I hate it when people overlook the obvious. Sometimes I wonder if what they are overlooking is only obvious to me. For example, many times I have heard people comment on the contention between Paul and Barnabas in Acts 15:38, and they say, "Now, we don't know what the contention was between Paul and Barnabas..." And I say, "You don't? Did you try reading the previous two verses?" It seems obvious to me that Barnabas felt very strongly that God wanted him to work with Mark, but he had grown so accustomed to working with Paul that it really didn't even occur to him that he was supposed to work with Mark instead of working with Paul. Meanwhile, Paul felt very strongly that he wasn't supposed to work with Mark, but he also was very accustomed to working with Barnabas, and it didn't occur to him, either, that Barnabas should work with Mark and Paul should find someone else to work with. But Barnabas insisted that they should work with Mark, and Paul insisted that they should not, and eventually they realized that they could no longer work together--which is what God wanted all along anyway. So Barnabas worked with Mark, and Paul worked with Silas.

Paul and Silas went on to be thrown in jail in Thessalonica, but then led a revival in the jail. That's an interesting story in and of itself. Paul and Silas, having been beaten badly, and having their feet locked in stocks in the inner prison, began praising God. The other prisoners heard them, and had to have thought that these guys are nuts--just completely whacked out of their gourds--but then, God sent an earthquake, and the stocks came loose, and the door to the cell opened. The jailer awoke, and seeing the door opened, assumed that Paul and Silas had escaped. Knowing what kind of punishment he would receive, and the disgrace to his family, the jailer thought it better to kill himself on the spot. He pulled out his sword, and Paul, knowing what was going through the jailer's mind, stopped him, and assured him that no one had escaped. The first thought in the jailers mind was probably that these guys are nuts... but he realized that Paul was the kind of man that didn't want to be even partially responsible for someone else's death. This Paul, he's real, he could have walked away and let me die, but he put my own life above his own (think about it: Paul didn't know what the morning held, he and Silas could very easily have been executed for their alleged crimes). What drives a man like that? How can I be more like that? The jailer took Paul and Silas to his own home, tended to their injuries, they shared with him the gospel message, and he was baptized, and his whole family (at what time? 2:00 AM? We know it was midnight when Paul and Silas started worshipping in their cell...) I wonder what the jailer's wife thought when he brought two prisoners home in the middle of the night (in the middle of his shift), and woke her up, and wanted her to listen to what they had to say... She probably thought her husband was nuts--completely whacked out of his gourd, but she knew that something had changed his life. Insanity is not contagious, but, sometimes, sanity is.