Acts 6:1-7 (October 8, 2023)

You can turn to Acts chapter 6. We've been going through the book of Acts last several weeks and we come to Acts chapter 6 we're gonna be in verses 1 through 7 this morning so a little bit smaller passage than what we've been doing thus far and and as as we've gone along in the book of Acts we've traced the story from the ascension of Jesus until this point what we've read about is some really incredible growth in the church there in Jerusalem.

It's gone from a hundred and twenty or so in the in the upper room in Acts 1 to 3 ,000 souls saved at Pentecost and the number reaches 5 ,000 in Acts chapter 4 and then from there on out Luke just refers to the multitudes.

I guess it gets to be so many that he can't really keep count and so Luke just refers to the multitudes of disciples. Now what happens when you get any number whether large or small of people together or maybe a better way to say when you get a number of sinners together what happens?

Well you get problems right? You get problems sometimes due to sin, sometimes due to life in a fallen world, sometimes due to logistics, sometimes due to a wide variety of opinions or dispositions or preferences and sometimes it's just a combination of all of those things but you get people together you're gonna get some problems just a fact of life.

People bring their own problems to the group and the church is no exception and the church in Acts is no exception. Even this church started by the Apostles and so what I want us to see as we go through these seven verses we're gonna see what's going on in this new movement in this new church we're gonna see how God solves one of their problems and so let's let's read beginning in verse 1 in just a minute and we're gonna kind of go one or a couple of verses at a time and then I want to make application for churches generally and then I'll make application for our church specifically and so let's read beginning in verse 1 and verse 1 tells us the presenting problem God's Word says now in those days when the number of the disciples was multiplying there arose a complaint against the Hebrews by the Hellenists because their widows were neglected in the daily distribution.

So it begins now in those days what days were these. These are the days when the Apostles were performing signs and wonders when they were preaching when they were getting arrested for preaching when they were getting set free in the middle of the night by an angel of the Lord when they were being brought before the council of the Sanhedrin and the ruling class when they were being beaten and then when they went and preached some more.

These are the days that he's referring to when when the number of disciples is multiplying that despite all the opposition this is the days when the church was growing despite all of that the preaching of the gospel produced fruit the fruit of faith in the hearts of the hearers.

And the church grew and it grew to thousands within a short period of time. And in this environment there was a problem the church was caring for widows. Now whether this was actually preparing and distributing food or whether this was distributing money so they could buy food it's not exactly clear.

Remember people were bringing they're selling their property and bringing the proceeds to the Apostles so that they would share all things in common and no one would have any lack among the church. And so it could have been either one of those.

What we do know is that the church was caring for widows which James later says is true and undefiled religion. And so it was mercy ministry. But this mercy ministry was not working properly because the Hellenist widows were being neglected now who were the Hellenists.

The Hellenists were Greek speaking Jews from the Jewish diaspora that had come to live in Jerusalem. Many of them had come to live in Jerusalem in their old age. They grew up elsewhere in the Roman Empire.

They spoke a different language and different language and cultural differences because they grew up in other places different from the Hebrews there in Jerusalem. Even though both groups shared a religion they were both religiously Jewish.

That's in linguistic and cultural differences now. So that's who the Hellenists are. Their widows are being neglected. It's unclear whether the neglect was intentional because they were different due to the sin of partiality or if it was unintentional due to poor logistics or the fact that the Hellenists they had recently moved to Jerusalem they didn't have the same kinship and and social network that those who grew up in Jerusalem had.

And maybe they kind of just fell through the cracks because of that. Whatever the reason the reality is they were being neglected and this is is undisputed in the text. Now my read is that the reason for the neglect was not sinful.

And the reason I think it wasn't a simple kind of sin of partiality situation is because the solution that the Apostles come up with isn't the call for repentance. If there was sin that was the cause of this you would you would think that the call would be repent of the sin.

Because you can't get out of sin in any other way other than confession and repentance. You can't solve sin problems with better administration. But what we're going to see here is that the solution is better administration.

So I what I think we have here is a problem of trying to do ministry at scale. When thousands of people have come into the church it's a problem of doing ministry at scale. And this is the presenting problem that of the neglect of the Hellenist widows.

But what's the root problem. What's the underlying problem. We see that in verse 2 let's read then the twelve summoned the multitude of the disciples and said it is not desirable that we should leave the Word of God and serve tables.

It's not desirable that we should leave the Word of God and serve tables. The underlying problem is one of competing goods. Or we might say it's a it's one of competing needs. You see the multitudes of disciples they needed the Word of God just like we need the Word of God today.

They needed to be taught. They needed to be devoted to the Apostles doctrine. They needed to be built up and trained up in the Word of God. They didn't have the work all of the Word of God applied to all of their lives every aspect of their lives.

They also need to be prayed for they also needed to be taught to pray and trained to pray and be led in prayer. Not only did the multitude of disciples need the Word of God in prayer. So do the unbelievers in the city.

The unbelievers needed the Word of God too. They needed Peter preaching the gospel. We read about in Acts chapter 2. In Acts chapter 3. In Acts chapter 4 Peter's proclaiming the gospel. He's showing them that Jesus the one they crucified is actually the Christ.

That Jesus is the Messiah. He's the one they have been waiting for. He is the hope of Israel and they killed him. And he's preaching to them this truth. But he's also preaching that God raised him from the dead and that he's given them a second chance.

Repent. Believe the gospel be saved. Times of refreshing will come. This is the gospel that he's preaching and they need to hear. It was the same gospel that he preached that brought in the thousands that brought in the multitudes of the now disciples.

They needed the Word of God and this is the Apostles main job to preach the Word of God and to pray. Yet at the same time you had these multitude of disciples and many within them. They had many needs.

You had many widows of the Hellenists and of the Hebrews. Those widows needed to eat and they needed help and they they were bringing proceeds from the properties that they sold and laid them at the Apostles feet so that no one would have need.

They were sharing all things in common. We've read about this so far and it's gotten to the point where the 12 Apostles can't do it all. They can't devote themselves to the preaching of the Word and to prayer and coordinate the food distribution program.

They don't have enough time. They don't have enough energy. They don't have enough bandwidth. Everybody even the Apostles have everybody has limitations and notice. They don't argue with the Hellenists here.

They're not offended that somebody has brought a complaint and saying you know something's not working here that it appears that they acknowledge that the Hellenists were right and they don't get upset about it.

Rather they drill down to the root of the problem to try to solve it. And the root problem is they're maxed out. To attend to tables would mean leaving their duties to the Word of God unfulfilled. They would have to stop tending souls to tend to stomachs.

And verse 2 says this is not desirable. They're not just to leave the Word of God and prayer undone. And so verses 3 through 6 tell us about the solution this problem. You have the presenting problem the widows and being neglected.

You have the the root problem. They're maxed out. The Apostles are maxed out on what they can do if competing goods competing needs. You have a solution. In verses 3 through 6 let's read. Therefore brethren seek out from among you the seven men of good reputation seven men of good reputation full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom whom we may appoint over this business.

But we will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the Word. And the saying pleased the whole multitude. And they chose Stephen a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit and Philip Prochorus Nickener Tymon Parmenas and Nicholas a proselyte from Antioch whom they set before the Apostles.

And when they had prayed they laid hands on them. If you remember back in Exodus 18 Moses had a similar problem as the Apostles. He would he would spend his entire day from sunup sundown judging cases in Israel people have problems.

They bring him you know the problem. They had disputes. They bring the disputes before him. He'd decide between them. His father-in-law Jethro saw this and was like what in the world are you doing Moses.

This is. This isn't good he said rather than you know judge every case by yourself from sunup to sundown. You should teach the law to the people. And you should select from the people men who are who fear God who are full of the truth love the truth and hate covetousness.

Choose those men who fear God love truth hate covetousness have them judge the lesser cases bringing only the hardest cases up to you. And so what did he do. He he distributed and delegated the work in order.

In order to to judge Israel at scale he would need to divide and share the workload. That's what he did. This is what we see the Apostles doing in Acts chapter 6 something similar. The solution is to choose men from among the people who will administrate the distribution of the food to the widows.

This way the twelve can continue to attend to the ministry of the word and prayer. And the seven who were chosen can attend to the tables. And then nothing gets neglected. Neither the word nor prayer nor the widows.

Now these men here in Acts chapter 6 they're not called deacons but many commentators have referred to them as the first deacons of the church. And whether that's the case or not I believe what we see in this passage is the seed of deacon ministry that is later formalized in the church that we read about the rest of the New Testament.

And so the solution is is division of labor and differentiated leadership so that the Apostles give themselves to preaching and prayer. The deacons give themselves to administrating the service and practical mercy of the church.

So I want you to notice a few things about the seven that are that are about the selection process for these seven men who are chosen. And the first thing I want you notice is that their qualifications for service see not just anyone could be chosen here they had to meet the qualifications.

We'll talk about those in a minute. And these qualifications they measured character not competence. The qualifications for these seven men measured character not competence. It's not that competence was unimportant.

They would actually have to be men who are competent to do the task. They're gonna have to administrate this food distribution program to a lot of people. Right. That was a given but not just any good manager would do.

No he didn't have a good reputation. That is he needed to be well thought of by those who know him. Because he's known as as a slimeball he's known as greedy. He's known as lazy. If he's known as cutting some corners or skimming a bit off the top or being domineering and harsh or showing partiality or being a hothead or something along those lines.

He's not going to be a good fit for leading the distribution. He's not gonna be good fit for administrating the mercy ministry. No he must be a man of good reputation. Verse 3 says humble kind fair just wise courageous hard-working those types of things.

And not only must he have a good reputation to be known for his character among other people but he also must be what is verse 3 say full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom. This is who we should appoint over this business.

The Apostle said those who have a good reputation who are full of the Holy Spirit of wisdom. Well how do you know if somebody's full of the Spirit. Well you look at the fruit of their lives. What's the fruit of the Spirit.

Love joy peace patience kindness goodness faithfulness gentleness self-control relations. Five tells us what the fruit of the Spirit is. Do you see this in his life. Is this the type of man he is. Does he demonstrate wisdom.

The ability to discern good from evil truth from falsehood. They know how to apply God's Word in God's world. These are the men that they were to choose. And it's interesting while Moses back in Exodus 18 he was to choose the men who were to judge Israel here are the Apostles instruct the church to choose the seven.

The Apostles are going to lay hands on them because they're the ones they have the authority to ordain them into office. But the congregation chose the men. Why. I think one reason I think we we see something about congregationalism as church polity here.

I'll leave that for another time. But I think the main reason here is that the congregation they would be the ones who would know if he was qualified or not. They would be the ones who would know if he had the character or not.

They lived with these men work with these men worship with these men. They knew the character of these men. Therefore they could select them for office. Then the other interesting thing about those who are selected is that they all have Greek names.

Remember this is that there's a dispute here between the Hellenists and the Hebrews. The Hebrew speaking Jews and the Greek speaking Jews. They all have Greek names most likely meaning that the six of these men were that six of the seven men were Hellenists.

Then we have the one Nicholas who's a Gentile convert from the city of Antioch. The only point I would make here is I just want to flag it for reference because what we're seeing here there's a transition happening in the book of Acts.

You remember Jesus said back in Act 1 you'll be my witnesses in Jerusalem Judea Samaria to the ends of the earth. There's gonna be this progression from Jerusalem to the Gentiles from the Jews to the Gentiles.

And we're coming into that shift here at this point in the book and the next few chapters chronicle this shifting ministry towards the Gentiles this transition period of ministry where the gospel goes to Samaria and then beyond to the ends of the earth.

We'll see more of that in the coming weeks. But for now let's look at verse 7 and see what is the result of this solution that the Apostles had. You have the presenting problem of the neglect the underlying problem of the competing needs.

The solution choose these seven men to administrate. And what's the result of it. Verse 7 tells us the Word of God then the Word of God spread and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem.

And a great many of the priests were obedient to the faith. And the Apostles kept preaching rather than stopping to serve tables the Word of God spread. When the Word of God spread the number of disciples multiplied.

It kept growing because faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of Christ. And they were proclaiming the Word of Christ. People heard it and they believed. The church grew. And when the church grew as the church grew we should say as the Word of God spread included in those number of disciples were a great many of the priests who were obedient to the faith.

In other words we see great results from this solution to this problem. I think one of the reasons that God blesses them with success is that they handled this problem really well. I mean the the offended party the Hellenists.

They calmly raised the issue. They made a complaint to the people that had you know the ability to do something about it. They didn't give in to bitterness or envy. They were out for a solution not out for revenge.

They were out for a solution. They were not out for a victory. It calmly raised the problem so that there would be a solution. Then the Apostles in the Hebrews they heard the complaint with humility. They didn't justify the neglect.

They didn't deny the neglect. They didn't dig their heels in and pride. They basically said oh yeah you're right. Let's fix this. Here's what we'll do. In other words everyone handled the problem like mature Christians.

So I want to ask again what happens when you get people. When you get centers together what do you get. You get problems. And so when we have problems because guess what. We have people together we have centers together when we have problems.

Let's remember to handle it like mature Christians and find a solution now. I want to apply this passage what we've seen here next six one through seven. I want to apply this now to churches generally so this includes us.

But I'm not necessarily talking about us. I'm talking about churches in general a few things that we can learn from these from these verses. And what we learn from these verses is that ministry at scale.

When you get beyond a certain point it requires at least three things. There's probably more we could say but from this passage I think we see at least three things. One is division of labor. That is some serve tables some serve the word in the church.

We all don't do the same things. We all don't do the same things. God has given different gifts to the body in different ways. We see this for example in first Corinthians 12 and Romans 12 where God has given different gifts to different people to serve the body with and we're not all the same part of the body.

We do different things. And so for example you go over to BMW you're not gonna find every person that works at BMW all building their own car. Like where you know everybody's working on their own car and every person has to build the engine and they have to fabricate the hood and have to paint the doors and they have to put the brakes on and put the tires on install the seats.

Not everybody does the same thing now they each have their own job. Right. It's broken down. They divide the labor and that way the work gets done it gets done more efficiently. It's similar in the church now we're not a factory line.

I want to depersonalize the church but we do different things to serve the body so that the work so that the ministry gets done. And that's a good thing. So we see division of labor. We also see differentiated leadership that is God has given two offices to the church pastors and deacons.

What we see in this passage I believe is like I said that the seed form for how the church will take shape over time that we read about in the rest of the New Testament. So here you have the Apostles they're attending to the ministry of the word and prayer.

And you have the deacons or the the proto deacons that are attending to the ministry the food distribution later in the church you can have pastors attending to the ministry the word and prayer deacons attending to the ministry of service in the church.

So you might see this differentiation as attending to spiritual needs and physical needs heavenly goods and earthly goods eternal life and temporal life. We have needs in both of those realms. Right. And so God and his kindness has given us leadership in both of those things through the offices of both pastors and deacons.

And then the third thing that we we can learn here we see ministry at scale requires that shared leadership. What do I mean here when I say shared leadership I mean at least two things. One is we see the twelve Apostles we see the seven kind of proto deacons they have to work in alignment with one another for the good of the church and so likewise pastors and deacons all to work in alignment with one another.

Because even though we might be serving in some different capacities and different realms spiritual physical that that differentiation we're doing so for the same people which means shared leadership.

But second I want you to notice that there's there's plurality in both of these groups. There's there's twelve Apostles there's seven that are deleting the food distribution later in the New Testament we're going to see Paul you see him going to Ephesus for example in appointing elders now quick side note elders is just another word for the same office as pastors.

It's the same there's a third word overseers or bishops depending on what translation you have there. These are three words for the same office. And so if you hear me using the word elders I promise I'm not becoming Mormon or Presbyterian or something.

I am just using the word that the Bible uses to describe the same office. And what you see is when Paul goes to Ephesus for example or he goes or he sends Timothy I think to Crete what does he tell him to appoint elders.

It's plural. The New Testament pattern is shared plural pastoral leadership. And so what we see from this passage I believe then is ministry at scale requires division of labor differentiation of leadership and then shared leadership in corresponding to those three things there's some pitfalls that churches need to avoid.

One of those pitfalls is that you know a few people do everything and a lot of most of the people do nothing in the service of the church. This could happen for a number of reasons. It could happen because the few kind of hog those positions of influence and and service in the church.

It could be because some people are just too busy to serve or too lazy to serve. It could be because there's a failure of leadership to to get people plugged into the right places. The reason for that isn't nearly as important as the reality that not dividing labor among us means that ministry less ministry gets done because something will be neglected because we all have our limitations and so we're talking about churches generally but specifically here we want you to find your place of service here at First Baptist we're kind of getting we're still getting some things restarted and so we're trying to find those places of service.

But we have opportunities for you if you're not plugged in somewhere and you want to be and we hope you would want to be come see me we can find a place for you to get plugged in and serve. So that's one pitfall where a few people do everything and most people do nothing.

A second pitfall would be to blend the church offices of pastor and deacon. And so what happens oftentimes is in the absence of sheer pastoral leadership many churches will have their deacons function like elders or function like pastors blending those roles together.

And when this happens what usually happens is that neither the spiritual ministry of the pastorate nor the physical ministry of the deaconate gets done at full capacity. It doesn't get done. Well again we all have our limitations and so the blending takes us back to the original problem problems from Act 6 that of competing goods and who does what.

And so to avoid this pitfall churches need that differentiated leadership that we talked about pastors who attend to the spiritual ministry the church preaching teaching prayer counseling visitation worship those type things deacons who attend to the physical ministry of the church mercy ministry giving leadership to ministry teams giving administrative leadership to what we might call kind of the business side of church properties finances things like that.

And then a third pitfall is concentrated authority or concentrated power. In the absence of shared leadership authority or power can be concentrated in one individual and that can lead to you know several bad ends.

One of those could be that it could lead to abuse of authority if one person has too much authority that's unchecked because remember sinners sin even those in church leadership or two less sinister it can just kind of practically bottleneck leadership can bottleneck ministry because one person no matter how competent can only do so much.

Everybody has their limitations. We see it with the Apostles we see it with ourselves. So there those are three pitfalls to avoid. Now I want to end with just a few applications of this passage for our church specifically for us specifically here at First Baptist.

That's as I think about ministry over the next 10 or 15 years here at First Baptist one thing that I see that we need to do now to benefit us then is to develop new leaders. To be clear we have solid faithful leaders right now.

I was talking with the Deacons about this last Monday just thanking them for their faithful leadership that is going to bear fruit into the future. But if we're gonna continue to be fruitful into the future we're gonna have to develop new leaders who will come after them.

We need more Deacons again to be clear this isn't a knock on current Deacons. The current Deacons will tell you that we need more Deacons. I've heard them say it a number of times. Somebody wants off the chairmanship.

They'd like the help likewise one day. I hope we'll have a group of pastors like we see kind of that New Testament pattern some serving vocationally on staff like Gary and I do and some serving in a in a lay serving the church as lay pastors.

But to get more Deacons and pastors we need to develop men as leaders. And so I'd ask you to pray for that pray for leadership development here at our church. A second application here is not only do we need more leaders we need qualified leaders.

You see Acts 6 the Apostles gave instruction that the seven men were to have a good reputation be full of the Holy Spirit wisdom. In other words when it comes to church leadership character is king. The Bible is clear there are certain qualifications for church leadership whether Deacon or pastor.

And so when I say we need to develop more leaders I'm saying at least two things. One is we need to disciple men such that their character meets the qualifications as laid out in Scripture. And two I'm saying that that we shouldn't put anyone in church leadership that doesn't meet the qualifications that the Bible specifies because the Bible is our authority in these matters in all matters.

And so what are those qualifications. I just want to read from 1st Timothy. Read from 1st Timothy should have had this bookmarked. Chapter 3 and 1st Timothy gives the qualifications for both pastors and for Deacons.

And here's what it says. If anybody desires the position the position of a bishop. Some translations overseer. Some translations. Just another word for pastor he desires a good work. He ought then to be blameless the husband of one wife temperate sober minded good behavior hospitable able to teach not given to wine not violent not greedy for money but gentle not wholesome not covetous.

One who rules his own house well having his children in submission with all reverence. For if a man doesn't know how to rule his own house how we take care of the Church of God not a novice that means not a recent convert not a new believer lest he be puffed up with pride he fall into the same condemnation as the devil.

Moreover he must have a good testimony among those who are outside again that's like a good reputation that we see in Acts 6 lest he fall into approach and snare the devil. Likewise Deacons that's pastors.

Now here we get Deacons must be reverent not double-tongued not given to much wine not greedy for money holding the mystery of the faith with a pure conscience. But let these also be first tested them let them serve as Deacons being found blameless.

Likewise their wives must be reverent not slanders temperate faithful in all things let Deacons be the husband of one wife ruling their children and their own house as well for those who have served well as Deacons obtain for themselves a good standing and great boldness in the faith which is in Christ Jesus.

What we see there these are the qualifications for church leadership. And there you don't see that you got to have a certain degree from a seminary or you got to have you know certain competence and and this or that you got to have competence in godly living and holy living character are the central qualifications.

And so we need to develop these qualifications disciple people towards these qualifications and our leaders. And so we need third thing I would say is we need trained leaders. We don't get these type of leaders by accident.

We train them. We want leaders who are theologically grounded theologically conversant theologically astute. We want leaders who know what their job is in a certain role what it isn't in a certain role.

Well leaders who share alignment when it comes to theology vision and practical in ministry practices. And so to do that we need to train people. Need to train men specifically I need to train you men to be Deacons and pastors.

Well colleges and seminaries can be of some help in this endeavor honest and remember that the responsibility for this really lies with the local church. It's our job. I can't help but think that so many of our problems kind of in the wider American Evangelical Church is due to the fact that we've outsourced ministry training to the Academy and disconnected it from God's people in the local church.

So towards this end of training leaders next year I aim to start a church leadership cohort for men in our church who aspire to some sort of leadership within the church. There'll be more information on this as as we develop it but it will include readings together cohort meetings one-on-one meetings ministry projects tailored for the type of leadership that one desires and seeks and aimed at theological vision and practical ministry alignment.

And so if that's something you are interested in please let me know as we develop that over the course of the upcoming months. And then lastly so we need to serve one another. This is a an all-body thing.

We're not talking about leadership here but everybody including leadership. This is one topic that our deacons have discussed recently over the last couple of meeting is how do we how we coordinate ministry where there's people in the church who have needs and there's people in the church who are able to meet those needs.

How can we help coordinate some of that and there's as a first step towards that. I'm not saying this is the the only way we can do it but as a first step Derrick has one of our deacons Derrick May has put up in the education building he printed out a board that where we can you can sign up that if you have a need let's say we have a widow older widow in the church needs some yard work done and we have some you know high school boys who are able to do it.

You could write that need on there and they could sign up or somebody could see that you've written it on there and they I know somebody that could do that and we can match those and so that's in the education building and we might end up moving it over here at some point.

So it's just a little bit easier but if you have a need put it on there. If you know somebody with any put it on there or let a deacon know they'll put it on there. Or if you can meet a need there's things you can do and you wouldn't mind using that to serve somebody in the church.

You know go find that need on that board or let a deacon know. This is a great opportunity for families to serve together. This is a great opportunity for our our young people our kids to serve with their families or for students to go out and use their strength to serve someone in our church that I'd also say if you're interested in coordinating things like this we have a place for you to serve.

You can let me or let one of our deacons know. We'd love for you to coordinate service within the church kind of keeping a pulse on what are the needs maybe even going out and making the phone calls and finding out what those are and then finding people to meet them.

This would be a great way to serve our church. And so as we seek in all of these ways to obey God both in serving our church and leading the church our prayers that is that the Word of God would spread like it says in verse 7 and that the disciples would multiply greatly.

Let's pray together our Father in heaven. Lord I thank you for our church. I thank you for those you've given to lead our church. Thank you for these faithful men. Lord I pray that you bless them give them wisdom.

Lord I thank you for men and women who have served in so many places in the church over so many years. But I thank you for their faithfulness. From those who have served on you know as deacons or on the Finance Committee.

To those who prepare meals I thank you miss Ruby Tisdale. See her at least once every week if not more coming up watering the flowers service. I thank you for that I think. But I pray that you make a servant hearted you grow us in that area.

What. I pray that you would provide leadership for this church well into the future. You'd help us to develop those who whom you would have to lead. Lord I pray that as we seek to be obedient to you and all of these things that the result would be that the Word of God was spread that the number of disciples multiply greatly and that you be glorified.

I got scholar this name Jesus Amen.