We are currently teaching through the book of Acts line by line. Last week we finished up chapter 5. We read how the apostles were beaten for preaching the gospel and how they rejoiced in their suffering and then took the gospel to the streets, house by house. At this point in the narrative the Lord Jesus had grown His church exponentially through the preaching of the gospel. The church now had thousands and thousands, maybe even tens of thousands of members. The apostles were exercising multiple duties. They were teaching, healing, and making sure that the goods that the believers were donating were being rightly distributed.

This morning we will look at what happened next in 6:1-7. Please take your Bibles and turn there. I’ll read the text, pray, and we’ll examine it together.

Read

Pray

Examine

Verse

Now in these days when the disciples were increasing in number, a complaint by the Hellenistsarose against the Hebrews because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution.

Commentary

As the church grew, it began to encounter the problems of an institution. The Jewish nation has always had a great sense of responsibility for those who are less fortunate. In the synagogue, there was a routine custom. Two collections went round the market and the private houses every Friday morning and made a collection for the needy, partly in money and partly in goods. Later in the day, this was distributed. Those who were temporarily in need received enough to enable them to carry on; and those who were permanently unable to support themselves received enough for fourteen meals, that is, enough for two meals a day for the week ahead. The fund from which this distribution was made was called the ‘Kuppah’, or basket. In addition to this, a house-to-house collection was made daily for those whose needs were more pressing. This was called the ‘Tamhui’, or tray. It is clear that the Christian Church had taken over this custom. But among the Jews themselves there was a rift.

In the Christian Church, there were two kinds of Jews. There were the Jerusalem and the Palestinian Jews who spoke the ancestral language, Aramaic. These local or indigenous Jews prided themselves that there was no foreign element in their lives. There were also Jews from foreign countries who had come up for Pentecost and made the great discovery of Christ.

Many of these had been away from Palestine for generations; they had forgotten their Hebrew and spoke only Greek. They were known as Hellenists. The natural consequence was that the spiritually snobbish Aramaic speaking Jews looked down on foreign Jews. This contempt affected the daily distribution of alms, and there was a complaint that the widows of the Greek-speaking Jews were being neglected; maybe even intentionally.

This is the first recorded example of dissention in the church according to the book of Acts. We have two groups that are sort of facing off here, the Hellenists and the Hebrews. Now it could be that the Hebrews were deliberately leaving out some of the Hellenistic widows. This is completely possible because of their distaste for foreign Jews. Or it could be that the Hellenists were quick to wrongly judge their brothers when in fact a simple mistake had been made. Maybe the Hellenists were driven by paranoia? They had reason to be because of the abuse they had experienced from their local brothers. We really don’t know all the details but we do know that some of the Hellenistic widows were being overlooked and people within their ranks were upset and complained to the apostles about it.

Another thing that comes to mind here is how many Hellenistic widows are we talking about? Hellenists were the minority in Jerusalem therefore it could not have been very many, right? Wrong. There was actually a disproportionate amount of foreign Jewish widows in Jerusalem at this time. The reason for this was because the Jews believed that it was virtuous to be buried in the land of Israel. Many Jewish men would come to spend their last days there and then die and leave behind their widows. Another factor that played into the high amount of foreign widows was tradition. Tradition held that the righteous dead would be resurrected only in Israel and that the righteous dead of other lands would have to roll back to Israel underground, and this was thought to be a very unpleasant experience. In order to avoid the uncomfortable rolling Jews from all over would move to the Holy City. So virtue and tradition drove the amount of Hellenistic widows up. And unlike the rest of the religious community in Jerusalem, the church was really trying to deal with the problem by meeting needs. The apostles didn’t care about what type of Jew a person was, they preached the gospel and cared for people.

So a complaint of abuse had been lobbied against the Hebrews by the Hellenists before the apostles. How did the apostles respond? Look at verse 2.

Verse

2And the twelve summoned the full number of the disciples and said, “It is not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables.

Commentary

The first thing that the apostles’ did was they brought the Hellenists together. And then they declared before them that it would be wrong for them to give up preaching the gospel to serve tables. Serving tables can mean to deal with ‘money matters’.

The obvious inference here is that the Hellenists demanded that the apostles not only investigate the situation but that they take over and do the work themselves so that it would remain fair. The apostles basically said, “No, we don’t have time to look into this or to take on the responsibility ourselves because we must remain to preaching the Word of God.”

Now prior to all of this, we have seen how the devil used the Sanhedrin to try to stop the apostles from preaching Jesus. The Sanhedrin threatened, imprisoned, and beat them. And the apostles prevailed through the power of the Holy Spirit. In our text, the devil was trying to do the same thing, only this time he didn’t use the Sanhedrin, no, he used a potential ministry opportunity. The devil wanted to lure the apostles away from preaching Jesus by presenting them with an opportunity to engage in some hands-on compassion based ministry.

There is nothing wrong with tending to widows. The Apostle James said that tending to widows and orphans is true religion. But if the proclamation of God’s Word is neglected or abandoned by ministers so that they can focus on compassion based ministry, we have a huge problem. And this problem exists in the church today. Ministers are stretched incredibly thin in churches. They have so many things on their plates. They have seemingly endless responsibilities, especially youth ministers. During any given week a youth minister is expected to be in meetings, visit schools, disciple students, train lay-leaders, recruit lay-leaders, make hospital visits, minister to parents, plan future events, produce fliers, videos, and slide shows, study, write sermons, preach, manage a worship band, set up for worship gatherings, and oversee worship gatherings. And it’s the same for many other pastors as well.

On average, less than 10-15% of a pastor’s time is devoted to the study and proclamation of God’s Word. Tragically, the era of good study, scholarship, and exposition is pretty much gone. The true ministers who spent 20-30 hours a week reading and writing sermons have vanished. And they have been replaced by cruise ship ministers or coach ministers. Guys who always point people towards things to do or who give clever little pragmatic formulas that are meant to improve our quality of life. Do these 7 steps, s-u-c-c-e-e-d, and you will what? Succeed! The problem with the church, from the top down, is that it has forsaken its first love, the Word of God. Ministers would rather be busy with stuff to do than to be secluded in study. They would rather take the Word of God and throw it at their topics than to emerge themselves in the text and context. They would rather deliver pep-talks than to rightly divide the Scriptures. And the church is following their lead. It’s like the blind leading the blind.

And the fruit of it all is rampant unprecedented biblical ignorance. Many in the church can no longer discern the difference between the devils schemes for ministry and the Lord’s methods for ministry. And because of that the devil is unleashing carnage. Well the apostles knew that if study and preaching were to take the back-seat the results would be catastrophic. And so they gathered everyone together and told them that they themselves would remain loyal to God’s calling which was preaching His Word. Look at what they said next, look at verse 3.

Verse

3Therefore, brothers,pick out from among you seven men of good repute, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we will appoint to this duty.

Commentary

The apostles may have rejected the request to investigate and personally assume the duties of taking care of Hellenistic widows but they did come up with a solution to fix the problem. They told the Hellenists to choose men or deacons from their own ranks that the apostles could appoint to oversee the ministry. The apostles’ spokesperson, Peter, identified four qualifiers for the new leaders. Let’s identify and discuss each of them.

Qualifier #1

They had to be Men.

Peter said pick out from among you seven men. The Apostle Paul backed this up by saying in 1 Tim 3:12 that deacons must be “The husband of one wife.” Some theologians support the idea of women deacons. Their rationale for this is comes from Romans 8:16 where a lady named Phoebe is referred to as a ‘servant’. The word for servant is occasionally translated ‘minister’ and on even less times as ‘deacon’. Beyond Romans 8:16 there really isn’t anything else in Scripture that seems to support women as deacons. This is not to say that women are not talented or gifted by any means. They are immensely talented and gifted. I can stand before you now and confidently say that without the godly influence and discipleship of my wife I would not be the man that I have become. God has worked in and through Rachel to transform me. But due to the lack of Scriptural support for women deacons I myself cannot support the practice. My position could change but only the Word of God combined with good scholarship can change it. The second qualifier Peter identified is:

Qualifier #2

They had to be men of good repute.

To be of good repute is to have a good godly reputation amongst the public. It means to be above reproach or blame. You can’t have men serving in the ministry of the Lord who are holy at church and loose when they’re away. Deacons must have godly integrity. They must live godly lives in all environments. And the public should be able to testify to these things. “So in so is a godly man.” The third qualifier is:

Qualifier #3

They had to men who were full of the Holy Spirit.

Men who are full of the Holy Spirit are also filled with the fruits of the Holy Spirit. Galatians 5:22-23 says that the fruits of the Spirit are, “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. These fruits must characterize a deacon because his ministry is geared towards caring for God’s people.

It takes a loving, patient, joyful, kind, gentle, peaceful, self-controlled type of guy to do so. Why, because God’s people, the sheep, tend to be stiff-necked, hard-headed, ignorant, self-seeking, oblivious, wayward, and obstinate. It is not easy to care for the Lord’s people. Sometimes they make you want to find another line of work.

And I myself, as a sheep, have created all sorts of exciting scenarios for the elders and deacons who have overseen me over the years. The deacon must be full of the Holy Spirit in order to fulfill his office. The forth qualifier Peter identified is:

Qualifier #4

They had to men who were full of wisdom.

Wisdom means to have the capacity to understand and, as a result, to act wisely. It means to make good use of knowledge. In our culture we believe that wisdom comes with age. This is a false philosophy. Age does not guaranty wisdom. If age guarantees wisdom then why are casinos primarily filled with older people? The Bible teaches that wisdom is obtained in a number of ways.

Proverbs 9:10

The Fear of the Lord is the beginning of all wisdom.

Psalm 19:7

The statutes of God make the mind of the simple wise.

James 1:5

If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach,

and it will be given him.

Notice how Peter put full of the Spirit before full of wisdom. Peter knew that the deacon needed to lead according to godly wisdom and that the Holy Spirit must first be present and full before he could do so. Peter would agree with what the Apostle Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 12:8:

1 Corinthians 12:8

The Holy Spirit gives the person of God the utterance of wisdom.

It is only through the presence and fullness of the Spirit of God that a deacon can speak wisely or offer godly counsel. Apart from the Spirit of God the only wisdom that remains is worldly wisdom and most of us understand that that type of wisdom is unprofitable and worthless.

So the apostles instructed the Hellenists to find men of good repute and full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom so that they could appoint them as overseers. Duke graduate and scholar, Craig S. Keener wrote something interesting about this text,

“Those with political power generally repressed complaining minorities; here the apostles hand the whole system over to the offended minority. This may thus be the first recorded instance of what we might today call “affirmative action.”

Before the Hellenists went searching, the apostles further described what they would be devoted to. Look at verse 4:

Verse

4 But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.”

Commentary

Prayer and the ministry of the Word go hand in hand. Every minister of the Word of God should be devoted to prayer. Prayer makes study and teaching a communal conversation with the Spirit of God. Study and teaching that is devoid of prayer is nothing more academia. Notice how Peter placed prayer before the ministry of the Word. That is the correct order. Prayer is to precede every other duty or work in Christian ministry, especially the ministry of the Word.

MacArthur wrote about the importance of prayer for a minister.

“Prayer must permeate a pastor’s sermon preparation, or his sermons will be superficial and dry. He must also pray constantly that his people will apply the truths he teaches them. The man of God must also pray that he would be a pure channel through which God’s truth can flow to his congregation. The apostles pledge to devote themselves to their ministry set the pattern for all to follow.”

How did the people respond to the Apostles wise words?

Look at verse 5:

Verse

5And what they said pleased the whole gathering, and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit, and Philip , and Prochorus, and Nicanor, and Timon, and Parmenas, and Nicolaus, a proselyte of Antioch.

Commentary

The group was pleased and the Hellenists chose 7 men from their own kind. All of these men were Hellenistic Jews from birth with the exception of one, Nicolaus. Luke wrote at the end of verse 5 that he was a proselyte. A proselyte was a gentile (non-Jew) who converted to Judaism by being circumcised, baptized, and offering a sacrifice in the temple. After the 7 were chosen look at what they did next. Look at verse 6:

Verse

6These they set before the apostles, and they prayed and laid their hands on them.

Commentary

The Hellenists brought the seven men and presented them to the apostles. The apostles then placed their hands on each of them and prayed. The laying on of hands communicated blessing in the OT. But the idea here seems to be that of ordination, as in Numbers 27:18 & 23. The apostle’s actions were very similar to the Jewish practice of ‘semikah’. In semikah Rabbis would lay their hands on and then pray over a man who had been chosen and trained for rabbinic duty. ‘Semikah’ was also employed during the giving of sacrifices. Rabbis would place their hands upon the slain animal at the altar and then pray that God would receive its blood as a payment for Israel’s sins.

The Apostles, no doubt, borrowed this practice from Judaism which was their former belief system. And the church today still follows in their footsteps. We use semikah when we anoint a man for ministry. We gather the elders of the church and lay on hands and pray over new deacons and elders. During the early years Christians borrowed practices from the Jews in their worship gatherings. Christians put the men on one side of the room and the women on the other just as the Jews had done in their synagogues. There many things that have transferred over to the Christian faith from Judaism. Ultimately, there is a very high degree of seriousness here in the apostles’ procedure. They dedicated these men in full public view. The prayers and laying on of hands, or anointing, represented the seven guys commitments to sacrifice themselves for the cause of Christ, to live holy set apart lives, and to love and care for the people of God.

What happened next? Look at our last verse, verse 7:

Verse

7And the word of God continued to increase and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith.

Commentary

Luke wrote that the Word of God continued to increase. How? The Word of God continued to increase because the apostles’ committed themselves to prayer and the ministry of the Word rather than going off to care for Hellenistic widows. Instead of doing it themselves, instead of getting sucked into the devil’s scheme to get them away from preaching, they empowered the Hellenists to fix their own problem. This is the way ministry should be done. Pastors should be devoted to prayer and the ministry of the Word and they should work to empower the people of God to meet each other’s needs.

Christian ministry is about discipleship and multiplication. It is not about loading pastors or lay-people up with zillions of things to do. Many-many lead pastors do not understand this. And they are nearly killing their under pastors. 4 out of 5 seminary grads drop out of Christian ministry within 5 years. Why, because churches overwhelm them with things to do and they can’t keep up. Their marriages and families get blasted because daddy/pastor is never home. After a couple years they leave the ministry to repair the damage. I’m very-very passionate about this topic because I’ve been through this.

And whenever I raised the red flag and complained the excuses that were given were, “There are always lots and lots of things to do at a big church so get used to it” or “You signed up for this, you knew what you were getting yourself into”, or “a well rounded youth pastors will have many-many things on their plate, especially at large churches”, or “Whenever you add something to your ministry plate you should take something off but you can’t take any of those things off because their all mandatory.”

Friends, I’m going to say this as plainly as I can: I don’t care how about big or small your church is. I don’t care about the ‘dynamics’ of your church. I don’t care about what other churches do or their examples. I don’t care about how much pressure the culture puts on you. There is never a legitimate reason to be unbiblical in ministry or in daily life, never! And when you make a stand against these things, you better believe it will be met with resistance by overseeing pastors. Somehow they believe that loading their under pastors to the rack is just part of the ministry and Scripturally OK. The truth is their practices and rejection of the under pastors pleas are proofs that they are biblically ignorant and unknowingly serving the devil.

Now because of the apostles’ steadfastness and commitment to prayer and the ministry of the Word of God, the Word of God increased. Look at the fruit of the increasing Word of God.

“and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem.”

People were getting saved. The church was growing. Even some of the religious leaders were drawn in and saved by the gospel. It says, “and a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith.”

The priests mentioned here were not the Sadducean priests but the lower ranking priests who may have served at the temple or had come from afar for Pentecost. The conversion of a great many priests shows that the Christians were making inroads even into the temple establishment, or at least the lower echelon of priests who served there. The conversion of the great many priests may have been a factor in the persecution of Stephen which we will look at in the weeks to come.

______________________________________________________________________________

Ending Thoughts

There are so many principles and lessons to walk away with from today’s text. One that seems to really stand out comes from verse 2.

Peter said,

“It is not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables.”

Are there things in your life that you need to eliminate so that you can be freed up to do the things of God?

Things like:

Prayer

Serving one another

Spending time with your spouse and family (if u have them)

Spreading the gospel

Loving your neighbors

Being the priest of your home (husbands)

Bible reading /study

Supporting your church financially

Are there things that impede or prohibit you from engaging in these incredibly important things? What are they? Bring them before the Lord during communion. Confess them before your Master. Ask Jesus for help, power, and a plan. If you need to, come to me or to one of the leaders for prayer and support, we want to help. We will be available after the service.