Exhortation = breath life into others

The gift of exhortation is the divine strength or ability to encourage others through the written or spoken word and Biblical truth. 

There IS a created design of encouragement. 

True encouragers walk with a worldview that causes them to call forth the destiny of people by, naturally,  encouraging them to be the person they’re designed to be (the positive side of accountability). They bring hope alive!

Barnabas is the perfect example— for multiple reasons: 

• When the Early Church was a young movement and possessed few resources, Barnabas sold a field and gave the apostles the money (see Acts 4:36f.). 
• Then, he saw in Paul what others couldn’t see, thereby offering his endorsement to the chief-persecutor turned church-planter (Acts 9:26-30). 
• Later, when John Mark bailed out on a mission trip, Paul refused to take the young man on the next one— but Barnabas stood by him and took the young leader along with him, splitting with Paul (Acts 15:39-41). Apparently, Mark grew into his role, because Paul called for him as he was aging (see 2 Timothy 4:11), and Mark went on to pen the first Gospel that was published.

Paul planted the most churches. John Mark wrote the first Gospel to be published. Barnabas was present in both of their lives at pivotal moments. 

(I referenced him as a possible IS ersonality type (blue-yellow). Another exhorter might be Mordecai, the uncle who encouraged Esther (our CS, green-yellow) example to step forward.)

See also Acts 14:22, Romans 12:8, 1 Timothy 4:13, Hebrews 10:24-25.