Today's Word Radio

Brett Meador: The church was growing. They had a big problem. And now they've got people that they've got to care for. So they started divvying it up. This is what they did in the early church, and they come up with a game plan.

Guest (Male): When asked what the church should look like, Pastor Brett Meador says the answer is seen right in today's word.

Brett Meador: Now, this is an important thing. And when it comes to ministry, well, the early church is setting up now elders and deacons to minister to, to wait upon, to serve. That's the word for deacon. And I think it's important.

Guest (Male): Pastor Brett Meador has said those opposed to the concept of organized religion are dismissing scripture's example in Acts chapter six that not only is exactly what the early church needed, but how they successfully structured their growing fellowship. In today's word, we'll see how the selection of servant leaders resulted in the meeting of needs and multiplied believers.

Brett Meador: The early church is growing, multiplying. We saw God correcting as Ananias and Sapphira were subtracted from the church as they were lying. The precedent was set as we talked about. And then we see the apostles now preaching, and then they were imprisoned for preaching Jesus.

And so as we continue our study now, as the church grows, as it turns out, there's some interesting predicaments and troubles that the church has. In Acts chapter six, verse one, it says, "And in those days, when the number of the disciples was multiplied, there arose a murmuring of the Grecians against the Hebrews, because their widows were neglected in the daily ministration."

So in the way that the church was serving, there was a group of people feeling left out. Now, what's interesting about this is it says Grecians here in the King James. Kind of true, but not the best word. Your newer translations have the word Hellenists. That's probably a more accurate word. Hellenism was a Greek worldview and ideology. Greek culture influenced.

By the way, by this time in the first century, Greek influence was all over the world, the known world. Who were the Hebrews? They were Jews. They were the ones who remained in Judea near Jerusalem, who spoke Hebrew language and were appropriately called the Hebrew people.

Those that were scattered in the diaspora way back in the Old Testament, they picked up the Greek language and lost their other languages, Hebrew or Aramaic. Most of them would speak Greek. The Hellenists would speak Greek language.

So we're dealing mostly with Jews. So these are Jewish people, both Hebrew and what would be called Hellenistic Jews or Libertines, as we talked about them. We'll see that again. But the problem: the Hellenistic Jews from other parts of the world now in Jerusalem felt they were jealous of the first group, the Hebrews. They were made to feel like outsiders because they weren't being cared for. The widows and the daily ministry that was happening wasn't happening as much with them, but it was happening with the men of Judea. It was almost like people that were being favored over the other.

By the way, the idea of neglecting their widows, that was sort of the least common denominator there. The widows were neglected. What's the big deal about widows? In those days, if you're a widow and you didn't have help, you would die. It was not a good situation for widows. So the church took up the idea of caring for the widows and the orphans. That was a new idea in first-century times when the church came on the scene.

So they're caring for all the Hebrew women and children, but the Hellenists were feeling left out, feeling neglected. Verse two says, "Then the twelve called the multitude of the disciples unto them, and said, It is not reason that we should leave the word of God, and serve tables. Wherefore, brethren, look ye out among you seven men of honest report, full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business. But we will give ourselves continually to prayer, and to the ministry of the word. And the saying pleased the whole multitude."

Pause there for a second. The church was growing. They had a big problem. And now they've got people that they've got to care for. So they started divvying it up. This is what they did in the early church, and I think it's important. There are challenges of a larger church and trying to meet with people and stuff like that.

I've noticed there's a lot of young pastors that want to get in and they just want to be teaching-preaching pastors but don't deal with people. I think that's a huge mistake. But the early church is setting up now elders and deacons. Now, this is important because you say, "Brett, are these guys they're going to pick and choose?" They're called deacons. The Greek word is *diakoneō*. There are different word forms of deacon, but *diakoneō* is the word used here, and we'll see that as we keep reading.

So everybody's pleased. Great, you're going to take care of us. So it says the saying pleased the whole multitude, verse five. "And they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Ghost, and Philip, and Prochorus, and Nicanor, and Timon, and Parmenas, and Nicolas a proselyte of Antioch: Whom they set before the apostles: and when they had prayed, they laid their hands on them."

Pause for a second here. What's going on? Well, you say, "Brett, these are the deacons of the church." Yes, but I don't see the word deacon in these verses. Right. This is the famous scripture where they chose their deacons. Yes. And the word deacon is not here in the English, but the word *diakoneō* is there in Acts chapter six, verse two, when it says the twelve called the multitude of disciples and said, "It is not reason that we should leave the word of God and serve tables." The word serve there, you might mark the word serve in verse two. That's the word *diakoneō*. It's actually a person that does the work, the deacon, to minister to, to wait upon, to serve. That's the word for deacon. That's what it all means.

Now, we're going to find out that the guys that are given to the ministry of prayer and the word, they're called elders. Now, just a quick summary of this. In the Bible, there's three synonymous words that are used for elder. You have to be careful on these, but the three words are elder, pastor, bishop. All sort of interchangeable. However, they speak of maybe three different forms of an elder or how an elder operates.

For example, if you're a pastor of a small church of 20 people and your little house of the prayer or whatever and you're Reverend Alden—remember him? He was an elder-pastor-bishop because he had to kind of do everything himself. I did that. I was an elder-pastor-bishop when I was first starting back in '96 when we had 20 people.

But the three words actually talk about the three roles. Pastor is the method by which an elder gives the word out. The word pastor is linked to the idea of feeder of the flock. That's the teaching of the word. Pastor is the feeder of the sheep, the one who's teaching.

The elder speaks of not just the method, that's pastor, but the elder speaks of the man, that he's a person of maturity. Not necessarily elder in age. That's a mistake we make because the elders of the early church were, some of them were still in their twenties. So that's important to understand. But the elder's more of a maturity is the idea. That's the man.

So you've got the method, pastor, the man, which is the elder, and then you have the bishop, which is kind of a whole other form of ministry, but it's an overseeing ministry. The word bishop is the Greek word *episkopos*. We'll come across that in the book of Acts. Acts chapter 20 will talk about the *episkopos* role.

At Athey Creek, we have pastors, elders, and bishops. We just don't call them bishops. Why don't we call them bishops? Because it's weird. The word bishop has become something that's kind of weird, sadly. It's not weird. The word *episkopos*, it's actually a great thing. It's just an elder who's an overseeing elder. The bishop is the administrative guy who's overseeing. Remember in Acts 20, Paul's talking to the elders at the church of Ephesus. He says those of you that are *episkopos*, don't forget to care for the flock of God that Jesus Christ purchased with his own blood. You're supposed to care for that flock. That's the administrative work.

So at Athey Creek, we have a governing elder board that's the *episkopos*. We don't call them bishops. I'm part of that group. We pray about everything and we make decisions, and if there's not a unanimous peace in our hearts about going in a direction, we don't go in the direction. We just wait until we have a peace in that.

Then we have the greater group of elders, which is an amazing group of men that are given to the ministry of prayer and the word, just like it says here in Acts. They're not necessarily serving communion or parking cars or doing some of the more daily administration stuff. These are the guys that are spiritually leading and teaching and praying for the congregation. Elder.

And then the pastors. We have pastors who are teaching the word, feeding the flock, whether it's me or our pastoral staff meeting with people or sharing the word with them in a counseling context. Biblical counseling is what our pastors do, and that's the three roles of an elder: elder, pastor, bishop. Those are the three. That's the ones here in Acts six that were given to the ministry of prayer and the word.

The deacons, however, they were given to serve. Now, by the way, are there deaconesses in the Bible? Answer is yes. It's not named as much, but Romans 16:1, it's kind of cryptic when it says, "I commend unto you Phebe our sister, which is a servant of the church which is at Cenchrea." But the word servant there is the feminine form of the word deacon there. So this girl Phebe was a deaconess, if you would. So it's a small mention, but does Athey Creek have deaconesses? We have many deaconesses at Athey Creek, women that just are serving, doing amazing work, and I think they're the ones getting some of the heavy lifting done, frankly, in a lot of what Athey Creek does. And I'm so thankful. Awesome women who serve in the church.

Well, back to Acts chapter six. We see here this saying pleased the multitude that they're going to choose. But I want you to notice something that I think a lot of people miss. In verse three, they say, "Look ye out among you," verse three, "among you seven men of honest report." Who were they talking to? Well, don't forget, they're talking to the Hellenists. And this makes sense because, basically, you hear the apostles say, "Choose from among you Hellenists people that will represent you in the church to take care of the widows and those that are needy. Good idea! But I think you're called to do it. Go choose from your own group those that will do that."

This reminds me of a lot of times in church growth where you see people come with all kinds of ideas. Don't be surprised if you hear somebody say, like if you come up to one of our pastors, "Hey, we think we should have a quilting group. We need a quilting group at Athey Creek making quilts." Great! We've had quilting groups in the times past. But you say, "Why would you not have quilting groups?" Well, that's not something I really feel called to personally. I'm not going to be the in-charge of the quilting group. But maybe the Lord's calling you to get together with Christian women or men, I suppose, and you could be in the quilting group. But you might hear us say, "Hey, why don't you take that on?" And a lot of people are like, "What? I didn't—I'm not volunteering. I just was an idea I had." And suddenly they don't want to have anything to do with it because you'd be in charge.

Do you see that's exactly what's happening right here in this story? We see the apostles say, "Oh, good idea. Why don't you guys find seven guys from your group?" The apostles say, "Choose from among you," and so they chose from among the group of Hellenists. That's why all their names are Greek. These aren't Hebrew names listed here. They're Greek names. The apostles were not passing the buck but saying, "Man, you've got an idea and you need help. Part of the church is we're supposed to help one another, and if you see a need in the church, I think part of the deal is you're supposed to help minister to that need."

I'm always amazed at the people that know how to do stuff that we don't know how to do and they're so much better at it. And I could go on and on about all the people that are ministering and doing what they're good at. But "It is not reason," the elders said, "that we should serve the tables." Not that that's a lesser thing, by the way. It's not like, "We're not going to dirty our hands and serve the tables." That's not what's going on. They knew they were supposed to be busy preaching the word and given to prayer: prayer and the ministry of the word. But there were others serving in the church, serving the tables, probably communion, maybe the love feasts.

You're saying love feasts? What was that? That sounds very hippie, Brett. Well, did you know the early church had love feasts? That's what they even called them. You read that in church history. They would get together and just have these big feasts, and it was just centered around fellowship around the Lord and fellowship with each other and lots of food. I love that. They would get together, talk, eat, and have food, and those that would serve the tables would make sure everything was taken care of. I'm so thankful for those people that do the logistics and make those things happen.

Notice they prayed and then laid hands on them. That's a way to enter into ministry. Whenever we have somebody entering in, we like to lay hand on them and pray, have the elders pray over them. In First Timothy 5:22, it says Paul said, "Lay hands suddenly on no man." The idea is don't take a novice, a person who's not called to the ministry to be a deacon. These guys have to be kind of vetted before they can be in these roles. So don't call on a man too quickly.

So who were the men that were chosen? Well, we have seven deacons. Let's just go over them really quickly. First, you have Stephen, who we're told in verse five was full of faith and the Holy Ghost. First Christian martyr. By the way, the Damascus Gate in Jerusalem, they believe this is the gate, the Damascus Gate where they would have taken Stephen out to stone him to death. But Stephen would be the first martyr of the Christian church.

And don't forget his name, *Stephanos*. Remember, there's two Greek words. There's the word diadem or diadema, which is a royalty ornament for a head like Queen Elizabeth, her crown. But then there's the *Stephanos* crown, which is like the mark of a royal or exalted rank, a chaplet. But the *Stephanos* is best remembered by the wreath crown of, like, the Greek games. That's a *Stephanos* is sort of the idea there.

So you've got Stephen. Then the second guy listed here is Philip. And his name means lover of horses. This is an interesting Greek name but very connected to horsemanship. Now, in the Bible, there were four Philips. Don't confuse them.

The first Philip that we should know is one of the twelve apostles. That's not this Philip. But he was one of the apostles. There's another Philip that we read about in Matthew 14:3, and that's Herod's brother, the first husband of Herodias. If you remember, that was Philip, the first husband of Herodias. And then there's the third Philip that's talked about. He's the son of Herod the Great, Philip the Tetrarch that we read about in the Bible. He's the half-brother of Herod Antipas. And then the one that we would call this Philip, we often call him Philip the Evangelist. And that's the one here. He's a deacon. We'll see him in Acts chapter eight baptizing the Ethiopian eunuch. We will see him on the way to Gaza. Yes, the very Gaza Strip that's in trouble today. We'll see more of this in chapter eight. He would even preach in a city called Ashdod. I've been to the ancient ruins of Ashdod, and he preached there at an ancient Philistine city.

So Philip, big deal in the Bible, this number four Philip. We'll call him Philip the Evangelist. We'll see why we call him the evangelist here later. And then there's Prochorus. His name means leader of the dance. So apparently he knew how to bust a move or something. I don't know. No, we don't really know much about Prochorus. He kind of goes down in history, but in church tradition, some say he was the secretary of John the Apostle. Don't know that for sure, but that's tradition that says that.

Then you have number four, Nicanor. His name means victorious because of the word Nike, the Greek word or conqueror. We don't know much about him except for in church history. We know he was martyred in AD 76. He was martyred for his faith in Christ. And then you have number five, Timon. His name means valuable or honorable. And he was also burned at the stake, martyred by fire, history tells us.

Then you had Parmenas. His name means abiding. Even as Jesus said, "Abide in me as I abide in you." He was believed to preach the gospel in Asia Minor where the seven churches of Revelation are. Parmenas was one who was preaching there. They say he was martyred in 98 AD under the persecution of Trajan, the emperor. The same guy that boiled John in a pot of boiling oil. That same guy, Trajan, is the one who killed Parmenas.

And then lastly, you have Nicolas. You say, "Well, is that the same as Nicanor?" Same meaning, except Nicolas kind of means victor of the people. And he was a proselyte of Antioch, which is kind of a delineation he's given: Gentile that was converted to Judaism before becoming a Christian. That's his story.

Now, just a side note for this Nicolas. For you Bible history buffs, do you remember the Bible talking about the Nicolaitans? Did Jesus like the deeds of the Nicolaitans? No. He said, "The deeds of the Nicolaitans which I hate." Jesus said he hated the deeds of the Nicolaitans. Irenaeus and Clement, by the way, of Alexandria, those were early church fathers. But in Irenaeus's book called *Against Heresies*, he wrote in like the third century, he said Nicolas, this last guy of Antioch, was the founder of the Gnostic sect known as the Nicolaitans. That was Irenaeus who said that. And also Clement. Another early writer, Hippolytus, adds that Nicolas departed from sound doctrine and was in the habit of including indifferency of both life and food, which is kind of interesting. The meaning he taught to the Gnostic belief of the irrelevance of physical things. And this also reinforces Clement's claim that Nicolas became an ascetic. Those are the guys that would deprive themselves of the common comforts. Anyway, all that to say this guy Nicolas may have gone off the rails even though he was once a deacon. And that's kind of sad. We see that in the modern church, people that are chosen to be in the church only to have failure, moral failure or doctrinal failure. Very likely Nicolas was that guy.

Well, we pick it up there after they were chosen. It says they laid their hands on them, prayed for them, and then verse seven, "The word of God increased; and the number of the disciples multiplied in Jerusalem greatly; and a great company of the priests were obedient to the faith." Don't you love that? The priests, these are the guys that were crucifying Jesus, some of them. They were part of the Sanhedrin, some of these priests. They were part of those councils. And now even some of them are becoming believers in Christ. What a great thing! And it's saying it's multiplied greatly. This is after it was already multitude to 5,000 earlier in chapter three and four. So we don't even know how many believers there are now of Jesus in Jerusalem, but it's exponentially growing, including some of the priests. What a cool thing!

I pray that we'll see that same kind of revival. We need to be praying for that, that we would see multiplication. Again, I've got to point it out: what made the church multiply? The word, the word, the word. "And the word of God increased, and the number was multiplied." Remember, every time it says the number was multiplied, it says because of the word. That's a secret that so many people miss. "Let's build a church. We'll make it hip, and our pastor will be stylish, and we'll have smoke on the stage, and we'll care for your family's needs, and we'll have all kinds of community. It'll be all about community." Here's the problem with all that: that's not what multiplies. It's the word, it's the word, it's the word. That's the key. You can do those other things if you want to, but I think the word should be central to any good church. If you want to grow, it's the word.

Well, out of all those seven, out pops one of them whose name is Stephen, verse eight. "And Stephen, full of faith and power, did great wonders and miracles among the people. Then there arose certain of the synagogue, which is called the synagogue of the Libertines, and Cyrenians, and Alexandrians, and them of Cilicia and of Asia, disputing with Stephen. And they were not able to resist the wisdom and the spirit by which he spake. Then they suborned men, which said, We have heard him speak blasphemous words against Moses, and against God. And they stirred up the people, and the elders, and the scribes, and came upon him, and caught him, and brought him to the council, And set up false witnesses, which said, This man ceaseth not to speak blasphemous words against this holy place," the temple, "and the law: For we have heard him say, that this Jesus of Nazareth shall destroy this place, and shall change the customs which Moses delivered us. And all that sat in the council, looking stedfastly on him, saw his face as it had been the face of an angel."

Interesting. We looked at this as the predicament Stephen finds himself. And Stephen was full of faith and power, did great wonders. He was faithful to do what the Lord called him to do. And because of his faithfulness, he ends up in a predicament. Don't be surprised if you're obedient to God and you find yourself in a predicament. Don't be shocked, because that oftentimes will happen. But good news, the Lord will be there for you. "Well, Brett, I know Acts chapter seven, and it sounds to me like the Lord wasn't there for Stephen." Well, he's going to preach to this council one of the most powerful sermons, and he's going to be glowing while he does it. And they're going to kill him at the end. But Stephen, to the believer, when you go out like Stephen, that's a win. That's a huge win, and we'll see that coming up. Amen?

Guest (Male): Pastor Brett Meador pausing for today in our look into Acts chapter six as the Lord continues to work through the obedience of the faithful believers of the early church as we read in today's word. And we've saved time for a word of prayer just before we go, so I hope you'll stick around for that.

But first, today's word is the radio ministry of Athey Creek Church in the Portland, Oregon area where Pastor Brett Meador's the senior pastor. We invite you to find out more by going to todayswordradio.com. If you missed any portion of this study, you'll find all of Pastor Brett's messages online at todayswordradio.com. Our vision on today's word is to proclaim the hope of salvation and help people know Jesus through careful study of the Bible. We invite you to find out more by going to todayswordradio.com.

I also want to mention that in addition to the main Athey Creek campus in West Linn, Oregon, we also have several locations in the Portland, Oregon area. For more information, go to todayswordradio.com and click on the link 'Locations'. Again, todayswordradio.com and click the link 'Locations'. Well, now let's rejoin Pastor Brett Meador for a brief word of prayer.

Brett Meador: Lord, we are so thankful for your word. I pray, Lord, that you would help us as a church to do the organized religion part well. Lord, that we would have strong leaders. I'm thankful for our pastors and our elders. How thankful I am for the great women that you've raised up to just care for the flock and just the great things that you're doing, Lord. We're just blessed.

We want to make sure that our church is governed in the way you want it to be. We really want you to be the head of the church. We humbly submit ourselves to you. Just all the big decisions and things that have been challenging, Lord, you've been faithful. I pray that you'd raise up, Lord, a whole another generation of elders, pastors, bishops, deaconesses, women that would be used mightily in the church.

Lord, I pray that there would just be more and more young people that would step up and help them to discern not to want to have all the things they see right now. Lord, it seems like you want us to move slowly and it takes time to grow into those roles. But Lord, your will be done. Raise up young men and women to fill the next generation here.

And just you've blessed us in so many ways. We know that's not because of anything we've done or anything we know; it's because of your grace and your faithfulness, Lord. We applaud you. So, Lord, bless this group as we've studied this little section on church government and the beginnings of it. Give us understanding as we continue through the book of Acts. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

Guest (Male): Amen. Pastor Brett Meador closing our time here on today's word. And that's all the time we have. Next time, we'll continue our look at the Acts of the Apostles and Pastor Brett will share a message titled "Israel or Palestine". Today's word with Pastor Brett Meador is an outreach of Athey Creek Church in West Linn, Oregon.