The Choosing of the Seven

 Meditations on The Acts of the Apostles

February 2, 2021

The Choosing of the Seven

“Brothers and sisters, choose seven men from among you who are known to be full of the Spirit and wisdom. We will turn this responsibility over to them and will give our attention to prayer and the ministry of the word.”

Acts 6:3-4

Read: Acts 6:1-7   

Two parts of today’s passage stand out to me. First is the decentralized organization of the New Community of Believers. Yes, the apostles had a unique and particular role, but when the need for additional staff surfaced, the apostles allowed the entire group of disciples, men and women, to choose the new staff. They only choose men, as was the custom of their day, but all participated in the decision.

Secondly, the apostles affirmed their priority to give their attention to prayer and the ministry of the word. I remember when I first became a candidate for ordained ministry. I interviewed the senior pastor of a church and asked him to list his various duties and responsibilities, and then prioritize them. I next asked him to rank them by the amount of time he spent with each of his responsibilities. The reality was the least in priority were taking the most time. I found this to be true throughout my pastoral ministry. The only way to give sufficient time for prayer and sermon preparation was to work seven days per week.

My Takeaway: Early in our readings in Acts, we saw that ALL received the Holy Spirit and ALL were tasked with being witnesses to the resurrection of Jesus. We will see tomorrow that being chosen to lead the food distribution ministry didn’t relieve these men of their responsibility to be a witness for Christ.

Sē’lah

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(Selah is a word that appears in the Book of Psalms that I often use as the Complimentary Closing in my correspondence. Its meaning, as I use the word, is to pause and think about these things.)

 

These meditations are written by Alex M. Knight as he seeks the life in Christ as his way of life.  The meditations are published on the BLOG, http://seekingthelifeinchrist.blogspot.com/ and they are also distributed on the Constant Contact email server. You may subscribe to this email service by sending an email to: amkrom812@gmail.com.

 

Copyright © 2021 by Alex M. Knight

 

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.