I keep hearing stories about young couples who do not want children.

Many are refusing kids for no better reason than preference (a euphemism for selfishness). Articles are written of lonely grandparent-age adults who “empowered” their kids to chase their career ambitions (and to neglect having children), and now are no grandparents at all. They feel something missing. You can’t read books or play catch or have sleepovers with a new boat. You don’t hang pictures of your country club on the fridge. But that is what their successful children have to offer.

The last name seems close to becoming an endangered species. We live for first names — it is John, just John — as if we came from nothing and have nothing to extend. These couples seem content to be the end of a family tree that branches no farther than them — all their ancestry leading, fortunately for them, to their personal happiness, vacations, and easy retirement. You only live once, you know; why spend it on children? If we want companionship, get a dog.

Now contrast this portrait of living for us and our first names with the alternative (men, pay close attention to your part):

Man rises above time. He can grasp his existence, he can see it in the context of a family that extends far into the past and will extend far into the future. And it is more than a blood relationship. It is also cultural: there is a sense in which he can say, We are the Smiths, and mean to include not only persons but their histories and their way of life. The father is the key to this transcendence. Think. Forget the slogans, the ideology of sexual indifference, and face what is real. A child’s connection with his mother requires no explanation. Body depends upon body. It is the father who requires explanation. (Anthony Esolen, No Apologies, 127)

Living by yourself, for yourself, requires no explanation. Living for money, for fame, for personal gratification requires no explanation. But to birth and guide and nurture immortal souls, to live and build a name and family history that transcends you, to bow as a foundation stone to a new way of living for Christ or to place your stone upon a pile already stacked — especially as a man, Esolen argues — requires explanation.

Generation of First Names

One of the most famous discussions about names shows the difference between living for one’s first or last name. What’s in a name? lovesick Juliet asks. Thinking upon her Romeo, the forbidden son of the rival Montague family, she sighs that the romance should remain a dream because of a last name. If he had another, they could be together. “’Tis but thy name that is my enemy,” she reasons upon her balcony.

What’s Montague? It is not hand, nor foot,Nor arm, nor face, nor any other partBelonging to a man. O, be some other name!What’s in a name? That which we call a roseBy any other word would smell as sweet. (2.2.41–47)

An arm is not a name. A smile is not a name. A man is not a name. A rose, whatever you call it, still smells as sweet, still looks as fair. Call the flower crimsonella, and the thorny stem and red petals remain. In a world of ever-expanding names to keep pace with our so-called ever-evolving self, we are tempted to ask the same question — what’s really in anything but a first name?

Teenage Juliet spoke of last names as arbitrary symbols keeping her from her desire. Reality, to her, remained untouched by swapping one label for another. In one sense, this is true. God, the first namer, could have called the waters “land” and the lands “water,” the moon “sun” and the sun “moon,” the night “day” and the day “night.” Adam, likewise, could have called the tiger “zebra” to no effect on either’s stripes.

“We are Christians, a people who have the Father’s name and Lamb’s name written on our foreheads.”

But her elders knew that more lay in the personal name Montague. For the elder Montagues, history lay in the name — deeds done, and deeds done against. Honor or shame was bound in the name, and bitter enmity too. More than a name lived in Montague; a past did too, ground as sacred as the graves of buried ancestors. To them, that name held something larger and older and deeper than a fleeting teenage infatuation. Montague was a body with different parts, a tree with different branches, something that outlived and outweighed the individual. A family name not to be cheaply sold as Esau’s birthright.

Erased from Earth

The spirit of Western individualism inclines us toward our own balconies, happy to cast lineage — or even biology — aside for personal desire. Each is his own author, his own alpha and omega. Families and their names are mere formalities when roadblocks to personal happiness or self-definition.

But most in the past (as well as many today in the East) did not think this way. A lot was in a name; they valued genealogies. Hear the blessing that God promises Abraham: “I will bless you and make your name great” (Genesis 12:2). Great, that is, not through his life alone, but through the lives of his offspring. Conversely, a chief curse in Israel was to “blot out [one’s] name from under heaven” (Deuteronomy 29:20). We do not know enough to rejoice in the benediction or shiver at the warning. How was a name blotted out? Overhear Saul pleading with David, “Swear to me . . . by the Lord that you will not cut off my offspring after me, and that you will not destroy my name out of my father’s house” (1 Samuel 24:21).

To have your name blotted from heaven usually meant to have your lineage end (especially without a male offspring), leaving no continuance of your memory under heaven. “Absalom in his lifetime had taken and set up for himself the pillar that is in the King’s Valley.” Why make this pillar? “For he said, ‘I have no son to keep my name in remembrance’” (2 Samuel 18:18). Declining birth rates tell of a people building pillars in the valley because they don’t prefer sons. Yet to be finally erased from earth — physically in death, and intangibly in name — often resulted, in the Old Testament, from God’s wrath.

In that day, your name was your memory, a thread of immortality, a part of you that lived on earth after death. Solomon used “memory” and “name” interchangeably: “The memory of the righteous is a blessing, but the name of the wicked will rot” (Proverbs 10:7). The memory of the righteous man would live on as a blessing to his children, but the name of the wicked would rot and be forgotten. Juliet was right: Montague was not a hand or a foot — flesh and blood were mortal. But a name blessed of God lives forever.

Names in Heaven

The modern story has become no larger than our personal stories. We clamor to write our autobiographies — of our triumphs, oppressions, abuses, sexuality, freedoms. Self-consciousness, self-determinism, and self-expression are inalienable rights. We build to the heavens to make names for ourselves. Family, legacy, past generations, future — what of it? It’s Romeo, just Romeo. We are a people of first names. God, come confuse our speech to cure our madness.

But (and this narrows the point) we are not mere collectivists; we are Christians. Idolatry can be both self-absorbed or family-consumed. A people can refuse the only name given among men by which they must be saved in favor of their first name or their last. Our great hope is not in any name we have, but in the name of Jesus Christ, who, for his great name’s sake, has acted to save us.

We care about our children and future generations because we care about Christ. We care about our last names because we want a household to serve the name of Jesus Christ. What we labor to build is no Babel to either of our names, but a spiritual legacy to his. What is a Smith, a Morse, a Melekin, or a Montague? What is a Johnson or Jerome compared with Jesus? His is the name raised far “above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come” (Ephesians 1:21). “On his robe and on his thigh he has a name written, King of kings and Lord of lords” (Revelation 19:16). Those in hell live to curse this name (Revelation 16:9); we love his name, bless his name, hallow his name.

Jewels in His Crown

Before his name, all names shrink into obscurity. What is really in a name? Only that which finds its place next to his. He alone bestows upon us that name worth having beyond death; he alone makes his sons into his pillars:

The one who conquers, I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God. Never shall he go out of it, and I will write on him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which comes down from my God out of heaven, and my own new name. (Revelation 3:12)

We are Christians, a people who have the Father’s name and Lamb’s name written on our foreheads, inscribed by the Spirit of God (Revelation 14:1; 22:4). He names us sons, daughters, citizens, saints, children, conquerors. We name him Lord, Savior, Groom, Master, Friend. We live to bring all glory to his name. We raise families, not simply for our family name, but (we pray) for his. We live and breathe and have our being in relation to his name. It is our sun by day, our North Star by night. Our names shine as diadems set within his crown, as spoils from his victory, as letters written in his book recording his great triumph — “the book of life of the Lamb who was slain” (Revelation 13:8).

Becky lived with a nagging sense that there was a rule book to life, but she didn’t get her copy. Insecurity and a pervasive sense of uncertainty loomed over her like a perpetually blinking warning light on the dashboard of her car.

Eric tried to live with deep reverence for God, but it meant life always felt heavy. When conversations turned light, humorous, or casual, he felt like he wasn’t being a good Christian. How could he honor the holy God in such moments?

People who are interested in studying the attributes of God frequently feel like Becky and Eric. If we’re not careful, theology can become exclusively cognitive and lose its relational qualities. But we study the attributes of God to deepen our relationship with God. That’s why, in this article, I will write with highly relational images and metaphors.

Even when we try to think relationally about God’s attributes, we can still get emotionally conflicted. When we reflect on God being patient, for example, we can think, If God is patient, I should be patient. How can I be as patient as possible as quickly as possible?

“If we’re not careful, theology can become exclusively cognitive and lose its relational qualities.”

Do you catch the irony? We try to be patient for God as if God were impatient with our progress. We ask questions of emulation before we ask questions of rest. We try to imitate an attribute of God before we find security in it. When we do this, each quality of God becomes an intimidating standard rather than a source of refuge.

God Is Happy

Let’s flip the script with God’s happiness and simplicity. Nehemiah 8:10 says, “The joy of the Lord is your strength.” The reality that God is joyful steadied Nehemiah’s life. Life is hard. It requires endurance. Nehemiah drew resilience for the demands of life from the awareness that God smiled.

As children, we experienced this. If our parents were happy, we had the emotional freedom to play and explore the world. If we sensed our parents were displeased, we tried to determine what we did wrong or identify the stressor that troubled them.

In Ephesians 5:1, Paul draws on this parent-child imagery to illustrate how God’s character motivates change in our lives: “Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children.” In other words, let God’s delight in you fuel your efforts to be more like him. When we study each of God’s attributes, we are to be like children who put on our father’s oversized work clothes, smile, and say, “Look at me! I’m just like you,” because we find joy and security in the relationship.

“Let God’s delight in you in Christ fuel your efforts to be more like him.”

That works when we’re having a good day and the major decisions of life seem clear. But what about when we’re confused — when we are unsure what God expects from us? These are times when its hard to feel like the playful child trying on our parent’s attire.

God Is Simple

In moments of confusion, God doesn’t seem simple (plain, clear, noncontradictory). Our instinct, often, is to pit one attribute of God against another. We think, “Because God is loving, he would want me to do A, but because he is just, he would want me to do B. But I can’t do both A and B.” We feel torn because we think God is complicated.

God’s simplicity means that all of God’s attributes live in harmony with one another. As fallen people in a finite world, we’re not like that. We want the attributes of pleasure (eating whatever we want) and fitness (being thin). We want the attributes of spontaneity (purchasing something on a whim) and responsibility (saving for the future). Even when we’re not being sinful, we are not simple.

God is simple. God does not live with internal tensions. Therefore, God doesn’t have expectations of us that are in tension with one another. But life doesn’t always feel as simple as the character of God. We rightly get frustrated with people who conclude that because God is simple, life is too. They make life seem easier than it is.

Because we live in a broken world, with fallen people and as fallen people, life can feel complicated. How do we reconcile the reality that God is simple, but our lived experienced is complex? Let’s return to the image of a parent and child.

Admiration Leads to Emulation

Imagine a child who feels torn because he has chores to complete, homework to do, and its Grandma’s birthday. Let’s assume, for this illustration, that the child has not been negligent with his work. He is stressed because he wants to please his parents but doesn’t know what to do. The child thinks,

“My parents are smart and want me to do well in school, so I should do my homework.”
“My parents are neat and want me to be orderly, so I should clean my room.”
“My parents are loving and want me to value family, so I should go to Grandma’s birthday party.”
“My parents are going to be mad at me because I can’t do all three.”

The child begins to fear his parents, dreads seeing them, and starts to cry. How do good parents respond to this child? They smile, pull him close, affirm his strong desire to honor them, and help him think through the situation. Since we are using this illustration as a metaphor, God’s happiness is revealed in the parents’ smile. Even though the situation is legitimately hard (paralleling the brokenness of the world), we see God’s simplicity in the response that values character more than immediate outcome.

Let’s continue to use our sanctified imaginations as we peer through the lens of Ephesians 5:1. How does the child feel about his parents after this interaction? Safe, trusting, and loved. Where does he want to go when life gets hard again? To his parents. This admiration (rest) leads to emulation (refined character and maturity).1 The emulation will always be imperfect — because of the limitations of the child and the conflicting responsibilities of a broken world — but resting in the parents’ character allows his progressive growth to not feel futile.

Exhale. We can be honest — life is challenging and complex, and God is simple. We can be perpetually in process and God can still be happy. This removes the sense of desperate striving that exhausts so many of us as we live with a felt sense that we’re not good enough. God doesn’t feel compelled to rush the process (after all, progressive sanctification was his idea). He delights in each marker of our growth as parents delight in their child’s first step.

Under the Happy, Simple God

How might we respond to this reflection on God’s simplicity and happiness?

When we pray about the parts of life that are hard and confusing, we can visualize God smiling like parents who admire the hard work and tenacity of their child. When we feel the conflictedness of our own hearts, we can reflect on Ecclesiastes 12:13 to regain a sense of simplicity: “Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.” We can wear this verse like a child wears his father’s shoes and tie, knowing God delights in imperfect, incremental emulation.

Savor the simple moments of joy and pleasure in your day and realize that, no matter how trivial, God’s joy echoes your joy in those moments like parents watching their child play with Christmas presents.

Luke describes the rift that opened between Paul and Barnabas over John Mark in his typical understated way: “There arose a sharp disagreement, so that they separated from each other” (Acts 15:39). No elaboration, no circling back later in Acts to tell us how this story ended. We just watch Barnabas sail off to Cyprus with John Mark while Paul and Silas head to Syria and Cilicia.

Really? Paul and Barnabas? Friends whose names go together like David and Jonathan, or like Peter and John? These brothers who had spent a year together teaching the new Gentile converts in Antioch, and then risked life and limb together for the gospel on that first missionary journey? These colleagues who became the first missionary team at the special direction of the Holy Spirit himself (Acts 13:2)? And they couldn’t reconcile a disagreement over John Mark?

We can be left wondering, If Paul and Barnabas couldn’t stay together, what hope do we have when difficult and painful disagreements arise in our churches and between leaders we love and trust? These are times that try Christians’ souls. What are we left to think?

In a careful look at the story, we can see that the God of hope wants to fill us with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit we may abound in hope, even when sharp disagreements separate godly people (Romans 15:13).

Who Was Right?

Here we have two of the most trusted apostolic leaders in the early church, at an impasse over whether John Mark should join them on their second missionary tour, considering how he’d left them during their first (Acts 15:37–38). We’re not told why Mark left, only that Paul was convinced Mark wasn’t ready to give it another go, and that Barnabas was equally convinced he was.

Which apostle was right? Based on Luke’s sparse description, we aren’t sure. But since Scripture gives us a good sense for the quality of men that Barnabas and Paul were, we can consider how each man might have viewed the disagreement.

Barnabas: Gracious, Discerning Mentor

Barnabas’s name speaks volumes about him. His actual name was Joseph, but the apostles had dubbed him “Barnabas” (son of encouragement) because he was so gracious and encouraging (Acts 4:36). He seems to have had an extraordinary ability to discern the true spiritual quality in a person that others might not perceive. Arguably, the best example of this manifested in his discernment of Paul’s true spiritual quality.

Soon after Paul’s conversion, when most Christians were still terrified of him, who was willing to take the risk and advocate for Paul with the apostles? Barnabas (Acts 9:27). And when Gentiles started coming to Christ in Antioch, who did the apostles trust enough to go and assess the genuineness of their conversions? Barnabas (Acts 11:22). And when Barnabas discerned the Antioch revival was the Holy Spirit’s doing, who did he discern would be best at helping these new Gentile Christians understand the gospel? Paul, the former zealous, gospel-hating Pharisee (Acts 11:25–26). Given his track record, one would think Barnabas had earned the right to be trusted regarding his assessment of John Mark.

Paul: Experienced, Discerning Frontier Missionary

We all know that Paul, the great “Apostle to the Gentiles,” became the most trusted theologian, ecclesiologist, and missiologist in the early church. The Holy Spirit chose to preserve more of his epistles regarding those fields than any other single writer’s in the New Testament. That’s some serious credibility capital. And the content of his instruction and counsel wasn’t the result of quiet academic research and reflection, but of incredibly rigorous firsthand experiences of doing frontier evangelism and church planting in violently hostile environments.

According to Luke’s account, John Mark had left the first missionary team before things really heated up in Pisidia, Iconium, and Lystra — where Paul seems to have suffered the most violent persecution of the team (Acts 13:13–14). So, when assembling a team for a second tour, knowing from experience the kinds of adversity and danger they were likely to face, Paul’s refusal to further jeopardize the team’s effectiveness, safety, and morale (by including a member who’d already shown himself unreliable) seems eminently wise. Given his track record, one would think Paul had earned the right to be trusted regarding his assessment of John Mark.

What Are We Supposed to Learn?

To me, both these men seem to deserve the benefit of the doubt. It’s easy to simply assume Paul, not Barnabas, must have been right, since the historical narrative of Acts follows Paul, not Barnabas. But that’s an assumption from silence. It does appear that Silas was a very good choice for Paul. But later in Paul’s life, we hear him describe Mark as a “very useful” ministry colleague (2 Timothy 4:11), which tells us something happened to change Paul’s assessment of him. From what we know about Barnabas, it’s altogether possible that Mark’s regaining of Paul’s confidence was, at least in part, the result of the time he spent under Barnabas’s influence.

So, what are we supposed to learn from this “sharp disagreement” if Scripture is silent on whether one or both were at fault or whether they ever reconciled? Did Paul and Barnabas sinfully fail to “[bear] with one another in love” and “eager[ly] maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (Ephesians 4:2–3)? Or did they reach the righteous, God-glorifying conclusion that, given their situation, the wisest, most loving, unifying option for them was, paradoxically, to separate?

There is no definitive answer to these questions. In each case, we’d have to say, “It depends.” But Acts 15:36–41 will yield gold to those willing to dig for it. Here are five nuggets I’ve found.

1. When God seems silent, listen up.

The fact that God does not reveal to us if either or both apostles were right or wrong is one of the many biblical examples of God manifesting his wisdom through silence. I like to call God’s silence the “dark matter” of divine revelation. It’s never vacuous, but substantial. When he withholds details from us, he’s usually communicating something else. Think of the next four nuggets as examples.

2. The godliest of people can fail.

If this sharp disagreement involved some personal or leadership failure on the part of one or both men, which is possible, we shouldn’t be shocked. Neither was infallible and, like the rest of us, they “[stumbled] in many ways” (James 3:2). Just that possibility reminds us that the Bible doesn’t hide the weakness and failures of its godliest saints and that we and our leaders are weak and fail too.

3. Not all apparent failures are actual failures.

We need to have a category in our minds that it’s possible neither man was wrong. Perhaps Paul rightly discerned that John Mark wasn’t yet ready to participate in the trip Paul was about to take — and Barnabas rightly discerned that God wanted Mark to accompany him.

Perhaps Silas was ready to endure the dangers and rigors of Pauline ministry (Acts 9:16), while Mark was ready to train under Barnabas’s patient, encouraging leadership, contributing to his becoming “very useful” in Paul’s later ministry. That possibility can help guard us from jumping to conclusions when decisions look like failures to us. It may not be the case. Which is why Paul admonished Christians in 1 Corinthians 4:5 to “not pronounce judgment before the time.”

4. The foolishness of God is wiser than men.

If that was the case with Paul and Barnabas, couldn’t the Holy Spirit simply have made the truth clear to them in a way that prevented their sharp disagreement? The answer is yes. But how do we know if that would have yielded the most God-glorifying outcome? Isn’t it possible that God had ten thousand gospel-spreading and saint-sanctifying purposes in this event? We’re not privy to the millions of present and future, visible and invisible factors that go into God’s providential orchestrations of such things. Which is why Paul also admonished Christians in 1 Corinthians 1:25 that “the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.”

5. Get used to ‘unsearchable’ and ‘inscrutable.’

It’s good for us to remember that we’re all in our fallen conditions because of the tragic belief that we could, like God, manage the knowledge of good and evil ourselves. Therefore, when we encounter a providence that causes us pain and grief for reasons we don’t understand, we can, without sin, cry, “Why, O Lord?” (Psalm 10:1). But it is a sin to assume, in our grief, that “the Judge of all the earth” (Genesis 18:25) failed to do right just because his unfathomable knowledge and wisdom led him to make judgments we find unsearchable (Romans 11:33).

Pursue Faithful Disagreement

As a principle, the more distant we are from other Christians’ sharp disagreements, the less we know of the circumstances or details, the wiser we are to refrain from passing judgment on them.

But when it comes to sharp disagreements between Christian friends we know or within our own churches, let us take very seriously the counsel given us from one of the parties involved in the dispute over John Mark: “If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all” (Romans 12:18). No doubt, this counsel came from much hard-won experience.

Note the words “if possible.” These words carry the implication that, for all sorts of reasons, it’s not always possible for brothers and sisters to remain yoked together in ministry. But it is always possible to trust God’s sometimes mysterious, inscrutable purposes; to not pass judgment prematurely; to be quick to forgive others, “as God in Christ forgave [us]” (Ephesians 4:32); and to let love cover a multitude of sins (1 Peter 4:8). For “love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” (1 Corinthians 13:7). Ministry partnerships sometimes must end, but “love never ends” (1 Corinthians 13:8).

It’s inevitable that disagreements will arise between Christians. Our call is to pursue faithfulness in disagreement, with love always being our aim. Given that the separation between Paul and Barnabas is an anomaly in what the Holy Spirit preserved in Scripture for our instruction, I think it’s safe to assume that most disagreements ought to be reconciled without separation. But when separation occurs, we can glean a lot from the little we know of Paul and Barnabas’s parting.