(Series: “The Early Church of Jerusalem” post #11)

What do you do when one group of members from your church claims that another group is showing favoritism in regards to church benevolence? If you are the 12 apostles — with Matthias taking the place of Judas Iscariot (Acts 1:15-26) — and if your church is the church at Jerusalem, you hold the first church vote to appoint a group of men to fix the problem. In other words, I could also call this post “The Church’s First Business Meeting.”

Please allow me, though, to draw your attention to the motivation the apostles gave for holding that meeting. Faced with the option of taking over the church’s benevolence ministry themselves, they deemed that option unproductive. Rather than take the attitude, “If you want something done right you’ve got to do it yourself,” they chose to delegate. And what was their reason for doing so? We find it in Acts 6:2:

Then the twelve summoned the multitude of the disciples and said, “It is not desirable that we should leave the word of God and serve tables.” (N.K.J.V.)

I wish churches knew this verse as well as they know John 3:16. You see, those apostles were, for all intents and purposes, the pastoral team of the church at Jerusalem, and as such they understood that a pastor’s primary job is to study God’s word, preach God’s word, and teach God’s word. (For the record, in Acts 6:4 they also add spending time in prayer to the list.)

So, are pastors too good or too aloof to serve tables, mow the church yard, mop the floor of the fellowship hall, change the light bulbs in the sanctuary, order the church literature, and visit every sick person within a 100-mile radius? Hardly. After all, Jesus calls every Christian, including every pastor, to exhibit the same humility He exhibited when He washed the feet of the apostles (John 13:1-17).

No, the issue is not spiritual superiority. Instead, it gets into the realm of Christians having differing spiritual gifts, talents, and abilities. If nothing else, we’re talking here about a church making the best use of its personnel. Basically, while other church members can perform most tasks just as effectively (if not more so) than the pastor, what those other members can’t do as effectively as him is teach the word of God.

Sadly, many pastors today don’t have adequate time to study the word of God so they can properly feed it to their flocks because those pastors spend so much time running around doing this, that, and the other thing for those flocks. This is especially true in smallish churches where the pastor is “chief cook and bottle washer.” For example, I once had a man tell me that I, as the pastor of the community’s local church, was responsible for the spiritual well-being of the entire community. That included all my church members who lived in the community, but it also included not only all the lost people of the community but also all the people in the community who attended other churches. I thought to myself, “Man, that’s a high standard you’ve got there. I guess it’s handy for you that you are not a pastor.”

The fact is, it takes serious time and serious effort to really learn the word of God so that you can rightly divide it and dole it out to others (2 Timothy 2:15). It’s no wonder that 1 Timothy 5:17 says the “elders” (a title the New Testament uses interchangeably for “pastors”) who labor in the word and doctrine should be counted worthy of double honor. That’s another verse I wish churches knew as well as they know John 3:16.

In the end, the apostles handled the Jerusalem church’s benevolence dispute by presiding over the election of a worthy group of men who were granted oversight concerning the dispute. In my next post, I’ll address the question of whether or not this was the first election of deacons. For now, though, let me stick with the primary subject of this post. Those apostles said:

“Therefore, brethren, seek out from among you seven men of good reputation, full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business; but we will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the word.” (Acts 6:3-4, N.K.J.V., emphasis mine)

Notice that in our opening text verse, Acts 6:2, the apostles begin their decision with a word about their main job: “It is not desirable that we should leave the word of God and serve tables.” And then, in Acts 6:3-4, they end their decision with a similar word: “…but we will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the word.” It’s obvious that the apostles, who were the pastoral team of the Jerusalem church, wanted to drive home the point to their church members. They wanted those members to understand that the call to the ministry is the call to spend a lot of time in God’s word and a lot of time in prayer. Therefore, we might say that whatever else a pastor is doing, if he is neglecting these duties, he is failing in his calling. Even though many Christians — and dare I say, some pastors — don’t see it this way, this is exactly what the Bible teaches.