Harmonious cooperation in the church (Acts 6:1-6)

[Stephan Choe]

February 24, 2023

Leading verses 2-4:            "Then the twelve called the multitude of the disciples together and said: 'It is not right for us to provide meals and neglect the word of God over this. Therefore, brethren, look for seven men in your midst, of good report, full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom, whom we will appoint to this service. But we want to remain entirely in prayer and in the ministry of the Word."

Have you watched the soccer game?

Who do you think generally leads his team to victory?

Striker? Defender? Midfielder? Or goalkeeper?

You can roughly divide the functions of soccer players into two tasks: Attack and defense. Forwards are attacking players. For defense, defenders, and goalkeepers are in the first place. The midfielders combine defense and attack. And the attackers have their task primarily to score goals.

Apparently, the strikers are the most important players to win.

But the correct answer is: every player is essential to win.

The goalkeeper, for example, hardly ever scores a goal, but stands in front of the goal most of the time. Nevertheless, no one can say that his task is unimportant.

Or the defenders do not seem as important as goal scorers. Although the team would have a good goal scorer, his team cannot win without good defenders.

Take the soccer match between Poland and Argentina at the World Cup in Qatar on November 26, 2022.

Poland had Robert Lewandowski, the best Player of the Word 2021, but the other Polish players were not world-class. In contrast, Argentina had many world-class players. There Poland was clearly inferior and Lewandowski could not score a single goal. The result of the match was 2:0 for Argentina. 

In a way, the church can be compared to a soccer team. The church needs the teamwork of its members.

Today's Bible text tells about the organization of the first church to work together.

1. The organization of the church

The number of Christians was constantly increasing as more and more people were converting to Christ. At that time, the church in Jerusalem consisted of two groups: Hebrew Jewish Christians and Greek Jewish Christians. The Hebrew Jewish Christians used Hebrew as their mother tongue, and the Greek Jewish Christians used Greek. The Hebrew Jewish Christians were the majority of the church members, and the Greek Jewish Christians were the minority. That's when a problem arose in the church. These Greek Jewish Christians saw that their widows were being overlooked in the daily provision of bread. That is why the Greek Jewish Christians grumbled about it.

When the congregation is quite small, almost all the affairs of the church are manageable. But as the church grows, unmanageable difficulties arise.

The apostles preached and also worked to provide. When the church had grown in numbers, they had lost the manageability, so they could not do the two tasks properly, because they did not know whether all those in need of help were properly cared for or not. The Greek Jewish widows were overlooked in the daily care, and they grumbled about it.

How did the apostles solve this problem?

Verse 2 reads, "Then the twelve called together the multitude of the disciples, and said, <It is not right that we should provide meals, and neglect above them the word of God. Thou, brethren, look for seven men in your midst of good repute, full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom, whom we will appoint to this service. But we will remain wholly in prayer and in the ministry of the word.>"

The apostles understood that they would not be able to concentrate on their task of prayer and preaching the Word if they continued to practice the task of distributing bread. They honestly confessed their limited ability and proposed to the congregation that they raise seven men to be ministers to the poor.

Rick Warren is the author of the book "Living with Vision". The book was one of the world bestsellers a few years ago. Rick Warren wrote the following story in his book "Church with Vision".

In the beginning of his church, he literally did almost everything for the church himself, from setting up chairs before services to cleaning after services. The church grew, and the church work became more and more. However, because of much work, he became exhausted, so he became "burn-out." "Burn-out" means getting sick from being overworked because of much work. That is why Rick Warren gave many tasks to faithful church members, and he mainly took care of preaching work and very important things. Thus, Rick Warren could be relieved, and the congregation continued to grow.

The apostles correctly identified the cause of the overlooking of the Greek widows, namely the overload of the apostles with various tasks. The apostles were humble so that they realized the limit of their ability and wanted to share the tasks with other faithful Christians. Therefore, they proposed to the church to raise up poor officers.

2 The qualification of the poor clerks

Let us learn about the qualification of the poor clerks.

The apostles suggested to the church that the church select seven men who met the qualifications to serve as poor clerks.

The qualifications for the poor-law ministers were that they should have a good reputation, be full of the Holy Spirit, and be full of wisdom. 

First, they should have a good reputation. For this, they should be impartial and honest, and be cordial, kind, and merciful to all.

Second, they should be full of the Holy Spirit. They are not to be operated by their flesh, but by the Holy Spirit. They are to look at the matter from God's point of view and make a right decision before God.

It is easy to value only human efficiency in the installation of ministers in the church, ignoring spiritual maturity. But the apostles mentioned spiritual discernment as one of the most important requirements for the office of poor relief. Therefore, poor ministers should be full of the Holy Spirit.

Third, they should be full of wisdom.

Jesus once said, "Be wise as serpents and without falsehood as doves!"

So, poor-law nurses should have both good reputation as honest, conscientious, merciful people and be wise. This qualification is necessary for this, in order to properly perform their task as poor-people's nurses.

The proposal of the apostles pleased all the believers of the church. That is why they elected 7 people as poor-men's nurses. Their names are Stephen, Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas and Nicholas.

The church presented these seven men before the apostles. And the apostles laid their hands on them and prayed. By this laying on of hands, the apostles appointed the seven ministers for the poor.

The consequence of this division of tasks is reported as follows:

"And the word of God spread, and the number of the disciples became very great in Jerusalem. Many priests also became obedient to the faith" (7).

The result was marvelous.

The church exists to preach God's word so that people will be saved from sin and grow up to please God. But in order to preach the word of God well, the church needs other workers besides preachers, such as warmly inviting people to church and caring for their welfare. 

Therefore, we need to grow up so that God can use us well in His work of redemption:

We are to strive to become pure as doves and wise as serpents. Both qualities are necessary to be good church workers.

Some have a pure heart, but unfortunately they are not wise. They are honest, but they lack wisdom.

There are people who are wise, but not honest. They are called "smart people."

We Christians are supposed to be pure, honest, and wise. We are to be honest and love God and the truth. We are not to love money and vain glory, but to love God and people.

We are to grow spiritually so that we can have insight and be used well in God's church. For this, it is necessary to know God's Word and His will well and to be filled with the Holy Spirit. We should be able to distinguish the way of God and the way of man.