All right, Acts chapter 5. I just want to cover this little section on miracles and then we'll go to Acts chapter 6 and the installation of deacons. So Acts chapter 5 starting in verse 12. Now many signs and wonders were regularly done among the people by the hands of the apostles. So if this is your first Sunday or if you haven't been in a while we're going through the book of Acts. and we're in chapter 5 signs and wonders are being done a sign is what a sign signifies some deeper truth a wonder produces awe and fear in the hearts of people. And those are synonyms for miracles. So miracles are not only miracles, they're also wonders and they're also signs signifying or attesting to some truth, some deeper truth. And in this case, it's attesting to the fact that the apostles are truly who they say they are. They are the foundation of the first century church. They are Jesus's apostles. They have his power and his authority and that you should listen and obey them. the signs attesting to the apostles and to the gospel. And not unlike the signs that attended Moses' teaching. Remember, Moses said, what if they don't listen to me? And God said, I will give you some signs to attest to your authority and your validity. And he says, put your hand in your tunic and bring it out. And it's leprous. And put your hand back in and bring it out again. It's not leprous. And he says, show them that, you know. Show them these signs and maybe they will believe who you are. And of course, that does help people believe whenever it's a new situation like Moses or the apostles. Whenever you have these new epoch eras shifting in the Bible, you need signs and wonders to attest to the validity of it. There were signs and wonders foretelling the destruction of Jerusalem. There were signs and wonders with the installation of the apostles, et cetera. Let's continue reading verse 12. And many signs and wonders were regularly done among the people by the hands of the apostles. And they were all together in Solomon's portico. That's an outdoor space in the temple. None of the rest dared join them, but the people held them in high esteem. And more than ever, believers were added to the Lord, multitudes of both men and women, so that they even carried out the sick into the streets and laid them on cots and mats, that as Peter came by, at least his shadow might fall on some of them. The people also gathered from the towns around Jerusalem, bringing the sick and those afflicted with unclean spirits, and they were all healed. So many signs, many wonders, and that's especially necessary in this particular moment to attest to the validity of the apostles. Peter is the apostle and John and all of these guys. And so the two ditches here, I think, are to say, well, we should expect this level of miraculous intervention. That's an incorrect way to put it. We should not expect this because we're not on the cusp of the New Covenant era, right? And we're not in the middle of a time period in which new apostles are being installed. And so we should not expect this degree of miraculous intervention. I mean, look at it. All were healed. 100% success rate. Paul didn't even have that later on. And certainly there's no one doing anything like that today. Even though there are people who claim to and that those people that's a problem. Obviously you can see in verse 12 the signs and wonders are regularly done. It's just a regular thing. It was a special moment. And we've seen earlier in the book of Acts that it was a special moment. The other ditch is to say miracles don't happen anymore period. I think that's I think that's probably. more human logic than a biblical text. I think if you consider the text of Scripture and the things that are supposed to attend the New Covenant era, miracles is one of them. And so we can expect there to be some miracles. Especially, I believe, especially when the gospel is breaking into frontier areas, in pioneer missionary work, where miracles and signs and wonders have that particular effect, where they attest to the validity of these new messengers that come into your town. And you've heard stories like this. I heard of one particular missionary story recently where they came into this new region, the first time this region's heard the gospel, the first time they're interacting with the gospel, there's hostilities and there's threats to the missionaries and the missionaries say our God can move mountains and He even says later. He wished he would not have said that Because he did this, you know, he was saying he was meaning it Figuratively, but and but they kind of were like well Let's see it, you know and he and all of the people and he was in trouble like they were hostile and he was either in jail or something was, he was threatened. And so he and the other missionaries got together and prayed. They're like, we kind of, we put our foot, our foot in our mouths, but maybe, you know, you could save us. And, and, and like later that day at like a key moment, there was a huge mudslide. And so the whole village is helped in that moment to believe. These are messengers from God. This is a valid message. And I think we can expect those sorts of things in pioneer missionary movements. But usually what you see, you see the miracles in that time of transition, and then you see the next generation having and expecting to, instead of everyone being healed miraculously, they have to now build hospitals. That's usually what you usually like. So it starts off, you get your bread from heaven. Yeah, you know, miracles. But then the next generation has to learn how to farm. And so it's you see that a few times in scripture. God is like, OK, now it's time you're not you're not on welfare anymore. You're not a baby anymore. You're not a child anymore. You don't just get free food just right into your mouth. You have to grow up and be an adult. Now you do the works. You do the works. You do the healings. And maybe not in a awe-inspiring, out-of-the-ordinary way, but in an everyday way. And so I think that's very good here. And that's a good transition to the section on deacons. That's where I want to go to now, Acts chapter 6. because they're going to have to deal with the problems that arise. And remember, we've seen the churches growing, 3,000, 5,000, multitudes of people are becoming Christians. Even on Pentecost, how many were saved and baptized that afternoon? 3,000 men. So not only men, but entire families, 3,000 households, saved and baptized and added to the church in one afternoon so that's a lot of baptisms and a lot of people being saved and so more people more problems as we've seen and one of the problems that arises is right here in verse 1 acts 6 1 now in these days when the disciples were increasing in number a complaint by the Hellenists That's Greek-speaking, Greek-cultured people, the minority in that church, arose against the Hebrews because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution. So there's some charity taking place, some welfare taking place in the church. They're sharing what they have, but the distribution is is not going smoothly. For whatever reason, the Greek-speaking, Greek-cultured people are getting the short end of the stick on the welfare and the charity in the church. Verse 2 and the 12, "...summoned the full number of the disciples and said, it is not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables. Therefore, brothers, pick out from among you seven men of good repute, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we will appoint to this duty." So I want to spend some time just talking about this and get everything we can out of it. What incident in the Old Testament is this the fulfillment of or a parallel to? Yeah, the appointing of the elders under Moses. Remember Moses signs and wonders. Israel is constituted A lot of people, a lot of problems. Jethro comes to Moses and says, you need to delegate. You see the same parallel thing happening here. Signs and wonders. Israel's reconstituted. But now we need to get organized. We're going into the promised land. We're going to have to fight giants and we're going to have to farm fields. We're gonna have to take care of widows and orphans, so let's get organized. That's the context of this particular passage. I think there's a lot we can learn here. Let's just go through it, verse one, any thoughts on verse one, any lessons there? Verse one, I know that's my job, but I like to get you involved. I think there's a really good lesson that we can't miss here. A question, all right, good. Mm-hmm Yeah, it's just a name for Christians in general, yeah, mm-hmm When they didn't have any deacons at this particular point in time, I think in verse 1 What you see where we're gonna say here Yeah. Oh, I think. Yeah, I'm going to say that in verse two. I know what you're saying, though. But notice, why would why would it tell us Hellenists and Hebrews? Why would it go out of its way to say the church is made up of Greeks and Jews? Because this is the New Testament church, right? I think that's important. You can't just pass that up. The partition wall that had divided the Jews from the Gentiles has been removed. So now the church is comprised of Jew and Gentile, the Gentiles having being grafted in with full rights and privileges. But that's going to take some time probably adjusting for the Jewish churches. And you can see, you could imagine someone who is a minority in our church, who had a slightly different culture, different, you know, habits and routines, could slip through the cracks easier than someone who is of the majority culture. Does that make sense? Like, you just know how, if you're a middle-aged white guy like myself, and you have a problem, you kind of know how to deal with me and I know how to deal with you and you know what's accustomed and you know like probably when would be a good time to call and you can tell from my demeanor and the way I talk you know if I'm pleased with you or not pleased with you just cultural things that just make it easier to to get along and easier to meet needs so now you got new cultures coming into the church You gotta consider those things. And you're gonna see in a second that the disciples, the deacons that they appoint are all deacons that have the ability to speak Greek as well as Hebrew. And so they're going out of their way, they're going above board to try to make sure that there's equity and not partiality in the first century church. I think that's an important lesson, should that be an issue for us. Verse two in the 12, summon the full number of the disciples, and said, it is not right that we should give up preaching the Word of God to serve tables. So what do we see here? We see a division of labor. Right? We see the church becoming organized. And there's the teachers, and there's the, as we're going to see in a second, the doers. And there's different gifts for those particular roles. Not everyone can be an eye, not everyone can be a mouth, not everyone can be a hand. You all have to have different gifts and different callings and opportunities, amen? And everyone should learn to find their particular part in the church's overall mission. And the Bible says that once we find our parts, and we, you never know, you might figure out you're good at something you never thought you'd be good at. And you might enjoy something you never thought you would enjoy if you just meet the needs. You see the needs, you meet those needs, you find out, wow, I'm some fruit in this particular area. I enjoy doing that. And it helps out your church. And then you look at the way other peoples are serving in the church, and you consider their calling higher than yours. That's what you never do in the church is to consider your own, the way I serve the church and the way I help And the way I advance the kingdom is better and more significant than the way everybody else makes sense. And they all have a division of labor here. And if the apostles don't teach. Then no one will, so they have to focus on teaching. So they come up with a plan, organize the church. Therefore, brothers, the brothers are the heads of households. Pick out from among you seven men of good repute. So they're asking the heads of households to hold an election. Right? There's no universal suffrage in this church. Just to point out, not a hobby horse of mine, but the women and children are not voting in the congregational meetings. It's the heads of households that are choosing the representatives. And the qualifications are full of the spirit and of wisdom whom we will appoint to this duty. So you see the apostles, Which are standing in the place of what we would call today elders the Apostles are still going to appoint the men but the congregation the heads of household is going to Nominate the men for appointment they're going to choose the men does that make sense so uh Where do the where do the leaders come from and They come from the congregation. I think that's important. Ideally, you want to be raising up leaders in your own church. So if we had a problem with poor widows, who should take care of the problem? We should take care of that problem. But why wouldn't we just bring them down to the Social Security office and help them out with their paperwork? Or to the welfare office and help them get on food stamps? Why wouldn't we just turn this problem over to the state? Because it's not the state's ministry, it's our ministry. That's right, good. Why wouldn't we, maybe we would hire independent committee or experts or a parachurch ministry to come in and solve that particular problem. I don't think we should do that either. We should raise up our leaders from among us and handle our business. That's what we should be doing, generally speaking. Why is there seven of them? Nobody knows, I don't know. Just seems interesting. deficient yeah that's as good any any explanation I've ever heard so I like it what are the qualifications look at the list and let's go through them they have to have a good reputation among the congregation right so I think they are the Holy Spirit meant to say they needed to be wealthy and really enjoy bossing people around. No, it says they need to have a good reputation. But to say the, think about this underneath, to say, okay, well, they need to, y'all need to think highly of them. They need to be highly esteemed in the congregation. That means the congregation has some power, they have some authority to select, to choose, okay? What are the other qualifications? Huh? Full of the Spirit, which I think is very interesting. I mean, imagine they're serving tables, they're distributing food. You know, we might have deacons who run a financial committee or something like that just to take care of all the financial aspects of the church. One day, I'm hoping we have that, because that would be amazing. But they would need to be full of the Holy Spirit. I think that's very important. He says they need to have respect among the congregation and they need to be full of the Holy Spirit. I mean, how many churches think about that if they're going to pick out a financial committee or if they're going to create a maintenance team or something like that? Well, we need people who are full of the Holy Spirit. Well, they're just cutting the grass. No, I need, we need our grass cutters. Kevin, this is you, you know, to be full of the Holy Spirit. Absolutely. We need them to be full of the Holy Spirit and faith and faith. But why is that? Why do you need someone to design and to maintenance the the the parking lot or to to put together a maintenance plan and to make sure these facilities are kept and tidy and nice for the next generation? Why do you need someone like that to be full of the Holy Spirit? And not just rich or successful or good at telling people what to do or or handy. Well, I mean, you can imagine. I don't even have to imagine because I've been in the church long enough and I've been in other churches. People in helps and people in management and people with the gift of service and the gift of helps. do have a tendency sometime to be a ball and chain for the rest of the organization. Not at our church. We have very spirit-filled middle management and helpers, but whenever the leader says, we need to do this, we need to go for it. Well, it's a lot easier for him to say it. He just teaches the Bible. And now everyone has to say, oh no, well that means this about maintenance, and this about cleaning, and this about management, and this about bookkeeping, and this administrative thing, and this facility thing, and people in that realm can very much often run the whole organization. Have you ever been in a business where middle management actually runs things? Because they just put the brakes on everything, and if you can't get the ladies in the back office to go with the flow, you can't do anything. And so there's a lot of times people like that, they're not necessarily known for vision and for going for it and taking big risks and a lot of faith. They're crunching numbers and they don't want the status quo. That's why you need people filled with the Spirit of God, so that they aren't prone to dig their heels in and make things difficult for the whole team. You need people, and you make sure they're not emotional terrorists, obviously, and always saying no to everything. No, no, no, no. You know what? I'd like to reach more people in this way. How? How? How are we gonna do that? How? How? Well, I'm not exactly sure yet. How? It's impossible. It's impossible. And I'm telling you there's people who are have those giftings And I'm not trying to be I'm we everybody has our tendencies in my opinion people with the gifts of giving of serving and of helping and and Coming and behind the scenes people that don't want to be in the limelight They want to be behind the scenes and that's good. You need people like that. But one of the tendencies for them is to who ask how so fast without any genuine curiosity. What they really mean is that's impossible. Stop your dreaming immediately and let's keep things the way they are because I've got a system. You know what I mean? I've got a system. We can't be messing the system up. And so that's why you need people filled with the Holy Spirit and with faith, no matter what they're doing in the church. Because when we do something as a church, it affects everyone. You know what I mean? You gotta have people with vision, with faith, to go for the gusto, to do more, to reach more at all levels of the church's leadership. I think that's very important. Very important. If the, yeah, if the weed eater breaks, they need the Holy Spirit, yes, to not be frustrated. That is a frustrating piece of equipment. Thank you, Emily. All right. Any other thoughts on that? What do you think? What else? Why else would they need to be filled with the Spirit? We want to have the gifts of the Spirit. I think that would be very important. The gift of administration, that would be good for these kind of people. What about the desire to serve for the purpose of maximizing others? You need the Holy Spirit for that? This is my ministry, my ministry. Oh man, you find a dead church, I can walk through a church and I can tell by their facility If they're dead, I can tell by the facility. And one of the signs is everything is a mess. Nobody cares. Nobody cares. That's one sign. Another sign is there's locked doors everywhere with people's personal names on them. And you can tell there's a turf war going on in this church. There's turf war. and there's a VBS closet, and there's a flower closet, and then there's 18 rooms that are filled with junk that nobody knows who it's for, and nobody wants to take responsibility for, and no one is brave enough to throw away. You can see there's no leadership, there's no hierarchy, they're not on mission, and there's turfs and rivalries going on, and middle management has shut this thing down. And I can guarantee you that church has a leadership board with a rich person who enjoys bossing people around and controlling everything, sitting at the head of that board. I will guarantee it. And he is the first person to make sure the pastor is gracious and doesn't say those sorts of things. That's a dead church. That's what they always look like. They always look like that. And it's so important to have the elders or the leaders willing to go through with the master key and open all those doors and desecrate those holy places to to so that the church yet and just take down those high places and those holy artifacts so the church can get healthy again but that's why you got to have deacons who are filled by the Spirit of God, because if you don't, you're going to get that. That's what's going to happen. You're going to get those sort of things that gum up the works of the organization. Is the church just spiritual and ethereal, or is it people and org charts and hierarchy and moving parts and maintenance? It's all of those things, too. It's organized religion. We love organized religion because Jesus commands us to and because he organizes his church. And amen to that. Any other things you notice here? Yeah, a little bit. I took a couple of church admin courses in seminary, for sure. I learned a lot more of that in the officer candidate school. But yeah, in seminary, they teach that stuff some too. Any other thing? There's a lot here we're missing. There's a lot more. Yep, they are appointed because they're officers being appointed. That's right. They are. Oh, they they had to be willing. They had to, you know. Yeah, they had to be willing, but notice they're still under, the deacons are still under the authority of the apostles, under the elders, which is how it's set up in a good biblical church. Yeah, they already have a good reputation. Right. Right. Absolutely. And I think that's super important. If they have a good reputation and they're filled by the Spirit and they're people of faith, then that implies that there has to have been an extended period of time in which they are tested and everyone in the church sort of knows this already. So that when it comes time to appoint them, people are like, well, who can run this ministry? we need someone hey someone's got to be the boss around here now they didn't live in an egalitarian society so they understood leadership i think a little bit better than us i said someone's got to be a charge around here well it's definitely got to be steven i mean steven's been faithful he's you know he's filled with the spirit he's got a good reputation he's been working hard and he's and he has the gift of administration helps and got to be steven let's let's go for it steven And Stephen said, well, we need to set up a parachurch ministry that has a board of very successful businessmen that's, you know, you have a person writing grants to all of those various things and not be a part of the church because the church is, you know, weak and slow and not very good at these sorts of things. No, that's not what he does. It's in the church. I think that's important. It stays under the authority of the church. It's not a universal rule, but I think that's important to consider. Also notice that there's not a bishop or a boss in a different city telling them who the officers are gonna be. The officers come up from the people and are chosen by the people. So it's not Episcopal, and it's not Anglican, and it's not Roman Catholic, and it's polity. But is it the congregation is in charge and votes for everything? and it's just a flat, egalitarian, pure democracy. Is it that either? No, what is it? It's a republic, that's right. The biblical polity for a church, in my opinion, obviously, you know, Roman Catholics would disagree, but in my opinion and what I believe the Bible teaches is that the most biblical form of church polity is a constitutional republic where you have representatives. Representatives are chosen by the people, but they are under authority themselves and they have authority over the church as well. And you see that modeled in the selection of elders, you see it modeled here in the selection of deacons as well. constitutional Republican, and what is the name of that particular type of polity? Not Episcopal, it's not Baptist, it's not congregational, it's Presbyterian. That's right, it's called Presbyterian. Have y'all heard that word before? Could they have selected women deacons? Wait, what, Kevin? Kevin, listen, you know, He said it, okay, he did it, he said that, he said it. Yes, yes, and later we see in the pastoral, in the, I forgot the name of them, 1st, 2nd Timothy, we see the qualifications of deacons, and it's they have to be faithful to their wife, that's right, they have to be men. So we can't have women deacons? Well, if Ms. Paula says, well, let's just move on then, alright. No, they have to be men because these are officers in the church with authority. It has to be men. But Pastor Brandon, Phoebe was called a deacon. Have y'all heard that before? Phoebe was called a deacon. Yeah, Jesus was called a deacon. Paul was called a deacon. The word deacon is the word servant. And so it has a range of meaning. Servant sometimes means servant, and sometimes it means the particular officer in the church that's over a particular mercy ministry, and that is an official position in the church. So, you don't want wives and women, You don't want women to hold ecclesiastical office in the church because their primary orientation is to the household, and you want to respect the household. Anytime you make officers in the church or the state women, I believe that what's actually happening is the household's taking a hit. The household has just lost an officer. And so I think you don't want to do that. and I believe just the way God has wired women, they face inward. They have inward facing ministry, whereas men generally have outward facing ministry. And if you empower a woman in spheres that God has not called her to, you're actually just dismantling the household. Which is why our government and our culture is pro-women's empowerment because they want to destroy the household. That's what they're trying to accomplish. One of the reasons. Anything else you see here? Verse 4, but we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the Word. More division of labor. Verse 5, and what they said pleased the whole gathering. It's still, it's still like a republic. People have individuality and they have a voice. All the spheres have a voice. The households are voting and the households are pleased with this organized setup. And they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit, who will later be martyred, and Philip, who later, you know, is an evangelist and converts the Ethiopian eunuch, and Procorus, who we know becomes Paul's secretary and is later killed as a martyr. We know that from church history. And then Nicanor and Timon and Parmenas and Nicholas, a proselyte of Antioch, of which we know nothing about any of those. These are the unnamed or they're named, but they're the unknown. deacons of that first century church and uh... and i think that there's a good lesson here and that you can be a deacon of a church or official deacon or unofficial deacon you can serve in whatever ministry you're called to whether man woman child you're serving your meeting the needs of the church and no one has to notice and it never has to be written down and you never have to get a plaque like Timon and Parmenas and Nicholas, you will have rewards in heaven too. And great rewards. I think we might be surprised when we get to heaven. Verse six, these they set before the apostles, you still see the hierarchy, and they prayed and laid hands on them. Since we're talking about polity, we believe, or I believe, the best way to put it is that there's two offices in the local church elder and deacon, but that the office of elder has some variation within it. You have what you might call an elder who's a pastor, you might have an elder who's called an elder or overseer, and there's different names for it in the Bible emphasizing different functions and different giftings and I think there's a little bit of freedom with that. It's not something to, you know, worry too much about. But that's what we have here. We have elders, and one day we'll have official deacons. And our elders, some of our elders are lay elders, and some of them are vocational elders. And we call our vocational elders pastors to emphasize their role as a shepherd. But they're also overseer, etc. Right? Make sense? Some people believe, like the OPC, which is a denomination, they believe there's three offices, pastors, elders, and deacons, and yeah, tomato, tomato. The danger, though, is not necessarily picking one of those. The danger is what has happened in most churches, I would say, in America, and that is the secularization of the office of deacon, and even the secularization of the office of elder. That, I think, is the biggest problem. Do y'all know what I mean by that? Where the elders, so you have your pastor, he's your professional, he's your celebrity, and he's well-spoken, polished, fit, Wait, what? No, I'm talking, I'm not talking about, I'm talking about, you know, handsome, you know. You have that person, and then you have a board of very rich, successful, shrewd, Men businessmen and women and then you have deacons who are kind of like running things But it's sort of secularized and it's a run by an expert class and by professionals I think that I think that's a problem and the Bible emphasizes being filled with the Holy Spirit Obviously you have to be apt you have to have an aptitude. Those are qualifications we read of later and But I don't think we want to be empowering people who are climbing the ecclesiastical ladder, right? And who want to be a somebody at the expense of the church. That's what we want as servants, who are willing to bear a cross. Because ministry should be a cross, not some sort of a limelight promotion. Not necessarily, yeah. Not necessarily. Yeah, it's not a don't ladder climb, please. I think in the church when someone walks into a boardroom and they go and they sit themselves right at the head of the table, that should be a red flag. Jesus says not to do that. Jesus says get called up from the ranks and don't desire power over other people. That's icky. And after all of this organization, Verse 7, And the word of God continued to increase, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests. It's so successful. and so organized, they are cooking with Crisco now. And they're moving in all areas. I think that's great. That's what the goal is. You want to be organized. We believe in organized religion. You want to be an organized church. You want to be efficient. You want to be excellent. You want to be making a difference. And right after the explanation of the deacons, it goes to say, and the word is increasing and multiplying so much that even the seminary professors are being saved. Now that is when you know And the bureaucrats, you know that is great revival right there. So, all right. Well, that's all I have for today. Let's have a good Lord's Day.