The First Deacons Are Appointed

The First Deacons are Appointed

Acts 6:1-7

Before we look into how we should understand this text, it is helpful to review the challenges to the unity of the church we have already uncovered. The unity of the Church is an important theme. When we go back to Acts 2:1, we see that they were all in one place and in one accord on the Day of Pentecost. This was the great demonstration of the Spirit’s power. We can discuss whether the falling of the Holy Spirit brings this unity or the unity of the Church brings forth the power of the Holy Spirit. Perhaps both are true. But one cannot deny from Scripture as a whole that God desires His Body, the Church be united. On the other hand, it is Satan who desires to disrupt the church and cause dissension. This attack comes in two prongs. The devil uses external persecution to intimidate the church. We saw the arrest of Peter and John after the healing of the lame man. They bore bold witness to the faith, unlike the cowardly flight on the night of Jesus’ arrest. They were threatened and commanded to no longer preach in Jesus’ name. When they returned, all the assembly closed ranks with Peter and John and prayed for even more boldness, and the place was shook by the power of the Spirit. the end result of this persecution was that the multitude of the believers were of one heart and soul. (Acts 4:32) We see a similar attack in chapter 5 when all of the Apostles were arrested, tried and beaten. The response of the Church was to continue to preach and teach about Jesus, even in the Temple. There are other times in the Book of Acts that we will see Satan persecuting the Church in the attempt to break it.

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The other prong was to try to disrupt the church from within. This is, perhaps, even more sinister than external attack. We see this, for example, in the incident of Ananias and Sapphira. They tried to say that they had given all the proceeds from the sale of a piece of property when they had only given part. There are those who knew how much the property sold for, and when they saw that Ananias and Sapphira had lied, it could have caused dissent withing the Church. But the Lord intervened quickly and struck them dead before more damage could be done. Great fear fell upon the Church, and the church continued its mission.

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This morning’s passage is another attempt to destroy the unity of the Church. The text begins by noting that the church was continuing to multiply greatly. This expansion had come to the Jews who only spoke Greek as well as the Jews who spoke Aramaic. There was some animosity between these groups of Jews. The Aramaic-speaking Jews saw the Greek-speaking Jews as compromising with the worldly culture of the Graeco-Roman Empire. The Greek-speaking Jews saw the Aramaic-speaking Jews as being uncultured. these Greek-speaking Jews had their own synagogues. We need to see this natural distrust of each other as underlying what happens here.

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Part of the ministry of the Jewish people which was also followed in the church was the care of widows and orphans. A widow without a family was very vulnerable, so the community undertook to see that they were cared for. the charity shown them was not just a handout. They were employed in prayer and care ministries. We see this in Acts 9:36-43 that Dorcas was employed in making garments for the widows. The care for the widows and the poor should act as the means of uniting the Church. In fact, in mainline denominations where there is great and insufferable distinctions in doctrine, the two sides seem to be able to agree in care for the poor and vulnerable. But this was not the case here. a dispute broke out between the perceived distinction that the Greek-speaking widows were being neglected. This may well have been the case, and if so, the Church was showing partiality which is a sin much condemned in the New Testament. This disruption needed to be dealt with swiftly.

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The Apostles had witnessed the great growth of the Church. It had grown to the point that they were being burdened with the cares of the church as well as their regular duties of preaching and prayer. Even with the help of the Holy Spirit, there was only so much that they could do. The cares threatened to divert the Apostles from their main mission. We see here a parallel between what had happened to Moses who had become burdened with having to judge matters between the brethren in addition to his regular duties to be the mouthpiece of Yahweh. In Exodus 18:13-26, we read that Moses’ father-in-law advised him to task others to help him from the leaders of Israel. Moses would judge the hard cases, but the elders would judge the lesser. In Numbers 11:16-30, we hear of the appointing of seventy elders to assist Moses which seems to be a further upgrade to the need for more help. Here, the Holy Spirit fell upon the seventy to empower them for the task.