Expositor's Bible Commentary Commentary Acts 15:37

"And Barnabas was minded to take with them John also, who was called Mark." — Acts 15:37 (ASV)

John Mark, Barnabas’s cousin (cf. Colossians 4:10), probably became convinced of the appropriateness of Paul’s Gentile policy by the action of the Jerusalem Council, despite earlier qualms about it . Barnabas had evidently called him back to Syrian Antioch to minister in the church there. Barnabas’s earlier involvement in the dispute at Antioch showed that his natural sympathies lay principally with Jewish Christians (cf. Galatians 2:13), and it was also natural for him to want to take Mark with them in revisiting the churches. Paul, however, for what seem to have been reasons of principle rather than personal ones, did not want to have so unreliable a man with them day after day. The scar tissue of the wounds Paul suffered in establishing his missionary policy was still too tender for him to look favorably on Mark’s being with them—particularly if, as we have assumed, Mark was in some way responsible for inciting the Judaizers to action.

The fact that Luke does not gloss over the quarrel between Paul and Barnabas shows his honesty. Yet far from letting the disagreement harm the outreach of the Gospel, God providentially used it to double the missionary force, with Barnabas taking Mark and returning to Cyprus (cf. 13:4–12). Acts tells us nothing more about the mission to Cyprus or the missioners there, though Paul later refers in cordial terms to both Barnabas (cf. 1 Corinthians 9:6) and John Mark (cf. Colossians 4:10; 2 Timothy 4:11; Phm 24).