Week 27—Saturday Acts 6:7-8, 10
Week 27—SATURDAY
THE CENTER OF SPIRITUAL POWER SHIFTS
FROM THE TWELVE TO THE SEVEN
In this transition from the Word become flesh in Jesus to the Word become flesh in every follower, the barriers are all down. This was not handed down to a chosen few. The fact is that the Twelve drop out of the account after the first few chapters of the Acts, and the so-called lay movement takes over—and for a reason.
In the sixth chapter of Acts is an account where the Twelve called together the main body of believers and said that it was not befitting that they should forsake the word of God and serve tables, that they would give themselves “to prayer and to the ministry of the word,” and they would turn over the serving of tables, distribution of food, to the Seven. That seemed like a highly spiritual and sound thing to do. But I’m persuaded it was a disastrous thing to do, and it has resulted in much unnecessary conflict though the ages. They put asunder what God had joined in the Incarnation. In the Incarnation, the spiritual and the material were one—the Word became flesh. The Divine Word was to function in and through the material. They were two sides of one reality. Life was one.
But they drove a wedge between the material and the spiritual and that wedge persists until today. The spiritual was separated from material manifestations and left unrelated; the material was separate from the spiritual and was thus unredeemed. That disastrous dichotomy sterilizes both the spiritual and the material.
Then what happened? Those who kept life together, the spiritual and the material, the Seven, became the center of spiritual power. It shifted from the Twelve to the Seven. The Twelve for the most part drop out, and the Seven take over. It was Stephen, the leader of the Seven, who precipitated the revival in Jerusalem and brought on his martyrdom. It was Philip, another member of the Seven, who brought the gospel to Samaria and all Samaria turned to Christ.
O Lord God, you have made us one—helped us to act as one. Help us to show the spiritual in every material relationship so that life will be one and its manifestation one. I would be united with a united service. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: All my material contacts spiritualized and all my spiritual contacts materialized.