In a small, struggling situation like those of many churches, it is tempting to look upon the “growing pains” of the early church with some degree of envy. They were adding to the church daily. They were filling up Jerusalem to overflowing with excitement about Jesus’ resurrection and the presence of the Holy Spirit. And now, in Acts 6:1, we see that the number of disciples kept growing.
But with that growth came dissension, that spiritual law of action and reaction. Let’s read this morning’s text (Read Acts: 6:1-7). The church was growing rapidly, but there soon developed friction between two factions. The Greek verb used here comes the classical root for mourning and wailing, but came to be used in the Greek New Testament as secret talk or conspiracy (as in John 7:12) and for an undercurrent of grumbling speech. The Good News Bible may be premature in translating this as a “quarrel.” It doesn’t appear to have reached the proportions of a church fight, as of yet. Eugene Peterson may be guilty of soft-pedaling it when he describes it as “hard feelings.” So-called “hard feelings” generally begin before the complaints and grumbling accusations are being expressed.
I like the King James Version’s and the old Revised Standard Version’s translation of “murmuring.” In both my experience and my observation of church problems, it all seems to start when someone feels slighted and begins to speak—not openly where something could be done about it—but in secret and in small groups. A brushfire of dissatisfaction takes place and, before you know it, a full scale conflagration incinerates the fellowship.
The grumbling of dissatisfied members is an “art” practiced to the present day. I know of one pastor in Georgia that was able to invite a guest speaker over several weeks to teach a special course in his church on Sunday evenings at no charge to the church. Grumbling members of his church complained that they paid their pastor to preach and he was just being lazy. In another church, I heard grumbling members complain that they never had a guest speaker—that egotistical pastor hogs the pulpit. Another church has a group who complains that their pastor spends all of his time visiting, but his sermons bear no evidence of study or prayer. Just across town, a group complains that the pastor spends too much time in his study and doesn’t come to visit them.
Of course, the pastor isn’t the only source of complaint. There are often members who complain that it seems like we always sing the same songs and the order of worship is always the same. Yet, in the same church, there will be members who grumble that they’re always having to sing songs they don’t know and you just can’t count on how the structure of the worship service. In some churches, the complaint will be that we are so organized that we don’t allow room for the Holy Spirit to lead and in others, the complaint will be that we are so disorganized that we couldn’t do anything if the Spirit did lead.
And we aren’t just talking about styles! While there are churches where members groan that they aren’t reaching anyone outside of their comfortable circle, there are churches where established members have complained and quit because the amorphous, undefined “they” (still, usually centered on the pastor) were bringing in the “wrong kind”—whether that meant different skin colors, economic levels, theological perspectives, or age groups—into the church.
We won’t even do more than quickly list some of the excuses used to attack pastors and leaders when something else was really bothering the grumblers. As in Numbers when they attacked Moses and here in our text where they have questioned the Twelve (see verse 2), the pastor is usually the focal point. He, the pastor,:
1) drives too fancy a car (or the opposite, one so crummy it embarrassed them);
2) dresses too nicely (or the opposite, is so shabby, he embarrasses them);
3) is so uppity, he refuses to live in the parsonage;
4) reads from that new-fangled translation;
5) doesn’t visit enough prospects (or the opposite, doesn’t visit the steady members enough);
6) changed the budget envelopes, Sunday School literature, times of service, or order of worship without “permission;”
7) led the church into too much debt (or the opposite, didn’t have enough vision to lead the church into a building program);
8) was too involved in the convention (or the opposite, wasn’t “loyal” enough to the convention); or
9) spends too much time in his office (or not enough time in his office).
So, having realized that grumbling, complaining, and insidiously planting dissension has been with the church from the beginning and continues to the modern age, let’s consider those factions. The Greek literally says that the Hellenists (those who were adapted to Greek philosophy, culture, and language) started mumbling, grumbling, complaining, and lighting the fires of dissatisfaction against the Hebrews. While some commentators suggest that this is a battle between Gentile converts and Jewish converts, I would fervently disagree. Some of the other events in the Book of Acts wouldn’t make sense if there were Gentile converts already in the Jerusalem church. Some translations make this Greek-speakers versus the Aramaic-speakers. I think that’s probably correct, but I think it is more than that.
I believe the problem was between the more cosmopolitan Jews who had adapted to the culture before they were saved and the more traditional Jews who segued between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant almost seamlessly. I can’t prove it, but it makes solid sense with the context. The traditionalists, the Hebrews, would have been used to keeping a relatively closed community. In order to remain kosher and keep the faith, they would have withdrawn as much as possible into their special areas and kept as much as possible to people who were of like mind. They would have been used to watching out for each other and caring for each other, so the idea of holding things common and having a central distribution to take care of everyone wouldn’t have been a very difficult transition for them, at all.
And, if I’m right, these traditionalists would have been used to focusing only on their little community. As they would hand out the food, clothing, or whatever was needed, they would make their rounds in the traditional community and feel like they were done. They would have covered “everyone” because “everyone” who counted was part of that community.
When the more cosmopolitan Jews came in, they were probably used to living outside that immediate circle. They bought in to the idea of holding all things common and taking care of each other, but they began to notice that the apostles (who were, of course, largely from that traditionalist community) made their rounds just as they always had and weren’t getting out there to new people on any regular basis. So, they voiced their complaint.
And since the Twelve protest in verse 2 that it’s their time management and fiscal management being called into question, it appears that the grumbling—like the original offerings—were placed at the feet of the apostles. The buck, or more accurately, the shekel, stopped there. But instead of remaining defensive, they clarified their job priority as the preaching of the Word of God. It wasn’t prospect visitation, hospital visitation, church administration, or personal counseling. Their primary focus was to be on preaching. And I truly believe we have to be suspicious of any pastor where it isn’t.
Yet, they recognized that, even though they couldn’t spend the time necessary to handle the distribution correctly, there needed to be a solution. And they also realized that the solution needed to have a spiritual dimension to it. So, they called upon the congregation (verse 3) to choose 7 good men in much the same way as they replaced Judas in Chapter 1. Now, it doesn’t specifically say that they spent a lot of time in prayer like it does in the first chapter, but it seems logical to assume that if they spent time in prayer on refilling the Twelve, they would do so in picking the 7.
Now, I want to remind you about these numbers. 7=3+4 and 12=3*4. The first is the divine 3 plus the created 4 in right relationship [God was caused to be, is and always will be in the Old Covenant, the Trinity in the New Covenant plus the order of creation (four rivers coming out of Eden, four directions, four living creatures around the throne, etc.) and the second is the created 4 times the divine 3 for an even more perfect relationship (12 tribes, 12 gates in the New Jerusalem, 12 apostles, etc.). So, it doesn’t look like the seven would have had any authority over the twelve. It looks like the twelve were divinely appointed for one type of ministry in the church and the seven appointed for another.
I point that out because there are a lot of people who believe these seven are the first deacons. There are a lot who do not believe this, but I think they are trying to measure carpeting with a pair of calipers. I think they’ve lost proportion. It may not call the seven “deacons” per se, but verse 1 uses the Greek work “diakonia” to describe the daily distribution of funds (King James uses “ministration” with its idea of “service.”) and verse 2 uses the Greek verb (“diakonein”) when the apostles say they cannot leave their priority “to serve” tables. Instead, verse 3 protests that the seven can serve the tables and verse 4 uses the noun (“diakonia”) from verse 1 to describe the “service, ministry, or distribution” of God’s Word. I believe these are “deacons” and that they were called to “serve.” I do not see any evidence that they were called to be a board of overseers who supervised the Twelve. They were called to set the Twelve free to do what they did best—preach the gospel!
Now, verse 3 does say that they needed to be filled with the Spirit and with practical wisdom. You didn’t ordain deacons merely because they had business experience. They needed to be recognized as spiritual leaders. But you didn’t ordain deacons that were all spiritual theory with no practical perspective. The church was to seek out men with a spiritual and practical balance.
Then, just in case the congregation had forgotten why they needed deacons, the apostles reiterated in verse 4 that their ministry was to set the apostles free for the ministry of the word. Verse 5 tells us that the congregation assented to this. And something remarkable happened in the process. In most churches, if you were to put things to a vote when there was dissension between the traditionalists and the newbies, the traditionalists would win “hands down.” There is a conservationist streak, a preservationist quality to most churches.
Yet, when push came to shove in the early church, it looks like they didn’t choose the way they’d always done it. It looks like they didn’t choose “just our kind.” Instead, all seven of the chosen have Greek names and the last one mentioned, Nicolaus, was apparently a Gentile proselyte—one who had converted to Judaism and then, to Christianity.
We don’t know a lot about most of these. Stephen, of course, (whose name is derived from “stephanos,” the Greek word for “crown”) is so empowered by the Holy Spirit that he ends up earning a crown more like that of the crucified Christ than that for which his parents would have hoped. He becomes a martyr for the faith before we’ve gone very much further in the book. Philip (whose name is rooted in a fondness for horses—no wonder he joins himself to the eunuch’s chariot) is involved in some miraculous events later in the book. Prochorus (“leader of the chorus?”), Parmenas (“one who remains” or more poetically, “one who hangs in there”), Nicanor (“Conqueror”), and Timon (“Honorable”) seem to have disappeared from history faster than William Henry Harrison disappeared from the presidency. Nicolaus (“Conqueror of the People”) seems to be mentioned because he wasn’t a Jew by birth and because he hailed from Antioch (traditionally, Dr. Luke’s hometown, but definitely, an important congregation where believers were first called “Little Christs” or “Christians.”). Iranaeus, an early church father, argued that Nicolaus was the founder of the Nicolaitans in Revelation 2:6, 15. If so, it would only show that even deacons can go bad. But I’m not convinced. It was a common name derived from common words. All we know for sure is that we don’t know much about five of the seven.
Of course, even in today’s church we often don’t see the ladies who serve the tables by preparing special dinners, the folks who clean the church and make the yard look nicer, those who gather the clothes and food to minister to the poor, and those who labor to count the offering and ensure that the church budget it on track. These aren’t glamorous jobs. They are necessary jobs and they are the bulk of what true ministry really is.
I notice also that they were set before the apostles, as if in recognition that the seven and the twelve had to work in unity in order for the Spirit to be free to work. In most Baptist churches, it seems like the pastor is placed at the feet of the deacons instead of the opposite. And I notice that the disciples pray over them and lay hands upon them—a tradition that continues to this day.
What IS this all about? In the Old Testament, there were two main reasons for laying on hands. The first deals with sacrifice. By laying one’s hands upon a sacrifice, one is symbolically and ceremonially transferring one’s sin to the animal. The second deals with blessing. One placed one’s hands upon the head of the recipient of the blessing in order to receive the tangible good will, protection, and affirmation of the one placing hands. The psalmist (Psalm 139:5) says that God laid his hand upon him. Moses commissioned Joshua and Elisha commissioned King Joash (prior to a battlefield victory) in this way.
Obviously, the New Testament church was not continuing the idea of a sacrifice for sin when they laid hands on the candidates. Instead, it appears that the apostles were asking God’s blessing upon the candidates and assuring the candidates of their partnership, cooperation, and patronage. There is both a desire for God’s intervention in the act and an explicit commitment between the one laying on hands and the one receiving that laying on of hands.
And what was the final result? Verse 7 tells us. The word of God increased. More people became aware of God’s message. More emphasis was placed on God’s message. When was the last time we saw that in the modern church? And the congregation was filling to overflowing. And most remarkable of all, even some of the priests from the Jerusalem temple were converting to Christianity and living it.
So, how does the text tell us to deal with dissension in the church? We, like the apostles, are to prayerfully seek solutions that will redress any wrongs. If we are one of the grumblers, we are to express the problem where it can be solved, not out in gossip sessions. How does the text tell us to prioritize the ministry? Preaching and teaching is the priority, while others are called to serve in visitation and social ministry. But were the apostles the only ones who shared the gospel? NO WAY! Stephen dies for his testimony and Philip is spirited away to minister to a world leader. A congregation can only emulate the early church when EVERYONE shares and when God provides a working division of labor. If we are to be what God wants us to be, we can’t afford grumblers. And if we are to be what God wants us to be, we can’t afford to remain as spectators. It’s time to do what we’re called to do!
