Acts 6:1-7: Wise Leadership Through Challenging Times (Part 1)

Acts 6:1-7: Wise Leadership through Challenging Times (Part 1)

We’ve been working our way passage by passage through the book of Acts, and today the next passage we come to is Acts 6:1-7 as the passage upon which today’s message will be based. 

1 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. 2 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. 3 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. 4 But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.” 5 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 of Antioch. 6 These they set before the apostles, and they prayed and laid their hands on them. 7 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. 

We’ve been going through the book of Acts passage by passage, and the next passage we come to is Acts 6:1-7. You know, life is full of challenges. Even if you become a Christian, life is full of challenges. Unfortunately, a lot of people have this idea that becoming a Christian will somehow guarantee you a certain level of ease and comfort in this life. Yet both Scripture and experience testify to the fact that that’s just not true. The Christian life often involves struggles and difficulties of many kinds—and it always will this side of heaven. There will always be challenges that we have to face. 

And what’s true of us as individuals is also true of the church. I can’t think of a single season in the life of our church when we haven’t faced some kind of challenge. Now, since we’re a church plant, many of these challenges have involved us having to find a suitable meeting space for our worship service. And the current season is no exception, right? Here we are on our very first Sunday of having to have two worship services because of the hotel relegating us to a smaller room. We also face the challenge of a massive labor shortage delaying the renovation of the church building that we purchased 8 months ago.  

And as we look at our main passage in Acts 6, we see that the early church faced a significant challenge as well. Verse 1 sums it up nicely: “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.” Now, to give you some background here, the Hebrews and the Hellenists were two different cultural groups in the church. The Hebrews were the Jews who spoke…Hebrew…and who lived in the region of Palestine, which was the region in which Jews traditionally lived—their homeland. By contrast, the Hellenists were the Greek-speaking Jews from all over the Roman Empire who had come back to Jerusalem for various reasons. It’s very possible that many of them had come for Pentecost and been converted through the events of Acts 2 and then decided to remain there in Jerusalem to be a part of the church. And culturally, these Hellenists were very different than the Hebrews. Although they were still recognizably Jewish, they had absorbed many aspects of the Greek culture around them. Because of this, the Hebrews sort of looked down on them and regarded them as second-class citizens in many ways. Also, the Hellenists were almost certainly a minority in the church. 

So it’s not that difficult to imagine how the Hellenists might be overlooked when it came to the daily distribution of food. Of course, back then, there was no such thing as food stamps or other government programs. So, the church distributed food each day to members who were in need—specifically to the widows, who were vulnerable and unable to provide for themselves. Yet, apparently, the Hellenistic widows were being overlooked in this daily distribution. We’re not told whether this was intentional or unintentional, but either way, it was a significant problem that could have very easily split the church. Something had to be done. 

And this passage shows us that, in responding to this issue, the apostles wisely avoided two things that would have hindered the church’s ministry: division and distraction. That’s the main idea we see here. The apostles wisely avoided both division and distraction. So let’s look at those two items in that order. 

Avoiding Division

First, the way in which they avoided division. You know, one of Satan’s favorite ways of sabotaging a church’s ministry is by sowing seeds of division and discord in the church. Now, that’s not his only method. So far in Acts, we’ve seen Satan oppose the church’s ministry first through persecution. But that only emboldened the early Christians so that the church grew even more. Then Satan led certain church members named Ananias and Sapphira into sin in an attempt to bring moral compromise into the church, but God put a decisive end to that with the result that the church still continued to grow. So now Satan tries something else—probably his most dangerous attack yet. He stirs up dissension in the church with the ultimate goal of dividing the early Christians. 

You see, Satan knows that if he can get Christians fighting with each other, that’ll render them pretty much worthless for the Kingdom. Because if we’re spending all of our time arguing with each other, guess what we’re not doing? We’re not engaging in our mission of telling people about Jesus. In addition, Satan knows that conflict will not only hinder our verbal witness, it’ll also undermine the witness we are to others through our unity. One of the ways we display the power of the gospel most persuasively to the watching world is by coming together, as those who are very different from each other in many ways, and loving each other and serving each other and dwelling together as a unified community of believers. That’s one of the most compelling demonstrations there is of the power of the gospel. It demonstrates the Jesus has given us an identity that runs deeper than any other identity we have. All of those things that make us different such as culture and politics and race and income levels and life experiences and everything else all fade into the background, and we’re able to live in unity because Jesus brings us together. There’s no other explanation. Jesus brings us together. And Satan knows that if he can disrupt that, he has won the day. And that’s exactly what he’s trying to do here in Acts 6 in stirring up dissension between the Hebrews and the Hellenists. 

So how did the apostles respond? We’re told in verses 2-6: 2 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. 3 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. 4 But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.” 5 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 of Antioch. 6 These they set before the apostles, and they prayed and laid their hands on them. 

So the apostles recognize that something needs to be done to resolve this issue and instruct the congregation to nominate seven men who can make sure that the food distribution is conducted properly. Instead of nominating the men themselves in more of a “top-down” approach, the apostles recognize the wisdom of allowing the congregation to nominate them and in that way to be a part of the decision-making process. In addition, the apostles are wise to lay down certain qualifications for the men who are selected. As we see in verse 3, they have to be men, first, “of good repute”—men whose character has earned them a good reputation. Also, they need to be “full of the Spirit” in the sense that they’re consistently led by the Holy Spirit and yielded to the Spirit’s direction in every area of their lives. Being “full of the Spirit” also probably refers to them demonstrating a certain amount of fruitfulness in their ministry. Perhaps a good way of saying it is that it has to be evident that God’s hand is upon them. Then, finally, these men have to be “full of…wisdom”—both wisdom for organizing things efficiently and wisdom for dealing with difficult situations and perhaps difficult people at times. So those are the qualifications the apostles lay down for these men. 

Verse 5 then tells us that “what [the apostles] said pleased the whole gathering,” and they nominated seven men. And it’s worth noting that all seven of these men have Greek names, meaning that they’re very likely Hellenists. So since the problem is that the Hellenists are being overlooked in the food distribution, the solution the early church comes up with is to appoint Hellenists to oversee that ministry. Then, after that, the apostles make the appointments official, and the problem is solved. The church, under the wise leadership of the apostles, successfully avoids dissension and division.  

And as we read about all of this, hopefully we realize that our church isn’t somehow immune from conflict. Thankfully, by God’s grace, things seem like they’re going pretty well right now and we’ve actually never had any significant dissension at Redeeming Grace, but hear me when I say that it’s only a matter of time until something comes up. And the same goes for each of us as individuals as well. It’s only a matter of time until someone says something that offends you, it’s only a matter of time until someone does something that you find incredibly frustrating, and it’s only a matter of time until you encounter someone who just has a certain way about them that gets on your nerves to no end. If it hasn’t happened to you yet at our church, don’t worry, it will happen. And when it does, you’ll have a wonderful opportunity to put Scripture into practice. 

Because, in addition to this example here in Acts 6 of the early Christians refusing to let anything divide them, we have other Scriptures that give us very specific instructions about how to respond when others treat us poorly. 

Proverbs 10:12 states that “Hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all offenses.” “Love covers all offenses.” Also, Paul gives these instructions in Colossians 3:12-14: 12 Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, 13 bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. 14 And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. So notice, what’s our motive for forgiveness? What is it that gives us the strength to forgive those who have wronged us? It’s the way in which God has forgiven us. Because the reality is that we’ve sinned against God in a way that’s way more egregious than what others have done against us. So if God’s graciously forgiven us of our sins against him, surely we can forgive others of their sins against us. And that’s what we’re called to do over and over and over again in the church. 

Avoiding Distraction

Also in looking at Acts 6, we see that the apostles not only avoid the danger of division, they also avoid the danger of distraction. You know, it would have been very easy for the apostles to respond to the complaints of the Hellenists by saying, “It’s alright guys, don’t worry about anything. We as apostles will step in here and handle this problem ourselves and personally see to it that nobody’s neglected in the daily distribution of food.” That’s how most people in their position would have probably been tempted to respond. But instead, these apostles recognize that division isn’t the only danger to avoid here. They also need to avoid the danger of distraction. 

You see, God gave the apostles—and has also given church leaders today—a unique calling. And it’s a calling that we dare not neglect. We find this calling stated very clearly in verse 4, where the apostles tell the rest of the church that “we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.” There it is. That’s a pastor’s job description—prayer and the ministry of the word. You know, there seems to be this idea in many American churches that a pastor should function essentially as a CEO—that it’s his job to increase the size of the church through entrepreneurial leadership and strategic planning and creative ideas and various other manifestations of organizational genius. And, of course, a decent amount of personal charisma doesn’t hurt either. But as we look at Acts 6, we see that that’s not what a pastor’s calling consists of. It’s not even close. Instead, God’s design and calling for pastors is to devote themselves to two things: prayer and the ministry of the word. Of course, it’s not that pastors aren’t allowed to do anything else at all. It’s just that a pastor’s main focus needs to be on these two priorities. That word “devote” there in verse 4 is a very interesting word. It carries the meaning of attaching yourself to something. So the apostles are literally saying, “We will attach ourselves to prayer and the ministry of the word.”

Now, keep in mind that it’s not that other things in the church aren’t important but rather that these things—these two responsibilities—are foundational. The leaders of the church need to focus their attention on the things that are most foundational. Because, just like with a physical building, if the foundation’s not right, nothing else in that building is going to be right. The whole structure will be unsound if the foundation isn’t laid properly. So it’s a pastor’s job to make sure that the church has a solid foundation—through prayer and the ministry of the Word—in order to facilitate everything else. 

The Ministry of the Word

So let’s explore these two responsibilities a little bit. And we’ll do that in reverse order, because I’d like to start with the one I believe we’re stronger in. Think first about that phrase “the ministry of the word”—the “word” being the Word of God in the Bible. Notice, though, the word “ministry”—διακονία in the Greek. It’s the noun form of the Greek verb διακονέω that was used earlier, in verse 2, to speak of the food distribution ministry. The apostles had said, “It is not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve (διακονέω) tables.” And here in verse 4 they’re saying “we will devote ourselves to…the ministry (or service or διακονία) of the word.” So, in essence, the apostles are saying, “Let’s have these other men serve tables, while we’ll serve the word.”

And I love that connection, because it really brings out the responsibility that preachers have to “serve the word” in the sense of regarding the Word of God in Scripture as our master and authority. So often, preachers get this backwards. Instead of starting with the Word and asking the question, “What does the Word say?”, they start with their own agenda that they then impose onto the Word. As a result, their preaching revolves around a certain creative ideas that they have and cultural commentary that they desire to offer and people’s felt needs for things like joy, peace, and purpose. Instead of starting with the Word and letting the Word drive their preaching, they start with their own ideas that they want to talk about and let those ideas drive their preaching. Of course, they’ll always sprinkle in a few Bible verses to make it all sound more spiritual, but ultimately it’s not the Word that’s driving their sermon. I once heard a preacher say that there’s a big difference between the Word being the substance of a sermon and it merely being the seasoning of a sermon. 

Serving the World involves placing ourselves under the Word and regarding it as our master and authority. And that’s what we try to do here at Redeeming Grace. Every Monday morning, I sit down in front of my laptop, I read the text of Scripture I’ll be preaching on, and then I ask myself, “Okay, how can I best explain this text? And then how can I help people connect it to their lives?” Biblical preaching really is that simple. It’s not rocket science. “How can I best explain this text? And then how can I help people connect it to their lives?”

And it’s very important that church leaders—especially the preaching pastor—limit their other commitments so that they have the time to do this well. Because even a one-degree divergence will have a disastrous effect on the church. Think about an airplane flying somewhere. If an airplane is trying to fly to a certain destination and is off course by just one degree, that might not seem like a big deal. I mean, if the airplane’s supposed to be going this way and instead goes that way, it certainly doesn’t seem like a big deviation at all. But as the distance the airplane travels increases, that one degree divergence actually makes a pretty significant impact on where the plane ends up. After 100 yards, the plane would be off its target by about 5.2 feet. Not a huge difference, but you can definitely notice it. After a mile, it would be off by 92.2 feet. So the divergence is starting to have more of an impact. Then after travelling from San Francisco to Los Angeles, it would be off by 6 miles. Then travelling from San Francisco to Washington D.C., it would end up 42.6 miles off course, which is basically not even in Washington DC but instead on the other side of Baltimore. Then, if you wanted to make this even more fun, you could turn that plane into a rocket ship and start thinking about it going to the moon. If that rocket ship was just one degree off, it would miss the moon by 4,169 miles. Going to the sun, it would be off by 1.6 million miles. And then traveling to the nearest star other than the sun, it would be off by 441 billion miles. So you get the idea. The longer that plane or rocket ship continues its divergent course, even if the divergence is just one degree, the farther away it’s going to end up from its intended destination. A one degree divergence can make a huge difference. 

And that’s why those who preach need to be so careful and exercise the utmost diligence in their handling of the Word of God. A pastor needs to be just as careful in his preaching as a brain surgeon needs to be in operating on someone—and actually even more careful because we’re talking about eternity here. We’re not just talking about people’s physical welfare; we’re talking about their eternal welfare. 

You see, the main message of “the word” is one that has eternal implications. When the apostles speak of “the word” here, they’re talking about the entirety of biblical revelation—as they possessed it at that point. And that revelation doesn’t just give us tidbits of moral wisdom or a collection of inspirational quotes. It’s a message that’s first and foremost oriented around our eternal welfare. “The word” tells us that we have a big problem—that our sins have alienated us from a holy God and made us deserving of eternal punishment. Yet God hasn’t left us in that terrible condition but has mercifully sent us a Savior in the person of Jesus. “The word” then describes how Jesus left the glories of heaven and came to this sin-cursed earth in order to save us. And the central feature of his saving work is his death on the cross. In “the word,” we learn that Jesus’ death on the cross was tragic but not accidental. God the Father planned it because it was the only way we could be saved from our sins. You see, on the cross, Jesus endured the punishment we deserved. All of the judgment that should have come down on you and me came down on Jesus instead. He suffered it in our place because of his great love for us. Then, after three days, Jesus resurrected from the dead and now offers us forgiveness and rescue from our sins. And he’s the only hope we have for forgiveness and rescue. No amount of moral effort on our part can ever make us right with God again, but Jesus can—if we’ll simply put our trust in him to do that. That’s the central message that the apostles were devoting themselves to and is the very foundation of what we believe as Christians and of who we are. Everything we do in “the ministry of the word” grows out of and comes back to this glorious message of the gospel. 

Prayer

Then, secondly, not only do pastors need to focus their attention on the ministry of the Word, we see in this text that they also need to focus on prayer. One pastor from the 1800’s named Andrew Bonar once said that “As the King of Syria commanded his captains to fight neither with small nor great, but only with the King of Israel, so [Satan] seems to bend all the force of his attack against the spirit of prayer. If he should prove victorious there, he has won the day.” Many of you may recognize that as a reference to 1 Kings 22. And it’s very true—which is why pastors have to be so deliberate in their devotion to prayer. 

Also, one thing that may surprise you about the word “prayer” in this verse is that it actually has a definite article in front of it in the original Greek text. So a more literal translation would be “we will devote ourselves to the prayer and to the ministry of the word.” And that’s significant because it means there’s a very good chance this refers not just to the apostles devoting themselves to private prayer on their own but to leading corporate prayer meetings. Notice how “the prayer” balances with “the ministry of the word.” Just as the ministry of the Word was a public thing, the prayer should be interpreted primarily as a public thing as well. So they’re basically saying, “We will devote ourselves to leading prayer meetings and to the ministry of the word.” 

And I’m grateful that, even though there’s certainly a lot of room for improvement in our church, our elders are at least making an effort to do that in the form of our prayer meeting that we have each Wednesday evening at our church building. Our elders and a few others take turns leading that meeting as a way of hopefully leading our entire congregation toward a fruitful ministry of prayer.

Because, at the end of the day, it’s prayer that makes the ministry of the Word fruitful. That’s how these two priorities of prayer and the ministry of the Word relate to each other. We can’t expect the ministry of the Word to bear any fruit apart from prayer. Kind of like putting out grass seed. As most of you probably know, grass seed won’t start to germinate until it comes into contact with water. Water is what activates the grass seed and initiates germination. You could sow grass seed all day long, but until that seed comes into contact with water, nothing is going to happen. The seed will remain just as inactive as it was in the bag. And likewise with the Word of God, we can sow the seed of the Word all day long, but nothing’s going to happen until the Spirit of God takes the Word of God and causes it to have an effect on our hearts. And the only way we can expect the Spirit to do that is through our prayers. 

I once heard a pastor compare it to the two wings of an airplane. I know I just used an airplane illustration, but I’m going to use another one. As you know, airplanes need two wings in order to fly. I’m scheduled to ride on an airplane in a couple of weeks, and I can tell you right now that if I get on that airplane and look out the windows and see that the plane only has one wing, I’m getting off. I don’t care what I have to do—I’ll knock down women and children if I have to in order to get off of that plane. Because I know that planes need two wings in order to fly. And I can’t help but wonder whether that’s a key part of the explanation for why so many churches in America are in the condition they’re in. Could it be that they’re trying to fly a one-winged airplane? 

You know, I praise God for the resurgence of expository preaching that the church has seen in recent years. It seems as though more and more pastors are rediscovering the importance of letting the Word drive their sermons. I also appreciate the resurgence of sound Reformed theology that we’ve seen in recent years as well. And yet, so many of these churches with great preaching and great theology and spiritually lifeless. Why is that? Could it be that we’re trying to fly a plane that only has one wing—a plan that has the wing of the ministry of the Word but not the wing of prayer? Our greatest need is to have not just one wing but two wings so that together those wings of prayer and the ministry of the Word can catch the wind of the Holy Spirit so that this plane can soar. We need both wings in order for that to happen. 

Brothers and sisters, if there’s one thing I desire for our church, it’s that God would be at work in our midst. I want to see God at work. I want to see people who are far from God encountering him and embracing him. I want to see Acts 6:7 happen in our church. It states that “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.” I want to see that! I want to see the Word of God increase in our region. And just like a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith back then, I want to see a great many people today who might often be viewed the unlikeliest people to embrace Jesus do so and be changed forever. But here’s the thing: I don’t think we’ll ever see verse 7 without verse 4. I don’t think we’ll ever see the Word of God increase in this way unless we as a church—not just the leaders but the whole church—give central place to prayer and the ministry of the Word. This plane needs both wings in order to go anywhere.