Or
text for today is a fascinating one on a multitude of levels. There are numerous directions that we could
(and will) go with this text. There’s
the fact that this little spat within the church is another attempt by Satan to
destroy the bride of Christ. There’s the
establishment of a position of authority, an office within the church that
still exists to this very day. Then
there’s also the reminder that those who serve God will always come under
attack as a result of their faith, even from others who look to God as well.
By
this point in our journey through the book of Acts, the church is pretty much
established. We’ve seen a system of care
seemingly put into place with the giving of moneys to the apostles and their
dispersing it as they saw fit. We’ve
seen an evangelistic outreach program of sorts through the constant
community-based ministry of the apostles.
And we’ve also seen the church worshiping together, especially in times
of celebration and rejoicing. However,
much of the story of the early church thus far has been about the apostles,
it’s been about the leaders and not the people.
Well, that’s about to change. The
needs of the church (at least of some of those in the congregation) had become
so great that the apostles were left unable to do their full list of duties
because there just simply wasn’t enough hours in the day. The Greek-speaking Jews were saying that the
other Jews, those who spoke Hebrew or Aramaic, had received more from the
church than they did. They felt that the
church was showing favoritism to the Hebrew-speaking folks and meeting more of
their needs simply because of their nationality and background.
So
think about this for a second; both groups were receiving aid from the church,
but one group was complaining because they felt like the other group was getting
more than they were. When we read
statements like this about the early church, it makes us realize that in some
ways we are still as flawed today as we were back then, and there’s a reason
for that. We noted a few weeks ago that
the church is made up of people, flawed, fallen, sinful people. With that being the case, there’s a foot-hole
there for Satan to try and destroy the church.
We’ve seen his efforts to do so by persecution (the constant threatening
and arresting of the apostles) and deception (the lies of Ananias and
Sapphira). Now, we’re seeing Satan work
through division. He’s tugging on those
all-too-familiar heartstrings of jealousy, envy, and want within the lives of
these folks. Instead of seeing what they
had received as a gracious and merciful gift, all they could see is what they
didn’t have. Sounds kind of familiar
doesn’t it?
Regardless of
the outlook of the Hellenists concerning the gifts they received from the
church, the apostles came together and decided (inspired by God I might add)
that there was a need for a division of the work of the church. So they decided that there were to be seven
(a significant number in Jewish culture, think of the seven days of creation)
leaders. They are to be men of good
repute and full of the Spirit and of wisdom.
Notice that they weren’t chosen because of their financial abilities or
because they are qualified at dispersing things fairly, they were purely chosen
because of their spiritual qualifications.
Now, this office (although it has been seen as the beginning of the
office of Deacon) is really somewhat of a mixture between that of what we in
our Presbyterian tradition calls Deacons and Elders. There is a great deal of governance, such as there
is in the office of Elder, but there is an even greater aspect of service,
which is the primary role of the office of Deacon. Hence why this has been seen more as the
establishment of the Deacon instead of the Elder (plus the office of Elder had
already long-since been established). Whichever
way we choose to interpret these offices, the office described here does not
perfectly mirror either of the two described by Paul later on in 1 Timothy 3 or
Titus. However, I don’t want the primary
focus to be upon which office these men were called to, but instead our focus
should be upon the fact that they were called to an office. For so long, the apostles had been doing
really all of the work of the church.
Now, it was time for someone else to do the work. You may have never noticed this before, but
after the appointing (and ordaining) of these seven men here, we really don’t
hear much about the apostles (at least not this particular group) for a while. The focus shifts to this group of new
officers within the church. Later on we
will see some more from Peter, and of course there’s the Jerusalem Council in
Acts 15 and the work of the soon-to-become Apostle Paul, but this is the
turning point from these folks who used to be disciples of Jesus doing all the
work to that of there being those appointed within the church to share the
responsibilities.
What happened
because of this new system and structure that was put into place? “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.” So, not only were the complaints of the
Hellenists calmed and quieted, but the Church was able to function on a much
greater level in terms of evangelism and outreach. Even some of those who had opposed the church
(the priests) came to faith in Jesus Christ.
In other words, a sharing of the responsibilities of a church leads to a
much greater effectiveness of the church for the kingdom of God. For years, the sad but truthful statement has
been that “twenty percent of the people do eighty percent of the work when it
comes to churches.” The even sadder
truth is that in more recent times that statement has been amended to say that
“ten percent do ninety percent of the work.”
Friends the church will only function as it ought to when everyone is
doing the work. The church will only
work at its most effective level when every single person is active and
involved in the ministry of the church as she seeks to bring about great glory
for God’s kingdom.
Now before we
leave this text, there’s one more thing that I feel needs to be discussed to be
perfectly fair. Yes, it’s sin that
causes much of the problems that we find in churches today just like it was sin
that caused the problems for the early church.
And yes, a church operates more effectively for Christ when the
responsibilities are shared. That’s true
whether back during the early church or the church of today. Many times, God uses the sin within a church
to bring about a greater sharing of the work, just as He did with the Jerusalem
church. But there’s one more thing that
we all need to be painfully aware of as we look to our text today and that
comes in the second half of the text.
Stephen, a newly appointed officer within the church, we’re told was, “full
of grace and power, was doing great wonders and signs among the people.” Then, some folks became angry with him just
as they had with the apostles numerous times before. They tried to debate him, but they quickly
found out that he (along with the indwelling of the Holy Spirit) was a foe too
great for any of them in the wisdom department. We see that they basically had him arrested
and brought him before a similar council to that which Peter and John and the rest
of the apostles had already faced. Now,
we will see next Sunday what exactly Stephen said in response to their
allegations and accusations. We will
also see that immediately after Stephen’s speech, that he was stoned to death.
Typically, we
would look at Stephen’s seizure alongside his speech and stoning, seeing as
they’re really all just parts of the same narrative. So, why did I choose to include it in our
text for today about sharing the work of the church? Well, the answer is that we need to be
reminded that the work of the church is hard.
The work of the church is laborsome, and at times it isn’t going to be
pleasant. When we go out and evangelize,
we’re probably going to be met with more resistance than we are embracing. Sometimes, our greatest efforts going towards
God make things more difficult instead of easier in our lives. So often, what happens is that we’re met with
hardships and resistance and we just retreat to letting someone else do the
work. We tell ourselves that it’s best
that we leave it up to others who are better and more qualified than us, but
what we’re really doing is hiding from difficulty. Hopefully, none of us are ever faced with the
same situation that Stephen faced where it is our life that we are asked to
give up for the sake of the gospel.
Don’t get me wrong, I would lay down my life for the sake of the gospel
of Christ and the proclamation of God’s Word, but I’m just hoping that I’m not
asked to (at least not anytime soon). But
as we continue to see the building up and sustaining of the early church, we
see that it is crucial in order for the church to survive, that there has to be
a multitude of people working with the same goal in mind. Satan will try everything he can (division,
distraction, disputes, etc.) to keep us from doing such work. But that just means that we have to lean more
upon Christ in order to carry out the tasks that he has set before us. Glory be to God; in the name of the Father,
the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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