Equipped to serve
This week's study is on Acts 6:1-7:
These verses stand out to me because they fly in the face of how church business is usually run. The church was young. It was so young, in fact, that it was still on its first generation of leaders. They were filled with compassion for the poor, but at the same time they were critical for the sharing of the gospel because of the power of their first-hand experience with Jesus. Things were starting to fall through the cracks. Some of the people they trusted to help out with it were heavily prejudiced and so one group was trying to take the other's share of the charity.
So they decided to delegate this task to people who were "full of the Spirit and wisdom." I can see wisdom being a necessity for the food pantry, but what church have you ever seen that requires "being filled with the Holy Spirit" as a requirement to serve in the food pantry? I mean, there are successful food pantries being run by people who aren't even Christians! Why is the Holy Spirit a requirement for handing out food?
When people think about the Holy Spirit, they think about the Charismatic stuff, like spiritual gifts, prophesy, speaking in tongues, miraculous healings, etc. But giving people food? Caring for widows? Usually when someone starts to become a spirit-filled Christian, people push them out to go do "spiritual" stuff, but here they're doing physical stuff too. (Note that I said "too." I'm not arguing that the spiritual gifts aren't a rich part of what the Holy Spirit brings to us, as the next paragraph talks about Stephen performing miracles, but that the Holy Spirit is actually there for a bigger reason.)
I think it plays into what I taught about last week, how the fruit of the Spirit is all of those very Christlike loving qualities. If you're seeing the church as Christ's manifest presence in the world, and you're going to equip a group of people to serve as the hands for touching the most vulnerable and sensitive kinds of people, do you really want to end up with a bunch of career-builders, bean counters, or heartless bureaucrats? Social workers burn out quickly. They develop thick skins. Do you want Christ's tender hands to be calloused and rough? No! You want the people who are the most loving, most gentle, most patient people you can find! You want people who have tapped into the limitless reserves of God's love.
Widows were not just weak though. Some of them had quite a reputation for manipulation. Some were young and seductive. One of the things the Holy Spirit confers on us is a conviction of danger and an insulation from the schemes of others. If the Hellenistic Jews were making up the whole thing about being cheated out of food in order to get more, a Spirit filled charity worker would know. And if the Hebraic Jews were running some scheme to get more food because they were "more Jewish" than the other Jews, they wouldn't fall for that either. And Paul talks about the perils of Christians preying on widows and their households, seducing them and living off of their inheritances. A Spirit filled charity worker would feel the Holy Spirit telling them not to go down that path if they started.
These were guys who were miracle workers, but their reputation and the trust placed in them was for their Christlikeness. When Paul is saying "seek first the gift of prophesy," he's not saying to ignore all of the other stuff the Holy Spirit is offering. It's assumed that the evidence of the Spirit is going to be in your life. They're parts of the same thing! What good would these guys have been at serving the poor and the widows if they were busy trying to be spiritual first? "I'd like to make sure you have food this week, but I have to spend four hours a day praying. Sorry." "I know your kid is hungry, but I'm really busy trying to start a church of my own so he's going to have to wait." If there's no love or compassion, what good is the other stuff? The "seek first the gift of prophesy" thing is after the whole "if I don't have love, I have nothing" thing.
As times become hard, and our resources and time become more limited, I think it's incredibly important that we begin to allow God to fill us completely with His Spirit. Not only do I think we need the miraculous power to demonstrate God's game-changing nature to people who have never encountered him on that level before, but I also believe that we need to be incredibly strong to face some of the things that life will throw at us. If we're all flash and no substance, we'll be no good to anyone, not even ourselves.
A lot of people talk about the Holy Spirit nowadays, and we're very lucky to be able to talk about it. But the power of the Spirit is not just to speak into other people's lives, but to be transformed back into God's image, to be his representative and agent in the world. The Holy Spirit exists to equip us for service, allowing us to do things we could never do on our own, only some of which would be things an outsider would recognize as miracles. Be ready not just to be impressed but to be used.
In those days when the number of disciples was increasing, the Hellenistic Jews among them complained against the Hebraic Jews because their widows were being overlooked in the daily distribution of food. So the Twelve gathered all the disciples together and said, “It would not be right for us to neglect the ministry of the word of God in order to wait on tables. Brothers and sisters, choose seven men from among you who are known to be full of the Spirit and wisdom. We will turn this responsibility over to them and will give our attention to prayer and the ministry of the word.”
This proposal pleased the whole group. They chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit; also Philip, Procorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicolas from Antioch, a convert to Judaism. They presented these men to the apostles, who prayed and laid their hands on them.
So the word of God spread. The number of disciples in Jerusalem increased rapidly, and a large number of priests became obedient to the faith.
These verses stand out to me because they fly in the face of how church business is usually run. The church was young. It was so young, in fact, that it was still on its first generation of leaders. They were filled with compassion for the poor, but at the same time they were critical for the sharing of the gospel because of the power of their first-hand experience with Jesus. Things were starting to fall through the cracks. Some of the people they trusted to help out with it were heavily prejudiced and so one group was trying to take the other's share of the charity.
So they decided to delegate this task to people who were "full of the Spirit and wisdom." I can see wisdom being a necessity for the food pantry, but what church have you ever seen that requires "being filled with the Holy Spirit" as a requirement to serve in the food pantry? I mean, there are successful food pantries being run by people who aren't even Christians! Why is the Holy Spirit a requirement for handing out food?
When people think about the Holy Spirit, they think about the Charismatic stuff, like spiritual gifts, prophesy, speaking in tongues, miraculous healings, etc. But giving people food? Caring for widows? Usually when someone starts to become a spirit-filled Christian, people push them out to go do "spiritual" stuff, but here they're doing physical stuff too. (Note that I said "too." I'm not arguing that the spiritual gifts aren't a rich part of what the Holy Spirit brings to us, as the next paragraph talks about Stephen performing miracles, but that the Holy Spirit is actually there for a bigger reason.)
I think it plays into what I taught about last week, how the fruit of the Spirit is all of those very Christlike loving qualities. If you're seeing the church as Christ's manifest presence in the world, and you're going to equip a group of people to serve as the hands for touching the most vulnerable and sensitive kinds of people, do you really want to end up with a bunch of career-builders, bean counters, or heartless bureaucrats? Social workers burn out quickly. They develop thick skins. Do you want Christ's tender hands to be calloused and rough? No! You want the people who are the most loving, most gentle, most patient people you can find! You want people who have tapped into the limitless reserves of God's love.
Widows were not just weak though. Some of them had quite a reputation for manipulation. Some were young and seductive. One of the things the Holy Spirit confers on us is a conviction of danger and an insulation from the schemes of others. If the Hellenistic Jews were making up the whole thing about being cheated out of food in order to get more, a Spirit filled charity worker would know. And if the Hebraic Jews were running some scheme to get more food because they were "more Jewish" than the other Jews, they wouldn't fall for that either. And Paul talks about the perils of Christians preying on widows and their households, seducing them and living off of their inheritances. A Spirit filled charity worker would feel the Holy Spirit telling them not to go down that path if they started.
These were guys who were miracle workers, but their reputation and the trust placed in them was for their Christlikeness. When Paul is saying "seek first the gift of prophesy," he's not saying to ignore all of the other stuff the Holy Spirit is offering. It's assumed that the evidence of the Spirit is going to be in your life. They're parts of the same thing! What good would these guys have been at serving the poor and the widows if they were busy trying to be spiritual first? "I'd like to make sure you have food this week, but I have to spend four hours a day praying. Sorry." "I know your kid is hungry, but I'm really busy trying to start a church of my own so he's going to have to wait." If there's no love or compassion, what good is the other stuff? The "seek first the gift of prophesy" thing is after the whole "if I don't have love, I have nothing" thing.
As times become hard, and our resources and time become more limited, I think it's incredibly important that we begin to allow God to fill us completely with His Spirit. Not only do I think we need the miraculous power to demonstrate God's game-changing nature to people who have never encountered him on that level before, but I also believe that we need to be incredibly strong to face some of the things that life will throw at us. If we're all flash and no substance, we'll be no good to anyone, not even ourselves.
A lot of people talk about the Holy Spirit nowadays, and we're very lucky to be able to talk about it. But the power of the Spirit is not just to speak into other people's lives, but to be transformed back into God's image, to be his representative and agent in the world. The Holy Spirit exists to equip us for service, allowing us to do things we could never do on our own, only some of which would be things an outsider would recognize as miracles. Be ready not just to be impressed but to be used.
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