When Godly Brothers Disagree: Lessons from the Division Between Paul and Barnabas

Posted by deangonzales on January 1, 2010
2 Comments

In John 17:21, the Lord Jesus prayed to His Father on behalf of the disciples “that they may all be one” (John 17:21). In keeping with Christ’s prayer, the Apostle Paul wrote to the church in Corinth (1 Cor. 1:10): “I plead with you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.” But in spite of these and many other statements in the New Testament, Christians still have sharp disagreements. Indeed, the very apostle who exhorted Christians to be of “the same mind” and of “the same judgment” did not always attain to that ideal himself. In Acts 15:36-41, we read the sad story of a sharp disagreement between Paul and his close companion, Barnabas—two of the greatest leaders of the early church. What made their disagreement so disheartening was the subsequent division that resulted.

Many of us can think of modern examples of disagreements among true believers. I believe this is part of the explanation for so many different evangelical churches in our day. Sometimes these disagreements have been so sharp that brothers have gone their separate ways even though they may hold the same creed! And these kinds of divisions can challenge our faith. We have a God-given affection for the church of Christ, and it pains our heart to see brethren divided. But the fact remain, good and godly believers–even church leaders!–may sharply disagree and, as a result, divide into separate spheres of ministry. The Bible itself acknowledges this fact. It not only presents ideal Christianity; it also portrays real Christianity. But the Bible’s purpose in revealing these sad realities is not that of the gossip magazine. Its design is not to make us disillusioned and cynical. Rather, the Bible reveals these things for our instruction and edification. With this in view, I’d like to (1) examine the disagreement and division of Paul and Barnabas, (2) to offer a biblical assessment of the incident, and (3) to draw out several practical lessons that should enable us to respond to brotherly disagreements and divisions in a godly way.

I.  THE INCIDENT EXPOUNDED

After a brief furlough, Paul decides it’s time to get back on the missionfield. Therefore, he suggests to Barnabas that they revisit their former church-plants to check on the spiritual condition of the brethren and to give them further instruction: “Let us now go back and visit our brethren in every city where we have preached the word of the Lord, and see how they are doing” (15:36). Barnabas agrees, but he adds a stipulation: “Now Barnabas was determined to take with them John called Mark” (15:37). The Greek word translated, “was determined,” refers to purpose or intent. Barnabas intended to go with Paul on this second journey, but he also intended to take John-Mark.

We’re first introduced to John-Mark back in Acts 12:12, where we are told that he was the son of a Christian woman named Mary. In Colossians 4:10, we learn that Mark was the cousin of none other than Barnabas. So, it’s not surprising that Barnabas would want to take Mark on this missionary journey. But this wouldn’t be the first time Mark had assisted his cousin. According to Acts 13, Mark had accompanied Paul and Barnabas on their first missionary journey. So Barnabas’ plan to take Mark on the second missionary journey seems a natural and logical plan.

Paul, however, firmly objects. He “insisted that they should not take with them the one who had departed from them in Pamphylia, and had not gone with them to the work” (15:38). Literally, Paul didn’t consider Barnabas’s plan “worthy of consideration”! Why was Paul so opposed? “Because,” says Paul, “Mark deserted us half-way through our first missionary journey!” Paul’s accusation is confirmed by Acts 13:13, where we’re told that John-Mark “left them and returned to Jerusalem.” Luke doesn’t tell us exactly why Mark left Paul and Barnabas. But the word he uses to describe Mark’s action is commonly used for “apostasy” or “defection” (Lk. 8:13; Heb. 3:12). Mark didn’t apostatize from the faith, but he did apostatize from the ministry. As a result, Paul had some deep concerns. He didn’t believe Mark had the Christian maturity and character necessary for gospel ministry. Therefore, he opposes Barnabas’ plan to take Mark.

This brings us to the sharp disagreement and sad separation that resulted:

Then the contention became so sharp that they parted from one another. And so Barnabas took Mark and sailed to Cyprus; but Paul chose Silas and departed, being commended by the brethren to the grace of God. And he went through Syria and Cilicia, strengthening the churches (15:39-41).

Perhaps you thought only churches had splits. Here we have an “apostolic split”! And with that split a harmonious partnership comes to an end. Not a pretty picture! This prepares us for our second part of our study.

II.  THE DISAGREEMENT ASSESSED

The first question we are compelled to ask is “Who was in the right?” To address this question, let’s consider the matter both from Paul’s as well as Barnabas’ perspective. Paul’s rationale is explicitly mentioned in the text. John-Mark had deserted his post. The apostle would remind us that such defection is a serious matter. He would remind us of the words of Jesus in Luke 9:62: “No one, after putting his hand to the plow and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.” Paul would remind us that faithfulness and reliability is an essential prerequisite for Christian ministry (1Tim 1:12; 1Cor 4:2). And he would also remind us of the danger of putting one’s trust in a man who has proven himself to be unreliable (Prov. 25:19): “Like a bad tooth and an unsteady foot is confidence in a faithless man in time of trouble.” Do you think the captain of a Special Forces unit would be eager to take along a soldier who had just deserted their unit on an earlier mission? Of course, not! This was no doubt Paul’s perspective. This is why he would later tell young Timothy, “Do not lay hands upon anyone too hastily and thereby share responsibility for the sins of others; keep yourself free from sin” (1 Tim. 5:22).

It certainly seems that the apostle Paul is acting according to biblical principle. In fact, verse 40 gives us the impression that the church at Antioch may have agreed with Paul: “But Paul chose Silas and left, being committed by the brethren to the grace of the Lord” (emphasis added). Notice there’s no mention of Barnabas or Mark. On the surface, it seems Paul was right. But before we form a settled judgment, let’s give Barnabas a chance to speak. After all, Solomon wisely reminds us that “the first to plead his case seems right, until another comes and examines him” (Prov 18:17). And as Nicodemus reminded the Jewish council, “Our Law does not judge a man unless it first hears from him and knows what he is doing, does it?” (John 7:52).

So let’s consider Barnabas’s perspective. Admittedly, the text does not explicitly identify Barnabas’ reasoning. Based on what we’ve seen of Barnabas’ character and based on other NT teaching, however, I think we can infer his perspective. First, I don’t believe Barnabas would have defended Mark’s previous actions in any way. Second, I don’t think Barnabas was indifferent to Paul’s concerns. He would have agreed with Paul that a minister of the gospel must be faithful. However, I believe Barnabas would have reminded his beloved colleague of another biblical principle. That other biblical principle is this: past sin and failure do not preclude future faithfulness and success.

This principle is beautifully illustrated in the life of the apostle Peter. Peter didn’t just desert his Lord and Savior; he denied Jesus three times!  It’s hard to know which hurt Jesus more—Judas’ kiss or Peter’s three-fold denial. Thankfully, Peter repented, and Jesus forgave him. In fact, not only did Jesus forgive Peter, but according to John 21, Jesus re-commissioned Peter to the office of apostle. And the Lord didn’t wait five years or three years or one year or even six months. Jesus gave Peter a second chance within 40 days of Peter’s fall! Jesus knew that past sin and failure do not preclude future faithfulness and success.

I suspect Barnabas and Paul were familiar with the story of Peter’s re-commission. I can just hear Barnabas saying to Paul, “Paul, if Peter, why not Mark? If Jesus gave the other disciples who deserted him a second chance, why not Mark?” And I can also hear Barnabas also saying, “Brother, don’t you remember that when the Jerusalem church initially refused to trust you and accept your profession of faith, I was your advocate. Paul, I was right about you. Won’t you concede that I may also be right about Mark?”

What should we think? If I took a poll, there would probably be some who’d say, “I’m of Paul” and other, “I am of Barnabas.” But before we take sides, let me make two important observations. First, the disagreement was not a matter of heresy or immorality, but it was a difference of judgment regarding the application of biblical principle. Neither Paul nor Barnabas was accusing Mark or one another of heresy. This wasn’t a disagreement over one of the fundamentals of the faith, such as the deity of Christ or justification by faith or the hope of the resurrection. Nor was this a disagreement over a black-and-white moral issue. They weren’t debating whether it was appropriate for a minister to live in adultery or to steal or to commit murder. Instead, we have two men fully committed to Christ and to the Scriptures. Both of these men sought to live and labor in accord with biblical principle. The problem is that Paul was putting a greater emphasis on one principle, whereas Barnabas was placing a greater emphasis on another. And as they each placed their biblical principles in the balance, the argument was over which way the scales were tipping.

I believe many disagreements and divisions among brethren today can be boiled down to difference over which biblical principle to emphasize most in a given situation. For example, some pastors believe that forming and joining formal church associations is the way to implement the biblical teaching on unity and cooperation among churches. Other pastors are zealous to protect the autonomy of the local church, and are therefore opposed to forming or joining formal church associations. The result: we have associational and non-associational Baptist churches. And we can probably think of more examples: differences over methods of evangelism, styles of worship, approaches to childrearing, etc. Oftentimes these differences boil down to differences regarding the application of biblical principle. This was certainly true in the case of Barnabas and Paul.

But who was right? That brings me to my second observation: the Bible doesn’t demand us to take sides in this particular case. I don’t believe the immediate context or the rest of Scripture gives a clear judgment either for Paul or for Barnabas. The reference in verse 40 to the brethren commending Paul and Silas to the grace of the Lord doesn’t necessarily mean they were taking Paul’s side. It may simply mean that in spite of Paul’s separation from Barnabas the church in Antioch wasn’t going to cut Paul off. They’d still recognize his ministry as well as Barnabas’ ministry. And even if they were siding with Paul, it doesn’t mean they were right.

We know that Mark turned out to be a faithful minister of the gospel, and even Paul acknowledged this to be the case! In this letter to the Colossians, he refers to Mark as a “fellow laborer,” and in his final letter to Timothy, he writes, “Pick up Mark and bring him with you, for he is useful to me for service” (2 Tim. 4:11). Moreover, not only was Mark useful to Paul. He became useful to Peter. Peter refers to him affectionately in his first epistle as his “son” in the ministry. According to tradition, it was this same Mark who under Peter’s direction and supervision became the human author of the second Gospel in our New Testament! That doesn’t mean Paul was wrong in his concerns about Mark at the time of his judgment. It does suggest, however, that Barnabas had a point.

So, what should we conclude about this strong disagreement and sad separation? I don’t believe the Bible demands us to take one side or the other. In fact, I believe the safest path is that taken by most commentators. Most commentators believe that both of these men were partly in the right, but they were also partly in the wrong. Which was mostly right and which was mostly wrong we probably cannot know this side of the grave. That’s my assessment.

III.  SOME LESSONS LEARNED

In light of what we’ve seen, how should we view and respond to some of the disagreements and divisions among godly brothers in our day?

1. We need to face the reality that godly brothers may have sharp disagreements and even sad divisions.

Commenting on this incident, John Piper writes, “Here the bubble of idealism bursts on the needle of reality.”¹ Sometimes we have too idealistic a view of the church and church leaders. And when some church or church leader disappoints us, we’re tempted to question the power of the gospel. We’re tempted to give up on the Christian faith. But God wants us to be biblical realists. He wants us to set our affections on things above, but He also wants us to keep our feet planted on the earth. As a result, we can’t expect to enjoy the degree of unanimity and unity that we’ll someday enjoy in glory.

Is your faith strong enough to accept that? Can you live with the reality that remaining sin may have clouded to some degree even the judgment of godly apostles? And if remaining sin could hinder the harmonious relationship of two godly apostles and send them in opposite directions, it shouldn’t surprise us when godly leaders and genuine believers strongly disagree and even separate from each other in our own day. Even the best of men are but men at best.

Can you live with the fact that God has not given us all the answers to every judgment call we have to make in this life? It’s true that God has revealed to us everything we need to know in order to be saved and to live lives that are pleasing to Him. This is what we call the “sufficiency of Scripture.” But God has not revealed to us everything we would like to know. Paul refers to this fact in 1 Corinthians 13 where he says,

For we know in part and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect has come [that is, when Christ returns and the Age to Come is ushered in], then that which is in part [both mode of revelation and the knowledge it imparts] will be done away (9-10).

The day is coming, Paul goes on to say in verse 12, when we will “know fully just as [we] also have been fully known.” Until that time, we live in an age in which revelation and the knowledge it imparts is partial and, in a sense, incomplete. I like to think of it as a large puzzle. God has given us enough pieces of that puzzle to enable us to make out the picture. We can see what God wants us to see. However, there are some pieces of that puzzle that are missing. There are some details that we cannot see and will not see until we get to heaven. This is one reason why genuine Christians don’t always arrive at the same conclusions in their attempt to apply biblical principle. And as Matthew Henry correctly observes, “We shall never be all of a mind till we come to heaven, where light and love are perfect”²

Is our faith strong enough to accept this? Can we live with the imperfections of this age? I believe God wants us to. So He takes the needle of Acts 15 and pops the bubble of unhealthy idealism. He doesn’t do it to make us disillusioned or cynical. He does it to help us learn to cope with the challenges of living in a sin-cursed world.

2. We learn that though we may not overlook brotherly disagreements and divisions, yet we do not always have to take sides.

Sometimes we do have to take sides. But in many cases, we don’t. We don’t have to form firm opinions. We may have concerns. We may have suspicions. But in many cases, it may be the better part of wisdom to leave the matter with the Lord. That seems to be what Luke is doing here. Luke doesn’t try to gloss over this sad situation. He doesn’t try to sweep it under the rug. But neither does Luke compel us to pick sides—nor does the Holy Spirit for that matter. Apparently, God doesn’t want us to know who was mostly right and who was mostly wrong.

I think that’s true of many disagreements among believers today. Why is it that two great Christian leaders labor in different ministries? Why don’t they attend the same pastors’ conferences? Why don’t they support the same missionary? Why doesn’t “Church A” have more communion with “Church B”? They’re in the same city. They hold the same doctrinal beliefs. Why aren’t they working together more? Brothers, God doesn’t always expect us to take sides. Therefore, resist the temptation to figure it all out and commit both sides to the Lord (Phil. 3:15).

3. We learn that God’s providence is able to overrule such disagreements and divisions for good.

This is not to deny the devil’s involvement in such disagreements and divisions. I’m quite sure he was able to get some mileage out of this apostolic split. As Matthew Henry suggests, the enemies of Christ would no doubt warm their hands at the flames of contention between Paul and Barnabas.³ But as John Piper notes, “The celebrations of hell are very soon ruined by the sovereign wisdom and grace of God.”⁴ What the devil intended for evil, God intended for good. As Paul reminds us in Romans 8:28: “We know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God.” God uses His blessings for our good. God uses persecution and suffering for our good. And God even uses disagreements and divisions among genuine believers for the ultimate good of the church and glory of His name.

How so, you ask? Consider the following. First, as a result of this split between Barnabas and Paul, the missionary endeavor doubled in manpower. Instead of one missionary party consisting of two; now there would be two missionary parties consisting of four. And I suspect Silas counted Paul’s invitation a blessing and answer to prayer!

Second, now that the missionary endeavor had doubled in size, more work could be done and new churches could be planted. Paul’s original proposal to Barnabas was merely to revisit the churches they had already planted. But God had other plans. God wanted the work to expand into Macedonia and Greece. Therefore, Almighty God by a wise and holy decree permitted Paul and Barnabas to disagree and divide in order to bring the gospel to un-reached lands. After assessing this disagreement and division, Conybeare and Howson write:

Of this at least we are certain, that the quarrel was overruled by Divine Providence to a good result. One stream of missionary labor had been divided, and the regions blessed by the waters of life were proportionately multiplied.⁵

Third, not only does God cause such things to work together for the good of the church and the spread of the gospel; I also believe He’s able to use them for the good of those involved in the disagreement and division. Think of how God may have used both Barnabas and Paul for Mark’s good. On the one hand, Barnabas’s willingness to restore Mark gave the young man hope. One commentator remarked, “Humanly speaking, Mark may have dropped out of Christ’s service altogether” were it not for Barnabas.⁶ On the other hand, I suspect that God used Paul’s perspective for Mark’s good as well. Can’t you picture Mark more determined than ever to show Paul by God’s grace that he really is useful to the ministry? In fact, God probably used this disagreement for the good of Barnabas and Paul. Perhaps, as a result of Paul’s emphasis on faithfulness, Barnabas became more watchful and demanding of Mark. Perhaps, Barnabas’s emphasis upon grace helped Paul to become a bit more sensitive and patient in his later ministry. We do know that in later years Paul would do for a slave named Onesimus, what Barnabas did for Mark. Paul would become Onesimus’s advocate and ask the slave’s master, Philemon, to give Onesimus another chance. So let’s look for ways in which God might be using the disagreements and divisions among godly brothers for their good, for our good, and for the glory of His name.

4. We learn that in spite of such disagreements and divisions, the work of God’s kingdom goes forward.

We have here one of the most tragic splits in all of church history—two of the greatest apostles divided! But this disagreement and division between Paul and Barnabas did not stop Christ from advancing His kingdom. It did not stop Paul and Barnabas from doing the work of missions. It did not paralyze the church. God’s people kept on doing what God had called them to do. And because they persevered, you and I are gather in Christian churches to worship 2,000 years later!

We too must persevere despite disagreements and division. Therefore, let’s not become disillusioned or cynical. Let’s not give up hope. Let’s remember the words of Paul to the church in Corinth—a church that was struggling with disagreements and divisions: “Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord” (1 Cor. 15:58). That’s how God wants us to respond when brethren disagree. May He grant us the grace we need!

5. We learn it’s possible for brethren to have sharp differences over matters of principle and yet to remain brethren and to be supportive of one another’s labors for the kingdom.

What do we do when we’re one of the brothers having a disagreement? Even though Barnabas and Paul had such a sharp disagreement and even though they found it necessary from that point on to work separately, yet the Bible seems to indicate that both parties continued to view one another as faithful brethren and were overall supportive of one another’s labors in the Lord. Paul continued to view and refer to Barnabas as an apostle of Christ and fellow laborer for the kingdom (1 Cor 9:5-6). I suspect that he who exhorted the brethren to pray for “all the saints” did so himself (Eph 6:18). Paul kept Barnabas and Mark on his prayer list. And I think we can reasonably assume that Barnabas and Mark continued to pray for Paul.

Brothers, don’t take everyone who disagrees with you off your prayer list. You may not have the same degree of responsibility to pray for someone who has left the church as you did when he was a member. But you may still pray for him as God brings them to your mind and gives you opportunity. You say, “I’ll still pray for them all right. I’ll pray they get right with God and see things my way!” Very well. But also pray that God may bless them inasmuch as they are walking in the truth. And inasmuch as they’re not walking in the truth pray that God might have mercy on them. Just don’t take them off your list.

Furthermore, don’t allow your disagreement to be so firm and your separation to be so fixed, that it cannot be revised in the future. Paul had to later revise his opinion about Mark. As it turned out, Mark became a very faithful and useful minister. As it turned out, Barnabas’s willingness to give Mark a second chance paid off. And not only was Paul willing to revise his opinion about Mark and commend him to others. But he was also willing and humble enough to ask Mark for help. To Timothy he writes, “Pick up Mark and bring him with you, for he is useful to me for service” (1 Tim 4:11). Can you imagine the joy in Mark’s heart as the he learned that Paul, who once doubted his usefulness, now desired his service!

So too, brothers, let us always be willing to revise our judgment calls. There are some convictions regarding clear doctrine and biblical ethics that we may not revise. But when it comes to making judgment calls based on the application of biblical principle, we should at least be willing to revise our opinions. And that won’t be so difficult to do if we maintain a disposition of brotherly love. That’s why Paul urges believers not to loose sight of the value and importance of brotherly love in our quest for knowledge:

Love is patient …
Love is kind …
Love is not arrogant …
Love is not easily provoked …
Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things! (1 Cor. 13:4-7)

May God grant us greater measures of this love!

Bob Gonzales, Dean
Reformed Baptist Seminary

1. Cited from Piper’s sermon “The Weakness of a Great Leader,” which was accessed on April 26, 2005 here: http://www.desiringgod.org/library/sermons/87/071987.html. Internet. [↩]
2. A Commentary on the Whole Bible, 6:200. [↩]
3. Ibid. [↩]
4. ”The Weakness of a Great Leader.” [↩]
5. The Life and Epistles of St. Paul, 194. [↩]
6. William LaSor, Great Personalities of the New Testament, 126. [↩]

The Sacred “Whymns” of Isaac Watts: The Worship Wars of the 18th Century

Posted by deangonzales on December 20, 2009
13 Comments

It’s not uncommon to hear Reformed Christians complaining that nearly all modern hymnody is tainted by worldliness and longing nostalgically for the “good old days” when human invention and novelty were excluded from the songs of Zion. In reality, though, “worship wars” are not an exclusively modern phenomenon. As the video clip below demonstrates, the hymnody we now deem as entirely biblical and reverent was once decried as unscriptural and whimsical. Perhaps the story of Isaac Watts should prompt us to reexamine our presuppositions about God-honoring worship and temper our hasty censures of what we perceive to be fickle in modern day worship.

Bob Gonzales, Dean
Reformed Baptist Seminary

The Star of Bethlehem: A Natural-Supernatural Hybrid

Posted by John Reuther on December 19, 2009
7 Comments

I commend to our readers this fascinating proposal written by Dr. Robert C. Newman, Professor Emeritus of New Testament at Biblical Theological Seminary in Hatfield, PA, and Ph.D in astrophysics from Cornell University. You can access a PowerPoint presentation and an audio file for that presentation at the end of this article. His paper presented here is slightly condensed.

Numerous suggestions have been made over the centuries for the identity of the star that led the Magi to Jesus.  Some of these proposals may be classified as purely natural, in that no miraculous intervention is postulated – e.g., Halley’s comet, some other comet, one or more of various planetary conjunctions, or an exploding star, such as a supernova.  Other proposals can be labeled purely supernatural, since they suggest that a miraculous object – perhaps an angel, the Shekinah glory, or some other local, movable bright light in the sky – was responsible for the phenomenon.

The advantage of this first class of proposals is that it may be possible to find other historical references to the object, or……… even to re-enact the scenario using modern computers.  The problem with such proposals is that the bright object, being millions of miles out in space, does not naturally fit Matthew’s comment that the star led the Magi to the place where the child was.

Supernatural models, on the other hand, can be easily imagined in which a relatively local bright object will do the guiding.  But it would be very unlikely that such an object would leave any extra-biblical traces in the historical record.

We propose a hybrid model – part natural and part supernatural – that both leaves a distinctive mark for us to investigate two thousand years later, and which will also fit a natural reading of Matthew’s account.  Our proposal involves a modification of Ernest Martin’s interpretation of a series of planetary and stellar conjunctions, followed by a localized bright object that would have been recognized by the Magi as the “same” star and which, on that crucial night, led them to the house where the baby Jesus was.

The Natural Part

Although retrospective calculations of planetary positions for ancient times have occasionally been made since the time of Johann Kepler (d 1630), such efforts (being done by hand) were enormously time-consuming, exacting and tedious until very recently.  But in 1962, as an early fruit of the electronic computer, Bryant Tuckerman’s tables of Planetary, Lunar and Solar Positions 601 BC to AD 1 were published by the American Philosophical Society.

Within a decade of this publication, Roger Sinnott worked carefully through these tables and located all the close planetary conjunctions that had occurred around the probable time of the birth of Jesus.  In particular, Sinnott found one strikingly close conjunction of Venus and Jupiter in the constellation of Leo (the Lion) on the evening of 17 June 2 BC, which would have been quite rare.  He proposed that this was the Christmas star, publishing his results in the December 1968 issue of Sky and Telescope, the premier magazine for amateur astronomers.  His suggestion has since been adopted and presented each Christmas in many planetarium programs.

Thereafter Ernest Martin developed this suggestion with much additional detail and historical research in his book The Star That Astonished the World (1991).  Martin noticed a cluster of additional conjunctions involving one or the other of these two planets within a year of this conjunction, and suggested that these would have had such symbolic significance as to send the Magi to Judea to look for the newborn king of the Jews.

Martin suggests that these conjunctions above, plus a configuration of the sun and moon with the constellation Virgo on 11 Sept 3 BC, would have been read as follows:

12 August 3 BC. Jupiter, the king planet, having left the Sun, the supreme Father, is now conjoined with Venus, the mother.  The Sun, Moon and Mercury (the messenger) are also located with Jupiter and Venus in Leo, the lion, representing the tribe of Judah (Gen 49:9).  The message of this configuration: some important royal event is to happen among the Jews.

31 August 3 BC. Mercury, the heavenly messenger, having left the Sun, now arrives at Venus, the mother.  The Sun is now in the constellation Virgo, the virgin.  Mercury and Venus are in Leo and Jupiter is just entering the same.  Message: God’s messenger is sent to the mother.

11 September 3 BC. One of the visions in the New Testament book of Revelation, that of the woman about to give birth in chapter 12:1-5, can easily be understood astrologically to mark an exact date.  If the woman is taken to be the constellation Virgo, the virgin, then the Sun clothes her body for about one month a year.  The moon will pass through that region in the course of its monthly cycle so that it is (just) under her feet on one particular day.  In 3 BC, that day is September 11.  Martin takes this to be the date of Jesus’ birth.

14 Sept 3 BC, 17 Feb 2 BC, and 8 May 2 BC. Three conjunctions of Jupiter with Regulus, the brightest star in the constellation Leo, the lion, and located between the lion’s feet.  Martin notes the prediction in Gen 49:10: “The scepter will not depart from Judah nor the ruler (or ruler’s staff) from between his feet, until he comes to whom it belongs and the obedience of the nations is his.”  Jupiter, the king planet, circles above Regulus, the king star, placing a crown on the king star.  See fig. 1.

17 June, 2 BC. A very rare close conjunction of Jupiter and Venus……..Martin sees this conjunction as having the same significance as the one of 12 Aug 3 BC, and suggests it was this 17 June conjunction that sends the Magi on their way, arriving in Jerusalem about December 25.

26 August 2 BC. A close conjunction of Jupiter and Mars (war) in Leo, with Venus and Mercury also in Leo, and the Sun in Virgo.  Martin suggests this sign may mean these events will lead to war.

After having explored the Matthew 2 passage with my students in seminary for a number of years, I recently noticed a number of things about these conjunctions that suggest a modification of Martin’s view.  When these changes are made, the symbolism of this sequence of events suddenly snaps into focus in a remarkable way.  Let’s see:

1. Martin’s 11 September event (which he identifies with Jesus’ birth) comes only two weeks after the 31 August conjunction, in which God’s messenger comes to the mother.  This 31 August event sounds like Gabriel’s annunciation to Mary, which would hardly be just two weeks before the birth.

2. Taking 11 September instead as the conception rather than the birth, the really close conjunction of 17 June is just over nine months later.  This latter conjunction thus makes best sense as the birth event, which (after all) is what Matthew 1-2 is all about.  So Jesus is born 17 June 2 BC.

3. This arrangement gives a different flavor to the three conjunctions of Jupiter with Regulus, as the baby Jesus is in Mary’s womb at this period.  Thus Jupiter can be seen as God hovering over him.  As an unexpected benefit, the star name Regulus is the Latin diminutive of Rex, “king.”  So the king planet is hovering over the little king!

4.  The 26 August 2 BC massing of planets – all the anciently-known planets but Saturn clustered within a few degrees of one another in the space between Leo and Virgo (Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter) – may indeed imply war, as Martin suggests, given the presence of warlike Mars for the first time in this sequence of conjunctions.  If we assume with Martin that the Magi set out from Babylon (or thereabouts) at the really close conjunction of 17 June, they would have just 70 days to get to Judea by this date.  This is not unreasonable if they didn’t dawdle.

My scheme thus looks like this, with a date or two adjusted to fit the results of my own planetarium program:

12 August 3 BC. Jupiter, the king planet joins with Venus the mother in Leo.  An important royal event – presumably a birth – is about to occur in Judah.

26 August 3 BC. Mercury, the heavenly messenger comes to Venus the mother.  The message is delivered to the mother-to-be.

11 September 3 BC. The Sun clothes the body of the Virgin while the Moon is under her feet.  The child is conceived.

14 September, 17 February and May 8, now 2 BC. Jupiter the king planet hovers over Regulus, the little king, who is in his mother’s womb.

17 June 2 BC. The rare close conjunction of Jupiter with Venus in Leo, almost exactly the same distance East of Regulus as the earlier 12 August 3 BC conjunction was West of Regulus.  See fig. 1.  The birth.  The Magi set out for Judea and Jerusalem, its capital.

28 August 2 BC. The clustering of Sun, Moon, Jupiter, Venus, Mercury and Mars.  This means war.  The Magi arrive, and Herod makes his move to kill the baby Jesus.

How rare is the sequence of events we are considering here?  See our calculations in the appendix (refer to the links at the end of this article).  As noted above, this will depend on the separation of Jupiter and Venus at the close conjunction of 17 June 2 BC.  With Sinnott’s suggested separation of 3 minutes, this sort of conjunction will occur in Leo about every 1154 years.  With Martin’s separation of 0.5 minute, it will occur about once every 6923 years.  With Carroll’s separation of 0.1 minute, this will be once every 34,615 years.

The event is seen to be even rarer when we add in the triple conjunction of Jupiter with Regulus, which only occurs in this particular year because the eleven degree wide loop made by Jupiter at opposition happens to lie across the position of Regulus.  This has a probability of 11 degrees divided by 360 degrees, or about .03.  Thus the frequency of this close Jupiter-Venus conjunction plus the triple conjunction with Regulus can be expected to happen once every 38 thousand years (Sinnott), every 228 thousand years (Martin), or every 1 million 142 thousand years (Carroll).  A rare event indeed!

The symbolism of these events (and their chronological order) is also impressive:

12 August 3 BC.  Magi pay attention!  A royal birth in Judah.

26 August 3 BC.  The heavenly messenger informs the mother.

11 September 3 BC.  The conception occurs.

The triple conjunction.  The king of the gods hovers over the little king.

17 June 2 BC.  The birth occurs.

28 August 2 BC.  This means war.

The apologetic value of this sequence of events – which can easily be reconstructed two thousand years later by anyone on a home computer using a planetarium program – is enormous.

The Supernatural Part

The purely natural models tend to run aground in dealing with the text of Matthew 2:9-10:

(9) After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen in the east (or, “star when it arose”) went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was.  (10) When they saw the star, they were overjoyed.

The problem here is that objects at astronomical distances cannot guide someone to explicit places on the surface of the earth by mere movement alone. Instead this is characteristic of objects that are only a few tens of feet above the ground, as for example, the pillar of cloud and fire that guided the Israelites in the wilderness.

Martin’s model takes the verb “stopped” in verse 9 to be used in a technical astronomical sense, for Jupiter ceasing its westward motion relative to the stars, and beginning to move eastward once more, which he sees as happening about 25 Dec 2 BC, when he believes the Magi were at Jerusalem.  But this is nothing an observer would notice by watching Jupiter that night.  Its stopping would only become apparent over the course of many nights as its relative motion among the stars would gradually come to a halt and then change direction.  And “stopped over the place” Martin takes to mean that when the Magi came out of Jerusalem that night to go to Bethlehem, they saw Jupiter “stopped” in the southern sky over the village of Bethlehem, not over the particular house in which the baby Jesus was located.  Since the Magi would need to know that Jupiter had reached its stopping point (before moving east again) by means of calculations or charts they had prepared in advance, they would hardly be surprised or overjoyed as Matthew tells us they were.  This Greek expression Matthew uses is quite emphatic.

An alternative suggestion for using an astronomical object to mark a location on the surface of the earth appears in E. W. Maunder’s article on the “Star of the Magi” in the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (1939) 5:2849, under the section “The Legend of the Well.”  Maunder reports a legend at Bethlehem that one of the Magi, looking down into the well at the inn, saw the star reflected in it (so it was directly overhead) and knew they had come to the right place.  This is a clever suggestion, but it hardly does justice to the details of the text of Matthew.

Supernatural models, by contrast, handle this problem easily.  An object which is only a few tens of feet above the earth can easily guide people by moving at a speed they can keep up with and by stopping over the location to which the people are being led.  In fact, the terminology used in the ancient Greek translation of the Old Testament to describe the guidance provided by the pillar of fire and cloud is rather close to that used by Matthew here.  Matthew uses the verb proago to indicate that the star “went before” them or “led” them, the verb erchomai to indicate its “moving” or “coming” and histemi to indicate its “stopping” or “standing.”    In Exodus 13:21 God “leads” them (ago) by a pillar of cloud to show Israel the way.  In Ex 14:19 the angel of God “goes before” them (proerchomai), and to protect them from the Egyptians, he moves the pillar of cloud to “stand” (histemi) behind them.  In Ex 33:9, whenever Moses would enter the tent of meeting, the pillar of cloud would descend and “stand” (histemi) at the door of the tent, and when the people saw the pillar “standing” (histemi), they would each stand at the door of their own tents and worship.  In Numbers 14:14, Moses tells God that the Egyptians have already heard that God=s cloud “stands over” Israel (ephistemi) and that by/in the pillar of cloud He “goes before” them (poreuomai proteros).  The verb poreuomai is pretty much a synonym of erchomai.  In Deuteronomy 1:33, Moses rebukes Israel for not trusting God who “went before” (proporeuomai proteros) them in fire by night and cloud by day to search out places to camp and show them the way they should go.

So, let us summarize.  With a purely natural model, no ordinary reading of the text of Matthew or the phenomena of conjunctions will guide the Magi to Jesus.  In a purely supernatural model, this is handled easily, but the events described above in our section “The Natural Part” are just an astonishing (but meaningless) fluke.  But how about a hybrid model?  The natural part is open to retrospective calculation, while the supernatural part fits the Matthew narrative naturally and gets the Magi to the right house in Bethlehem.  Such a natural-supernatural hybrid might also make sense of the extreme joy which the Magi experience when they see the star again.

Matthew 2:9-10 tells us that they again saw the star which they had seen in the east, so there is a strong indication that we are to identify the star they now see with that which sent them on their way.  In the model we propose, if they arrive in Jerusalem on or about 28 August of 2 BC, then the cluster of Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars and Jupiter in Leo-Virgo will set with the Sun. Since in fact the Sun is then the easternmost member of this group, it will set last.  So if we imagine the Magi coming out of Jerusalem shortly after the Sun sets, we can construct a scenario that would work very well:

Suppose (we speculate) they see a supernatural light about the size and brightness of the Jupiter-Venus conjunction of 17 June.  It arises in the west from where the Sun has just set and comes toward them until it is low overhead.  The “star” then turns southward and leads them (like the pillar in the wilderness) until it stops over the house where Joseph, Mary and the child Jesus are now living.  After all their travels, wouldn’t that be something to make the Magi “rejoice exceedingly with great joy” (a literal approximation to the Greek)?

That is my proposal for a reconstruction of the phenomenon of the Christmas star.

Dr. Robert C. Newman, Professor Emeritus, Biblical Theological Seminary, Hatfield, PA. Robert C. Newman is Emeritus Professor of New Testament at Biblical Theological Seminary, Hatfield, Pennsylvania, and Director of the Interdisciplinary Biblical Research Institute.  His doctorate is in theoretical astrophysics from Cornell University, and he has a M.Div. from Faith Theological Seminary, and an S.T.M. in Old Testament from Biblical Theological Seminary.  He has done additional graduate work in cosmic gas dynamics at the University of Wisconsin, in religious thought at the University of Pennsylvania, in hermeneutics and biblical interpretation at Westminster Theological Seminary, and in biblical geography at the Institute for Holy Land Studies (now Jerusalem University College).

He is a past President of the Evangelical Theological Society, a professional society of nearly 3000 theologians.  He has done scientific research for the U.S. Weather Bureau and the Franklin Institute.  He is a fellow of the American Scientific Affiliation, a society of some 2500 Christians in the sciences, a member of the editorial board of its journal Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith, and was formerly Chairman of its Commission on Creation.

Here are the links:

For the Powerpoint Presentation on the Star of Bethlehem:

http://www.newmanlib.ibri.org/NewmanPpt/StarBeth.htm

And the link to the audio file – scroll down the list of presentations to the “Star of Bethlehem” and you will see the audio file on the far right.:

http://www.newmanlib.ibri.org/NewmanPpt/AbstractsTopically.htm

Sources:
Carroll, Susan S. “The Star of Bethlehem: an Astronomical and Historical Perspective,” 1998 <http://sciastro.net/portia/articles/thestar.htm> accessed 26 Sept 2000.
Chester, Craig. “The Star of Bethlehem,” Imprimis (December, 1993): 1-4.
Martin, Ernest L.  The Star That Astonished the World. Portland, OR: ASK Publications, 1991.
Maunder, E. W.  “Star of the Magi,” International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (1939).
Sinnott, Roger.  “Thoughts on the Star of Bethlehem,” Sky and Telescope (December 1968): 384-386.
Tuckerman, Bryant.  Planetary, Lunar, and Solar Positions 601 B.C. to A.D. 1.  Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1962.
My simulations of the sky were made using the program SkyGlobe 3.6 for DOS, copyright 1993, Klass M Software.
My calculations for the frequency of conjunctions of Jupiter and Venus were made using my own program FCONJ, written in QBasic 4.5.