Acts 6:1

VI. PENTECOSTAL CHURCH FORMING ITS ECONOMY.

Choice of the Seven, 1-8.

1. In those days A Hebrew phrase used in Acts 1:15, to mark a period of a few days, and in Matthew 3:1, to imply an indefinite number of years. As thus far Luke has given but few dates, the reader may suppose that we are advanced but a few months from the Ascension. But according to the best chronology the events of this chapter take place in the year thirty-six. (See note on Acts 9:24.) Assuming the crucifixion to have occurred in the year 30, we must either overleap a few years, or, more properly, distribute the events thus far as we best can over a period of six years. During this period the management of the affairs of the Church, as limited to Jerusalem alone, rests upon the apostles. Yet the real power lies in the body of the Church. The apostles, though divinely appointed, are the personal representatives and executives of that power.

Their authority is undefined by any exact limits. With them as its heads, the whole body moves with spontaneous harmony and freedom. The hierarchy in form is a democracy in spirit.

Meanwhile they are now beginning to find that, like Moses, (Exodus 18:13-26,) their task is too large for their hands. The instrumentalities they are obliged to use, especially in the charitable distributions, are too irresponsible, and negligences and partialities give rise to murmurs. Baumgarten entitles this section “The first dissension,” but he might as well define it the first official deficiency; for that the administration was defective is proved by the prompt thoroughness with which the radical correction was made.

A murmuring The Greek word γογγυσμος is an imitative word expressing a low buzz of discontent gradually reaching the apostolic ears.

Grecians… Hebrews Three classes of persons are to be carefully distinguished in this earliest Christian history the Hebrews, the Proselytes, and the Grecians or Hellenists. The FIRST were claimants of the real Hebrew blood, more or less pure, speaking mainly the vernacular Hebrew of the day, (the Aramaic or Syro-Chaldaic,) inclined to reside in or connect themselves with Palestine, and especially Jerusalem, and standard zealots for Moses and the law. The SECOND were Gentiles who, tired of idolatry and polytheism, were glad to learn from Judaism the doctrine of one true and holy God. One class went only so far as to accept the Monotheism and the so-called moral precepts of Noah, without undergoing circumcision and the ritual of Moses; and, because thus stopping at the threshold, (or rather, perhaps, because they were strangers “within thy gates,” Exodus 20:10,) they were significantly named Proselytes of the Gate, while the receivers of the whole law were proudly styled Proselyres of Righteousness. The Grecians, Grecising Jews, or Hellenists, (see note on Acts 9:29,) were Jews by birth and circumcision, who, born in a foreign land, spake a foreign language, especially the Greek, and were held by the pure Jews to be tinctured with Gentilism, and so defective in the perfectness of their Judaism. They were inclined to liberalism, except when prompted by emulation to become more Jewish than the Jews themselves.

It was among the two latter classes that Christianity found most ready acceptance. The Gentile inclined to Monotheism was glad of a religion teaching holiness, salvation, and God, without circumcision and the burdens of ritual Mosaicism. The liberal Greek-speaking Jew or Hellenist glided easily into a resignation of the ceremonial law for a more spiritual piety. But the rigid, proud, intense Jew, most inflexible of all, was disposed to reject Christianity with a flout, or to accept it by the half, and to carry into his Christianity fragments of old Judaism with a conscious superiority over his Christian brethren often intolerant and fanatical. It was from this class of Jews and Jewish Christians that Paul, though by blood a pure “Hebrew of the Hebrews,” suffered through his whole apostolic career.

The extremest of these became the Ebionites of later, but very early, Church history. It must therefore be acknowledged that this murmur, if not the first buzz of a long quarrel, did indicate a division of classes from which subsequent permanent quarrel would arise.

Widows A turbulent and bloody age throws large numbers of widows upon the benevolence of the Church.

Daily ministration The daily distribution of food to the home of each widow.

Ministration Greek, διακονια diaconia, from which deacon and diaconate or deaconship are derived. Its composition from δια , through, and κονις , dust, if correct, implies a service through drudgery of a very humble sort. But Scripture nowhere applies the official title deacon to these men, and Luke seems even to avoid so doing (Acts 21:8) in calling Philip one of the seven. This is not parallel to calling the apostles the twelve, for that was their divinely limited and permanently fixed number. Luke’s phrase indeed apparently implies that “the seven” was a unique and memorable, though discontinued, class of men. The application to their office of the generic term diaconia, ministry, or the verb form of the word, is no proof of specific deaconship. The generic term is rendered ministry in Acts 6:4, serve, Acts 6:2, Luke 10:40, Luke 12:37, Luke 22:26-27.