The astounding story in Acts 6

I think the Holy Spirit did something truly astounding in the beginning of Acts 6. Not an astounding miracle like the tongues of fire and the speaking in unknown languages that happened at Pentecost, nor an astounding healing like the crippled beggar.

The chapter begins with tension. The Greek speaking believers complain that their widows aren't getting as much food aid as the Aramaic speaking widows. Typical humanity, one group complains that another group is getting favorable treatment. What would normally happen? Some Greek speakers might start their own church. The Aramaic believers would criticize those radicals that split the church, who accused the apostles of favoritism. The apostles might call a press conference to say they weren't unfair in distributing food, and accuse their critics of disloyalty to the church God has established. The Aramaic believers might wonder why there weren't many Greek speakers in the church, but conclude that the Greek speakers have hard hearts, are just a bunch of barely converted (if that) pagans.

But instead, the apostles call a meeting and say that something needs to change. How rare is it when a majority group running an organization decides to make a change because a minority within the group is feeling disgruntled? Even more astonishing, the seven people picked by the group to take charge of distributing the food are all (judging by the names) Greek speaking believers. This is what astounds me. The Greek speaking Jews perceive unfairness, so the whole church decides they'll fix the problem by having Greeks do the distributing. Truly the Spirit was working in the hearts of the church members.

1 comment:

Bsquared said...

How would this sort of Spirit-leading manifest itself in today's church?