For he was a good man, and full of the Holy Ghost and of faith: and much people was added unto the Lord.
For he was a good man, and full of the Holy Spirit and of faith. The sense of "good" here is evidently 'large-hearted' (cf. Romans 5:7), 'liberal-minded,' rising above narrow Jewish sectarianism; while in virtue of the fullness of the Holy Spirit he clearly discerned and had entire sympathy with the grace of God in these Gentile converts, and in the exercise of his "fulness of faith," he shook himself free from those traditional trammels which might have warped his judgment and blunted his courage.
And much people was added unto the Lord - such an increase of disciples at that important capital being a divine seal set upon the beautiful spirit displayed by both parties. Did Barnabas now return to Jerusalem, leaving the work at Antioch in the hands that began it, and just as he found it; or-as Paul afterward left Titus among the converts at Crete, to "set in order the things that were lacking, and ordain elders in every city" (Titus 1:5) - did he organize them, and hand over the spiritual care of them to elders ordained from among themselves for that purpose? He did neither of these things. They seem not to have been sufficiently advanced for the former plan; and probably Antioch was deemed too important a capital, and the kind of fruit which it had yielded to Christ was of too novel a character, for the latter method. Accordingly, Barnabas judged it fit to remain at Antioch, to build up with his hand and extend the work so suspiciously begun. That in doing so he set aside the original preachers, is not for a moment to be supposed; and, as we shall by and by find one of them at least occupying an important post in this church at Antioch, we are safe in concluding that, with the same large-heartedness which actuated him from the first, he associated them with him in his labours. Such at any rate was the vigorous growth of the work, that he was fain to leave it for a time, in order to fetch as an associate the man who, of all others in the Church, was the most fitted to aid him in such a sphere of labour.
Barnabas, Finding the Work at Antioch too much for Him, Goes to Tarsus for Saul, with whom He Labours there for a Whole Year with much Success, and this First of All the Gentile Churches is Honoured to Be the Birthplace of the Term CHRISTIANS (11:25-26)