Spiritual Organization

Published by Stanley Pouw in 2016 · 10 April 2016

Acts 6 is important as a basis for understanding the proper organization within the church. There has been a long debate about how the church should be organized in our current age. A church needs to be well organized and well-staffed that runs efficiently, but on the other hand they also need to deal with home Bible studies and nurturing the life of the body of Christ.

Every dimension of God's world is well organized. If you read the Old Testament you will find out that the Old Testament was ordained by God and it's a system from beginning to end. There are some people who believe that the church must be run like a business, that it must develop an organizational charts with committees and sub committees. And that everybody should fit into all of the programs that are ordained by executive committees of that church.

But the New Testament church really is an organism. And the life of the body depends on its connection to Christ. But the church has to be organized. And we must be here at certain times or we're not going to be able to function rightly within the framework of the body because this is the time we teach and get taught. There are certain things that must occur organizationally.

Now the early church was organized which just means that it functioned in an orderly manner. The apostle Paul said this in 1 Corinthians 14:40: "But all things should be done decently and in order." Now the early church as we come in Acts 6 needs to get better organized. They have had a tremendous effect upon the Jewish community in Jerusalem.

They have astounded people with the miracles and the wonders and the signs that have been going on. Multitudes have been coming to Jesus Christ. Real love exists. The community of believers is sharing in all things. And there is a beautiful kind of relationship everywhere. But you know what? The Spirit of God knows that it needs to get better organized and in Acts 6 we find the beginnings of the organization.

Biblical church organization accommodates what the Holy Spirit is already doing. In Scripture we can see the growth of the church. The church begins to live and breathe and move and develop ministries and then the Spirit moves in and the church puts a frame around it so t it can function smoothly. We need to see what the saints are doing and then to put a frame around it to help them do it effectively.

Now the early church was really moving in evangelism. Exciting things were happening, but they came to a point where they needed to make their evangelism more effective. They needed to accommodate the Spirit of God so that what the people want to do in the energy of the Spirit can be done smoothly and with the best benefit. That is the correct organization.

Let us study how they got organized. A couple of times it tells us how many believers there were. First three thousand and then five thousand men, which meant somebody was taking count. It is also important that they had a certain place and a certain time to meet together for public worship, prayer, and the study of the Word. All of that was basic organization.

Now this early church accommodated the Holy Spirit. They met the first day of every week which is a Sunday. It says in Act 2, they broke bread from house to house. They must have had some organized way of going around to the various houses and letting the others know where they were going to be at what time. Money and goods were being collected and distributed. Everybody's need was being met and it was all organized.

Biblical church organization should never be imposing on the work of the Holy Spirit. That's why the job of a pastor is not to develop programs and schemes and then find people to do them. My commitment is to just keep teaching the Word and when a bunch of people want to do something, to give them an opportunity to do it. Organization is never an end in itself, it has to allow for spiritual growth.

Now in the early church the apostles taught, the apostles ruled and everybody else carried out what they said. But as the church grew they began to face problems organizationally. And we see now that necessity again becomes the mother of invention. Let's look at this in Acts 6:1-7 as the Holy Spirit gives us time this evening, to consider four things that appear here in the first spiritual organizational meeting.

First of all, what was the reason for organization? Secondly, what were the requirements for the people? The third thing is the roster. Who are the right people to carry it out? Fourthly, what is the result when the church begins to get organized to accommodate the work of the Holy Spirit? Does it help?

So first let's look at the reason. Acts 6:1, “Now in these days when the disciples were increasing in number, a complaint by the Hellenists arose against the Hebrews because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution.” Conservatively there were at least 30,000 members at that time. Can you imagine trying to handle a congregation that large, not only handling their spiritual needs, but also all their physical needs and caring for the poor and the widows and everybody else?

And here were the twelve apostles for all those people. The church had grown so fast that you have not had time to adjust to anything. Here they are only a couple of months old with 30,000 people and now they are faced with big problems. Too many people in the church and still growing all the time.

And just handling the care of the believers is a great problem, making sure that the poor people get the food they need, and making sure somebody's collecting all that, making sure that somebody provides elements for the Lord's table, and somebody figures out how many people are going to be there so everybody has enough and making sure that the baptism is cared for.

In addition to that they had accomplished the number one goal that Christ had given them when He said, "You shall be witnesses unto Me in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the world." They had already filled Jerusalem with their doctrine in Acts 5:28, right? Now they were ready to move out now to Judea, Samaria, and the world. They were on the threshold of Gentile evangelism.

They need to accomplish what God would have them accomplish in an orderly way. But they were on the verge of an evangelistic explosion, in fact Acts 6 introduces Stephen to us and Paul began evangelization of the Gentiles in Acts 7. But as soon as we are on the threshold of something big, Satan begins to work to mess things up. Let us look at the same three strategies Satan uses ever since the early church.

Number one is persecution. Whether it's the emotional persecution of being ostracized from your society, or whether it is mental persecution or physical abuse, Satan always attempts to get the Christians to become afraid and chicken out of the battle. And Satan tried that in the early church and it didn't work. He persecuted the early church and the message was spread even faster and that gave God the opportunity to do more miracles to more abundantly prove that Jesus was the Messiah.

And his second approach is sin in the body. And Satan tried that with Ananias and Sapphira but God moved in and just killed them dead right in front of the whole church. And you know what that did to the church? It purified the church immediately. And it made sure that those who were added to the church were pure because the word was out. If you get into that deal as a hypocrite and you're liable to die. So Satan’s ploy failed. The purer the church the faster the gospel spread.

Satan has a third tactic, dissention. If church fights within itself than its message is lost in hypocrisy and its energy is dissipated on internal struggle. How many churches have you known that are just bickering back and forth with little petty pride issues, discontent, gossip and power struggles? Everybody's energy is used up in trying to keep things together, so that nothing is left to fulfill the commission of our Lord.

Let's look again at Acts 6:1, “Now in these days when the disciples were increasing in number, a complaint by the Hellenists arose against the Hebrews because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution.” There were the native born Palestine Jews, called the Hebrews and there were Greek Jews or the Hellenist Jews who lived in Asia Minor, North Africa and all those areas, but they had maintained Jewish heritage and always came back to Jerusalem for Passover and Pentecost and the other feast days.

So they spoke two different languages, Greek and Aramaic; therefore, they would tend to group into the language groups where they could communicate. Not only that, the native Jews looked down on the Grecian Jews because they felt they had probably been polluted by alien culture and they weren't true Jews, loyal to the land. The reason for their complaint was that their widows were neglected in the daily distribution.

Now the care of widows was always a part of Jewish custom as was all the care of the poor. Two collectors set out every Friday morning and they mingled through the marketplace and they went from house to house and they collected an offering. That offering later in the day was passed out to the poor and the widows. If somebody was in temporary poverty they received enough to survive, but if somebody was permanently poor they received enough for14 meals for seven days. Next Friday they would come back again. It still is the church's responsibility to meet the needs of the widows and the poor now.

These widows for some reason were not getting help and so griping began. But that's OK. If you have a complaint you want to go to the people that can do something about it. So they went to the apostles. They don't deny this because this actually happened. Verse 2, “And the twelve summoned the full number of the disciples and said, “It is not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables.” They knew what their calling was to preach the Word of God and they didn't want to leave that.

Now look at verse 4, “But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.” We must concentrate on the duality of our ministry, prayer and preaching. Preaching must involve constant prayer for those to whom you preach, so that God would make of us the right vessel. And every week we have a prayer list where we share all of the various specific needs that come from all the congregation.

The apostles have set the pattern that we must follow. It's a commitment. But we have to recognize that this kind of commitment involves a lot of self-discipline. Galatians 6:6 says, “Let the one who is taught the word share all good things with the one who teaches.” So please pray for me that God might give me wisdom in knowing how to balance the time I give you all and the time I’m with my wife.

What are the requirements for people that can take over some of these ministries? Verse 3, “Therefore, brothers, pick out from among you seven men of good repute, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we will appoint to this duty.” Requirement number one is that they be from among you. God expects the church to find its own leadership from within itself. Secondly they must be honest. Next, thirdly, full of the Holy Spirit.

Later on Paul splits it up and defines two different categories: elders and deacons and deaconesses. Why were there seven? Because the Mishna said in Jewish towns anybody conducting business would have to have seven men and so there were seven very likely in order that they might conduct the church business within the Jewish town. This is the kind of leadership the church needs.

Who was chosen? Verse 5, “And what they said pleased the whole gathering, and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit, and Philip, and Prochorus, and Nicanor, and Timon, and Parmenas, and Nicolaus, a proselyte of Antioch.” Look what it says. They chose. That is why we always ask for suggestions from the congregation as to who should be deacons and deaconesses who serve in the church.

Who were they? Stephen, we'll see more about him, full of faith and the Holy Spirit. Phillip, we'll see much more about him too. And then the next five we've never heard of before and never will again, Procorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicolas, a proselyte of Antioch. All seven names are Greek. The church got together and unanimously chose seven Grecian Jews to lead them. That proves the loving unity of the church.

And what are the results? Verse 6, “These they set before the apostles, and they prayed and laid their hands on them.” This is their commissioning service. The church got organized and you know what happened when the church gets spiritually organized as the Spirit directs it, the results are fantastic. Verse 7, “And the word of God continued to increase, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith.”

More people got saved faster. And not only that, look at this shocking statement, "A great many of the priests became obedient to the faith." Those are the ordinary priests looking for their Messiah. They found Him in Jesus Christ and they had a revival among the priests.

The church needs to accommodate whatever the Spirit of God is doing by putting enough structure around it to make it effective and that's what they did and look what happened. God blessed them. Let us pray to God that we should be what we need to be and let the Holy Spirit do what He wants to do among our people. Let us pray.