A Profitable Disagreement Text: Acts 15:36-41
Introduction: The Paroxysm of Providence
We live in a soft and effeminate age, and this softness has deeply infected the church. We have come to believe that the highest Christian virtue is being nice. We think that unity means the absence of all conflict, a kind of polite, smiling agreement to never disagree about anything important. The result is a church that is often a mile wide and an inch deep, terrified of sharp edges, principled stands, and the kind of robust disagreements that characterize men who actually believe things.
Into this placid, lukewarm puddle, our text from Acts lands like a cannonball. Here we have two spiritual giants, Paul and Barnabas, men who had faced down riots, sorcerers, and Judaizers together, and they get into a fight. And it is not a mild misunderstanding over tea. The text says there was a "sharp disagreement," a paroxusmos in the Greek. It is where we get our word paroxysm, a sudden, violent outburst. It was so sharp that it split up one of the most effective missionary teams in the history of the world.
Our modern, sentimental sensibilities are immediately scandalized by this. We rush in to find the bad guy. Who was in the wrong? Was it the rigid, ungracious Paul? Or was it the soft, compromising Barnabas? We want to smooth it all over and lament this unfortunate episode as a sad failure. But this is to completely misread the text and to misunderstand the robust nature of biblical sanctification and, more importantly, the absolute sovereignty of God.
This passage is not primarily a story about failure. It is a glorious story about the overruling providence of God. It is a story that teaches us that God’s kingdom is not a fragile thing, dependent on all of us getting along perfectly. His purposes are so vast and His wisdom so deep that He can take the friction between two godly, strong-willed men and use it to double the missionary output. He can take a division and turn it into a multiplication. This is not God making the best of a bad situation. This is God working His plan through the very real, very sharp, and very human disagreements of His saints.
The Text
Now after some days Paul said to Barnabas, “Let us return and visit the brothers in every city in which we proclaimed the word of the Lord, and see how they are.”
And Barnabas wanted to take John, called Mark, along with them also.
But Paul kept insisting that they should not take him along who had deserted them in Pamphylia and had not gone with them to the work.
And there was such a sharp disagreement that they separated from one another, and Barnabas took Mark with him and sailed away to Cyprus.
But Paul chose Silas and left, being committed by the brothers to the grace of the Lord.
And he was traveling through Syria and Cilicia, strengthening the churches.
(Acts 15:36-41 LSB)
A Godly Impulse and a Point of Contention (vv. 36-38)
The story begins with a thoroughly godly and pastoral impulse from Paul.
"Let us return and visit the brothers in every city in which we proclaimed the word of the Lord, and see how they are." (Acts 15:36)
This is the heart of a true apostle. Paul is not just an evangelist who notches conversions on his belt and moves on. He is a shepherd. He wants to go back, to strengthen, to encourage, to see how the flock is faring. This is the hard, unglamorous work of discipleship. The mission is not just about planting churches, but about tending them. Both men are in complete agreement on this point. The conflict does not arise from a bad motive.
The friction point appears when Barnabas introduces his own proposal.
"And Barnabas wanted to take John, called Mark, along with them also. But Paul kept insisting that they should not take him along who had deserted them in Pamphylia and had not gone with them to the work." (Acts 15:37-38)
Here we have a collision of two legitimate, yet competing, principles. Barnabas, whose name means "Son of Encouragement," is living up to his name. He wants to restore a young man who failed. We know from Colossians that Mark was Barnabas's cousin, so there is a family loyalty here, but it is more than that. Barnabas is the great restorer. He was the one who vouched for the newly converted Saul of Tarsus when everyone else was terrified of him. Now he wants to extend that same grace to his cousin, John Mark, who had bailed on them during the first missionary journey.
Paul, on the other hand, is thinking about the integrity of the mission. His reasoning is not personal pique; it is explicitly stated: Mark "had deserted them... and had not gone with them to the work." For Paul, the apostolic work was spiritual warfare of the highest order. It was difficult, dangerous, and demanding. He could not afford to have someone on the team who had proven himself unreliable under pressure. This was not about punishing Mark; it was about protecting the mission. Paul was applying a standard of missional discipline. A soldier who deserts his post in the middle of a battle cannot simply expect to be put back on the front lines the next day because his uncle is the other captain.
So we have Barnabas, championing the principle of personal restoration, and Paul, championing the principle of missional integrity. Both are good principles. But here, in this particular application, they clash head-on.
The Sharp Split (v. 39)
The disagreement was not a calm, reasoned debate that ended in a mutually agreeable compromise. It was a blow-up.
"And there was such a sharp disagreement that they separated from one another, and Barnabas took Mark with him and sailed away to Cyprus." (Acts 15:39)
The word is paroxusmos. It was a severe clash. They could not find a middle ground, and so they broke up the partnership. Our modern instinct is to see this as a tragedy, a failure of love. But sometimes, when two godly men have a principled disagreement, the most practical and, in a sense, loving thing to do is to separate. A false unity, where one man is resentfully submitting to the other's plan, would have created a compromised and miserable missionary team. A team hobbled by internal friction is not an effective fighting force. It is far better to have two separate, unified, and zealous teams than one large, dysfunctional one.
And this is precisely where we see the hand of God's providence. Satan no doubt intended this division for evil. He wanted to halt the work. But God, in His sovereignty, takes the devil's playbook and uses it for His own glorious ends. What was intended as a division, God turns into a multiplication. One missionary team has now become two. Instead of one apostolic party strengthening the churches, there are now two. Barnabas and Mark head to Cyprus, Barnabas's home territory, a field he is uniquely suited for. And Paul prepares for his own journey.
Multiplication and Commendation (vv. 40-41)
The aftermath of the split is telling.
"But Paul chose Silas and left, being committed by the brothers to the grace of the Lord. And he was traveling through Syria and Cilicia, strengthening the churches." (Acts 15:40-41)
Paul does not go off in a huff. He chooses a new partner, Silas, a leading man from the Jerusalem church and a prophet. This was not a downgrade. And notice the crucial detail: Paul and Silas were "committed by the brothers to the grace of the Lord." The church at Antioch, their sending church, formally commended Paul's new mission. This does not necessarily mean they condemned Barnabas, but it does indicate that they endorsed Paul's course of action. They saw the wisdom in his commitment to the integrity of the work.
And what is the result? The mission continues, unabated. Paul travels through Syria and Cilicia, doing exactly what he set out to do: "strengthening the churches." The kingdom of God did not grind to a halt because two of its leaders had a fight. The work of God is not that fragile. God's purposes are not thwarted by the personalities and principles of His servants. He is the master weaver, and He can use even the knotted threads of our conflicts to create His beautiful tapestry.
Grace Abounding
This story would be incomplete if we did not look ahead to see the final outcome. Was Paul right to be so hard on Mark? Was Barnabas right to be so gracious? The answer, in the long run, is that God used both men to accomplish His purpose in Mark's life.
Barnabas took Mark under his wing and discipled him. The "Son of Encouragement" did his work. And apparently, the sharp rebuke implied by Paul's refusal also did its work. Mark needed both the grace of Barnabas and the steel of Paul. He needed to be restored, but he also needed to learn the high cost of desertion.
And how do we know it worked? We know because years later, the apostle Paul, writing from a Roman prison, says this: "Get Mark and bring him with you, for he is very useful to me for ministry" (2 Timothy 4:11). The deserter became useful. The man Paul refused to take on the second journey became a man Paul specifically requested for his final one. The sharp discipline, coupled with the patient encouragement, bore fruit.
This is the beautiful economy of God. Nothing is wasted, not even our sharpest disagreements. God is sovereign over it all. He is sovereign over the clash of principles between good men. He is sovereign over the division that multiplies the work. And He is sovereign over the long, slow process of sanctification that turns a deserter into a useful servant of the gospel, the very man who would go on to write the Gospel of Mark.
So let us not be a people who are terrified of conflict. Let us be a people who hold our principles firmly, who debate them robustly, and who, when we must disagree, do so without condemning one another. And above all, let us be a people who trust in the overruling, sovereign providence of a God who works all things, even our paroxysms, together for the good of His people and the advancement of His kingdom.