NT Doctrine — Acts 6:1-8

There’s a lot of background to this lesson that is not obvious to casual readers.

First is that local Judean people were clannish. Despite the urbanization around Jerusalem, and the significant influx of Gentile influences through first the Greeks, and then the Romans, the substance of one’s social life remained the extended family. Thus, several of the Twelve were cousins of Jesus; this was something they took for granted. Nepotism was a virtue in Jewish society, unlike in our culture today. The Law of Moses promoted it via unspoken assumptions. You could not obey Moses without nepotism.

This became the fundamental means of organization within the exploding church in Jerusalem. While a significant portion of members simply brought their immediate family with them into the body, those whose family refused to join them could simply adopt a new family. This was already accepted in their culture, so adding the dimension of shared spiritual birth simply provided another path, and ultimately more valid, to something they already had a tendency to do.

For anyone who grew up in a Judean or Galilean household, this was all perfectly natural. They brought with them the instinct to organize into the same clan structure as the basis for everything the church did daily.

Diaspora Jews might have some faint ethnic hints of this in their background, but none of the connections with the locals. A primary reason they or their ancestors had left Palestine in the first place was the rich commercial opportunities around the Mediterranean Basin. These people were typically much more wealthy than the average local peasants who made up the early core of the disciples. Their large donations to the common treasury were quite welcome, but they had a tough time breaking into the social habits everyone else followed by instinct. These Diaspora Jews typically spoke Greek. They might have still learned some Hebrew Aramaic, but it was not their native tongue, and the local vernacular even less so.

Indeed, for all their lives coming to Jerusalem for Holy Days, they ended up in segregated synagogues, as well, where their common Greek tongue was in use. The area surrounding Jerusalem hosted a wide array of Greek-speaking synagogues catering to all kinds of special shared interests. But when they embraced Jesus as their Messiah, most of the Diaspora Christians would have been tossed from those synagogues. Thus, they had no social anchorage in the city, and were very much outsiders. They struggled to find a place, even with each other. Their association with other Greek-speaking Christians lacked the depth and stability common among the local Jewish Christians.

When it came to the likes of widows and orphans, the Jewish instinct was to take care of them as part of the extended family. Most of the Diaspora Christians had no one to adopt them. Having been outsiders all their lives out in the Gentile world, they were sensitive to being outsiders again. They noticed that the locals had clan leaders who interceded for them in the growing welfare system within the church. They contributed so much, but too many of their own were left out, because they lacked elders who automatically took care of them.

The Apostles understood the problem. Here was a church body filled with Judeans who would have normally been dismissive of Galilean bumpkins, as virtually all of the Twelve were, yet they were embraced as Apostles over this body. The term “waiting on tables” would translate more accurately to being chained to a desk in endless administrative trivial tasks. They were in effect the priesthood, and not political or administrative leaders. It was not their training or mission.

The administrative tasks were properly left to elders. Elders were native to the clan social structure, and the local Jews had it worked out instinctively. The Diaspora Christians had no native elders, so the Apostles directed the Greek-speakers to appoint some. In essence, they were telling the Diaspora Christians to organize themselves like the locals, to embrace each other as family-in-effect. From that effort, elders naturally arose by their talents and blessings from the Lord. Those were then presented as their new elders and recognized as such by everyone.

It was an ancient tradition of the Hebrew people to appoint new judges this way. Someone who was old enough and respected enough would be welcomed into, for example, the Sanhedrin by laying on of hands from the senior members. The Apostles used this gesture as a way of elevating the men chosen as the equivalent of local magistrate within the church body. Luke doesn’t use the term “deacon” because that word means a mere attendant; these men were administrative leaders.

This became the standard for all future churches. A church body was organized like the early Hebrew nomad nation days, where priests led in spiritual matters and elders/chiefs/kings led in administrative matters. God was pleased with this, and used it to call even more souls to join this first church in the New Testament.

And in this case, one of these new Greek-speaking elders became known for preaching and miracles: Stephen.