Marys and Marthas In The Church

Acts 6:1-7 NIV

The Choosing of the Seven

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.

Early Christian Church

Last time I talked about the apostles waiting for the Gift of the Promised Holy Spirit that was in Acts 1 and 2. Now fast forward to Acts 6, after Jesus ascended into heaven, after Mathias replaced Judas (after he essentially abandoned his position), after Peter full of the Spirit preached the Gospel and 3,000 came to believe; after Peter and John healed the lame beggar and after they were later put in prison for; after they were tortured and warned not to preach again; after the disciples prayed and the whole room shook; after they did other miraculous signs, after they were persecuted and after their numbers kept on increasing, we come to chapter 6.

This is at the time when so many seemingly trivial ministries were being overlooked. And what happened? Believers started to get upset, feel overlooked and feel discriminated upon.

Who here knows that the enemy just loves to use these unintentional lapses to start discord, tension, arguments, conflicts and more?

Who here knows that these little unseen things eventually will lead to church families to break down or split? And that’s Satan’s plan.

Who here knows that these minor things in time add up to bigger and bigger things which eventually may cause more and more people to be upset, to be led astray, to leave the faith or to miss God’s purpose for their life?

So what did the apostles, who were filled with the Holy Spirit do?

Acts 6, they essentially appointed overseers, deacons, servants, and ministers.

They appointed ministers for the café, for the fellowship hall, for the parking lot, to do maintenance, to change the sign, to cook and to clean up, and to take care of children and babies. They appointed greeters, and ushers, and media, and worship and altar ministers.

They appointed people like us. Why? Because there was a need then, and there is a great need right now.

The Ministry of the Word cannot be hampered because nobody was taking care of all the other ministries that are also equally important. But who will minister in those ministries?

Again, Acts 6, and I quote “choose seven men from among you who are known to be full of the Spirit and wisdom.”

And these are believers who are not only spiritually mature but also having good sense and judgment to do the work of the ministry. We’re not going to send a computer expert to fix the break in the water main or the expert plumber to program a computer network to be fail-proof, safe, secured and optimized.

And yes above all these ministers had to full of the Holy Spirit.

What did Jesus say, “wait”. He said “wait for the gift the Father promised”, wait for you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit. Once again Encounter Weekend, another reason for everybody to go through it.

Mary and Martha

Lastly Mary and Martha, Luke 10:38, when Jesus and his followers came to their house, Mary sat at his feet listening and Martha was on her feet taking care of the kitchen and everything else.

Of course, Mary had chosen what was better but really like in their own home, here in God’s house, there has to be a Martha. And not just one Martha, seven and preferably more.

Martha not in the strict sense but in what the seven (Stephen, Philip, Procorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas and Nicolas) were appointed to do.

We need both Marys and Marthas but both need to be full of the Spirit and wisdom which comes from above. 

Every one of us is important, like I said, one Body of Christ, but is composed of many parts. One of us hurts everyone suffers, one rejoices, and so does everyone else. When we are in this kind of unity and purpose, we can handle everything the enemy throws at us individually and collectively.

This is the lesson I prepared as I led our Sunday Service Team Meeting, September 28, 2014