How Good Men Fracture Under Pressure

Scripture holds a peculiar mirror to human character—a plane mirror, as Maclaren observes, that reflects images without distortion. It refuses both the cynic's delight in exposing hidden corruption and the melancholic's despair at universal failure. Instead, it frankly confesses that even the noblest fall short of unstained purity. Barnabas exemplifies this truth. Called explicitly "a good man, full of the Holy Ghost and of faith," he nevertheless demonstrates how goodness fractured by weakness becomes destructive.…