He Sold a Field and They Changed His Name

There is a man in the fourth chapter of Acts who gets four verses and a new name.

His given name was Joses. He was a Levite from Cyprus, which means he had land, and Luke tells us exactly what he did with it: having land, sold it, and brought the money, and laid it at the apostles' feet.

That is the whole account of the act. Four things: he had it, he sold it, he brought it, he laid it down.

And then Luke tells us something that has always stopped me. The apostles gave him a nickname, and it stuck so completely that almost nobody knows his real name. They called him Barnabas, which Luke translates for us: the son of consolation.

Son of encouragement. That is the name a whole church put on a man, and the first time we meet him he is putting money on a table.

Now here is what makes it worth a message. Everybody in that chapter was giving. Verse thirty four says that as many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them and brought the prices. This was happening constantly.

He is named because of something about how he did it, not because he was the only one doing it.

He sold something he owned

Read the four verbs, because the first one is where it gets uncomfortable.

Having land, sold it, and brought the money, and laid it at the apostles' feet. (Acts 4:37, King James Version)

Having land, sold it.

That is not a man giving out of an overflow. There was no overflow. He had a field, which is a fixed asset and probably his security, and converting it into money was a decision that took time and effort and could not be undone.

Most giving is not like that. Most giving is what remains after everything else has been allocated, and there is nothing wrong with that and I am not going to say there is. A person who gives out of what is left is genuinely giving.

But there is a difference between giving what is spare and giving something that had a use, and everybody who has done both knows exactly what that difference feels like.

You are able to give something that had a purpose, and it has never once required you to have extra first. That is not me raising a bar on anybody. Acts 4:37 begins with having land and ends with laying it down, and it is the Holy Spirit who moves a person from the leftover into the actual without producing guilt about the leftover.

The name came from the pattern

Now, the thing about the nickname is that a nickname does not come from one afternoon.

The apostles did not watch him lay down money once and invent a name for him on the spot. That name came from a pattern, and the rest of the New Testament shows you what the pattern was.

When Saul got converted and every believer in Jerusalem was terrified of him, it was Barnabas who took him and brought him to the apostles. When the church heard about a strange new work in Antioch, they sent Barnabas, and the text says he was glad and exhorted them all. When John Mark quit partway through a journey and Paul refused to take him again, Barnabas took the young man and went anyway.

Vouching for a dangerous man. Being glad about somebody else's work. Taking a second chance on a quitter.

The field was the first thing anybody saw. It was not the whole of him, it was a sample.

You are becoming something with every one of these, and no single act has ever once been the whole account. Acts 9:27 and Acts 15:39 show the same man doing the same kind of thing years apart, and the Spirit of God is the one who builds a pattern in a person out of ordinary decisions.

What laid it at their feet actually means

I want to notice the last verb, because it is the one that costs the most.

He laid it at the apostles' feet. He did not administer it. He did not direct where it went, he did not attach conditions, and he did not keep a role in it.

That is genuinely difficult, and anybody who has given anything significant knows the pull. There is a version of giving that keeps a hand on the thing: I will give this, and I would like it used for that, and I want to know how it went.

None of that is wicked and some of it is prudent. But there is a freedom in laying something down that a person cannot have while they are still holding an edge of it, and that freedom is what shows up in the rest of Barnabas's life.

A man who can let go of a field can let go of being right about John Mark.

You are able to let go of it entirely, and holding an edge has never once made a gift safer. Acts 4:37 has him lay it at their feet and walk away from the decision, and the Holy Spirit is the one who gives a person the release to hand something over completely.

This is not a fundraising message

I have to be direct here, because a message about a man selling a field and laying money down could be used badly, and this site will not do that.

Nobody reading this owes anybody anything. There is no ask in this article and there never will be one on this site. The whole point of everything I write is that God gives the power to get, and that means nothing on this page is trying to move something out of your hands into anybody else's.

Acts 4 is not a fundraising text either. It is describing a community in a specific moment, and the very next chapter has Peter tell a man that his property was his own and the money was in his own power, which is Scripture saying plainly that nobody was obligated.

That is the whole point. It was voluntary, which is the only thing that makes it worth writing down.

You are not under obligation, and generosity has never once been something anybody could require of you. Acts 5:4 says while it remained, was it not thine own, and the Spirit of God is the one who moves a person's hand freely rather than under pressure.