Moving Past The Past - John Mark

Barnabas agreed and wanted to take along John Mark. But Paul disagreed strongly, since John Mark had deserted them in Pamphylia and had not continued with them in their work.

Acts 15:37-38

The great inventor Thomas Edison performed some ten thousand experiments before he succeeded in developing a workable electric lightbulb. When a reporter asked Edison if he ever felt discouraged about working so many hours and trying so many things without results, he replied, “Results? Why, man, I have gotten a lot of results. I know several thousand things that won’t work.”

Everyone fails at one time or another, but if you regard failure as an opportunity for growth, you might be encouraged to keep going and keep trying—and just possibly succeed.

Without question, the Christian life thrives on this principle, and a young man named John Mark (probably the Mark who wrote the second Gospel) illustrates how it works.

John Mark had accompanied Paul and Barnabas on their first missionary journey through Asia Minor, only to leave the team and return home, possibly because he was frightened, discouraged, or homesick (see Acts 13:13). Three years later as Paul and Barnabas were preparing for another missionary journey, Barnabas wanted to give John Mark another chance, believing that the young man had the right stuff to make an effective missionary. Paul disagreed and the two parted ways, with Barnabas taking John Mark and Paul taking Silas as companions in ministry (see Acts 15:36-40).

Barnabas remembered that John Mark had left the team, but he also saw something worth developing in him and became his mentor. John Mark matured, and eventually even Paul recognized him as an effective minister of the gospel (see 2 Timothy 4:11).

Do you believe that past failures disqualify you from effective service in God’s Kingdom? Some of the greatest ministers of all time failed early on but later grew to be solid men of God.