The First Deacons

Acts 6:1-7

In this week’s study we will see the young church face a serious problem that potentially could cause a division that would greatly weaken the foundations of the church. We will look at how they solve it, and what its implications are for us today.

As far as what is recorded for us in the Bible, Peter is about to fade away, and in just a few chapters Paul will rise up to be the dominate figure in Acts. Peter obviously remains an important figure, but Luke’s history will soon shift from the third person perspective, to the second person. This tells us that soon we will be reading a first hand account that Luke himself witnessed as he traveled with Paul, but we are not there yet.

In our current chapter we read that the church is multiplying in size. The last membership count we have recorded for us is five thousand men. At five thousand strong it was already bigger then the vast majority of American churches today. In today’s terms this is a “mega-church” and likely would have its own TV and Radio broadcast. In Acts 6:7 it tells us the church “multiplied greatly”, which is after it told us in Acts 6:1 that it was “multiplying”. This could easily place it lager then the largest church in America, and among the largest churches in our world today, if not the largest. Keep in mind that this is still limited primarily to Jews in Jerusalem, and the church is less then a decade old. If only we were on fire like this early church was, we could easily take back America in a generation or less.

This explosive growth of the church was not with out cost. As any church grows it experiences what we call “growing pains.” These are problems that typically have to do with the administrative and organizational overhead that continues to grow as the organization grows. It is simply more work, and requires more people to manage larger and larger groups. This of problem course is not limited to just the church. My current employer is facing this right now as it tries to deal with the massive need for skilled workers in its IT department. People and resources are getting shifted around, and new staff and resources are being brought on board to compensate. This always means change, and in general people do not like change, and that is where the “pain” comes in. Growing pains are a good problem to have, but they are still a problem.

Luke records for us here an issue that we can take as a typical example of the kinds of things the early church faced as it grew. There was a minority group of Jews among the believers called “Hellenists” that felt they were not getting the same treatment as the rest. Specifically their complaint was that their widows were not getting the proper help. This must have been somewhat surprising for everyone to hear, because the Jewish culture has always included care for the needy in general, and widows in specific. Looking all the way back to Old Testament Law, we can even see provisions for them (for example: Deut 24:19-21). This tradition would carry itself over into the new Christian church. We see that later when Paul writes to Timothy instructions to make sure widows are taken care of (1 Tim 5:3-16). This tells us that the Hellenists were not asking for anything special, just the same care everyone else was getting.

This complaint reached Apostles who are apparently still directly running the church. In response they assembled the membership of the church in order to find a solution to the problem. It is telling that there is no mention of anyone denying the complaint, or arguing whether or not the complaint was reasonable. This at least implies that the widows really were being neglected. What I suspect happened was simply a case of a smaller subgroup falling through the cracks of the larger organization. The church at this time might be the purest church in history, but it was still run by imperfect humans.

The Apostles have a simple solution for the problem, they ask the general membership to present men to take on the responsibility of making sure the widows were cared for. It is probably significant that the names given of the men chosen are all Greek names, as this implies they were all Hellenists.  Once these men are picked, they are given authority by the laying on of hands to administer the care of the widows, and that frees up the Apostles to keep preaching, teaching, and praying.

These men make up the first deacons of the church. At this point there is no official title, or position for it, that would come much later, but the concept is here. Different modern day churches have different ideas on how to use the title of “deacon” in their structure, with different degrees of importance and authority. For example, the deacons run some churches, while in others deacons are just regular members called out for special service. What title you give to this job is not really important. What is important is that here we are reading of a clear division in jobs and responsibility.

What we see is that are clear areas of responsibility, and that one person, or one group of people should not do it all.  In the Apostle’s words, “it is not desirable that we should leave the word of God and serve tables” so that they can “give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the word.” In Eph. 4:11 we read that God “gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers” which reinforces this idea of a division of labor. It is worthy of noting that no place in the Bible does it speak that some are given to be pew warmers or Monday morning quarterbacks.

The Apostles were unable to manage such a large church alone so they called on the general membership to elect servants to help. These servants were ordinary members who willingly gave themselves to the service of their Church. This is the proper model for all of us today. When there is a need in the church, it is up to the membership to fill that need so that the Pastors, Priests, and other leadership can focus on their responsibilities. As Paul will write later, we are all members of the body and as such we all have a part to play. No job is more important then any other, and all are required. Whether or not you use special titles is not important, what is important is properly dividing up the labor so that all gets done, and the ultimate goal of leading the lost to salvation can be accomplished.

To illustrate this further, if a preacher is bogged down with the noble job of serving the widows, he will not have sufficient time to pray and preach. If he does not fulfill his job of preaching, and teaching, then how will those that do not know Christ come to learn about Him? If he instead focuses on preaching and neglects the widows, what kind of image does that present of the church to the lost? Instead, if the preacher preaches, and the membership serves, all things are met the lost will see an image of Christ that is more in line with reality and one that opens the door to reach them with the Gospel of salvation.