During the infancy of the church, all believers willfully shared things in common. The resulting common supply was then redistributed to those who needed it most (Acts 2:44-45). This process of freely giving and freely sharing allowed for the earliest known division in the history of the church (Acts 6:1). That division occurred when Greek-speaking believers began to complain that the needs of their widows were not being adequately met with the daily distribution of that common supply, while the widows of the Hebrew-speaking believers appeared to be getting what they needed from that same distribution. It isn’t clear why the Greek-speaking widows were not getting their needs met. Perhaps the church had grown so explosively fast that the administrative structures in place at the time were so overwhelmed by need that there was no capacity to manage the distribution competently. But whatever the reason, the Greek-speaking believers implied favoritism with their complaint, – which was done against the Hebrew-speaking believers. This apparent disgruntlement makes sense. The Hebraic believers may have seen themselves as a cut above because they were directly enmeshed in the history, religious culture, and language of the Hebrew scriptures. This misplaced cultural zeal could have lent itself to an air of prideful superiority, and potential contempt for their Hellenist brothers and sisters. The Greek believers, on the other hand, weren’t directly connected by history to that culture, didn’t necessarily speak the language, and even used a Greek translation of the Old Testament scriptures instead of the original Hebrew employed by the Hebrew speaking believers. Many of them were proselytes, or converts to Judaism (Acts 6:5, proselyte).
Ultimately, the apostles solved this conflict by appointing seven deacons to administrate the distribution. Providentially, those seven men all bore Greek names. The spiritual wisdom of the apostles was clear. They ordered that these deacons be chosen from among the believers with the requirement that they all had to have a good reputation and be full of Spirit and wisdom. Since everyone agreed with the choices, no one could complain.
The apostles then did something even more profound. They laid hands on the seven chosen men. This signaled their identification with them. The apostolic leadership was recognizing the legitimacy of Greek-speaking believers and publicly transferring to them through the laying on of their hands a level of official authority and duty. For those truly committed to following Christ, this helped cement unity in a body of believers that might otherwise have succumbed to petty division.
Kommentare