Division arose within the early church regarding the distribution of church resources for widows. In this sermon, R.C. Sproul recounts how the Apostles responded to this early crisis while remaining focused on their calling to teach the Word of God. They appointed seven godly men to care for the widows—the first deacons of the church.

We will continue with our study of the book of Acts this morning, looking at Acts 6:1–7:

Now in those days, when the number of the disciples was multiplying, there arose a complaint against the Hebrews by the Hellenists, because their widows were neglected in the daily distribution. Then the twelve summoned the multitude of the disciples and said, “It is not desirable that we should leave the word of God and serve tables. Therefore, brethren, seek out from among you seven men of good reputation, full of the Holy Spirit 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. And they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit, and Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicolas, a proselyte from Antioch, whom they set before the apostles; and when they had prayed, they laid hands on them.

Then the word of God spread, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests were obedient to the faith.

He who has ears to hear the Word of God, let him hear.

Strength from the Lord

Last Sunday morning, I mentioned to the congregation that I would be gone in California and asked you for your prayers, as it was a very heavy assignment for me. I thought about giving a report to you of what transpired in California, but I have hesitated lest I be guilty of some kind of hubris. But I will tell you, for this purpose: we are told to boast not in ourselves, but in the Lord. What the Lord did this past week was one of the most remarkable things I have ever seen, and it relates to the text I have just read.

We traveled to Grace Community Church in Los Angeles, where the pastor is John MacArthur, and the occasion was the annual Shepherds Conference, a conference held for pastors. To the best of my knowledge, this is the largest pastor’s conference held in America. One of the most exciting things a minister can do is to have fellowship with other pastors and be able to encourage them.

We arrived on Wednesday, had some meetings, and I started feeling sick. I said to Vesta, “Those people at Saint Andrew’s promised to pray for me, but I’m just not feeling very well.” In the middle of that night, at one o’clock, I woke up. My throat was on fire, and I was rushing around trying to get some painkillers.

By morning, I had lost my voice completely. Before breakfast, the best I could do was whisper, and I was supposed to speak to almost four thousand pastors at nine o’clock. So, we prayed, and I said, “Maybe if I get some hot tea and have some breakfast, that’ll help with this malady, and I’ll be able to make it.”

When I arrived at the church, I still did not have a voice. I was with John in his study, and I said: “John, somebody doesn’t want me to give this message this morning. I hope it’s not the Lord.” He said that he agreed, so we prayed, and we asked the workers in the sound booth to crank up the loudspeaker to help me as I gave an hour-long message to all the pastors.

I made it through the message, and John said to me afterwards, “R.C., that’s the best message I’ve ever heard you give in my life.” I do not know whether he was just trying to encourage me through all of this, but I am telling you this because it really does indicate that our strength is made perfect in weakness. When we are brought to the place where the only strength we have is that which is given to us by the Lord, that is when He uses us most.

When I came home last night, I said to my daughter, “This was the most difficult speaking I’ve ever experienced in my life, yet at the same time one of the most rewarding.” The Lord sustained us. The malady then went into my chest with my normal bronchitis, and my doctor in Florida called out to California and got antibiotics ordered for me, so we were able to finish and be back here today.

The First Church Crisis

One of the reasons I am so grateful for the opportunity I had in California is that we live in a time in America where there is a famine of the Word of God. It is difficult to find pastors and preachers who preach expository sermons, who break forth the text of Scripture to their people and do not just give psychological advice, insights on contemporary events, or other forms of public speaking. Pastors are to be ministers of the Word because that is our mandate. To understand that this is our mandate, let us look at this text in Acts 6.

We are told that in the early days of the church, the number of the disciples was multiplying, and a complaint arose in the congregation between the Jewish Christians and the Hellenistic Jewish Christians. There were the Palestinian Jews, and they spoke Hebrew. Then there were the Greek-speaking Jews of the Diaspora, and they had come back into Jerusalem and become part of the New Testament community. There was a division in the church between the Greek-speaking Jewish Christians and the Hebrew-speaking Jewish Christians. What was the debate about? It was about the distribution of money, time, and energy in the church with respect to the care of widows.

This was the first crisis that infected the first Christian community. The first internal dispute had to do with some folks feeling neglected because their widows were not being ministered to well. We might remember the teaching of the book of James, when he says the essence of true religion is this: the care of widows and orphans (James 1:27).

Widows in the Church

The first year I was in seminary, I had a student job at a church of about one thousand members, in Charleroi, Pennsylvania. They had a pictorial guide, and as a young man in seminary, I wanted to do the best job I could. I picked up the pictorial guide and tried to memorize the faces and names of everyone in the congregation.

One morning after church, there was an elderly woman who came to the back of the church, and I had never seen her before. I welcomed her and thanked her for being a guest and visitor at the First Presbyterian Church of Charleroi. She looked at me and said, “Young man, I’m a charter member of this church.” Talk about the science of “dentopodology,” when one puts his foot in his mouth. But she could not be in church on a regular basis. She was frail, she was a widow, and she was alone.

Do you know what happens to widows when their husbands die? Everyone weeps with them and displays some compassion at first, but then their lives change drastically not simply because they have lost their life partner but because the things they always used to do with couples they are often left out of. They experience a kind of loneliness that none of us who are not widows or widowers can possibly understand.

Last night, I went over by my television set, and there was a cassette movie there. Written on the side of it was “Return to Mitch.” Mitch loaned me this movie a few months ago and said, “When you’re finished with it, don’t forget to return it.” I cannot return it to Mitch because Mitch is gone, and he has left a lovely widow behind. But Florence is not the only widow or widower in our midst. Every church has its proportionate number of those who have lost their mates, and I know several of you who are in that category.

The Diaconate Is Founded

In this early church crisis, both the widows and widowers were being neglected, so the Twelve Apostles called a meeting. We are told that the Twelve summoned all the rest of the disciples—the whole church—and said to them, “It is not desirable that we should leave the word of God and serve tables,” meaning that the Apostles, who were given a particular mandate by Christ, could not be involved in the daily care of the lives of the people. They could not take care of business, as it were, because to be effective in their calling, they had to devote themselves to prayer and preaching the Word of God.

That is not the way it is today in the church. Every year, seventeen thousand ministers in America leave the ministry. One of the main reasons is that ministers are not encouraged, equipped, able, or allowed in the modern church to devote themselves to preaching and teaching the Word of God. Rather, a minister is often expected to be the CEO of a corporation. He is expected to do the administration, the development work, and to be an expert in counseling and pastoral care. We have raised up generations of pastors who are jacks of all trades and masters of none. One of the reasons they do not break down the Word of God for the congregation on Sunday morning is because they do not know how. They have spent their time learning everything but the text of Scripture.

It is not as though the Apostles said: “Forget about the orphans. Forget about the widows.” No, this was after James said the essence of true religion is the care of the widows and of the orphans. Every Sunday morning at our church, the children come in the door and sing the Sanctus. Is it not incredible? Many of them were orphans in China or other foreign countries and were brought to this country and adopted by the people of God in this church. That kind of care is one of the most beautiful things that you see in the life of the church. The Apostles did not say: “Don’t worry about the orphans. Don’t worry about the widows.” No, they said, “We must worry about the orphans, and we must worry about the widows, and we must worry about the administration of this church. Yet we must fulfill our mandate of learning, teaching, and preaching the Word of God.”

The Apostles summoned the people together and said, “We need to choose seven men from among the congregation who are clearly men of great faith, great ability, and great commitment, that they may be set aside and consecrated by the laying on of hands to give themselves to diakonia, to service, to minister to the needs of people in the church.”

This was how the diaconate was founded. The seven are simply called “the seven,” but it was out of this group of seven that the entire institution of deacons was established in the early church.

The Ministry of Deacons

I will never forget how it came to pass in my life to come to Saint Andrew’s. Years ago, I was involved in two Bible studies, one with men from the golf course at Heathrow, and another one in our home. Some men were in both of those Bible studies. They came to me one day in my kitchen, and they said, “R.C., what do you think about starting a church and being our pastor?” I laughed at them and said: “I have a day job. I can’t do that.” And they accepted that.

The next week, my friends came back and said: “How about we start a church, and you just be our minister of preaching and teaching? That will be all you do.” I said, “Well, I don’t know.” Vesta and I talked about it, we prayed about it, and I said: “Every one of my heroes in church history who was a theologian, people like Augustine, Calvin, Luther, and Edwards, in addition to their teaching of theology day after day, each one of those men had a pulpit where they preached every Sunday, and they had a congregation.” I said, “That’s what’s missing from my life.”

I came back to my friends and said, “If you’re really serious about this, if you’ll let me devote my time to preaching and teaching, then I would like to do it.” That is how Saint Andrew’s was established.

As we have grown, there are more and more tables to be served, more and more widows to be visited, and more and more orphans to be taken care of. That is why we are about to double the size of the diaconate at Saint Andrew’s and why we have just added more session members, because our session members take very seriously their task of pastoral care at Saint Andrew’s.

When I come here for the early service and pull in the parking lot, it does not matter how early it is, the deacons are already here. They have already worked to prepare the table of the Lord. They have worked to prepare the parking. They have worked to do all those things for which, in the ministry, there is absolutely no glamour—none whatsoever—just service. But that is how the church is supposed to operate.

So, I thank my God daily for the deacons of our church who are willing to give of themselves freely to these servant tasks and ministries of mercy that become increasingly more pressing in our midst. That is what the church is supposed to be. They make it possible for me to study the text and bring to you what you need more than anything else, the Word of God.

This transcript has been lightly edited for readability.