnabas to keep him uplifted and encouraged.

Here is the lesson: As we strive to encourage, it is more important to make sure the best things are happening than to make sure we are seen. Encouragement—and seeing the best result—may mean pointing to someone else and letting yourself go unseen. It may mean championing the person who has the public effect rather than climbing into that seat yourself.

Encouragement has the goal of seeing the best outcomes. It aims to strengthen others so that they will be able to achieve even more than we can. In Greek the word for “encourage” can also be translated as “advocate.” These are indeed related concepts. We need others to advocate for us. We need encouragement from those who say, “You can do this,” even when it means they fade into the background. Our true greatness resides most in the investments we make in others, not in the attention we get from them. Attention is not our main goal; rather, contribution is.

Approval

We have to bring this issue to the cross because so many of our instincts are to seek credit and attention. We can be hesitant to do a lot of things, especially hard things, if we do not see how recognition will come our way.

We need to bring our need for recognition to Christ. Christ teaches us about this in a few ways. First, we should realize that our desire for approval and recognition is normal and even in some ways right. The real problem is that we tend to focus entirely on human recognition and approval. When we realize that higher approval and recognition are more important, it frees us to live for what is best and encourage others to achieve great success because we realize that our best approval does not happen on earth, even for the things that we do in secret.

What does Paul say in Colossians 3:23–24? “Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ.” Although I do not know, I wonder if Barnabas’s fingerprints were on Paul’s mind as he wrote this. What if Paul was thinking about the true greatness he knew his dear Barnabas had, knowing also that Barnabas let Paul so often have center stage. Barnabas knew that he did not need to be seen on earth because he was seen in heaven and approved by the God he served by encouraging Paul to accomplish obvious and outward achievements.

The source of that sense of approval is in the true approval we have before the Lord. He does not simply have a feeling of approval toward his people. Rather, because of Christ, he has rendered the verdict that we are approved in the heavenly courtroom. Christ’s death in our place wiped away all our sins and failures, all the moral shortcomings of our lives for which God would have to disapprove and even condemn us.

But Christ’s life was to provide that perfectly righteous record that wins approval in God’s sight. As Christ rose from death, he took that perfect record of righteousness, as well as his death to bear the curse for our sin, into heaven. He did so to put true reasons before the Father to approve of us. All who trust in Christ can encourage, enable, and champion others, not needing approval on earth, because Christ has won our approval forever with God.

©Harrison Perkins. All Rights Reserved.

You can find this whole series here.

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