Week 43 Acts 6
I get the sense that in the early days the NT church categorized people in one of two ways:
There were people who believed in the Lord and were in the church.
There were people who didn’t believe in the Lord and were outside of the church.
A pretty basic divide. But things didn’t stay simple:
As the believers rapidly multiplied, there were rumblings of discontent. Those who spoke Greek complained against those who spoke Hebrew, saying that their widows were being discriminated against in the daily distribution of food.
So an in-church sub-division had already began:
There were people in the church who believed (and spoke Hebrew).
And people in the church who believed (and spoke Greek).
(Soon enough there’ll be:
Jewish people in the church who believed and spoke Hebrew.
Jewish people in the church who believed and spoke Greek.
And non-Jewish people in the church who believed and spoke Greek.
And there’d be more subdivisions: nationality ethnicity language country-of-origin gender occupation age wealth/income status class vocation marital-status health and like that.)
So anyway…what happened with the inequitable food distribution?
The leaders listened to the complaint…
They knew they needed to re-equalize the inequity…
So they gave highly qualified people the job of restoring equilibrium.
Back in chapter two it sounded like the church was uncommonly wonderful. By chapter six there were signs the wonderfulness was degrading so the church took action to restore what it had had.
Note: quote from Acts 6:1 (NLT)