Weekly Sermons

Early Church Math                 Acts 6:1-7

To be someone’s best friend requires a minimum investment of time. More than that, though, it takes emotional energy. Caring about someone deeply is exhausting. At a certain point, at somewhere between 10 and 15 people, we begin to overload.                                                -Malcolm Gladwell, The Tipping Point, page 177

The figure of __________________ seems to represent the maximum number of individuals with whom we can have a genuinely social relationship, the kind of relationship that goes with knowing who they are and how they relate to us…                       Ibid, p. 182     

The Problem: Multiplied Disciples meant _______________ needs                                                                                               V. 1

The Hebraic Jews were the native Jewish population of Israel. The Hellenistic Jews were __________________ speaking Jewish believers who had come to Jerusalem from other parts of the Roman Empire.

Now some assume this was a meals-on-wheels type deal, getting food to widows. But the word there for distribution is the first of three forms of the word “____________________________” in verses 1-4. It is also translated service or ministry.

The Solution: ______________ ministers means true needs get met!                                                                                             V. 2-7

This is the only time in Acts the apostles are called the Twelve; they functioned as a plurality of ______________________ in the church of Jerusalem like elders would later in Jerusalem and in every church planted in the Book of Acts.

Do you see what’s happening here? The apostles understood that if they fed the widows physically they would starve the church ________________________!

“The key idea seems to be that ministry is ministry whether it consists of teaching God’s Word or taking care of widows.”                                                                 -Ken Gangel

Now since money was involved, the apostles did put some qualifiers around the kind of people they were looking for.

They had to have a good ___________________…  

They had to be Full of the Holy Spirit…

They had to be full of wisdom…

The Judean believers were willing to let the Non-Judean believers take the lead in this significant ministry.

When a need goes unmet in a church, it may be because of leaders who are reluctant to delegate or because members won’t step up to meet a need! Biblically based churches know that _______________ member is a minister.

From Him the whole body, fitted and knit together by what every ligament supplies, promotes the growth of the body for the building up itself in love by the proper working of each individual part.                                                                 -Ephesians 4:16

The Result: Gospel Math                                                       V. 7

To keep multiplying disciples, a church needs to keep _____________ ministers like you!