FIVE SMOOTH STONES - The Five Ascension Gifts in the Heavenly Shepherds Bag

FIVE SMOOTH STONES — The Five Ascension Gifts in the Heavenly Shepherd’s Bag

In the city of Antioch we find there were prophets and teachers working together in the Church there. Barnabas had been sent down to Antioch from Jerusalem by the apostles, most likely because of his ties to the disciples who planted the Church there, as he and they both had ties through Cyprus (Acts 4:36; 11:20). Barnabas went to Tarsus and brought down Paul to the Church in Antioch (Saul is his name translated from Hebrew, Paul his name translated from Greek). Barnabas was sent down from Jerusalem as he was “ a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith .” (Acts 11:24) and he had the fruit of an evangelist as “ a great many people were added to the Lord .” (Acts 11:24). Barnabas’ real name was Joses, but the apostles renamed him Barnabas, which is translated Son of Encouragement. Encouragement here is from the Greek word paraklesis which means “comfort, consolation, or exhortation.” We see this word in 1 Corinthians 14:3 where it says, “ he who prophesies speaks edification and exhortation and comfort. ” The word translated in this verse as exhortation is paraklesis. Barnabas most likely had the gift of a prophet, this also being emphasized in Acts 13:1,“ Now in the Church that was at Antioch there were certain prophets and teachers: Barnabas, Simeon who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch, and Saul. ” We know that Paul was called as a teacher (2 Timothy 1:11) and we know that after he arrived in Antioch that concentrated teaching really began, “ it was [after Paul arrived] that for a whole year they assembled with the Church and taught a great many people. ” (Acts 11:25 -26). Barnabas was sent down to Antioch by the apostles to help establish the work that had been planted there by the disciples who came over from Cyprus and Cyrene. He was most likely being raised up and discipled to function as an apostle by the more senior apostles in Jerusalem. We must understand that Jesus is the one who calls and gives people into ministry (Ephesians 4:11). But what He calls must be recognized and commissioned by leaders in the Church. The gift a person is called to must be recognized by others and not only commissioned at some point; this person should be discipled and trained up to function in their gift. This is an area where the Church has fallen short in its latter days. This will be addressed later in this work.

1