The All. All through church history there have been ordinary men and women who have been

working behind the scenes fulfilling God's purposes. One such man was Barnabas. He wasn't an apostle or a

famous preacher. He was simply an encourager. Today on Truth for Life weekend

Alistairbegg takes a closer look at Barnabas to show us why in God's economy

there are no inconsequential tasks, no chance encounters, and no irrelevant people.

Some of us have been reared in environments in conservative, fundamentalist evangelical Christianity

where the motto of so many of our churches has been us for no more shut the door

we're very happy to have our little group, we know who's in it, we know who we

want to be in it, and we know who we don't want to be in it. When that exists in the fellowship of God's people,

we are just in point of identification here

with the group in Jerusalem,

because Saul himself had no place to go and there was no one to take

him. And then come these four fantastic words that begin verse 27, but Barnabas took him.

But Barnabas took him.

And when you take somebody it involves time, it involves effort, and it

involves a rearrangement of your plans. And since most of us are cagey with our time, are not necessarily

committed with our effort and don't like our plans being rearranged.

As much as we want to be Barnabas, we may be one of the disciples that close the door in Saul's face.

Because we didn't want to give up the time.

If you think about the evangelism of our churches, in terms of their outreach when we greet people and we tell them about our church

and about the pastor that we have and the ministries that are there and we invite them, we to them oh you know you want to come

along some Sunday and the individual is intrigued and they say and how do I get

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