Acts 6
Bible Passage: Acts 6
Today we read about how the church expanded due to diligent preaching of the disciples and pastoring the flock becomes the next important mission, thus deacons were chosen to serve.
It is important to go out and preach the gospel, but it is also important to care for the flock so that there will not be lost sheep. Some small churches find it hard to progress because while it is difficult to bring in new believers, their own believers also stop coming for services. So it becomes clear that believers who have been baptized also need to be rooted in the truth for them to flourish and spread the Word further.
When I read the chapter, what comes to my mind is that there are really just two kinds of divine work – preaching the gospel, and pastoring the flock. Both of which are acts of love, and both of them are people-oriented. The work of God is about leading people to God, manifesting the love of God for man in our acts and words. There are, of course, many kinds of church work in a “big” and established church like Singapore. Do all the church work fall into these two categories? That is a question that I would like to invite you to think about.
I believe that all church work stems from these two motives – preaching and pastoring work. The problem is at the back end when one enters into an established church where all the different church works are listed, one may not consider how the church work one involves in should lead to fulfill the main motive of divine work.
I tell my RE students, whatever work they aspire to do for God in the future, consider if they are people-oriented work that fulfills one of the two kinds of divine work essentially. When I say essentially, it means for them to consider their attitude in desiring the work. Of course, we can use our human wisdom to justify that all church work are divine in nature and fulfills one of the two kinds that I mentioned.
But it will be a problem if the child thinks that performing in a church band, or becoming a best vocal for the church choir is a great aspiration for God. There are many churches outside that tells people that bringing glory to God means becoming the best of what you can be in life, be it your talent or your career. People cannot differentiate what it means to glorify themselves and what it means to glorify God.
While I believe there is priority in church work, we cannot say that one work is more honorable than another. A person who speaks on the pulpit is not more honorable than the one who washes the toilet. But there is divine work that takes priority and we should not neglect them because we seem to have many other works on hand.
For example, one may have allotted one’s time to photocopying a stack of text after Sabbath service. But if there is a truth-seeker who comes into the church and nobody is really taking care of him, one should put down the work of photocopying the text to talk to this truth-seeker first.
The work of preaching cannot stop and that is why the deacons were chosen so that the apostles can focus on spreading the gospel. Even though the deacons were chosen to serve, we see how Stephen was full of the Holy Spirit and performed great signs and wonders among the people. Philip was a famous deacon who preached. It just re-emphasizes that any disciple of Christ should put into their mind the work of spreading the Gospel.
Whether we are doing many or few church work today, may we grasp hold of the opportunities that God has given us, and never lose sight of His purpose for our work on earth. Most importantly, let us not forget the work that Jesus had directly told us to do. As the earlier writers have mentioned, we are often distracted by the many things we have, and we often lack focus in prayer, other than time spent in prayer too.
Hope that as we review the church work we are involved in, we can get a refreshing insight that helps us serve Him better, serving the divine purpose of God’s love.
4 Comments
biblereadingcompanion
“What do people see when they see you?”
This thought came to mind as I read about Stephen in today’s chapter.
Luke chose very interesting descriptors for Stephen. All the descriptions involve fullness, completeness… it feels like these qualities were simply bursting out….
* “full of faith” (v. 5)
* “full of the Holy Spirit” (v. 5; 7:55)
* “full of God’s grace and power” (v. 8)
And when his opponents looked at him, they could not help but notice that his face was like that of an angel (v. 15).
I can’t help but wonder… what do people see when they see me?
Do they see a “full” face too? A face FULL of:
* frowns and worry lines?
* twisted lips and smiles?
* unhappiness and gloom?
* contempt and callousness?
* smiles and joy?
* love and concern?
* wisdom and holiness?
Stephen was one of the 7 chosen to serve the tables. He was not one chosen to be devoted to “prayer and the ministry of the word”. But this did not stop him from being one fully involved in the work that the apostles did as well.
He was just as interested in serving tables as he was in the preaching of God’s word. And this made me reflect on myself.
Frankly, I am not good at evangelism. The thought of speaking to someone about my faith scared me so much in the past that I chose to be involved in pastoral work. I comforted myself saying that since I am doing pastoral work, I am at least doing one of the two commissions Jesus gave. At least I am doing something!
But I realised that this was wrong a couple of years back. And looking at Stephen now, all the more I am ashamed.
Many of us are very involved in all areas of church work.
But like what thechosen said.. “there is priority in church work, we cannot say that one work is more honorable than another”.
The two most important work are pastoral and evangelism. All other work may be just as honourable but these two areas of work are necessary to be done by all, regardless of what else we do in church.
Stephen understood this. And lived his life to show this. And that was why everyone could recognize he was different…
A face like an angel. Who would not like others to see us as one? 🙂
PS
Acts 6:4 “but we will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the word.”
Does it mean that the apostles only concentrated on prayer and evangelism?
Did they not do pastoral work at all?
Biblereadingcompanion highlighted Acts 5:42 that they did not cease teaching and preaching Jesus as Christ in a previous posting.
It draws on me that i have been misreading Acts 6:4 previously. “The ministry of the word” is recorded as 以传道为事in the chinese bible, which means exactly what the English says the spreading of the word of God, ie both preaching to yet-to-believe friends and teaching believers as biblereadingcompanion highlighted.
(传道is more than 布道.)
The epistles of Peter, Paul and John were to brethrens, right? They covered both evangelism and pastoral functions
(This is more of a question which i ask of myself than others: What if the loner is a baptized member? (Newly baptized/long-time member)
May be can invite the brethren to do the photocopying together?! Say only! m i doing this? No, i m guilty. There are brethren who have been repeatedly telling me that it is good to walk slower in church.)
thechosen
“There are brethren who have been repeatedly telling me that it is good to walk slower in church.”
— hahahhaaha, i can’t help but lol when i read this line. it is true that there are some brethren who are famous for walking fast, and you have to “catch” them while you can if you need their attention. Indeed it is sometimes hard to walk slowly in church, because we are often so busy, but we must always remind ourselves to walk slower and give a smile or two to a few that we only get to see once a week.
Hyssop
“And all who sat in the council, looking steadfastly at him, saw his face as the face of an angel” (Acts 6: 15). When Stephen was brought to the council and accused, the people saw his face as an angel’s face. Even during persecution and when people bore false witnesses against him, the face of Stephen was still calm, pure and just as an angel. What do our faces look like today? When we lose our temper or do shameful things, do our faces look like beasts or even devil instead? During tribulation and difficulties, can we still keep our original images which were created according to the image of our heavenly Father?