SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 10/30/2017
10:23 AM
My Worship Time Focus: The
Requirements
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Acts 6:3
Message of the
verse: “3 “Therefore, brethren,
select from among you seven men of good reputation, full of the Spirit and of
wisdom, whom we may put in charge of this task.”
What we have been talking about are things that came out
of the first organizational meeting of the church to solve the problem of
making sure the Hellenistic widows were being fed. We discussed the “reason” in our last four
Spiritual Diaries and today we begin to look at the requirements found in Acts
6:3.
We learned in our discussion of Acts 6:4 that it was most
important to the church that the apostles needed to continue in their quest of
Bible reading and also prayer, but this problem of feeding the Hellenistic Jews
remained which is what we are discussing this morning.
How was this problem to be solved? Well the apostles wanted the congregation to
select seven men of good reputation and also full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom
to put in charge of this task that was before them. John MacArthur writes that “The word
translated select is from the verb episkeptomai,
meaning ‘to oversee,’ or ‘to supervise.’
The congregation was to look over the men who were respected and present
their choices to the apostles. They
would make the final decision regarding their appointment to the task, as
indicated by the words, ‘whom we may put in charge of this task.’”
Let us now look at five required requirements: 1. The first requirement we see is that they
must be men, men who would led the church.
When we look at Titus 2:3-5 we read “3 Older women likewise are to be
reverent in their behavior, not malicious gossips nor enslaved to much wine,
teaching what is good, 4 so that they may encourage the young women to love
their husbands, to love their children, 5 to be sensible, pure, workers at
home, kind, being subject to their own husbands, so that the word of God will
not be dishonored.” These verses speak
of duties that women are to perform in the church, but leadership belongs to
men as Luke writes “seven men.” As we
look through the New Testament we can see prominent women mentioned like
Dorcas, Lydia, Phoebe, Priscilla, and Phillip’s daughters. 2. The
phrase “from among you,” is the second requirement. Church leaders should be in the process of
developing good church leaders from the younger men who are in the
congregation. This men must come out of
the church congregation as we will see later on in the book of Acts when Paul
and his team would go to help in the appointment of leaders in the churches
they began. 3. The men from the congregation must be “of
good reputation.” In Paul’s writing to
Timothy and Titus he gives requirements of men who are to be leaders in the
church and this certainly is one of them. 4.
The men must be full of the Spirit, as “they must be fully yielded to
His control in every area of their lives.”
5. The final requirement is the
men must be wise they must possess wisdom.
Wisdom is one of the attributes of God and so leaders in the church must
also possess wisdom in order to lead the church.
Now I realized that once we got to this section in the
book of Acts that there would be discussion on whether or not these men were
the first deacons who were appointed in the church and I must say that this is
a difficult subject to write about. The
church that I have always gone to since I became a believer have been “Baptist”
churches and that term Baptist can mean different things to different
people. Our church and the one that I
used to attend to is in the “General Association of Regular Baptist Churches.” We know that there are other associations
associated with Baptist churches like “The Southern Baptist Association.” The GRABC began in the 1940’s and it began
because other Baptist organizations became liberal in their teaching. Our Church and the church I use to go to have
deacons in them while the church that John MacArthur pastors is somewhat
different in that they have “Elders” in them.
Now an Elder is another name for Pastor or Bishop, but different than
deacons. His church may indeed have
deacons, but the leadership of his church I do not believe includes deacons
like the church I attend does. John
MacArthur has written a book that I have mentioned in an earlier SD entitled “The
Master’s Plan for the Church,” and in that book he describes different plans
for leadership in the church, different in that some have deacons and others do
not. I read that book probably 10 years
ago and one of the things that I remember from it is the following. MacArthur states that whether your church has
deacons or elders in leadership capacity is not the main thing. The main thing is that the quality of these
men must be like what Luke is talking about in the verse we are looking at this
morning. You could have what you think
is the right way of having leadership in your church but the men are not like
the qualifications we have just discussed and the other way could be true
too. I have to say as I have stated that
I believe that the Lord led me first of all to Grace Baptist Church in
Westlake, Ohio and the first two pastors and also the deacons we had under
these first two pastors were wonderful leaders, but things changed and I had to
move to First Baptist Church of Elyria, Ohio.
The first Sunday that I visited First Baptist was the Sunday after the
Thursday that their pastor had died. He
had been there for 25 years and the church had grown so much that a new
addition had to be built. First Baptist
Church of Elyria, Ohio is 180 years old, as it began around the time of the
Civil War. God has blessed this church
over its 180 years of existence and I am very happy to be a part of it. That first day I went to visit First Baptist
it was for me like going from a desert which I had been for the former five
years to finding a wonderful refreshing oasis where springs of water could be
found along with palm trees and fruit.
It was a wonderful experience.
Some later on the church called its pastor who has been there since 2011
and he reminds me of our second Pastor we had while attending Grace Baptist church,
a man who I had great respect for. Our
leadership is made up of five pastors and a large number of deacons of which I
believe all fit the things we have been talking about from this verse we are
looking at today. No church is perfect,
as I can see from studying the seven churches in Revelation 2-3, but attending
a church that has been around for 180 years gives me confidence that God has
and my prayer is to continue to bless our church for many years to come,
hopefully until the Lord comes.
In our next SD we will look at the quote from John
MacArthur’s commentary as he explains his feelings on the subject of deacons.
Spiritual meaning
for my life today: I want to say
that I am thankful for the Lord leading me to First Baptist Church of Elyria.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
question: “430 years” (Exodus 12:40).
Today’s Bible
question: “What kind of tongues should
deacons not have?”
Answer in our next SD.
10/30/2017 11:11 AM
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