Barsabbas recently captured my imagination. What would it have been like to have been one of two people put forward as the apostolic replacement for Judas but not to be the one who was chosen? 

It’s easy to think that, back then, people didn’t indulge petty jealousy. Scripture, however—from Cain to Corinthians—indicates otherwise. Barsabbas was surely a godly man, for he was nominated for apostleship, but the record of Scripture includes many a sin of godly men. 

It’s easy to think that, back then, people didn’t seek their own glory—that the desire for self-glory is a modern phenomenon. The many commands in Scripture against selfish ambition, however, indicate that self-promotion preceded social media.

Barsabbas did not turn back from following Christ and serving the church, for Acts 15:22 records, “Then it seemed good to the apostles and the elders, with the whole church, to choose men from among them and send them to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas. They sent Judas called Barsabbas, and Silas . . .”

For an instant, it went through my mind that, when Christ takes me home, I could ask Barsabbas what it felt like not to be chosen. A split second later, I realized, of course, that Barsabbas was chosen, as every believer has been chosen. 

Like Barsabbas, we have been chosen, and chosen for purpose. We have been chosen for adoption unto holiness. “Even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved” (Ephesians 1:4-6). We have been chosen to become like our heavenly Father. 

I sometimes catch myself thinking about this individualistically: “God chose me before the foundation of the world that I should be holy and blameless. How’s that going for me, today?” The passage, however, says that God chose us to become holy and blameless. Together, we are “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession” proclaiming the excellencies of him who called us out of darkness into his marvelous light (1 Peter 2:9). How’s that going in your church today?