4. Satanic counter-attack
We noted at the beginning of chapter 3 that Satan launched a ferocious counter-attack as soon as the Spirit came upon the church. Pentecost was followed by persecution. An alternative title for this chapter might be ‘The strategy of Satan’. His strategy was carefully developed. He attacked on three fronts. His first and crudest tactic was physical violence; he tried to crush the church by persecution. His second and more cunning assault was moral corruption or compromise. Having failed to destroy the church from outside, he attempted through Ananias and Sapphira to insinuate evil into its interior life, and so ruin the Christian fellowship. His third and most subtle ploy was distraction. He sought to deflect the apostles from their priority responsibilities of prayer and preaching by preoccupying them with social administration, which was not their calling. If he had been successful in this, an untaught church would have been exposed to every wind of false doctrine. These then were his weapons: physical (persecution), moral (subversion) and professional (distraction).
Now I claim no very close or intimate familiarity with the devil. But I am persuaded that he exists, and that he is utterly unscrupulous. Something else I have learned about him is that he is singularly lacking in imagination. Over the years he has changed neither his strategy, nor his tactics, nor his weapons; he is still in the same old rut. So a study of his campaign against the early church should alert us to his probable strategy today. If we are taken by surprise, we shall have no excuse.
Luke is concerned, however, not only to expose the devil’s malice, but also to show how he was overcome. First, the hypocrisy of Ananias and Sapphira was not allowed to spread, for God’s judgment fell on them, and the church grew by leaps and bounds (5:12–16). Second, when the Sanhedrin again resorted to violence, they were restrained from killing the apostles by the cautious counsel of Gamaliel (5:17–42). Third, when the widows’ dispute threatened to occupy all the time and energies of the apostles, the social work was delegated to others, the apostles resumed their priority tasks, and the church again began to multiply (6:1–7).
1. The believers enjoy a common life (4:32–37)
Luke has just recorded that, in answer to their prayers, the believers were freshly ‘filled with the Holy Spirit’ (31). The immediate result was that they ‘spoke the word of God boldly’. With this we should perhaps link verse 33: with great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, which was one of their primary apostolic responsibilities (cf. 1:22). So they ignored the Sanhedrin’s ban, and their witness was characterized by both boldness and power. Indeed, God’s grace was . . . powerfully at work in them all.
Luke does not leave it there, however. He is concerned to show that the fullness of the Spirit is shown in deed as well as word, service as well as witness, love for the family as well as testimony to the world. So, just as after the first coming of the Spirit he describes the characteristics of the Spirit-filled community (2:42–47), so after they are again filled with the Spirit he provides a second description (4:32–37). His emphasis is the same in both cases. All the believers, he begins, in 4:32 as in 2:44, formed a closely knit group. They ‘were together’ (2:44), as they devoted themselves to ‘fellowship’ (2:42), and they were one in heart and mind (4:32). This was the basic solidarity of love which the believers enjoyed, and their economic sharing was simply one expression of the union of their hearts and minds.
It is instructive to compare Luke’s two pictures of the same united, Spirit-filled church in Jerusalem. Although the accounts are verbally independent of one another, he mentions in each the same three consequences of their mutual commitment. The first I will call their radical attitude, in particular to their possessions. They ‘had everything in common’ (2:44); no one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had (4:32b). Both verses contain the two key words hapanta koina, ‘all things in common’. In the light of Peter’s later statement to Ananias that his property was his own (5:4), we cannot press these words into meaning that the believers had literally renounced private, in favour of common, ownership. Perhaps the important phrase is that no one claimed their possessions as their own. Although in fact and in law they continued to own their goods, yet in heart and mind they cultivated an attitude so radical that they thought of their possessions as being available to help their needy sisters and brothers.
Second, their radical attitude led to sacrificial action, namely that from time to time those who owned lands or houses sold them, and then put the sale money at the apostles’ feet, so that they might distribute it (34b–35). The same actions of selling and distributing are referred to in 2:45. In both cases the selling was voluntary and intermittent (from time to time), as the need for ready cash arose.
Third, both the radical attitude and the practical action were based on the equitable principle that distribution was proportionate to genuine need. The two accounts use the identical words kathoti an tis chreian eichen, meaning ‘as anyone had need’ (35b; cf. 2:45). Only in the second description, however, does Luke state the consequence of the principled distribution of relief, namely that there was no needy person among them (34a).
Calvin wrote in his commentary:
We must have hearts that are harder than iron if we are not moved by the reading of this narrative. In those days the believers gave abundantly of what was their own; we in our day are content not just jealously to retain what we possess, but callously to rob others . . . They sold their own possessions in those days; in our day it is the lust to purchase that reigns supreme. At that time love made each man’s own possessions common property for those in need; in our day such is the inhumanity of many, that they begrudge to the poor a common dwelling upon earth, the common use of water, air and sky.
In seeking to assess the so-called ‘Jerusalem experiment’, we should avoid extreme positions. We should not dismiss it as a rash and foolish mistake, motivated by the false expectation of an imminent parousia and causing the poverty which Paul had later to remedy by his collection from the Greek churches. Luke gives no hint of these things. Nor can we say, however, that the Jerusalem church, being filled with the Spirit, laid down an obligatory model – a kind of primitive Christian ‘communism’ – which God wants all Spirit-filled communities to copy. The fact that the selling and giving were voluntary is enough to eliminate this. What we should surely do, instead, is to note and seek to imitate the care of the needy and the sacrificial generosity which the Holy Spirit created. Of course, many societies have dreamed of the ending of poverty. The Greeks, for example, looked back to a golden age in which all property was public, and Pythagoras is said to have practised it with his disciples, and to have coined the saying ‘among friends everything is common’ (koina). Plato later incorporated this ideal in his vision of a utopian republic. Then Josephus wrote that the Essenes, whom we know as the Qumran community, ‘live the same kind of life as do those whom the Greeks call Pythagoreans’. Yet the inspiration for the common life and love of the Jerusalem church will have come neither from Pythagoras, nor from Plato, nor from the Essenes, but from the Old Testament, as highlighted by Jesus. For the law was quite clear on the matter: ‘there need be no poor people among you’ (Deut. 15:4). In addition, Luke stressed Jesus’ teaching that the gospel of the kingdom was good news for the poor. But how could it be so unless it offered them justice as well as salvation, the ending of their poverty as well as the forgiveness of their sins?
Having portrayed the solidarity of love enjoyed by the Jerusalem church, Luke supplies his readers with two contrasting examples: Barnabas, whose generosity and openness fulfilled the ideal (4:36–37), and Ananias and Sapphira, whose greed and hypocrisy contradicted it (5:1ff.). ‘Barnabas’ (son of encouragement) was actually the nickname which the apostles gave, on account of his helpfulness, to Joseph, a Levite from Cyprus (36). He sold a field he owned, presumably in Cyprus, and laid the money at the apostles’ feet (37). It was an act of generosity fully in keeping with his character as it later emerges in the Acts narrative. Luke deliberately introduces him here.
2. Ananias and Sapphira are punished for their hypocrisy (5:1–11)
The story of the deceit and death of this married couple is important for several reasons. It illustrates the honesty of Luke as a historian; he did not suppress this sordid episode. It throws light on the interior life of the first Spirit-filled community; it was not all romance and righteousness. It is also a further example of the strategy of Satan. Several commentators have suggested a parallel between Ananias and Achan – the Achan who stole money and clothing after the destruction of Jericho. F. F. Bruce sees a further analogy: ‘The story of Ananias is to the book of Acts what the story of Achan is to the book of Joshua. In both narratives an act of deceit interrupts the victorious progress of the people of God.’
What we are told is that a man named Ananias, together with his wife Sapphira, first sold a piece of property (1) and then, with his wife’s full knowledge he kept back part of the money for himself, but brought the rest and put it at the apostles’ feet (2). It looked as though Barnabas and Ananias had done the same thing. Both sold a property. Both brought the proceeds of the sale to the apostles, and both committed it to their disposal. The difference was that Barnabas brought all the sale money, while Ananias brought only a proportion. In this way Ananias and Sapphira committed a double sin, a combination of dishonesty and deceit. At first sight, there was nothing wrong in their withholding part of the sale money. As Peter plainly said later, their property was their own both before and after the sale (see verse 4 below). So they were under no obligation to sell their piece of land or, having sold it, to give away any – let alone all – of the proceeds. That is not the whole story, however. There is something else, something half hidden. For Luke, in declaring that Ananias kept back part of the money for himself, chooses the verb nosphizomai, which means to ‘misappropriate’ (BAGD). The same word was used in lxx of Achan’s theft, and in its only other New Testament occurrence it means to steal. We have to assume, therefore, that before the sale Ananias and Sapphira had entered into some kind of agreement to give the total amount raised to the church. Because of this, when they brought only some instead of all, they were guilty of fraud.
It was not on this sin that Peter concentrated, however, but on the other, hypocrisy. The apostle’s complaint was not that they lacked honesty (bringing only a part of the sale price) but that they lacked integrity (bringing only a part, while pretending to bring the whole). They were not so much misers as thieves and – above all – liars. They wanted the credit and the prestige for sacrificial generosity, without the inconvenience of it. So, in order to gain a reputation to which they had no right, they told an outright lie. Their motive in giving was not to relieve the poor, but to boost their own ego.
Peter saw the subtle activity of Satan behind Ananias’s hypocrisy. He confronted Ananias: Ananias, how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit and have kept for yourself [nosphizomai, again] some of the money you received for the land? (3). Peter accused him both of dishonesty and of falsehood, both of stealing and then of lying about it. But there was no need for either sin.
Didn’t it belong to you before it was sold? And after it was sold, wasn’t the money at your disposal? What made you think of doing such a thing? You have not lied just to human beings but to God.
(4)
We note in passing that Peter takes the deity of the Holy Spirit for granted, since to lie to him (3) was to lie to God (4).
No reply from Ananias to Peter’s accusation and questions is recorded. Luke tells us only that God’s judgment fell upon him: ‘he dropped dead’ (5a, neb). Understandably great fear, the solemnity which is experienced in the presence of the holy God, seized all who heard what had happened (5b), even while certain young men attended to the burial (6). About three hours later the incident repeated itself. Ignorant of her husband’s death, Sapphira came in. Peter gave her the chance to repent by asking her to state the price they had received for the land, but she merely identified herself with his deceit (7–8). Peter protested that they had conspired to test the Spirit of the Lord, presuming to see whether they could get away with their deception, and warned her that those who had buried her husband would bury her too (9), whereupon she fell down at his feet and died, and the young men buried her beside her husband (10). For the second time Luke refers to the great fear which seized the whole church, and indeed all who heard about these events (11).
Many readers of this story are offended by what they regard as the severity of God’s judgment. Some even say they ‘hope that Ananias and Sapphira are legendary’. Or they try to vindicate God by attributing the death of Ananias and Sapphira instead to Peter who, they say, either laid a curse on them or put them under undue psychological pressure, thus anticipating the use of a modern lie detector. But, even if the anguish of a violated conscience contributed to their deaths on the human level, Luke clearly intends us to understand that it was a work of divine judgment. Once this has been accepted, there are at least three valuable lessons for us to learn.
First, the gravity of their sin. Peter stressed this by repeating that their lie was directed primarily not against him, but against the Holy Spirit, that is, against God. And God hates hypocrisy. Luke has recorded Jesus’ condemnation of it, together with his warning that those who blaspheme against the Holy Spirit (in deliberate defiance of known truth) will not be forgiven (Luke 12:10). Yet the sin of Ananias and Sapphira was also against the church. Does Luke deliberately use the word ekklēsia (11) for the first time here? He thus underlines the continuity of the Christian community with God’s redeemed and gathered people in the Old Testament. Luke seems to be underlining the great evil of sinning against God’s people. Falsehood ruins fellowship. If the hypocrisy of Ananias and Sapphira had not been publicly exposed and punished, the Christian ideal of an open fellowship would not have been preserved, and the modern cry ‘there are so many hypocrites in the church’ would have been heard from the beginning.
The second lesson to be learned concerns the importance, even the sacredness, of the human conscience. Luke will later record Paul’s claim before Felix that he always tried hard to keep his ‘conscience clear before God and man’ (Acts 24:16). This seems to be what John meant by ‘walking in the light’. It is to live a transparent life before God, without deceit or deception, the consequence of which is that ‘we have fellowship with one another’. Those who were part of the East African revival laid great stress on this teaching, amusingly expressing their desire to ‘live in a house without ceiling or walls’, that is, to allow nothing to come between them and either God or other people. It was this openness which Ananias and Sapphira failed to maintain.
Third, the incident teaches the necessity of church discipline. Although physical death may have continued in some situations as a penalty for those sins which ‘despise the church of God’, it came to be associated with excommunication. The church has tended to swing in this area between extreme severity (disciplining members for the most trivial offences) and extreme laxity (exercising no discipline at all, even for serious offences). It is a good general rule that secret sins should be dealt with secretly, private sins privately, and only public sins publicly. Churches are also wise if they follow the successive stages taught by Jesus. Usually the offender will be brought to repentance before the final stage of excommunication is reached. But offences which are serious in themselves, have become a public scandal and have not been repented of should be judged. Those in the Presbyterian tradition are right to ‘fence the table’, that is, to make access to the Lord’s Supper conditional. For, although the Lord’s Table is open to sinners (who else either needs or wishes to come to it?), it is open only to penitent sinners.
We have now seen that, if the devil’s first tactic was to destroy the church by force from without, his second was to destroy it by falsehood from within. He has not given up the attempt, whether by the hypocrisy of those who profess but do not practise, or by the stubbornness of those who sin but do not repent. The church must preserve its vigilance.
3. The apostles heal many people (5:12–16)
Luke is about to record the second wave of persecution by which the devil attempted to annihilate the church. As he does so, he will highlight various developing attitudes, especially ‘the deepening jealousy and antagonism of the Sadducees, the moderation of the Pharisees, and the increasing joy and confidence of the Christians’. But before this he refers to the fact that the apostles performed many signs and wonders among the people, especially Peter (12a). Having given an account of their message, he now describes the extraordinary signs which authenticated it. They seem to have taken place in Solomon’s Colonnade, the eastern cloister in which Peter had preached his second sermon (3:11) and in which now all the believers used to meet together (12b). The miracles had two interesting and opposite results. On the one hand, no one else dared join them, even though they were highly regarded by the people (13). This might just mean that the opposition lacked the courage to ‘join in disputation with them’, but the context suggests simply that they preferred to keep apart rather than to mix with them. On the other hand, more and more people, both men and women, having no such fears, believed in the Lord and were added to their number (14). This paradoxical situation has often recurred since then. The presence of the living God, whether shown through preaching or miracles or both, is alarming to some and appealing to others. Some are frightened away, while others are drawn to faith.
As the movement grew, Luke continues, people brought those who were ill into the streets, presumably their sick relatives, friends and neighbours, and laid them on beds and mats in such a way that at least Peter’s shadow might fall on some of them as he passed by (15). Their action may have been somewhat superstitious, but I see no reason to condemn it as tantamount to belief in magic, any more than was the woman’s faith that a touch of the hem of Jesus’ garment would be enough to heal her. No, the people had been deeply impressed by the words and works of Peter, had recognized him as a man of God and an apostle of Christ, and believed that they could be healed through coming close to him. It may be significant that the verb episkiazō, which Luke chooses, meaning to ‘overshadow’, he has used twice in his Gospel of the overshadowing of God’s presence.
Now crowds gathered also from the towns around Jerusalem, bringing not only those who were ill but also those tormented by impure spirits (Luke does not confuse the two conditions), and all of them were healed (16). It was a remarkable demonstration of the power of God to heal and free human beings – just as the Ananias and Sapphira episode had been of his power to judge them.
4. The Sanhedrin intensifies its opposition (5:17–42)
The apostolic healing mission provoked the second attack by the authorities, much as the healing of the lame man had provoked the first. Angered by the failure of their first assault on the apostles, dismayed to see that they had ignored the court’s prohibition and threats, and filled with jealousy (17) of their power and popularity, the high priest and all his associates, who were members of the party of the Sadducees, resolved to take further action.
a. The imprisonment (5:18–25)
This time they arrested not only Peter and John but the apostles, most if not all of them (see 29), and put them in the public jail (18). But during the night they were rescued by an angel of the Lord. William Neil speculates that this was ‘a sympathetic warder’ or ‘a secret sympathizer among the guardroom staff’, who came later to be seen as ‘an angel in disguise’. But we have no freedom to demythologize what Luke evidently intends his readers to believe was a heavenly visitor, who not only opened the doors of the jail and brought the apostles out (19), but instructed them to stand in the temple courts and publicly tell the people all about this new life (20). At daybreak they entered the temple as they had been told, and began to teach the people (21a). We note that they disobeyed the Sanhedrin, who had told them not to speak in the name of Jesus (4:17), in order to obey the angel who told them to speak the words of life.
Meanwhile, the Sanhedrin, which Luke describes as the full assembly of the elders of Israel, was convened (21b). And they were humiliated to discover, on sending for the apostles, that they were no longer in the prison where they had sent them, although it was securely locked, with the guards standing at the doors (22–24). Instead, they were in the temple courts teaching the people (25), which they had been forbidden to do.
b. The trial (5:26–39)
The captain of the temple guard and his officers re-arrested the apostles, although they did not use force because they were afraid that the people would stone them (26). The apostles were then made to appear before the Sanhedrin a second time for questioning (27). The way the high priest addressed them was in reality an admission of the court’s powerlessness before the purpose of God. For the Sanhedrin had condemned and liquidated Jesus, given the apostles strict orders not to teach in this name (which they still preferred not to pronounce) and locked them up in prison. All the power and authority seemed clearly to be on their side. Yet, in contempt of court and in defiance of its authority, the apostles had successfully filled Jerusalem with their teaching, and (in the court’s opinion) were determined to fasten on them the guilt of this man’s blood (28), which at the time (they seem to have forgotten) they had urged the people to call down on themselves and their children.
The apostles’ response took the form of a mini sermon, for their concern was still not to defend themselves but to uplift Christ. We must obey God rather than human beings! they said (29), and in so doing laid down the principle of civil and ecclesiastical disobedience. To be sure, Christians are called to be conscientious citizens and, generally speaking, to submit to human authorities. But if the authority concerned misuses its God-given power to command what he forbids or forbid what he commands, then the Christian’s duty is to disobey the human authority in order to obey God’s.
Having stated that their primary responsibility was to obey God, the apostles emphasized three truths about him. First, God, who is the God of our ancestors, raised Jesus from the dead, whom the Jewish leaders had killed by hanging him on a cross (30). It is the familiar contrast: you killed him, but God raised him; you rejected him, but God vindicated him. Second, God exalted him to his own right hand as Prince [archēgos again, as in 3:15] and Saviour, so that from this supreme position of honour and power he is able to bring Israel to repentance and forgive their sins (which are both gifts of God) (31). We also note that the apostles were witnesses, not just eyewitnesses but mouth-witnesses, of the death and resurrection of Jesus, for they were called to bear witness to what they had seen. Yet the chief witness to Jesus Christ is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given [literally ‘gave’] to those who obey him (32). That is the apostles’ third affirmation about God. He raised Jesus from the dead, exalted him as Saviour and gave the Holy Spirit to his obedient people. In this way the sermon began and ended with a reference to obeying God. God’s people are obliged to obey him, and if they do so, even though they may suffer when they have to disobey human authorities, they will be richly rewarded by the ministry of the Holy Spirit.
Hearing these words of defiance and triumph, the Council was furious and, but for the diplomatic intervention of Gamaliel, they would probably have fulfilled their wish to put them to death (33). Gamaliel was a Pharisee, and as such showed a more tolerant spirit than the rival party of the Sadducees. Grandson and follower of the famous liberal Rabbi Hillel, he was given the honorific and affectionate title ‘Rabban’, ‘our teacher’, and Saul of Tarsus had been one of his pupils (22:3). He had a reputation for scholarship, wisdom and moderation, and was honoured by all the people. His behaviour on this occasion was fully in keeping with his public image. He stood up and gave instructions for the apostles to be put outside for a little while, so that the Council might confer in private (34). He then proceeded to restrain their anger and to advise caution (35), bearing in mind certain historical precedents. He gave two examples, namely men called Theudas and Judas the Galilean.
The account which Gamaliel is recorded as giving of their careers is brief. When Theudas arose, claiming to be somebody, about four hundred men rallied to his cause. But he himself was killed, all his followers were dispersed, and his movement came to nothing (36). Following him, Judas the Galilean arose in the days of the census (always an inflammatory event, a symbol of Roman rule by taxation), and led a band of people in revolt. But he also perished, ‘and his whole following melted away’ (jbp, 37). Gamaliel thus sketched their histories in parallel. Both men appeared, advanced claims and won a following. But then each was killed, all his followers were scattered, and his movement faded away.
Commentators have understandably consulted Josephus for confirmation and/or clarification of these revolts, and have found references to two rebels with the same names. There was, he says, ‘a certain magician’ named Theudas, when Fadus was procurator of Judea, who persuaded many to ‘follow him to the River Jordan, for he told them he was a prophet, and that he would by his own command divide the river’. But he was captured and beheaded. Then Josephus also describes ‘a certain Galilean’ named Judas, who persuaded his fellow citizens to revolt, because he told them they would be ‘cowards if they would endure to pay a tax to the Romans’ and thus ‘submit to mortal men as their lords’, when tribute should be paid to God alone. He was the forerunner of the Zealots.
So far, then, there are slight similarities between Gamaliel and Josephus. The problem arises when we look at the dates. The taxation census against which Judas revolted was introduced by Cyrenius (Quirinius) when he came from Rome to Judea in about ad 6. Josephus’s Theudas, however, rebelled not before Judas (as Luke records Gamaliel as saying, verses 36–37) but during the procuratorship of Fadus (ad 44–46), which was about forty years after him, and indeed a decade or more after Gamaliel was speaking!
How we react to the discrepancy will depend on our basic presuppositions. Liberal commentators jump to the conclusion that Luke was guilty of an anachronism amounting to a major error, which must fatally undermine our confidence in him as a reliable historian. Conservatives, on the other hand, reach the opposite conclusion: ‘we cannot suppose that St Luke could have made the gross blunder attributed to him in the face of his usual accuracy’. If there is a mistake, it is more likely to have been made by Josephus (who was ‘far from being an infallible historian’) than by Luke. A better alternative explanation is that Josephus and Luke were each referring to a different Theudas. The stories they tell are divergent (Josephus does not mention that his followers numbered four hundred, nor Luke that he led them to the River Jordan). The only similarities are that both men were named Theudas, and led a revolt which was crushed. But Josephus tells us that after the death of Herod the Great ‘there were ten thousand other disorders in Judea, which were like tumults’, and Theudas was not an uncommon name. So perhaps neither Luke nor Josephus made a mistake, but Gamaliel was referring to a Theudas whom Josephus does not describe, who revolted about 4 bc, and who was indeed followed, among others, by Judas the Galilean in ad 6.
In any case, Gamaliel took the failure of both revolts as an object lesson which justified a policy of live and let live. His advice to the Council is given in verse 38: leave these men alone! Let them go! For if their purpose or activity is of human origin, it will fail. But if, on the other hand, it is from God, you will not be able to stop these men; you will only find yourselves fighting against God (39). We should not be too ready to credit Gamaliel with having come up with an unchanging principle. To be sure, in the long run what is from God will triumph, and what is merely human (let alone from the devil) will not. Nevertheless, in the shorter run evil plans sometimes succeed, while good ones devised in accordance with the will of God sometimes fail. So the Gamaliel principle is not a reliable index to what is from God and what is not.
c. The conclusion (5:40–42)
The Council accepted Gamaliel’s reasoning, however. His speech persuaded them. Having called the apostles in, they first had them flogged (presumably administering the terrible ‘forty lashes minus one’). Then they ordered them [for the second time] not to speak in the name of Jesus, and let them go (40).
The apostles’ reaction arouses our admiration. They left the Sanhedrin, their backs cruelly lacerated and bleeding, yet rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name (41). Luke’s expression is ‘a beautiful antithesis (the honour to be dishonoured, the grace to be disgraced)’. They were in fact doing what in the Sermon on the Mount Jesus had told them to do, namely rejoicing in persecution. Moreover, they again boldly defied the court’s prohibition, for day after day, in public and in private, in the temple courts and from house to house, they never stopped teaching and proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the Messiah (42).
Luke has now reached the end of his account of the two waves of persecution which broke over the infant church. In the first the Council issued a prohibition and a warning, which led the apostles to pray to the sovereign Lord for boldness to go on preaching; in the second they received a prohibition and a beating, which led them to praise God for the honour of suffering for Christ.
The devil has never given up the attempt to destroy the church by force. Under Nero (ad 54–68) Christians were imprisoned and executed, including probably Paul and Peter. Domitian (ad 81–96) oppressed Christians who refused to pay him the divine honours he demanded; under him John was exiled to Patmos. Marcus Aurelius (ad 161–180), believing that Christianity was dangerous and immoral, turned a blind eye to severe local outbreaks of mob violence. Then in the third century what had so far been intermittent became systematic. Under Decius (ad 249–251) thousands died, including Fabian, Bishop of Rome, for refusing to sacrifice to the imperial name. The last persecuting emperor before the conversion of Constantine was Diocletian (ad 284–305). He issued four edicts which were intended to stamp out Christianity altogether. He ordered churches to be burned, Scriptures to be confiscated, clergy to be tortured, and Christian civil servants to be deprived of their citizenship and, if stubbornly unrepentant, executed. Still today, especially in some Communist, Hindu and Muslim countries, the church is often harassed. But we need not fear for its survival. Tertullian, addressing the rulers of the Roman Empire, cried out: ‘Kill us, torture us, condemn us, grind us to dust . . . The more you mow us down, the more we grow; the seed is the blood of Christians.’ Or, as Bishop Festo Kivengere said about the martyrdom of Archbishop Janani Luwum of Uganda: ‘Without bleeding the church fails to bless.’ Persecution will refine the church, but not destroy it. If it leads to prayer and praise, to an acknowledgment of the sovereignty of God and of solidarity with Christ in his sufferings, then – however painful – it may even be welcome.
5. The Seven are chosen and commissioned (6:1–7)
The devil’s next attack was the cleverest of the three. Having failed to overcome the church by either persecution or corruption, he now tried distraction. If he could preoccupy the apostles with social administration, which though essential was not their calling, they would neglect their God-given responsibilities to pray and to preach, and so leave the church without any defence against false doctrine.
a. The problem (6:1)
The situation is clear. On the one hand, in those days . . . the number of disciples was increasing. On the other, the excitement of church growth was tempered by a regrettable goggysmos, a ‘complaint . . . expressed in murmuring’ (BAGD). The cognate verb is used in lxx to denote the ‘murmuring’ of the Israelites against Moses, and evidently the Jerusalem church members were murmuring against the apostles, who received the relief money (4:35, 37) and were therefore expected to distribute it fairly. But such grumbling is inappropriate in Christians.
The complaint concerned the welfare of the widows, whose cause God had promised in the Old Testament to defend. Assuming that they were unable to earn their own living and had no relatives to support them, the church had accepted the responsibility, and a daily distribution of food was made to them. But there were two groups in the Jerusalem church, one called Hellēnistai and the other Hebraioi, and the former complained against the latter because their widows were being overlooked in the daily distribution of food (1). There is no suggestion that the oversight was deliberate; more probably the cause was poor administration or supervision.
What exactly was the identity of these two groups? It has usually been supposed that they were distinguished from each other by a mixture of geography and language. That is, the Hellēnistai were those who had come from overseas, settled in Palestine and spoke Greek, while the Hebraioi were natives of Palestine and spoke Aramaic. This is an inadequate explanation, however. Since Paul called himself Hebraios, in spite of the fact that he came from Tarsus and spoke Greek, the distinction must go beyond origin and language to culture. In this case the Hellēnistai not only spoke Greek but thought and behaved like Greeks, while the Hebraioi not only spoke Aramaic but were deeply immersed in Hebrew culture. This being so, Hellenistic Jews is a good rendering, while ‘the Aramaic-speaking community’ is not, since it refers to language only and not culture. ‘What is needed here’, writes Richard Longenecker, ‘is some such translation as “Grecian Jews” and “Hebraic Jews”’ (cf. niv, Hellenistic Jews . . . Hebraic Jews). There had always, of course, been rivalry between these groups in Jewish culture; the tragedy is that it was perpetuated within the new community of Jesus who by his death had abolished such distinctions.
The issue was more, however, than one of cultural tension. The apostles discerned a deeper problem, namely that social administration (both organizing the distribution and settling the complaint) was threatening to occupy all their time and so inhibit them from the work which Christ had specifically entrusted to them, namely preaching and teaching.
b. The solution (6:2–6)
The Twelve did not impose a solution on the church, however, but gathered all the disciples together in order to share the problem with them. They said, It would not be right for us to neglect the ministry of the word of God in order to wait on tables (2). There is no hint whatever that the apostles regarded social work as inferior to pastoral work, or beneath their dignity. It was entirely a question of calling. They had no freedom to be distracted from their own priority task. So they made a proposal to the church: Brothers and sisters, choose seven men from among you who are known to be full of the Spirit and wisdom [jbp, ‘both practical and spiritually-minded’]. We will turn this responsibility over to them (3) and will give our attention to prayer and the ministry of the word (4). It is worth noting that now the Twelve have added prayer to preaching (probably meaning public as well as private intercession) in describing the essence of the apostles’ ministry. They form a natural couple, since the ministry of the word, without prayer that the Spirit will water the seed, is unlikely to bear fruit. This delegation of social welfare to the Seven is commonly thought to have been the origin of the diaconate. It may be so, for the language of diakonia is used in verses 1 and 2, as we shall see later. Nevertheless, the Seven are not actually called diakonoi.
The church saw the point of the apostles’ plan: This proposal pleased the whole group. So they put it into effect. They chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit; also Philip, Procorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicholas from Antioch, a convert to Judaism (5), that is, a proselyte. It has been pointed out that all seven had Greek names. They may all, therefore, have been Hellēnistai, deliberately chosen to satisfy this group who were complaining. But this is only speculation. It seems more likely that ‘some of both classes of Jews were elected, the only fair and proper course’. Whether they were deacons or not, and whether they were Hellēnistai or not, the church presented these men to the apostles, who prayed and laid their hands on them (6), thus commissioning and authorizing them to exercise this ministry.
c. The principle
A vital principle is illustrated in this incident, which is of urgent importance to the church today. It is that God calls all his people to ministry, that he calls different people to different ministries, and that those called to ‘prayer and the ministry of the word’ must on no account allow themselves to be distracted from their priorities.
It is surely deliberate that the work of the Twelve and the work of the Seven are both called diakonia (1, 4), ‘ministry’ or ‘service’. The former is ‘the ministry of the word’ (4) or pastoral work, the latter ‘the ministry of tables’ (2) or social work. Neither ministry is superior to the other. On the contrary, both are Christian ministries, that is, ways of serving God and his people. Both require spiritual people, ‘full of the Spirit’, to exercise them. And both can be full-time Christian ministries. The only difference between them lies in the form the ministry takes, requiring different gifts and different callings.
We do great harm to the church whenever we refer to her leadership as ‘the ministry’ – for example, when we speak of ordination in terms of ‘entering the ministry’. This use of the definite article implies that ordained ministry is the only ministry there is. But diakonia is a generic word for service; it needs a descriptive adjective, whether ‘pastoral’, ‘social’, ‘political’, ‘medical’ or another. All Christians without exception, being followers of him who came ‘not to be served but to serve’, are themselves called to ministry, indeed to give their lives in ministry. But the expression ‘full-time Christian ministry’ is not to be restricted to church work and missionary service; it can also be exercised in government, the media, the professions, business, industry and the home. We need to recover this vision of the wide diversity of ministries to which God calls his people.
In particular, it is vital for the health and growth of the church that leaders and led in the local congregation learn this lesson. True, church leaders are not apostles, for the apostles were given authority to formulate and teach the gospel, while leaders are responsible to expound the message which the apostles have bequeathed to us in the New Testament. Nevertheless, it is a real ‘ministry of the word’ to which ordained leaders are called to dedicate their lives. The apostles were not too busy for ministry, but preoccupied with the wrong ministry. So are many ordained leaders today. Instead of concentrating on the ministry of the word (which will include preaching to the congregation, counselling individuals and training groups), they become overwhelmed with administration. Sometimes it is their fault (they want to keep all the reins in their own hands), and sometimes the people’s (who want their leaders to do anything that needs doing). In either case the consequences are disastrous. The standards of preaching and teaching decline, since the pastoral leader has little time to study or pray. And the lay people do not exercise their God-given roles, since the ministers do everything themselves. For both reasons the congregation is inhibited from growing into maturity in Christ. What is needed is the basic, biblical recognition that God calls different men and women to different ministries. Then the people will ensure that their leaders are set free from unnecessary administration in order to give themselves to the ministry of the word, and the leaders will ensure that the people discover their gifts and develop ministries appropriate to them.
d. The result (6:7)
As a direct result of the action of the apostles in delegating the social work in order to concentrate on their pastoral priority, the word of God spread (7a). But of course! The word cannot spread when the ministry of the word is neglected. Conversely, when leaders devote themselves to the word, it spreads. Then, as a further result, the number of disciples in Jerusalem increased rapidly, and [a remarkable development] a large number of priests became obedient to the faith (7b). The two verbs ‘spread’ and ‘increased’ are in the imperfect tense, indicating that both the spread of the word and the growth of the church were continuous. This verse is the first of six summaries of growth with which Luke intersperses his narrative. They come at crucial points in his unfolding story: after the apostles’ decision to give their attention to prayer and preaching (6:7); after the dramatic conversion of Saul of Tarsus (9:31); after the equally wonderful conversion of the first Gentile, Cornelius, followed by the overthrow of Herod Agrippa I (12:24); after Paul’s first missionary journey and the Jerusalem Council (16:5); after the second and third missionary journeys (19:20); and at the end of the book after Paul’s arrival in Rome, where he preached ‘with all boldness and without hindrance’ (28:30–31). In each of these verses we read either that the word was spreading or that the church was growing, or both. God was at work; neither humans nor demons could stand in his way.
We have now seen the three tactics which the devil used in his overall strategy to destroy the church. First, he tried to suppress it by force through the Jewish authorities; second, to corrupt it by the hypocrisy of the married couple Ananias and Sapphira; and third, to distract its leadership from prayer and preaching through some squabbling widows, and so expose it to error and evil. If he had succeeded in any of these attempts, the new community of Jesus would have been destroyed in its infancy. But the apostles were sufficiently alert to detect ‘the devil’s schemes’. We need their spiritual discernment today to recognize the activity of both the Holy Spirit and the evil spirit (cf. 5:3). We also need their faith in the strong name of Jesus, by whose authority alone the powers of darkness can be overthrown.