And having arrived at Jerusalem he essayed to join himself to the disciples, and all were afraid of him, not believing that he was a disciple.
The man who once hunted believers in Jerusalem walks back into the city and tries to take his place among them. The door does not open. His welcome depends not on his own account of himself, but on someone willing to vouch for him.
His move toward the disciples was the pull of a changed heart looking for its own people.
Having arrived, "he attempted to join the disciples," just as in Damascus he was with the disciples there. Led by the Spirit of God, he must go to his own company. The believer's heart must be where the heart of Christ is. And it was of His people He said, "In them is all my delight." (Psalm 16) So it is a bad sign when any of God's children are content to stay away from His people.
The disciples remembered what Saul had done, and suspected a trick.
There is no way any of us want to meet him. There is no way we are going to let him find out who we all are, and where we meet together. He may SAY that he is a believer, but how do we know it isn't a trick?
In Jerusalem he had last stood with the very men who drove the persecution.
When Saul was last in Jerusalem he had kept company with the religious leaders of that city, the relentless enemies of the disciples. And it was he who had been their chosen instrument in the merciless persecution they had started. So it was only natural that the disciples should now all be afraid of Saul, and that they did not believe he was a disciple. They evidently feared a new scheme by their old enemy to destroy them. Until adequate testimony came, they were not ready to accept Saul's claim to their fellowship.
The cold welcome was not just nerves. God had a hand in what Saul met.
From the outset Saul had to taste for himself the very things he had been inflicting on others. Back in Jerusalem the disciples distrusted him, as was very natural, and Barnabas had to step in before they received him... In all this we can see the working of the government of God. The Lord had shown him amazing mercy in his conversion. Even so, that did not exempt him from reaping in this governmental way what he had sown.
Commentators read this as a lasting pattern for receiving believers.
God did not clothe him with such overwhelming influence that doors were thrown open to him... Why should any confessor of Christ — why should any child of God — shrink from giving godly satisfaction to those who ask for it? Why so much haste and impatience? Why should there be an unwillingness to meet and submit to others when it is a question of reception?... Here we find that not even the apostle Paul was above it.
Care of this kind cuts two ways.
Paul is a model man to the church in many things, and in this also. The assembly received him the way it should receive every applicant: on solid testimony that his Christianity was genuine. It must take every godly care to detect the pretenders like Simon Magus. But it must show all tenderness and patience to the timid and doubting ones.
One man refused to leave it there.
It is to Barnabas's enormous credit that he wasn't willing to let this situation go on. He was willing to go and meet a man who had been an enemy of Christ, a hater of believers, who had probably killed or imprisoned many of Barnabas's own family and friends... How did he know Saul's claim wasn't just part of a trap?... I think it unlikely that he had different information about Saul than Peter and the rest had, but HE would take the risk... And he was willing to be convinced. His mind wasn't closed.
That openness in one man was itself God's provision for the moment.
Barnabas had a larger heart than even the apostles and the others who had grown up in a strict Judaism. He was more open to the testimonies of divine grace. God in His grace provides for everything. There is always a Barnabas... whenever needed.
This was a short stop, three years after the Damascus road, and writers differ on exactly where the time in Arabia falls. One notes plainly: "It is impossible now to decide the question positively." What is certain is that the visit was brief, and that it ended with Saul sent away to Tarsus.
- Instinct — A changed heart heads straight for God's people. Being happy to stay away is a warning sign.
- Fear — The distrust was reasonable, not mean-spirited. This man had led the persecution against them.
- Government — Mercy at conversion did not cancel the harvest. Saul tasted the fear he had once caused.
- Testimony — Nobody joins on his own say-so. Even Paul needed someone to vouch for him.
- Barnabas — God always raises up one open heart to close the gap. The risk Barnabas took opened the door for Saul.
But Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles, and related to them how he had seen the Lord in the way, and that he had spoken to him, and how in Damascus he had spoken boldly in the name of Jesus.
Saul of Tarsus reaches Jerusalem three years after the road to Damascus, and the believers there want nothing to do with the man who once hunted them. Everything turns on one person willing to vouch for him, and on what he tells them about Saul.
The refusal hurt Saul, but one writer finds a lasting lesson in it: no one gets in on his own word alone.
How painful this was for Saul, a man full of divine affections, already overflowing with a testimony of Christ that went beyond these doubting brothers! Their own grace was so small that they doubted the largest measure of it they had ever seen. But how helpful for us and all saints, who have to learn this: we must not receive anyone on his own word alone, but on adequate testimony from others. Think of a man who is unknown, or known only by doubtful circumstances. He must have a wonderful opinion of himself, or be strangely blind to the duties of others, if he expects a welcome within the holy bounds of Christ on the good account he gives of himself.
We are never told how Barnabas knew. One writer sees the Lord's hand in it, forming a link for work to come.
They did not know of his conversion; but Barnabas knew; and the Lord uses him to bring Saul into the assembly at Jerusalem... We are not told how Barnabas knew all this. His heart was in it all. No doubt the Lord had put him in the way of knowing all this, to form a link between these two for future work together.
Some have guessed that the two men knew each other at Tarsus. One writer rejects that guess and points to what Acts says about Barnabas elsewhere.
Some say Barnabas acted this way because he already knew Saul, and that the two had studied together at Tarsus, where neither of them knew the Lord Jesus. They say that either fact, even if true, could be a ground to satisfy the disciples. This is just a sample of human guesswork... Is not the real key given by the sacred historian in a later glimpse of Barnabas in Acts 11:23-24? When he saw the grace of God, he was glad, and so he encouraged them; for he was a good man, and full of the Holy Spirit and of faith.
Barnabas begins with what Saul had seen. It was not the Christ the others remembered.
Barnabas quickly grasped that there was something marked out, something distinct, and something that could shape a whole life, in seeing Christ as Saul had seen Him. Saul had not seen Him in the lowliness of His Galilean pathway. He had not seen Him in the sufferings of the cross, on the day when "they sat down and kept watch over Him there." Saul hated Him, hated His name, and tried to stamp it out. But Saul got a sight of Him beyond the suffering, in the glory.
The word "apostles" covers fewer people than it sounds. Paul's own account names just two of them.
Three years had passed since his conversion, and the report of it had reached the disciples there. Still they gave it no credit, in the very place where he had once destroyed the flock of Christ... At this point the future companion of his labours, Barnabas, appears as mediator. He took and brought him to the apostles — that is, as Paul himself tells us, to Peter and James, the Lord's brother — and lays the whole matter before them. The cloud is cleared away.
One man's word settled it, and Saul's standing changed at once.
It seems the apostles had heard nothing of his conversion, and nothing of his work in Damascus, until Barnabas took him by the hand and told them about his conversion, and about the proofs of it in his evangelistic work and his debates. The testimony of Barnabas was enough. Once they were satisfied that his conversion was real, they freely admitted Saul to the company of the Christians in the city. The man who had once entered houses as an inquisitor was now received as a brother in the faith. A special tie was formed between him and Barnabas this early on, and Barnabas saw Saul's teaching gifts and valued them highly.
- Testimony, not self-report. Saul did not get in by claiming to be a disciple. He got in on "adequate testimony from others."
- Testimony needs a witness. The whole verse hangs on one man who knew what the rest did not, and whose "heart was in it all."
- The witness had a character. The reason was not old friendship. Acts 11:23-24 calls Barnabas a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith, glad whenever he saw grace at work.
- The witness had content. Barnabas reported what Saul saw, what the Lord said, and how Saul preached — and the sight was of Christ "beyond the suffering, in the glory."
- The witness had a result. The disciples received the man who once hunted them as a brother, and the tie formed here became a partnership for work to come.
And he was with them coming in and going out at Jerusalem,
Saul of Tarsus came to Jerusalem as the man everyone feared. Now he moves freely among the people he once hunted — so how was he received, what made him so bold, and why did it last only days?
The disciples had every reason to keep their distance. One writer shows what changed their minds:
They knew his past, and so "they were all afraid of him and did not believe that he was a disciple. 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. So he went in and out among them at Jerusalem." It was no question of receiving him into membership with them. The evidence in his conduct proved him a true disciple. On that ground they recognised him, and he had full liberty to come in and go out as one with the disciples.
The phrase carries weight. William Kelly hears in it an echo of the Lord's own words:
Liberty was thus enjoyed, whether for fellowship or for testimony. It is indeed essential to Christianity, and in contrast with the law, which produces bondage. "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom"; or, as He Himself testified, "I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture." Salvation, liberty, and food are assured by His grace; and so Saul was proving at this time, even in Jerusalem.
Verse 28 joins free movement to open speech, and Kelly argues the order matters:
But there was more than this — bold speech in the name of the Lord, which well suits the object of grace. If "this day is a day of good news," and it certainly is, beyond any that ever dawned, how can we keep silent? … For free and bold testimony in His name is the fruit of His grace, no less than liberty for one's own soul; and in this order too. We need to be set free from every hindrance and weight and doubt and question. We need the liberty with which Christ sets us free. Only then can the mouth open boldly to make known His grace and glory to others.
The group he argued with next (verse 29) were not Gentiles but Jews like himself:
Hellenists. Greek-speaking Jews, not to be confused with Gentile Greeks. They stand in contrast to the Hebrews in Acts 6:1. Paul disputed with them at Jerusalem, Acts 9:29.
J. N. Darby notes why Saul turned to them, and how his freedom in Jerusalem ended:
The dreaded Saul found his place among the disciples even at Jerusalem. What a wonderful triumph of the Lord! … At Jerusalem he reasons with the Hellenists. He was one of them. The Hebrews were not his natural sphere. They seek to put him to death; the disciples bring him down to the sea and send him to Tarsus, the place of his birth.
F. B. Hole sees God's government at work in the plot against Saul's life:
In Jerusalem he witnessed boldly and came into conflict with the Greek-speaking Jews. They may well have been the very men who were so responsible for Stephen's death. Now they would kill the man who held the clothes of those who killed Stephen. In all this we can see the working of the government of God. The Lord had shown amazing mercy in his conversion, but that did not exempt him from reaping in this governmental way what he had sown.
Kelly notes how short the stay was, and what Saul did not go there for:
Even when he did go up to Jerusalem, it was "to visit Peter" — not to take holy orders, and not to take a course of theological study. "He stayed with him fifteen days," seeing none of the other apostles except James the Lord's brother. … In Jerusalem too we see his full liberty and his bold testimony to the Lord's name.
- Vouched for. Barnabas's word opened the door, not a procedure. A changed life proved Saul a true disciple.
- Freed. Going in and out is the liberty of grace, not the bondage of law. Christ is the Door: salvation, freedom, and pasture.
- Bold. Liberty comes first, boldness second. Christ frees the soul from doubt and weight, and then the mouth opens.
- Costly. That boldness set him against the Greek-speaking Jews he came from, and they plotted his death.
- Governed. Mercy at conversion did not cancel God's government. The man who held the coats at Stephen's death now faced the same fury himself.