Acts 6 is a classic go-to text for folks wrestling with what sort of church government we were meant to have. When an issue comes up about food distribution the apostles decide it’s not right for them to leave aside proclamation and prayer for the task of serving tables. Thus, several others are chosen and blessed. The office of service is introduced alongside the office of teaching.
Q.E.D.
Maybe…
The first thing I want to say is that this seems to have been a good arrangement. The story is followed by one of Acts’ characteristic summary statements indicating that the church moved from this controversy to a time of peace and growth (Acts 6:7).
But there are other indications that though this event was used to bring about peace for a time, the twelve might not have been as faithful leaders at this point as we might have hoped.
The first thing to notice is that this is a dispute that breaks out along cultural and/or ethnic lines. Yes, they all seem to be Jewish, but there are Hellenists and Hebrews–perhaps indicative of language and/or other cultural differences.
The response? Elevating some wise, spirit-filled Hellenists (so it would seem–all the names are Greek) to look after their own.
Throughout the book of Acts, one of the driving concerns is to see the fledgling Christian community embrace a diversity of social, cultural, and ethnic groups as one unified people of God. Does appointing seven guys with Greek names accomplish this? Or is it a perpetuation of a division while managing the presenting problem?
Then there’s the bit about the reasoning of the twelve.
In Acts the twelve in particular, but the church as a whole, is depicted as carrying forward and reembodying the earthly ministry of Jesus. Acts is not the acts of the apostles, it is the continuing acts of Jesus the resurrected messiah through his church.
It is significant, then, that when the dispute arises about greatness in Luke’s gospel that Jesus confronts the twelve’s desire for glory with these words: “Who is greater, the one who reclines at table or the one who serves? Is it not the one who reclines? Yet I am among you as the one who serves.”
In Luke, Jesus describes the essence of his own mission (on which the twelve were to model their own) in the very terms that the twelve are unwilling to accept here: serving tables.
So what happens with these seven table-servers?
First, there is Stephen. We are told in the next story that he stands out due to the Spirit’s provision of mighty works, signs, and wonders–the very terms with which Jesus is described as God’s empowered representative in Acts 2.
This is the one whose words (word ministry!) are so powerful that the opponents of the church cannot resist him. And, he becomes the one whose death, in imitation of Jesus, leads not only to the persecution of the church but also, because of that persecution, to the gospel leaving Jerusalem and making its way to the ends of the earth. (A “leaving Jerusalem,” by the way, that the apostles to whom the charge had been given in Acts 1:8 did not participate in.)
The one who was willing to serve tables is described in the most obviously Jesus-like terms (even to being killed for speaking against the Temple and blessing those who killed him), and as having the most irrefutably powerful ministry of word.
A mercy-minister appointed to free the true teachers to stick to their true task? It doesn’t seem that way.
Then there’s the other “deacon,” Phillip. What does he do? Well, not much.
I mean, so long as you don’t think that fulfilling Jesus’ command to take the gospel beyond Judea to Samaria is important (Acts 1:8). Phillip did that (Acts 8).
I mean, really, he was a mercy ministry guy, caring for people’s physical needs. Well, except for that whole bit about proclaiming the good news to the Ethiopian eunuch, and then evangelizing the entire Mediterranean coast up to Caesarea.
The story in Acts 6 is pivotal. But perhaps for ways that we too often miss when we bring our “church governance” question to the text. Here is the installation not of mercy ministers, but of the evangelists who would uniquely embody the ministry of Jesus (Stephen) and fulfill the resurrected Christ’s mandate that the gospel leave the narrow confines of Judea and go out to the ends of the earth.
For many centuries of church history deacons also preached, catechized, assisted in the sacraments, and read the Gospel reading during the liturgy – in addition to their role in mercy and justice. “Deacon = mercy minister” is a relatively new and mostly Protestant invention.
Thanks, garver. I figured someone would jump in with that! But these “deacons” wouldn’t fit the Catholic mold either, I don’t think.
Daniel: Wow, great insight. I have read over this text many times but I always read it through the lens of it being about something like the evolution of early church government. I am not sure why it did not dawn on me that Luke felt obligated to note that Stephen and Phillip began fulfilling Christ’ commission in a way that the apostles did not do.
What do you think is Luke’s point in his overall argument? Is this a critique of the Jerusalem church? Is this setting the stage to validate Paul?
Great post Daniel! I have recently found it strange that apostles are often equated with the position of elders, which in turn is used as justification for seeing the primary emphasis of the role of the elders to be teaching and preaching, while serving tables is reserved for the deacons. I always used to approach the text in the way that Brian Leport noted above, but this is very insightful and helpful…I am definitely being forced to rethink this all, and it seems to me that what you are saying is right on the money. Thanks!
JRDK: “The response? Elevating some wise, spirit-filled Hellenists (so it would seem–all the names are Greek) to look after their own.”
When you mentioned the Jew/Gentile divide in the early church and the appointment of Greek-named deacons to serve their own, I was reminded of the the 12 baskets and the 7 baskets from the gospel stories of the feeding of the 5000 and 4000:
Mar 8:19-20 “When I brake the five loaves among five thousand, how many baskets full of fragments took ye up? They say unto him, Twelve. (20) And when the seven among four thousand, how many baskets full of fragments took ye up? And they said, Seven.”
Does anyone have any thoughts on a possible connection? Perhaps these stories anticipated 2 waves of converts, Jews then Gentiles, with their specific needs and provisions. Perhaps we could generously say that *both* apostles and deacons were being “Jesus” to their ‘constituents’, except that the Jews at this stage had a greater ‘brain-hunger’ (the need to reconcile their heritage with Christianity), whereas the Gentiles had ‘body-hunger’ (the need to feel they belonged to the Christian community). The provision of the 7 Greek ‘baskets of food’ showed Jesus’ provision also at that level.
Very interesting connection…
12 Jewish apostles; cp 12 baskets in ?Tabgha? (NW, Cisjordan, mostly Jews?). Greater crowd fed with less food, more leftover… Matt 14. Mar 6.
7 Hellenistic deacons; cp 7 baskets in Decapolis (NE, Transjordan, mostly Greeks?). Lesser crowd fed with more food, less leftover…. Matt 15. Mar 8.
As a member of the Order I have witnessed deacons do about everything but hold a governing office in a local church. Servant ministry to all in the name of the One is a holy form of leadership without ever voting on a board or arguing for purity.
This is an interesting take on the story… Were they all Hellenists? A greek name does not carry the weight needed for this interpreation, does it? For many in the NT (Jew and non Jew) and indeed the Gospels, have Greek names… so why would it be significant here? But if they are then it is a very powerful twist to the events…
Again you are suggesting that these Apostles have screwed it up, and counted them selves out of great blessings, of which the more servant hearted men partook. And the reason for this you suggest is because they had missed the clear teachings of Jesus about the one who is greatest must be servant of all… is it not true that those who pray and minister the Word are servants, servants of God and men (mankind)? The arguement, for me, is too simplistic and I find it difficult to believe that Jesus would not consider preaching and Praying service and therefore repremand them for the act of seeking out others fit for the task, as clearly from his own ministry that is what he spent a great deal of time doing preaching, praying and finding people to carry on the task when he was gone… The statement that you are making is that the Apostles thought it below them to serve in the area of food and the distribution of that food, that they were too good for it… but that is not what the text says… why hunt out men filled with the Spirit if it was a task that they did not consider to be of great importance?
We do not know what was happening during those servant days of the seven, we do not know what the Lord did in those days to prepare them for the ministry that he carried them to in later days… How can we assume what you suggest with out considering that this is perhaps the training ground that led to those great ministries becoming a possibility? I would suggest that the serving of tables led to the serving in the Word and in the Power of the Holy Spirit that came later and that this was God’s intention all along.