Acts 6:1-7 - Schuyler and Hellenists and Deacons, Oh My!

Podcast Transcript (Auto-Transcribed by Apple Podcasts)

Hello, and welcome back to Tabernacle Talk. We're gonna be looking at a great passage today, Acts 6. This might be one of the shortest passages that we have ever done yet in all of our 11 podcast episodes.

We're only going over seven verses today, Acts 6, 1 through 7. And I want to give a quick shout out today. The company that makes this particular Bible is Schuyler, Schuyler Bibles, S-C-H-U-Y-L-E-R.

You can find their Bibles at evangelicalbible.com, and they do some of literally the best work in the world as far as mass-produced Bibles. This is their new American Standard 2020 edition.

This is the Striden, and the Striden is single column verse by verse layout. So it's great for teaching and preaching. This is in a green goatskin.

Green is my favorite color. And so I got this Bible for my birthday, I think, a year or two ago.

Just an amazing Bible would strongly encourage you if you're looking for a Bible that you're like, hey, I want something that will last for my lifetime that I can pass down to my kids or my grandkids or my great grandkids.

You would be very hard put to find a better option than Schuyler. So, from my Schuyler Bible, here's Acts 6 verses one through seven.

Now, at this time, as the disciples were increasing in number, a complaint developed on the part of the Hellenistic Jews against the native Hebrews because their widows were being overlooked in the daily serving of food.

Now, we've gone from a bunch of things that we kind of know about to an all new situation. We know about preaching the gospel. We've heard about people being arrested for preaching the gospel.

All of that's pretty familiar to us. This is a whole new type of thing. What does it mean, Hellenistic Jews, native Hebrews?

So the Hellenistic Jews would be those Jews that would have been very involved in Greek culture. A lot of times, they maybe would have had Greek names. They would have eaten Greek foods as opposed to maybe Jewish foods.

They would have had customs that were more, oh, well, the Greeks do this. This is the kinds of things that we do versus a more, oh, well, this is what the Jews do.

So the Hellenistic Jews would have been Jews, possibly, that could have come in during Pentecost and some of those times that had traveled to Jerusalem and stayed around to learn more and find out more about Jesus.

It could have been just people that had been Hellenistic Jews in the area of Jerusalem that had chosen to join with the church.

And we see the specific complaint here being listed is that the Hellenistic Jews' widows were being overlooked in the daily serving of food. So we've talked before about the fact that the apostles and disciples, they had all things common.

They, no one said, this is my stuff, and all of you guys, if you're poor, if you're having difficulty financially, if you lost your job because you're a Christian, that's kind of tough.

No, they were all looking out for one another, and there was a daily serving of food, taking care of those that did not have things. Here specifically, widows.

And what a wonderful thing I think of James chapter one where it says, pure religion and undefiled before God the Father is this, to visit the fatherless and the widows in their affliction and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.

And it's a wonderful thing to take care of widows. But here, there was some favoritism being shown. There was a, okay, we only have so much food and so who do we choose to give the food to?

Okay, well, we'll give it to the native Hebrews and the Hellenistic Jews, they're not really as holy as our native Hebrews. And so that's why we'll do this. So there is this opportunity now for there to be great conflict in the early church.

What do the apostles do? Verse number two, So the twelve summoned the congregation of the disciples and said, it is not desirable for us to neglect the word of God in order to serve tables.

Instead, brothers and sisters, select from among you seven men of good reputation, full of the spirit and of wisdom, whom we may put in charge of this task. But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.

So here's the specific thought that the apostles give. They are this early church's pastors. That is what they do.

And they say, it's not desirable for us to neglect the word of God in order to serve tables.

There can sometimes be an opposition that's placed between, oh yeah, you just read the Bible or you just study the Bible and I'm doing the really important thing of serving tables.

And what the apostles say here is that both are important and God has designated it so that some people are to give more time to one and other people are called to give more time to the other.

And here, because they had been with Jesus, because Jesus had told them, we can read in the end of Luke and I believe one or two of the other gospels as well, where Jesus walked through the entire Old Testament with these men and said, here's how all

of it relates to me as the Messiah. Here's where it's talking about me, here are the prophecies about me.

And so for these brothers, they were constantly looking to spend time in the Word of God so that they could explain to other people, here is what God says, here is what Jesus did, here is what Jesus taught.

So they are continually giving themselves to the Word of God.

And in order for them to also deal with this situation, it would have required a neglect of the Word of God, an abandonment, a forsaking, a leaving the Word of God in order to serve tables. Is serving tables bad?

No, but these were the people that God had placed in charge of spiritually feeding the people. So their recommendation is find seven men of good reputation.

I think of the verse in Proverbs that says, a good reputation is rather to be chosen than great riches. And loving favor that people would know you and love you is greater than silver and gold. They say full of the Spirit.

If you have a person that is not full of the Spirit of God, that their life is not overflowing with love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and temperance, if they're not overflowing with those things, do not put that

kind of a person in charge of things. I don't care how much business savvy they have. I don't care how excellent they are at leading. If a person is not full of the Spirit, do not place them in charge of things in a church.

Full of the Spirit and full of wisdom. It is a wonderful thing to be full of wisdom. I can think even in Proverbs where it says, the fear of the Lord, that healthy reverence and awe and dread of our all-powerful God is the beginning of wisdom.

And you want someone, if they're going to be in charge of something, to have some wisdom. So they say, men of good reputation, full of the Spirit, full of wisdom, whom we may put in charge of this task.

Deacons, which is what this kind of office became in the early church, and we can read about that in several other places in Scripture. As we see it in church history, the deacons were eventually called the overseers of the poor.

That their ministry was helping equip people to serve. So, how it occasionally looked in church history was that you had your pastors, overseers, bishops, elders.

They would help equip people spiritually, and they would help equip you to be able to have conversations with your loved ones, with your boss, with your neighbors, with your whoever about spiritual matters.

And the deacons, the overseers, the ones that oversaw ministry and small tasks that could be done for widows here, for the fatherless, for helping with things like baptism or the Lord's Table, all of those things, that's what they helped with.

So, one side kind of helped out with the spiritual, and the other side, while still being spiritual people, full of the spirit, good reputation, wise, they were helping out with practical needs.

And I'm so thankful for people that have done both of those things in my life, for the people that have fed me spiritually so that I know the Bible and I know what God says. I'm so thankful for those people.

I'm so thankful for those people that have given of their time to help me.

I can think of various times in my life where I needed help with my car, where I needed help moving, where I needed help with any number of things, that people helping out with practical needs showed me Jesus, showed me the Jesus that was described

to me by my spiritual teachers. And those two things together make a wonderful church, a church that's not just focused on knowledge, a church that's not just focused on, let's do mental whatever with the spiritual wisdom and exercises and learn lots

of spiritual things, but never put it into practice. And when those two things together are married, both a spiritual focus that leads to a physical, earthly doing of good, those things married together is so wonderful.

So, what was the response to this? Oh, I'll say this real quick in verse number four. But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.

Verse four is a constant reminder to me that my main focus as a pastor is not wonderful graphics or a great website or any number of things that could be good, that could be wonderful things to do.

My primary ministry is the ministry of prayer and the ministry of the word. That's why I do Tabernacle Talk, so that I can help encourage people in the word of God.

It's great for me that I am constantly in the word of God and learning and all of that in addition to my sermons and things that I'm doing with people. But this is one way in which I seek to minister through the word and then in prayer.

I have a list every day that I pray through of our church elders, of our church members, people that I am praying for, people that I'm praying maybe join the church or get saved or get baptized or any number of things, praying for all of those.

So that's my ministry is prayer and the word and anyone can jump into those ministries. They can pray for people. They can constantly be in God's word and tell those around them how God is speaking to them.

It's a wonderful thing. I would encourage you in that. So verses five, six and seven.

The announcement found approval with the whole congregation and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit, and Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicolaus, a proselyte from Antioch.

So they get these seven men and the first one named is Stephen. We're going to see why in the subsequent chapter. And they brought these men before the apostles and after praying, they laid their hands on them.

This was their ordination of the deacons, that they said, we are setting you aside for this service in the church. And I've been able to see several people get ordained over the years and it's not primarily a legal thing.

It's not primarily even a bunch of churches doing something. It is a local church like here, the local church of Jerusalem, dedicating, ordaining, setting aside specific people for a specific task of service.

Sometimes that might be a pastor or an elder. Sometimes that might be a deacon. And so a wonderful thing.

What was the result of all of this? Did anything work? Verse number seven, the word of God kept spreading and the number of the disciples continued to increase greatly in Jerusalem and a great many of the priests were becoming obedient to the faith.

What a cool section of scripture that where there could have been disunity instead, verse seven, the word of God keeps spreading and the number of the disciples continue to increase greatly and even those that were hostile to the faith, the priests

are now becoming obedient to the faith. Today, you can have the same mission as a deacon. Number one, you can help to maintain unity in the church and you can do that by being a peacemaker.

I think of Jesus' words in the Beatitudes where he says, blessed are the peacemakers. And what a wonderful comfort it is when people are able to dwell in unity.

I can think a couple weeks ago in church, we read Psalm 133, how beautiful it is for brethren, for brothers and sisters to dwell together in unity. All of us can help build unity in the church. We can all serve others like deacons are called to do.

And all of us can help kind of lift the load from someone else. Here it was the deacons that were lifting the load off of their pastors so that the pastors could spend time in prayer and the word.

And all of us can take time out of our day or out of our week to be able to serve someone else to help lighten their load. Hope this would be an encouragement to you.

Look forward to talking tomorrow about Stephen a little bit more and I know it'll be a wonderful time.