Barnabas—The Authentic Influencer… Hello Hump Day readers! Al and I are up in New Mexico as camp-hosts for 6 months at Riana Campground/US Army Corp of Engineers on Lake Abiquiu. What a beautiful place to meet people who are excited to get outside, camp, fish, ski, swim, and explore the geology, flora, fauna, and Puebloan people in Northern Mexico. You could stay the full 14 days and it wouldn’t be enough! All of this is great encouragement for Al and I. For the most part, our campers are congenial and there is that contingent of those who I call “Barnabas” people.

I love the story of Barnabas who first comes on the scene in Acts 4:36. Like many of us, he was an ordinary member of his local church. However, we would be remiss in not knowing his story and significance in leading the early church. The Bible describes him as “the son of encouragement” – what person wouldn’t want to be his friend?!

I am reading the book, Authentic Influencer: The Barnabas Way of Shaping Lives for Jesus by Jonathan Murphy and participating in the weekly email-class with this wonderful theologian, pastor and missionary because I want to encourage others with the love of Christ. He grew up in a missionary family that was dubbed “The Family Influencers” long before the idea of being an influencer on social media. They had encouraging spirits in spades. Murphy has joked that his family could well have been a descendant of the Biblical Barnabas!

Murphy calls Barnabas a picker and a piggy-backer—which means he got those around him involved. His mission was to give them the lift they needed to succeed as God intended. In those times, sharing Christianity could get you in jail or dead. Barnabas knew the risks but his love of God gave him the strength to succeed. In Acts he led the first globally-minded church in history and it was in the city of Antioch. He was like the “human hinge that swung open the door” for Paul’s acceptance into the church where he started his incredible ministry that spread to nations all over that part of the world.

That’s what encouragement does, it influences you—not with glamor, riches, status or knowledge. Instead, encouragement is the words or deeds of one who humbles themselves to help another. And that is exactly the story of Barnabas. He ‘picked’ through the thorny debates about this new Christianity. He ‘piggy-backed’ with Paul and the other Apostles in any way he could to encourage them on their mission trips. A good definition for Barnabas could be: 1) chosen to lead and bring organization; 2) a leader qualified by godly character; and 3) a generous leader who leads a church to generosity.

Let’s ask ourselves: do we want to be a Barnabas? Is encouraging others in our life-plan? It should be because this is what God calls all of us to do—in fact, we all have ONE like-mission for sure. Jesus spoke it well in Matthew 28:18-20 (NLT): “I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth. Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

God wants us to see Barnabas’ role as the leader of the first church that strategically spread the Gospel to the ends of the earth at that time because he wants us to be like Barnabas, and become a servant leader. To be everyday influencers for Christ. Murphy calls it “The Barnabas Way” because it guides others to Christ, to a deeper faith and a mission to share the Gospel, which by the very beginning was and still is God’s plan that we, his people, influence others with God’s love, grace, forgiveness, mercy and the gift of eternity in his Son, Jesus Christ. There is no other influence more important than this, AMEN!