Acts 6 - Spirit-filled Hospitality

The first group of "church ladies" were men. :) When I grew up, there was a steadfast group of mostly women who consistently helped with hospitality and food ministry in our church. I loved them, and they were fantastic. I thought about them as I read this chapter. 

Acts 6

1. What stuck out to me from this passage?

I've read this before but never put it together that the first committee created in the church (other than "elders" which was the apostles) was a hospitality team dealing with food. That's kind of funny. No youth board, no children's ministry, no stewardship committee, no worship committee, no property and finance committees… So the ministry of food must have been a pretty big deal. 

2. How does this relate to any other Scripture I know?

I'll switch gears and look at the story of Stephen for this question. When you see how the religious leaders treated Stephen, it almost exactly parallels how they treated Jesus. They couldn't stand him, but they couldn't stand up to his wisdom either. So they got some people to lie about him and worked it out for him to be arrested, and killed. It's like yesterday's thoughts of considering it an honor to suffer in the way of Jesus for the name of Jesus. 

3. What does this mean for my life?

Well, in my role at camp, I have to hire and train staff to do a lot of the work I couldn't do by myself. This reminded my why it's important to find Spirit-filled, Godly people to fill those role: so that those important and seemingly mundane tasks can get done well. That allows the focus to be more on the ministry of the word of God. 

4. What questions do I have about this passage?

This ministry of distributing food seemed to be a main component of "church". Not some secondary thought we support once a year. Why was that so important? What does that look like today?

There it is, my thoughts for the day. God's blessings. 

In Christ,

Dan