Acts 6 - Why Church Leaders Should Not Try to Do All the Work!



Click Here to Read All of Acts 6
The Choosing of the Seven
6 In those days when the number of disciples was increasing, the Hellenistic Jews among them complained against the Hebraic Jews because their widows were being overlooked in the daily distribution of food. 2 So the Twelve gathered all the disciples together and said, “It would not be right for us to neglect the ministry of the word of God in order to wait on tables. 3 Brothers and sisters, choose seven men from among you who are known to be full of the Spirit and wisdom. We will turn this responsibility over to them 4 and will give our attention to prayer and the ministry of the word.”
5 This proposal pleased the whole group. They chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit; also Philip, Procorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicolas from Antioch, a convert to Judaism. 6 They presented these men to the apostles, who prayed and laid their hands on them.
7 So the word of God spread. The number of disciples in Jerusalem increased rapidly, and a large number of priests became obedient to the faith.
As the church grew larger, the needs grew larger in this case with feeding the widows among them as commanded in the Old Testament.  A rift developed between the Hellenistic widows and Hebrew widows. The Hellenist widows felt neglected in favor of the Hebrew widows. The Hebrew Jews were generally very conservative in regard to the application of the Law, and tried to avoid compromising to the culture around them.  The Hellenistic Jews were Greek speaking and had been sent out from Jerusalem all over the Roman empire through the exile.  The Hebrew Jews assumed the Hellenistic Jews were a little more "worldly" through their association with the Greek culture.  
Fortunately the 12 apostles noted that this could be a problem which could lead to division, so they gathered to discuss a solution.  They realized that they could not meet all the needs in the community so they decided to delegate this particular ministry to men they called "deacons".  The term "deacon" simply means servant.    
Importantly they gathered with the rest of the disciples and allowed them to make the decision of who should be chosen.  The gathered church picked 7 men "full of the spirit" and "full of wisdom".  They looked for men who were both "spiritually mature" but also made good decisions in practical matters. We see this strategy of delegation paid off as the apostles were able to focus on the ministry of the word and to prayer.  Notice the two go today.  Pastors need to spend as much time praying as preaching.  Pastors also need to delegate day to day tasks to other capable people filled with the Holy Spirit (I.e. not just any warm body!
And the end result? The church grew rapidly!  Maybe we should use these same principles today!  The church is the body of Christ and we are all servants of Christ and should be willing to do whatever is necessary to help the church grow.  Jesus modeled this kind of servanthood when he washed his disciples feet taking the form of servant.  And he told us to do likewise.  If it wasn't below Jesus it surely isn't above us!

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