Acts 6:3

3. Look ye out The laity were to look the seven men out, and the laity concurred ( the saying pleased them) and chose the men. It is thus the business of the Church in all ages to provide for itself a ministry. Though the ministry does at first call, and so in a sense create the Church, yet normally in turn the Church creates its ministry. It must search, find, bring out, and perform its part in choosing them.

We may appoint Κατατησομεν , may make-stand, may station or establish. The electing by the laity did not make the officer without the appointing by the apostles. Both must, and, animated by one spirit, would spontaneously concur.

Seven Doubtless this number, like that of the twelve, had a symbolic character, as we have illustrated in our notes on the Sacred Numbers in our second volume. So the Jews, according to Maimonides as quoted by Dr. Gill, had seven good men of the city as a kind of trustees of the synagogues. Some suppose, without much reason, that the Jerusalem Church was divided into sections worshipping in seven different houses, with a deacon to each. Dr. Clarke supposes, with more reasonable probability, that one deacon served in turn on each of the seven days of the week. A symbolical and a real reason could easily coincide in a given case. It is a curious instance of the service of the letter that the Church in Rome scrupulously limited its deacons to seven even while its elders amounted to forty.

Honest report Honourable reputation.

Holy Ghost… wisdom The high qualifications of the deacons implied that even they were not to be limited to a mere manual service. To feed the poor and tend the sick in a Christian way require service to the soul as well as body. In point of fact we find that of two of the seven preaching was largely the providential duty. For this their official character was an authorization.