Holy Meltdowns: Paul and Barnabas Split

For the past few weeks, we’ve been taking a look at some occasions in scripture when people of faith had “holy meltdowns”—when pillars of our faith like Moses, Jonah, and Elijah had big emotions.

Because right now, there seem to be a lot of big emotions in the world. Something that might have bothered or annoyed us before, now has the potential to really set us off. It’s like we each have less of an emotional buffer, and then when you put us all together in society, we feed off each other and reactions get really intense really quickly.

Traditionally, the church has told us that "good" or "faithful" Christians don't let their emotions get the best of them. But the truth is, there are times in everyone's life when they have "big emotions." Sometimes, even the most faithful people—those who love God and serve Christ with their whole lives reach a breaking point. In this series, we’re looking at these “holy meltdowns” to see how God worked in or through them, and think about how God works through us, too, in similar situations.

We’ve looked at holy meltdowns in the prophets and in Jesus himself, and today we see a different kind of moment—a relational meltdown between two apostles: Paul and Barnabas.