SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 10/26/2017
9:20 AM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-1 The
Reason
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Acts 6:1-2,
4
Message of the
verses: “1 Now at this time while
the disciples were increasing in number, a complaint arose on the part of the
Hellenistic Jews against the native Hebrews, because their widows were being
overlooked in the daily serving of food. 2 So the twelve summoned the congregation
of the disciples and said, "It is not desirable for us to neglect the word
of God in order to serve tables. 4 “But
we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word."”
In our introduction we mentioned a problem that had
arose, and the problem in a sense was a good problem in that it came about
because the church family was increasing very rapidly, in fact there is no more
counting those who had been saved as that number was very large. In Acts 4:4 we read that the number is 5,000,
and this probably only refers to the men as that is the way we see things like
this in the Bible, as numbers usually only speak of men. With that said the number could be around
20,000 including women and children.
This section sort of reminds me of what we read in the
early chapters of the Bible that spoke about Moses listening to the problems of
the children of Israel as they made their way towards the Promised Land. Moses’ father-in-law came to speak to him
about this problem and he told Moses to appoint leaders to hear the cases the
people brought to him and that is what he did and this took some of the load
off of him. The apostles could see that
the rapid expansion of the church brings about problems and they were going to
need help with these problems as they were unable to carry the load for all the
problems expansion to the church brought.
The church was certainly not like what we have in our country today in
communication and technology ways. The
apostles could not send out an email to all the people in the church and have
them get it on their smart phones, so indeed times were different then. What this problem did was cause the church to
organize, and that is what they were going to do.
John MacArthur writes “There was another reason for the
church to organize. They had fulfilled
the first part of the Lord’s four-part charge to them (1:8). They had saturated Jerusalem with the gospel
message (5:28) and even begun to reach out to the surrounding region
(5:16). Now they were poised to
evangelize Samaria and the Gentile world. To do so successfully required
further planning and structuring of the assembly.”
As we read this section we see that the problem discussed
here is that the Hellenistic Jews were not getting their enough food as they
were being overlooked in the daily serving of food. We have seen Satan’s attacks on the early
church through persecution and then moving inward into the church to cause
people to lie in the first part of chapter five. More persecution happened at the end of the
fifth chapter of Acts, and now this problem which may well have been something
that Satan was trying to accomplish behind the scenes could have been a huge
problem for the church. In order to
continue to work on the mission of the church, which is evangelism, the church
needed to remain pure.
What Satan was trying to do here was to cause dissension
within the church, dissension through the complaining of people not getting
enough food at the correct time. We must
remember that this church grew fast and also when people first received Christ
on the Day of Pentecost that many were from out of town and therefore many must
have stayed there to be under the teaching of the apostles and thus needed both
food and lodging, and perhaps a job too.
I remember listening to one of John MacArthur’s sermons where he spoke
of how he met with new arrivals at his church after the service to talk with
them. This must have happened each and
every week as his church really began to grow.
It went from 500 to 5000 in a short time after he began to preach
there. He mentioned that people would
come in and say that they had sold everything and moved to be near the church
and they wanted information on where they could live and also where they could
get a job. These people wanted to be
under the preaching of the Word where MacArthur was preaching. Something similar may well have been
happening here in Jerusalem. Growth can
bring about problems, problems that the enemy can magnify and could cause
disunity in the church.
Spiritual meaning
for my life today: I have noticed
that since I have been teaching Sunday school that there have been some things
that have happened to me that I can say may never have happened if I had not
followed what I believe the Lord wants me to do. Satan never takes a holiday.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Trust the Lord to give me the understanding
and the strength to overcome the problems that go along with doing what He
wants me to do.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
question: “Jesus” (John 21:6).
Today’s Bible
question: “To what town did God send
Samuel to anoint a king?”
Answer in our next SD.
10/26/2017 9:55 AM
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