DEACONS? AND STEPHEN
Acts 6-7

Every time your church ordains deacons, you will encounter this passage as representing the origin of the diaconate. It may be. On the other hand, the noun “deacon” is not used, only the words “to serve,” which in Greek is diakono. One could also argue this was the first benevolence committee or some other kind of ad hoc committee formed for that one purpose and not as a part of an ongoing church office.

The problem that popped  up was a simple question of how food was being distributed. Remember the day of Pentecost and all the different languages needed to understand Peter? The early church began as a sort of United Nations with people joining the new faith from all over the world. There were, of course, the natives from Jerusalem and all of Israel. They spoke Hebrew or Aramaic and worshiped at the temple and kept the Law as prescribed by Moses. Since Jesus and his disciples came from this group, it was natural to think of them as the normal Christians.

Apparently a huge amount of that early church was made up of Greek speakers, who came from all over the world to worship in Jerusalem. There they found the disciples preaching Jesus and became Christians.

Now remember the last lesson where we found the disciples were sharing among each other as they had need. The total number had now grown to 5,000 or more. (How would your church handle that kind of increase in, say, six months?) Since the scripture says “daily distribution,” apparently there was some kind of organized benevolence program taking place. In the upshot, the Greek widows began to feel the system favored the Hebrew widows, and the Greeks were being left out or left til last. They complained, and the first threat of a church split arose. Note the fault lines were similar to the later conflict between whether one must first become a Jew before becoming a Christian. Something had to be done.

When the problem came to the attention of the Twelve, they called a congregational meeting – Acts says the whole church! I'm not  sure that 5,000 people were there, but a good bunch. Note that the first “business meeting” of the early church called the entire congregation to make the decision. The apostles told the church they didn't want to get distracted from their ministry of the Word to “serve tables.”
We need to pause here and look at this in some detail. The Exploring the Bible curriculum prints the text from the Holman Christian Bible. When I read that translation of “to serve tables,” I nearly exploded. Holman reads “to handle financial matters.” That is not at all correct, either as a Greek translation or to fit Baptist polity. They acknowledge the problem with a note that reads “or to serve tables.” But even in the setting the problem was not a financial problem. It was a fellowship problem. They formed the committee to avoid a church split, or at least a rancorous division.

This is particularly troubling because anyone familiar with Baptist life knows that a constant problem in churches is the role and place of deacons. I have had deacons who felt it was their responsibility to “rule” the church. That is nonsense. In Baptist churches, the congregation is the final authority. I don't know how many times I have heard that Baptist churches are the purest example of a democracy. Certainly, the pastor should be a leader, and the church should follow him, but not as yes-men. But neither are the deacons to keep the pastor in place. If Acts 6 is indeed the origin of the office, their role is primarily to promote the fellowship of the community. Years ago, P T Burroughs wrote a book called “Honoring the Deaconship.” One chapter stated the deaconship is not honored when the finances of the church are given to someone else, such as a finance committee. This is total nonsense and fed years of problems, so I can't understand Holman's translation.

The Twelve recommended the church select a committee (deacons?) of seven to deal with the problem. Note that each of the Seven had a Greek name. I would have perhaps had three Hebrews and three Greeks with a Greek chairman who had lived a good while in Jerusalem. But the disciples' and the church's choice worked. We don't know what they did, but whatever they did worked, and we hear no more about the problem.

Incidentally, one commentator suggested the Twelve might have been wrong. Why? Because the first five chapters deal with their ministry, but after this incident, the Seven become featured, Stephen and Phillip.