Responsibilities in the Church

Acts 6:7 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.

There was a complaint against the Church’s administration and this happened while the church was growing (Acts 6:1). But the apostles did not concentrate on the adding members alone but they prioritized this problem and addressed immediately so that the numbers started multiplying even more greatly. This time even priests became obedient to the faith which is an enormous change to the Church. Priests who had dedicated their whole lives to God and knew theology really well had not just accepted but became obedient because the administration was well organized in the Church.

Verse 1 says that the Hellenists had complained that their widows were neglected in the daily distribution. The problem was simple that the ones who had responsibilities were predominantly Hebrews. And they had to serve their relatives first and so, the Hellenist widows were neglected. This problem was to be addressed in the Church. We can see a similar situation in any church because there are a few people who are fed or encouraged because they are closer to the pastor or leaders and the rest were neglected. James 2:1-4 says that we become men with evil motives if we practice partiality in the Church. It may not seem right in the beginning or outwardly but the motive clearly changes to get more recognition or revenue. The church should be very careful in this decision.

The solution is immediately identified by looking for men with good reputation, full of Spirit and full of wisdom. These qualities are mandatory for any person to hold any responsibility in the Church. God allowed the simplest of responsibilities to be documented here and we have to learn that every action or responsibility in the Church is totally different that that we hold in our homes or businesses. These designations do not require talent or resources because we depend of the Holy Spirit here.

We see the first occurrence of democracy here as the decision was made by the people and not the apostles themselves. In Luke 22:17 also we read Jesus wanting us to divide the bread among ourselves. The New Testament clearly wants us to follow this example where another person does not dominate the Church as the head being Christ alone. That’s why it was more than one person who went to minister always. Also God trusts people more now than during the Old Testament. Before Christ, God nominated men to hold responsibilities but when the Church was formed, the apostles gave the instructions to the believers so that they could choose among themselves.

The second thing we have to notice here is that if a person is spirit filled, the believers were able to identify that person. But now a days, preachers have the necessity to prove themselves to survive. If we are looking to bring the old original church now, it is very much required that people should be able to see a person and identify that he is full of spirit and wisdom. As per Hebrews 5:12-14, a spirit of discernment is very much required for Christians to mature. Accepting every preacher or leader just because he has a great talent is not discernment.

As the person matures, even non-believers would be able to identify such a person (Verse 15). This transformation is a promise to us (Mathew 13:43). This transformation can be found in 4 stages in this chapter. Firstly they were looking for people with full of Spirit, wisdom and reputation(v3). But instead the people took another method of searching, men full of faith and spirit(v5). Reputation and wisdom comes from faith. All we have to do is believe that Jesus will lead us and trust our church and future to Him. In verse 8, we see as Stephen was holding this responsibility, power and more grace is entrusted. In the end just before death, we can see that Stephen’s face changed to be a face of an angel. This is a great method shown how God blesses us in the New Testament. Let us pursue this by starting with faith and Spirit.

Amen.