Be near to the apostles in your attitude – not praising people, not building over-elaborate homes which devour all your concentration and energy, not thinking along earthly lines, but spreading the gospel. Seek to be more sanctified; strive and hunger and thirst after righteousness; never be satisfied with what you have achieved already; be reasonable and mature in all your judgements. That is what the passage is about. Our aims are to improve, to win souls, to pray and intercede more, to love Christ and walk with him.
I remember some years ago spending an afternoon arguing with a very well-known minister in the United States. What we were discussing, spiritedly, was the whole issue of worship: how to worship. This brother, who is a Reformed teacher had begun to adopt some of the contemporary Christian worship songs. I was pointing out the Scriptures and the standards which were against that, and he would not accept that the Scripture had anything to say about the manner of worship, and the content of worship. It was all a matter of taste, a matter of generational preference to him. I pointed out to this brother that on that basis, his worship would get more and more like the entertainment of the world. ‘Oh no, we shall hold things; we shall just take what we think is usable and we shall hold it there.’ Well thirty years later they have completely failed to hold it there, because they did not accept that there were Scriptural standards, a blueprint, a pattern, and they adopted things that were of the world. It went wild and now it is unrecognisable compared with what they were doing thirty years ago. So there is a pattern church and it is the solution to so many problems in the church.
You mean to say, someone will think, that Paul was never wrong? What about Acts 15:36? ‘And some days after Paul said unto Barnabas,’ – they were at Antioch, reporting back after the first missionary journey – ‘, Let us go again and visit our brethren in every city where we have preached the word of the Lord, and see how they do. And Barnabas determined to take with them John, whose surname was Mark.’ This is Mark of Mark's Gospel, acting as secretary to the apostle Peter in the writing of Marks Gospel. ‘But Paul’, verse 38, ‘thought not good to take him with them, who departed from them from Pamphylia, and went not with them to the work.’ Well Mark was young and he had deserted the mission. He was frightened. Verse 39,’ And the contention was so sharp between them [Paul and Barnabas], that they departed asunder one from the other: and so Barnabas took Mark, and sailed unto Cyprus, And Paul chose Silas, and departed, being recommended by the brethren unto the grace of God.’ So the membership of the sending church at Antioch undoubtedly thought Paul was right, and they confirmed his decision to take a new assistant apostle with him. And Barnabas from that moment on, disappears from the record of the New Testament. He was a godly man, and a fine preacher and worker, but never again did he have an appointment from God as celebrated as being a companion of the apostle Paul. It was a great shame. Mark was his nephew. He was determined that Mark should go with them, but Mark had failed and had not proved reliable. Who was right? Barnabas, the son of consolation, a man so gentle and so kind – that is true of him – or the apostle Paul? Well there is no doubt about it, the apostle Paul was right. He must be right, because inspired Scripture through his own word repeatedly says, ‘Be ye close, close followers of me.’ He was sent by God to give the pattern, and so we know when we appoint to any duty that demands tenacity, and faithfulness and responsibility, to make sure that we send a proven person. It is one of the principles of running the church. But today there are many evangelical Christians in their commentaries come down on the side Barnabas, and they say Barnabas was right, and they little realise that by so saying they make the Scripture contradict itself, and they tear away from the apostle Paul his divinely given function: to set an exact pattern for everything in the church.