I visited an eastern European country a few months after the end of the Communist regime to work with an emerging Scripture Union movement, travelling across the country with a Lutheran minister. Eighteen months later I returned. Preaching in a church of a different denomination, I was surprised and moved to find him in the congregation. He told me that it was the first time he had worshipped in a congregation other than his own, explaining that any stranger was a potential government agent. 

The church in Jerusalem felt much the same about Paul. Despite his eloquent and powerful arguments that Jesus was the Son of God (v 20) and the promised Messiah (v 22), they could not forget that he was the one who had so violently persecuted them. Their fear and suspicion were perfectly natural. But maybe they doubted the power of God to change even the most hardened opponent.

Church is not always easy. There will sometimes be misunderstanding, tension and disagreement. New people may not always fit in. This is why we need people like Barnabas (v 27): gentle, compassionate people. People with the wisdom and the sensitivity to see what God is doing and to speak out. People who see the best in others.

May we be brought to complete unity, that the world may discover the love of God.¹

We have seen the difficulty experienced by a devout follower of Jesus in Damascus when coming to terms with the professed conversion of a person known to have been a violent opponent of the faith. Now back in Jerusalem, Saul faced the same problem, but on a much bigger scale. The disciples ‘were all afraid of him’ (v 26), unsure about the genuineness of his faith. Now it is Barnabas who plays a similar role to that of Ananias, becoming the friend and advocate of the new convert.

Notice that Barnabas introduces Saul to the apostles and speaks to them on his behalf. This meeting involved the encounter between two different types of disciple. The apostles had been with Jesus and were eyewitnesses of his life, death and resurrection. They were the guardians and communicators of the core tradition about the life and teaching of the earthly Jesus, which meant that their role was foundational for the church. Saul had come to Christ by a different route and depended upon the apostolic traditions. Yet, as Barnabas tells the apostles, he really had ‘seen the Lord’ (v 27) and become a faithful witness. Too often in Christian history, tradition and experience have become divorced from one other, but we learn here that both are necessary. The apostles knew the facts and rightly insisted on preserving the tradition, but without fresh experience those facts would harden and calcify. Saul had known a life-transforming experience of Jesus, but needed to relate this to the apostolic tradition. The lesson for world Christianity in the twenty-first century is clear: traditional churches bear witness to cherished truths, while new movements discover the living Christ where he has not previously been known; tradition and experience belong together and need each other.

Which end of the tradition-experience dichotomy are you? What do you need to add? 

¹ Cf John 17:23