Wednesday Acts 6:1-7

The church deals with an internal problem.

Click here for an online Bible. Acts 6:1-7

The church continued to grow. As with any organization, the bigger it gets, the more problems arise. One aspect of the early church was its mutual care for one another. They particularly looked out for the widows who had nobody else to look after them.

All of the early Christians were Jews who came to faith in Christ. However, there were two communities of Jews. The Hebraic Jews were the natives of Judea. They were born and raised in that area. They spoke Aramaic as their native language and probably spoke Hebrew as well. They worshiped in Hebrew synagogues. The Hellenistic Jews were immigrants to Jerusalem. They were Jews, but they had lived in the Greek culture. Their native language was Greek and they worshiped in Greek synagogues. Many scholars believe that it was common for older Jews to move back to Jerusalem to die and be buried there. This may have resulted in a large group of Hellenistic widows who had no family in the area, so they needed care from the church.

A disagreement erupts in the church. The Hellenists complain that their widows are getting short-changed in the food distribution. They also seem to be accusing the Hebraic Christians of purposely mistreating the Hellenistic widows. The text just says that they complained. It does not say that they complained to the apostles. However it occurred, the apostles got wind of the problem. They gathered all of the disciples together. Notice that they did not get involved in fixing the disagreement. They did not discipline the Hebraic Christians for picking on the Hellenistic widows. They did not tell the Hellenists to quit whining. They recognized that there was a problem, but they were not going to solve it. But they did recognize the seriousness of the problem. Nothing will derail a church from its mission like fighting within the church.

They suggested to the church that they choose seven spiritually mature men to fix the problem. The suggestion was well received and they choose seven men. All seven of the names seem to be Greek names. That would make sense; those who care most about a problem are the likely candidates to be part of the fix. The church presented the men to the apostles who prayed over them and empowered them to fix the problem.

We usually look at this passage as the origin of the deacon ministry. That is probably not completely accurate. The office of deacon did not seem to come into place until a little while later. But it is not a bad passage to look to for our deacon ministry. The role of the deacons is to fix problems that could result in a distraction from the mission of the church.

The result in this situation was that the church continued to grow. It grew rapidly. Even many priests became believers.

Many dying churches have adopted the model that the role of the deacons is to make sure that the pastor is properly ministering to the widows. This model reduces the number of people doing ministry to one. It also causes the pastor to neglect the ministry of the Word and prayer. It is a recipe for church death. A better model is to maximize the number of people doing ministry – to maximize the ministry of the Word and prayer. The result is Kingdom growth.