Acts 6 - "God Is Never In A Hurry But Always On Time!"

Acts 6 - NIV

The Choosing of the Seven

6 In those days when the number of disciples was increasing, the Hellenistic Jews[a] 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.

The devil has many strategies to attack both individual believers and churches. Often his attacks are not full frontal, but can be calculated and easy to miss if you are unaware of his schemes. Someone has said, "If the devil can't make you bad, he'll make you busy".

Overly busy Christians are often frenetic, bouncing from one thing to the next, thinking if they do enough stuff they are serving God. While they are well intentioned, they might not bearing near the fruit than they could be.  It might be wiser if they spent time abiding in Christ and then stepping out in the power of the Holy Spirit as they discern carefully where God is calling them to invest their time, talents, and treasures.  

Someone has said, "God is never in a hurry!" Isn't that so true! Dallas Willard wrote that a lot of Christians suffer from "hurry sickness". When he was asked by well known Pastor and Author John Ortberg what he needed to do to become the person he wanted to be, Willard offered this advice to John,

"You must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life". 

He identified hurry as the great enemy of spiritual life, arguing that it destroys love, peace, and the ability to be truly present. It is a fear-driven attempt to exceed our human limits. 

So what does this have to do with the passage today? The apostles were receiving complaints that the Greek speaking widows were being passed over in favor of the Hebrew speaking Jews for the daily distribution of food. 

Why were the Greek speaking widows being overlooked? 

Greek widows were overlooked in the early Jerusalem church (Acts 6:1) due to cultural, linguistic, and administrative gaps between Hellenistic (Greek-speaking) Jews and Hebraic (Aramaic/Hebrew-speaking) Jews. As the church expanded, daily support distributions—originally managed by the Apostles—failed to reach the Greek-speaking widows, who were likely viewed as outsiders compared to local Hebrews. Google AI

Being a pastor of 30 years, I have experienced many times when someone complained about something in the church. I would usually drop what I was doing to take care of it. That is just nature of a lot of us pastors, and others in full time ministry. After all, we want to help people.  But the apostles were wise. They realized if they got distracted from their primary task of preaching God's Word and being prayer, the mission would be compromised.

Isn't it interesting that the two most important things they wanted to be focused on the ministry of the Word and prayer. The ministry of the Word is the preaching, teaching, and proclamation of the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is the single most important thing the church does. By grace we are saved through faith in the Word of God. But people can't know the Word of God until someone preaches it to them. 

It wasn't that this work of feeding the widows was beneath them. Notice they didn't "blow off" the complaint but took the opportunity to get other mature Christians involved. They called them "deacons" which means "servant". A good name for them is "servant leaders". 

You can see they just didn't hand it off to anytbody. There was a process of discernment. These 7 men were known to be Spirit-filled. This goes to show that ever leadership role in the church is important. Leaders in the church should be picked based on the spiritual maturity they demonstrate. Also, if possible their faithfulness with other tasks in the church depending on the importance of the minsitry role. 

Notice one of the deacons, Stephen, was full of the Spirit and did many signs and wonders just like the apostles did. Though a pastor can't do everything in the church, they can equip others to do the things they can't. A church will only be as effective as the degree to which the lay people are equipped and empowered to do the ministry of the church. Pastors need to give up trying to control everything and not be a bottleneck for the ministry needs of the church. 

Of course, this was modeled by Jesus. He spent three years equipping primarily the 12 disciples, but also the 72. He knew he needed to do this because not only was he just one man, but his time was limted. Without this intentional equipping of the disciples, the church would have stopped when Jesus died. 

Why do you think it is so important for your pastors to be focused on the Word/bible and prayer?

A pastor's job is to feed the people with God's Word, equip the body of Christ for the work of ministry,and care for the flock that is under their care. The devil roars like a lion looking to devour Christians, who have not put on the full armor of God. Two of the greatest pieces of our spiritual armor are the Word of God and prayer. They both carry with them God's power to defeat our enemy!

Have you found a ministry to help support your church and pastor(s)? Are you being fed by God's Word both by the preaching on Sunday but also your study of God's Word during the week? This is why I write the Daily Bread blog. It feeds me and hopefully it feeds you!

Dear Jesus, thank you for calling us to follow You. You are the Word made flesh. You reconciled us with the Father by Your death on the cross.  Help the pastors in the church to devote themselves to the study, teaching, and preaching of God's word, so your people will be fed. Inspire and lead members of the body of Christ be equipped so the many ministry needs inside and out of the church will be met. Help us not to get too distracted or too overwhelmed by trying to do too much ourselves. You designed Your Church so that no one has too little or too much work to do. Jesus continue to build up Your church and pour out Your Spirit on us so that we might accomplish the Great Commission you gave us before you left.  Amen.