David Godfrey
"Paul thought it not good to take with them him who withdrew from them
... and went not with them to the work." Acts 15:38
MARK'S position was a sad one, for it caused a sharp contention between Paul and Barnabas so that "they parted asunder, one from another" (Acts 15:39). Barnabas said that they should take Mark with them on their Second Missionary Journey, while Paul said that they should not do so. There were two sides to this contention, but it is generally agreed that probably both were right and both were wrong. The positive value which we do well to note is that the result of this quarrel was that two missionary expeditions set out instead of only one. So it is that our wonderful Lord overrules human failures and affairs.
If the dissension and dispute were to end at this point, leaving history to record that these two great men were never reconciled, it would be a sad day for the Church. Happily we can know more about the matter by considering the story of John Mark, a story of both failure and fulfilment.
WE begin at Acts 12 where we read of Peter's miraculous deliverance from prison. He himself was amazed by it all, but when he considered what had happened, he hurried at once to the house of Mary, who was John Mark's mother. Evidently the home was a centre for the gathering of the early Jerusalem church, and indeed may well have been the same house whose Upper Room was used by the Lord Jesus on the eve of the crucifixion. It might have been Mark himself who was the young man described in his Gospel (Mark 14:51-52). We have no proof of this, but we do know that Mark grew up in a Christian home and may even have been led to Christ by the apostle Peter.
