If you're an ENFP, you see what a person could become before they've shown any sign of it, and you say so out loud. That's a gift the early church could not have done without. It's also the thing that gets you hurt, and scripture is honest about both halves.
Nobody Would Go Near Saul
Start with the nickname, because the apostles gave it to him. "Joseph, a Levite from Cyprus, whom the apostles called Barnabas (which means 'son of encouragement'), sold a field he owned and brought the money and put it at the apostles' feet" (Acts 4:36-37). A man so consistently encouraging that people stopped using his real name.
Then comes the hard case. Saul has been arresting Christians. He has stood over an execution. Now he shows up in Jerusalem claiming to be one of them, and Luke records the reaction plainly: "he tried to join the disciples, but they were all afraid of him, not believing that he really was a disciple" (Acts 9:26).
All of them. The entire church in Jerusalem was afraid of this man, and their fear was reasonable.
"But Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles. He told them how Saul on his journey had seen the Lord and that the Lord had spoken to him, and how in Damascus he had preached fearlessly in the name of Jesus" (Acts 9:27).
He walked in with the man everyone was afraid of and told the story. Every letter Paul wrote is downstream of somebody being willing to do that.
Seeing What a Person Could Be
So the thing you do without trying is the thing that put Paul into the church. You notice potential, you believe the change is real, and you'll stake your own standing on a person other people have written off.
Don't apologize for it and don't let anyone train it out of you. What it needs is not restraint but staying power. It's easy to see what somebody could become. It's slow to walk with them while they become it, and Barnabas did the second part. He went and found Saul in Tarsus later, brought him to Antioch, and they worked together for a year.
So pick one person and be the one who's still around in two years. That's the version of this gift that changes somebody's life, and it's the version that costs you a Tuesday every week.
The Argument That Split the Team
Now the honest part. This same instinct ended Barnabas' partnership with Paul.
John Mark had abandoned them on an earlier trip. Barnabas wanted to take him again. Paul refused. "They had such a sharp disagreement that they parted company. Barnabas took Mark and sailed for Cyprus, but Paul chose Silas and left" (Acts 15:39-40).
Two things are true here and you have to hold both. Barnabas was right about Mark in the long run, because Mark comes back into the story and Paul later asks for him by name. And it still cost him the closest working relationship of his life.
If you're built to give people another chance, some of those chances will run you into somebody equally sincere who says no. The disagreement will feel personal, because everything does with you. Learn to lose one of these without deciding the other person is the enemy. Barnabas and Paul both kept serving Jesus after this. They just did it apart.
Finishing Things You Started
The other cost is the one you already know. You start well and often, and the follow-through is where things go quiet.
Barnabas is worth studying here too. He sold a field, which is a completed transaction. He spent a year teaching in one city. He took Mark on a long voyage rather than a conversation.
Your spiritual life will not run on inspiration, because inspiration is the part you're never short of. It runs on the unexciting version: the same prayer time, the same book of the Bible, the same church, the same people, past the point where any of it feels new. Pick one thing you started this year and finish it before you start the next.
Who Else Believed in People First
There are no personality types in scripture, so nobody in it is an ENFP. There are plenty of people in it who saw potential before evidence.
Barnabas vouches for Saul, then for Mark. Peter preaches to a crowd on impulse and three thousand believe. David dances in the street and doesn't care who's watching. Mary answers an angel with "may your word to me be fulfilled" before she has any idea how that will go.
One Person, One Year
One person and one year is a good place to start. Pick somebody nobody else is investing in and be around for them in two years, not two weeks. Finish one thing you already started. When a disagreement gets sharp, decide ahead of time that you won't make it about whether they're a good person. And read Acts 4, 9, and 15 together, because they're the same man at his best and at his most costly.
The apostles renamed a man after what he kept doing for people. That's available to you.