WWUTT 2578 The First Deacons (Acts 6:1-7)

In the first church there in Jerusalem, there were some needs that needed to be met among the congregation, but the apostles didn't want to stop teaching, so they told the church to come up with deacons, when we understand the text.

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Here once again is Pastor Gabe.

The Appointment of the First Deacons in Acts 6

Thank you, Becky. In our study of Acts, we come now to chapter six. We're reading about deacons today, the appointment of the first deacons there in the church in Jerusalem. So let me read verses one through seven to start things off.

Hear the word of the Lord. Now in those days, while the disciples were multiplying in number, there was grumbling from the Hellenists against the Hebrews because their widows were being overlooked in the daily serving of food.

So the 12 summoned the congregation of the disciples and said, it is not pleasing to God for us to neglect the word of God in order to serve tables. Therefore, brothers, select from among you seven men of good reputation, full of the spirit and of wisdom, whom we may put in charge of this need, but we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the service of the word.

And this word pleased the whole congregation. And they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit. And Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicholas, a proselyte from Antioch.

And these, they stood before the apostles and after praying, they laid their hands on them. And the word of God kept on spreading and the number of the disciples continued to multiply greatly in Jerusalem.

And a great many of the priests were becoming obedient to the faith. Now, this passage actually comes with a little bit of controversy. You would think this was very straightforward. This is the appointment of the first deacons and even the purpose that they serve in the church.

You have the qualifications for deacons, of course, it's given in 1 Timothy 3, verses 8 -13, presented as an office of deacon. Some have argued though, that this passage in Acts 6 is not about the office of deacon.

It's just a particular need that the church had at that time. And those men met that need. It wasn't something that they were appointed to as a perpetual office. But I'm gonna disagree. I'm gonna say this was the appointment of the first deacons.

That's traditionally how this is read, even though there are good brothers out there. I believe Mark Dever, in fact, is one of them. It's either he or John MacArthur. I can't remember the two. So one of the two, because I think they both had this discussion together.

One of the two of them said that Acts 6 was not about the appointment of the first deacons as an office, but it was just to meet this particular need among the early church. Whereas the other one argues, no, this is where we see the creation of that particular office of deacon, though it is not named the office of deacon in Acts 6.

We understand that as an office from other passages, like, as I said, in 1 Timothy 3. So let's see the appointment of these men to this service in the church. And we will see it also as an example of deaconship as it is practiced in the church today.

I don't even know if deaconship's a word, but there you have it. Acts 6, verse one. Now, in those days, remember we've been reading chapter after chapter. From chapters two through five, we've been reading about how God has been multiplying the church and adding to their number through the preaching of the gospel confirmed by the miracles that the apostles were performing.

The people were seeing this is the word of God because this is the power of God that is working in them for our benefit. So many are coming to the Lord. And even at the end of this section, it says that the number of the disciples continue to multiply greatly.

So as we've been going through these bouts of persecution, even more people coming into the faith, it's in the midst of those days, this is a common phrase for Luke to use. Now, in those days, while the disciples were multiplying in number, there was grumbling from the Hellenists.

Now, something that we've also seen from Luke is that he doesn't always put things in a chronological order. So it could be that the events that we're reading about here in Acts 6 concerning the Hellenists, this actually happened earlier.

Perhaps it was before what we read in chapter five. We don't know. It's not exactly placed in a timeline, but it's just that this is an anecdote of something that happened in those days while the church was multiplying.

We're seeing something else in addition to the persecution of apostles, the healing that has been done by miracles and the preaching of the gospel that continues on. There's also this matter that's going on in the church.

And what this story also introduces us to is Stephen. Stephen is mentioned and he's mentioned very greatly. He's a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit. And only he is mentioned that way. The other six men that are mentioned, Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicholas, they're not mentioned with any other kind of glowing praise.

And that's because of what's going to come upon Stephen. Next in chapter six, he's accused of blasphemy. We're gonna get to that next week. And then we have the speech of Stephen in Acts chapter seven.

So this serves to introduce us to a very important man in the early church, the first martyr, who was also a servant and an officer in the church. The first martyr was not even one of the apostles.

It was a deacon.

The Hellenists, the Hebrews, and Care for Widows

So anyway, in those days, as the disciples are multiplying, there was grumbling from the Hellenists against the Hebrews. Now, the Hellenists are Greek-speaking Jews. As we have read about in Acts chapter two, all of those Jews that were there at Pentecost who came from all of these different lands, all these different nations, and were gathered there at that place for the feast.

So those who were Greek speakers, and all of them may have been Greek speakers, in fact, but these were people who lived in lands and in places and among people who weren't Jews. And what they're seeing is some discrimination taking place.

The Hellenists, it's kind of like they're being treated as if they aren't really the true Jews. You haven't remained with us. You don't speak our language. So there's some matter of discrimination that's going on in which their widows are not being cared for in the daily distribution of food.

So there's grumbling from the Hellenists against the Hebrews because their widows were being overlooked. So the 12 summon the congregation of the disciples and said, so you see the 12, the 12 apostles that are serving as elders in the first church.

There aren't multiple churches yet because the gospel has not gone out to the rest of the world. Remember that Jesus said to his apostles, you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem. And that's as far as we've gotten in the spread of the gospel so far.

You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in Judah and Samaria. They haven't really gone throughout Judah, although there are many Jews in Judah that have come. Well, I take that back because what did we read there in the middle of chapter five?

It was Acts 5, 16. Also the multitude of the cities in the vicinity of Jerusalem were coming together, bringing people who were sick or afflicted with unclean spirits and they were being healed. Okay, so you have towns throughout Judah that have come to this place.

Many Jews have become Christians and are attending the church that is gathered there at Jerusalem. But we still haven't seen a spread throughout Judah and Samaria and then to the ends of the earth. In fact, that spreading out doesn't happen until Stephen is martyred.

So we're coming upon that, but right now there's only the church in Jerusalem and the apostles serving as elders in the direction of the ways of this church. So we see them serving in that capacity. Once the church spreads, then you'll have the appointment of elders, even a plurality of elders in respective churches.

But right now it's just the 12. It's the 12 apostles that are presiding over the teaching that is happening in the first church of Jesus Christ. So the 12 summoned the congregation and said, it is not pleasing to God for us to neglect the word of God in order to serve tables.

Let me stop there for a moment. There are some pastors out there who will twist that to say that that is their only function, that they need to be dedicating themselves to the teaching of the word. So they can't be bothered with hospital visits and house visits and things like that.

And I tell you that that is wrong. That is incorrect for a pastor to take that excuse. Who was the guy in, oh man, I'm gonna forget his name. He ended up stepping down because he was an alcoholic. Perry Noble, it just came to me.

Perry Noble was the guy. So he had a very controversial sermon that he preached. This may have been close to 20 years ago, in which he said, you don't want me to come and visit you. If I come and visit you, that means that you're about to die.

So I'm only gonna show up when you're on your deathbed, basically. I don't know what he thinks he's gonna do then at that point, administer last rites. He's not Catholic, not a Roman Catholic. Anyway, so he would make excuses like that.

It was always very brash, very angry preacher, but he would say things like, he doesn't have the time to do all of these little paltry visits and things like that, which is the way that he thought of it.

It was insignificant to his role and his purpose as a pastor. That's not what the apostles are talking about here, because we know that the apostles did visit the sick. They visited them all the time.

Now they could heal the sick. I can't do that. I'll certainly come and I'll pray over them and I'll sit with them and talk and we will appeal to the Lord together and I will lift up supplications on their behalf, but I don't have the apostolic power to heal somebody.

So we see the apostles doing that. No pastor should be making an excuse that he doesn't have to do house visits. That's the deacon's job. But when it comes to meeting the physical needs of the church, this is what the deacons are primarily for so that the elders can commit themselves to the study and the teaching of the word.

And the more that they are taken away into doing hands and feet kinds of projects, then it's probably going to diminish the quality of the teaching. So that's something that you have to consider with regards to these roles that God has given.

A pastor is still going to help out here and there. I do stuff all the time. And when I was living in Junction City, I discovered very quickly that because I owned a pickup, I was going to be helping people with all kinds of things.

So, and I love to do it. It is a blessing to do it because I'm part of God's church and we serve the members of the body of Christ together, our brothers and sisters in the Lord. But the deacons are there to care for the physical needs of the church while the elders primarily care for the spiritual needs of the church.

And so the apostles say, therefore brothers select from among you seven men of good reputation, full of the spirit and of wisdom, whom we may put in charge of this need, but we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the service of the word.

So what we have there in verse three, choose seven men of good reputation. When you go to first Timothy chapter three, then you see the qualifications that everybody would have measured these men by. Deacons likewise must be dignified, not double-tongued, not addicted to much wine, not greedy for dishonest gain.

They must hold the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience and let them also be tested first. Then let them serve as deacons if they prove themselves blameless. Their wives likewise must be dignified, not slanderers, but sober-minded, faithful in all things.

Let deacons each be the husband of one wife, managing their children in their own households well. For those who serve well as deacons gain a good standing for themselves and also great confidence in the faith that is in Christ Jesus.

So there's the qualifications. And that by the way was first Timothy three, eight through 13, if I didn't specify that. So those are the qualifications as it pertains to the office of deacon. Now, of course, there are all kinds of people in the church that serve in various capacities.

And there is the debate regarding, can a woman be a deacon? Because Phoebe in Romans 16, one is referred to as a deacon. If you read the NIV, they've gone ahead and translated servant as Phoebe is described as being, they've translated that into deacon, that she's a deaconess in the church.

So can't women be deacons? And there are some that argue that they can be. As a matter of fact, quite a few pastors who will come out of master's seminary will argue that women can be deacons. I think that John MacArthur held that opinion as well.

Jesse Johnson, who is a pastor and a teacher with the Expositor Seminary too, if I remember right, he has made the argument that women can be deacons. I don't think that that is a divisive issue. I think that when it comes to who can be a pastor, it's unquestionably men.

Only qualified men can be pastors. With deacons, there seems to be a little bit more allowance on that side of things, because it's not a position of teaching and authority. As said in 1 Timothy 2, 11, let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness.

I do not permit a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, rather she is to remain quiet. But if that office of deacon is going to be a man who is overseeing certain tasks that are being done in a church, then you have to recognize it as an office that holds a certain level of authority.

And if that is the case, then we should reserve it for only men. Especially as you see in the qualifications here, it is saying that deacons must be the husband of one wife, managing their children in their own households well, as was also said about the elder.

So it appears that the deacon is supposed to be a man, as far as the office of deacon is concerned. And their wives have to meet certain qualifications. So whenever I have served in any church, I've been a pastor in three churches now, in any of these churches, whenever a person has been nominated for the position of deacon, we've also looked at the qualifications of that deacon's wife.

Does she have a reputation that is favorable among the body? And she has done well to serve some of the women also, because it's very likely in the workings that a deacon will do, that his wife will be along with him.

So we measure and test her also. Now, of course, we're also testing wives when it comes to elder qualifications, because he must be able to manage his own household. And we want to hear from the wife that he does do that well.

But a wife of an elder is not gonna be part of his ministry, in the sense that she's not gonna be preaching and teaching. Whereas the wife of a deacon may very well be serving. And we have women that serve in all kinds of capacities in our church, but the office itself, we keep limited to men.

And so we see in Acts 6, 5, that the first deacons, the first appointment, they're all men, these seven men. This word pleased the whole congregation, and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit, and Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicholas, a proselyte from Antioch, which seems to indicate that he might be a Gentile who has become, he may have become a Jew through rite, and then has therefore become part of the church in Jerusalem.

I'm just speculating there, but that's what it looks like, especially considering Nicholas is a Greek name. So we see even among the men that are chosen, there are those who are Hellenists. So you have the Hebrews and the Hellenists together who are making sure that everybody is being cared for in the church properly.

Now, some have used this passage to talk about like racism in the church. I think that's going too far because everybody here was Hebrew in the sense that they were descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

It's just that some of them spoke different languages because they were of the dispersion. They had been scattered abroad in other lands, but still preserving their Jewish heritage and celebrating the Jewish feasts, they have come back to Jerusalem and hearing the gospel have become part of the church.

And of course, within the church, we do see segregation that happens for various number of reasons. It could be because of skin color. It could be because of the classes that people are in, upper class versus lower class.

It could be because people talk certain ways. It could just be developing of cliques because these people are more interesting to me than that people. But there must not be any division among us that we regard brothers and sisters in the Lord equally.

And these men were serving in the church to set an example of being able to work together and also serve one another without showing partiality so that everyone, whether it was the Hebrew widows or the Hellenist widows, all of them are being cared for in the church of Jesus Christ.

And we read about in 1 Timothy 5. I had this up in case I had time to do it, but I don't. But you have in 1 Timothy 5, instructions for the church in caring for widows. And so we see in the first church, the first deacons are caring for the first widows in the church.

And this setting an example for churches down through the ages, that we would have men appointed to this particular service, caring for the physical needs of the church while the teachers, the elders, commit themselves to the spiritual needs of the church, to the preaching and the teaching.

And that's what we see continue on in Acts 6 as we come to these last two verses. These men, they stood before the apostles and after praying, they laid their hands on them. Now, something I wanna point out here is that the congregation chose these men, but the congregation did not appoint these men.

It was the apostles who did. The apostles gave the congregation instructions. You look for men who are qualified and bring them to us. But then the apostles are the ones who blessed them and then appointed them to the service.

And so some have used this passage to talk about congregationalism. Well, it's still elder-led congregationalism. The authority is still under the elders who are the apostles in this case. So the congregation does not have the authority to appoint these men.

It was the apostles who did so. But the apostles approved the decision that has come from the congregation and recognizes these men as being of God and committed to the church and full of the Holy Spirit.

And so verse 7, the word of God kept on spreading and the number of the disciples continued to multiply greatly in Jerusalem and a great many of the priests were becoming obedient to the faith. So even talking about priests within the temple, that they are now seeing that the true sacrifice is the Lamb of God, is Jesus Christ, who died on the cross for us, who rose again from the dead so that whoever believes in him will not perish but have everlasting life.

It is this truth that the church is founded upon. This church that we're reading about 2 ,000 years ago and continuing to the church today, that we all together in one accord share the same faith in our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Now with the love of God that he has shown to us through Christ our Savior, may we demonstrate that love to one another. Heavenly Father, we thank you for what we have read and I pray that it would be food for our spirits that we may recognize the needs that are present within the body and help to meet those needs, that we recognize you've even appointed certain offices to oversee the meeting of these needs and that we would be in submission to them in honor of Christ our King, whom we are all in submission to, anxiously awaiting for the day when our Savior will return and take us into your eternal kingdom with you.

It's in Jesus' name that we pray, amen.

You've been listening to When We Understand the Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, Gabe will be going through a New Testament study. Then on Thursday, we look at an Old Testament book.

On Friday, we take questions from the listeners and viewers. Tomorrow, we'll pick up on a Old Testament study When We Understand the Text.