WWUTT 1051 The First Deacons?

Not many men are going to be called to the position of teaching in the church. That's a skill set that's going to be limited to a fewer number of people. But many others are able to serve in the church when we understand the text.

This is When We Understand the Text, a daily Bible commentary that we may be equipped for every good work in Jesus Christ our Lord. Please tell others about our ministry at www .utt .com. Here once again is Pastor Gabe.

Thank you, Becky. We come back to our study of the book of Acts. And today we read about the appointment of the first deacons to the church. This is Acts 6, verses 1 -7. Now in these days when the disciples were increasing in number, a complaint by the Hellenists arose against the Hebrews, because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution.

And the twelve summoned the full number of the disciples and said, It is not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables. Therefore, brothers, pick out from among you seven men of good repute, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we will appoint to this duty, but we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.

And what they said pleased the whole gathering. And they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit, and Philip and Prochorus and Nicanor and Timon and Parmenas and Nicolaus, a proselyte from Antioch.

These they set before the apostles, and they prayed and laid their hands on them. And the word of God continued to increase, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith.

The Growth of the Church and the Neglect of the Hellenist Widows

So in this particular section, we actually start and end the same way. The number of the disciples was increasing every day. That starts in verse one, and then we see in verse seven, the word of God continued to increase, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly.

And we've seen this happen in groups of dozens to hundreds to even thousands at one time are added to the churches. It is growing here in Jerusalem, growing quite rapidly. And this, of course, by the will of the Holy Spirit of God, daily, the number of the disciples are growing.

So in these days, when the disciples were increasing in number, we're still talking about this period of time when the apostles were in Jerusalem, preaching and teaching and even performing miracles. The sick are being healed.

And through the declaration of the gospel, many are coming to the faith. The disciples are increasing in number. And then a complaint by the Hellenists arose against the Hebrews because their widows were neglected in the daily distribution.

Now, there isn't a lot of mystery behind who the Hellenists are. They're Greek speaking Jews. So remember that when we were reading in Acts chapter two about Peter preaching at Pentecost, there were many Jews there that spoke multiple languages.

One of those languages, of course, was Greek, because the Jews that were dispersed throughout the Roman Empire would settle in those Greek speaking areas. Some of them would even speak Latin, and then there were other languages that were spoken as well.

So you had Jews that spoke Greek and there would be Greek synagogues. Those that were primary to Jerusalem spoke in the or learned from the Hebrew synagogues, which the primary language there would have been Aramaic.

The apostles were mostly Aramaic in their speech and in their teaching. It's not that they didn't know Greek. They were very common to the Greek language since this was a Roman province. They even had a Roman governor right there in Jerusalem who was Pontius Pilate.

So they certainly knew the Greek language, but they were more common to Aramaic being men who were from Galilee. Now, there isn't any kind of discrimination going on here. It's not that the Aramaic speaking Jews were discriminatory toward the Hellenists.

Well, let me rephrase that. It's not that the Aramaic speaking Christians were prejudiced toward the Greek speaking Christians. So we're talking about Jews here, whether you're talking about the Aramaic speaking Jews or the Hellenist Jews, they're both Jews.

But the distinction here is that they are Christians. There's no discrimination going on here among the Christians, whether they're Greek speakers or Aramaic speakers. So we shouldn't be reading this passage that way.

But there likely would have been discrimination in the temple. Talking from the perspective of the temple officials, not from the Christian body, not from the church, but the officials in the temple may have been discriminatory against those Jews who were Greek speakers.

They might have even gotten mixed in with the Gentiles. So some of those Jews who spoke Greek were not allowed to pass by that Gentile barrier. And since most of the teaching was going on in the temple and some of these Hellenist Jews were not as common to the service in the temple, therefore, those Hellenists that became Christians were being forgotten in the daily distribution of those goods to those who were in need.

Remember, we've been reading about in a couple of different places in Acts chapter two and again in chapter four, that they had everything in common and those who were in need lacked nothing. Those who had plenty would give away what they had to help those who were in need.

So there was a lot of love going on here in the church, sharing with one another and and rejoicing in God, their savior together. But since the Hellenists were not as common to the the the doings of the temple, since they weren't as common in the temple, they weren't there with the rest of the Christians as the gospel was being proclaimed there.

And some of those Hellenist widows were being forgotten in the daily distribution of those goods to those who were in need. So a complaint by the Hellenists arose against the Hebrews because their widows, not the Hebrew widows, but the Hellenist widows.

The the Jews who were Greek speakers, they were being neglected in the daily distribution. And this wasn't a again, this wasn't prejudiced. It wasn't a discrimination. They weren't deliberately being forgotten.

They were just being overlooked since there was still kind of a separation between Aramaic speaking Jews and Greek speaking Jews, and not necessarily by the decision of the church. But since those temple officials were still discriminatory against those things, so the 12 apostles, they're they're looking at the situation, they're trying to assess what's going on.

And they come up with a plan to make sure that those who are in need are receiving the things that they need. The apostles can't be everywhere at once. And of course, they are charged first and foremost with the teaching of the full counsel of God to his church.

And as the number in the church is growing and growing and growing, this actually is placing more responsibility on these apostles to make sure that those who are part of the church are receiving the teaching that they need when it comes to the the physical needs of the church.

There are others that can do that that have not been called to the preaching and teaching. So very wisely, they come up with this idea. We're going to pick seven men and they tell the whole church. So the church is going to pick these men.

The apostles don't appoint them. The church decides who these men are going to be. And so they address the full number of the disciples. The 12 summon the full number of the disciples. And by this point might have been several thousand people.

And they said it is not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables because anybody can serve tables. But there are those who are specifically called to do the preaching and teaching.

Those who are gifted with teaching are always going to be fewer than those who are to be the hearers submitting to that position of eldership that has been appointed to the church. There are going to be more people sitting under the eldership than there will be people serving in the eldership.

James even says in James three, one, not many of you should aspire to become teachers, my brothers, for you know that teachers will be judged with greater strictness. So we must understand that those who are teaching have a greater burden, a greater responsibility, and they are they will have to stand before God and give an account for what they taught as those who were supposed to be teaching people the word of God and the people look to them to hear the word of God.

So is that what they were teaching or, you know, did they not not meet the qualifications for eldership like we see in First Timothy chapter three? So there's always going to be fewer men called to that service of teaching.

More men are able to serve in the capacity of meeting the physical needs, which is interesting to say in the context of what we see going on here in Acts chapter six, because there were 12 apostles and they call for the appointing of only seven deacons.

But of course, more deacons would be added to the church later on. And we still only have 12 apostles. Well, the apostle Paul added to that, being the one who is untimely born. Anyway, the point still stands that there are going to be more men capable of doing what the deacons were appointed to do than there will be men who are able to do the preaching and teaching, or in this case, fill the role that the apostles were appointed to do.

The Qualifications and Role of Deacons

Years ago, I worked at a radio station where we almost had a revolt among the secretaries. I don't really know what started this. I was kind of low on the totem pole at the particular time, so I didn't hear about everything that led up to this scenario.

I only heard about it when everything came to a head and the secretaries almost went on strike. But here's basically the gist of what was going on at the radio station I was working at. Almost all of the announcers, except maybe one, all of the on air personalities were men.

I think we had one woman DJ at the time. All of the secretaries were women, and somehow this became a men versus women controversy. I don't really know how this began. The woman who was one of the announcers was not on the side of the secretaries.

Anyway, that's that's a whole other facet of the story that I'm trying to share. But nevertheless, the women who were secretaries were getting paid less than the announcers, and they turned it into a sexist thing.

The reason why they were getting paid less was because they were women. But that wasn't the issue at all. There were fewer people who were able to be announcers than there were persons who were able to fill the role as a secretary.

Now, we had more announcers on staff than we had secretaries, those who were doing that administrative paperwork side of things. But we could have let go of any of those secretaries at any point and put up a notice around town and said, hey, we're looking for new secretaries.

And we would have had like a hundred applications to be a secretary. Whereas if we needed to find more announcers, we would have had to been looking for people not just from the community. There may have been one or two people from the community that could have been announcers, but we would have been looking for people outside the city.

That's how few skilled, gifted announcers there could have been. DJ on air personalities as opposed to the secretaries, though we had fewer secretaries on staff, more people were able to do that job than there were people who were available to work as announcers or as DJs.

So, of course, the DJs got paid more. It was a skill set that was more rare and also required more talent, more skill, more education to do that job than a person who had the secretary's job. So it would have been the same sort of a case here with what was going on in the early church here in Jerusalem.

Yeah, there are 12 men who are serving as apostles and there are seven men who are being appointed as deacons. But there were more available men who could have served in the deacon position than the apostle role, which was a very limited and particular skill set that these men were supposed to have.

Also, certain qualifications that an apostle had to meet, including they had to have seen the risen Lord with their own eyes and have been appointed to the position of apostle by Christ himself. So the apostles say to the people that are there, brothers, pick out from among you seven men of good repute, full of the spirit and of wisdom whom we will appoint to this duty.

But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word. Now, the the interesting thing here about these deacons is that they probably would have met all of the qualifications that the elders met, except.

That the elders had a gift of teaching, they had to be able to teach, and of course, once again, we're talking about apostles here when we say elders, but even Peter refers to himself as an elder in first Peter, chapter five.

Anyway, the the qualifications for deacons is very, very close to the qualifications for elder. And Becky and I had talked about this on the show just this past Friday when we were doing our Q &A. The deacons had to be just as above reproach as the elders were supposed to be.

But the elders have that calling to teach and the deacons are fulfilling a calling to serve with hands and feet, to wait tables, to help meet those physical needs of the people in the church who were in need.

And so the apostles are saying, pick out from among you seven men of good repute, men who are above reproach. So these men are a good example to the entire church. They are men of good faith, men of good standing among the people in the church.

These are men who are pursuing godliness and holiness. They cling to the faith with pure hearts. They are not out for themselves, but they are looking out for the best interest of the body. And apparently these seven men that get singled out, there probably were many others that were qualified.

But remember that the church at this time was several thousand people and the full number of the disciples are gathered here to hear this address from the apostles about selecting these men for this particular task.

So these seven men that are chosen are likely well known. They were already doing this work. They were already serving and had probably been to several of these Christians homes, going from house to house, making sure people are being taken care of.

Men who had already been working in the service of the church, in the distribution of those goods to those people who were in need. So they were known by people and they were appointed to this spot, men full of faith and of the Holy Spirit.

Greek-Speaking Men Chosen to Serve the Whole Church

And they included Stephen, Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicolaeus, a proselyte of Antioch. Now, these names, by the way, what do you notice about those names? They're mostly Greek, aren't they?

Ah, yes, because who was it that raised the objection to the fact that their widows were not being taken care of? It was the Hellenists. It was the Greek speaking Jews. So they chose men who were likely Jews themselves, with the exception of Nicolaeus, who's talked about there as being a proselyte of Antioch.

So he probably wasn't a Jew. He was probably a Greek who became a Christian and came to Jerusalem. And he may have been there in Jerusalem, may have been a Greek man in the interest of the word of God.

Remember when we were going through the book of John that there were some Greeks that came to Philip and said, we want to see Jesus. And and these were men who probably sat outside the synagogues and heard the word of God proclaimed the law as it was being taught.

And though they would have been Greek born or perhaps Roman born, they feared the Lord when they heard the word of God preached and they recognized Jesus as the son of God, though many of the of the Jews themselves did not accept Jesus as the son of God.

So we did see even in the time of Jesus ministry occasions when Greeks would come to faith. So in this particular case, you have Nicolaeus who would have been that way, a proselyte from Antioch. Somebody who heard the word of God preached in the synagogue there and maybe came to Jerusalem to honor the feast days and being in Jerusalem at the time of Pentecost would have heard the gospel being proclaimed and became a Christian through the sermon that Peter preached.

So these men are mostly Greek men, not entirely, but mostly that they might be able to be of good service even to the Hellenists, that no one would be forgotten, no one would be left out again. And I must reiterate this, especially in the the current climate we're in, in our culture, the whole woke ism and critical race theory and all this kind of thing.

This was not a matter of discrimination. This was not a matter of racism. In fact, it was just straight up wisdom to make sure that everybody was being cared for in the way that they needed to be cared for, especially the widows.

So these men were appointed to this task. They were chosen by the whole church and then set before the apostles who prayed over them and laid their hands on them, that they may be blessed to do this work.

And once again, these men are also good examples to the flock, just as the elders are. Deacons are also good examples to the people of God. They demonstrate to the people of God how we've all been called to good works in Christ Jesus, which we read about in Titus 2, 14, that Christ gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.

And then Ephesians 2, 10, for we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. All of us are called to do good works, but the deacons in particular, that office in the church is is a good position where men have been appointed to not only meet needs, but even serve as examples of how we are to do those good works in Christ Jesus.

Now, one of these men in particular was very skilled in the ability to teach as well as helping to serve. And that was Stephen. And we read about Stephen's speech. Stephen would become the first martyr in the church, and his speech is in chapter seven.

I don't know if we're going to get to that this week or not. I'm kind of toying with the idea of coming back to the discussion about deacons in Acts chapter six. So we can also talk about the qualifications for deacons.

And we'll just spend the rest of our week in chapter six. Maybe that's as far as I'll get. We'll wait and see. Let's conclude with prayer. Our heavenly father, we thank you for this wonderful time to be able to open your word and preach.

I remember hearing about over the course of the weekend. I believe it was just yesterday. In fact, yesterday was the anniversary of the death of William Tyndale, who said about the work of translating the Bible into a language that people could understand, English instead of Latin.

And for this work, he was martyred. He was put to death. We are able to have a program like this or a Bible open in front of us the way that we do because of men like William Tyndale, who laid down their lives so that the word of God might be proclaimed.

And may we not take this for granted. We rejoice to learn about these things daily. And today we have read about men who were appointed to serve in the church, just as Jesus said that the son of man came not to be served, but to serve and to lay his life down as a ransom for many.

So may we humble ourselves and rejoice to be able to have this opportunity to serve one another and meet the needs of the saints in your body. Doing all this to the glory of God. Help us to consider one another's needs ahead of our own.

For you considered our need and we can call ourselves saved by that need that was met by Christ our Savior. We ask these things in his name. Amen.

Thank you for listening to When We Understand the Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. If you'd like to support this ministry, visit our website www .wutt .com and click on the Give tab in the top right corner of the page.

Join us again tomorrow as we continue our Bible study when we understand the text.