Doing our part

DEVOTION

THE BOOK OF ACTS

DOING OUR PART

Acts 6:1-4

6:1 In those days when the number of disciples was increasing, the Grecian Jews among them complained against the Hebraic Jews because their widows were being overlooked in the daily distribution of food. 2 So the Twelve gathered all the disciples together and said, "It would not be right for us to neglect the ministry of the word of God in order to wait on tables. 3 Brothers, choose seven men from among you who are known to be full of the Spirit and wisdom. We will turn this responsibility over to them 4 and will give our attention to prayer and the ministry of the word."

NIV

We first should note there was two subgroups within the early church, those who were Jews that had been dispersed and spoke Greek, but had moved back to Israel at some time and most likely attended a Greek speaking synagogue while the Hebraic Jews were born in Israel, lived their whole lives in Israel and spoke Aramaic, attending the Aramaic speaking synagogues. These people had both heard the words of the Apostles and became believers in Jesus as the Christ, but they still were somewhat divided by their past experiences. The early church was not much different than our postmodern church in that matter. But we should not focus on division but rather on the need of the widows and the resulting decision of the twelve. This certainly gives us some insight into the focus of the Apostles. Although they were concerned about the needs of the widows, they felt it was far better to appoint Spirit filled men who also had wisdom, which is experience in the new life in Christ, to attend to the needs, administration of the needs, while the Apostles maintained their focus on leading the church in the direction God desired. We can surely see what we could call elders and deacons being started here. Those who focused on leadership of the church through prayer, attending to the spiritual needs of the people and those who attended to the administration of the physical needs of the people. So what kind of life lesson in there in this for us? Are we part of the twelve or part of the seven or are we a part of either? It would seem in order to be a part of either we would need to be called by God, or appointed by those called by God to ministry the word. But have we not all been called by God to be his witnesses to the uttermost parts of the world? Have we not also been appointed to attend to the physical needs of others? Yet this passage does deal specifically with the elders and deacons of the early church. Maybe we should just leave this as a history lesson and forget about making ourselves a part to play, as we may not be either or could identify with either. But we should identify with one or the other or both. We should also be able spend time in prayer and to ministry the word of God whenever the occasion presents itself as well as we should be able to serve the needs of those widows. Now in later days it was made clear about who the widows were that should be cared for, but for now all of them were. The point here is that we should be doing something, that we should not just be attending church, that we should be able the business of either attending to the Spiritual well-being or the physical well-being of others. If the church is to grow we all need to be doing our part.

We should also note that whatever we do we should be doing it after prayer, that is to say, we should not be doing with human understanding, but doing as directed by God.