Title: Workers Used by God
Contents
Workers used by God
Acts 6 1-7
We learned about the appearance of the early church after the coming of the Holy Spirit through chapters 1-5. Starting today, I would like to take a look at the actual condition of the early church.
It was a series of trials and crises, but the early church gradually revived. In general, it is common sense that persecution is severe and crisis does not happen, but the Church of God is the opposite.
Through the book of Acts, we learned about the apostles who preached the gospel more boldly as the persecution was severe.
The miracle of the revival of the early church, which started with 120 members, grew to 3,000 and 5,000 members.
It is proved that the number is clearly recorded in chapter 4 verse 4.
And again and again in 5:14, the revival of the church is attested.
It is said that there are about 40 churches in Korea with more than 3,000 worshipers on Sunday services.
However, as the church revives and the number increases, it makes the church realize that it is the church that has more problems.
Look at verse 1.
This may seem like a trivial, small thing, but it becomes a big thing later, so it is dealt with in Scripture.
A crisis comes when there is only disappointing water and criticism in the church. There are many cases where the church always takes the little things, the insignificant things, and makes them very big problems.
What causes this sound?
1) Because there are many disciples. It didn't grow over time, but suddenly, there was a circle.
And various people gathered. There is no other organization with as many diverse people in society as the church. They have different personalities, different schools, different hometowns, and especially churches in foreign countries have different nationalities.
When these people gather, various problems arise.
The early church may have been a church with a similar environment to ours.
Why are there so many disciples? The disciples here are not the same disciples as the 12 disciples, but the lay people. The word "originally" was not used and used to refer to disciples, but recently, as a theological term, laity began to be used.
This problem arises when the number of church members increases. We must fully understand this and move forward.
(1) A problem arises in which the personal importance of each member of the church is lost. Church members feel lonely in the crowd. There is a risk that a person will not be treated properly as a person.
In other words, it is easy for ministry and program to take precedence over personality.
(2) If the number of members increases, it is possible to operate the church with amateur technology in the past, but as the church grows, experts will be needed. The members of the church come to think that there are many people who can do it even if it's not me. We must not forget that the church is the body of Christ.
We must not forget the pride that we are the people of heaven and children of God.
(3) As the church grows, the original vision and purpose may be lost.
In reality, running a church causes confusion in which the priorities change because essential issues are neglected. The important issues are left behind and the real issues are dealt with first.
However, Bonnie's initial vision and purpose are blurred. These crises occurred in the early church.
However, the important thing is that we must contemplate, pray, and fight against these problems. At that time, our church will become a powerful church just like the early church recorded in the book of Acts.
The church in the Acts of the Apostles should go in the direction of giving, giving, and doing missions, not a church that wastes energy on fighting and sharing.
We must become a church that always moves in the direction the Lord wants us to go. Putting people into that kind of work, and putting materials into it.
2) The reason why the voice of criticism has increased is that relief activities have become a problem.
They say it was because of relief, but in fact, relief itself was not the problem. Even today, there is not a problem with salvation or missions, but because of the method.
Dear saints,
If we fight over a problem that is only a situation, we lose the essence of the problem.
Hellenistic Jews and Hebrew Jews appear in the text. In other words, the Hellenistic Jews believed in Esu and entered the church from the people who lived in the Hellan culture living outside of Jerusalem.
And Hebrew Jews are Jews who were born and lived in Jerusalem since childhood, and they are people who have believed in Jesus. If we think of it in the Korean way, the Greeks are the rolled stones, and the Hebrews are the rolled stones.
It seems that the Hala-Jews had a sense of victimization that they were marginalized by the Hebrew Jews.
How can this be? Why should only us widows be excluded from salvation? Some do easy work, some do hard work, some meet in church, direct, and some work like servants?
These problems arose in the early church.
This problem is not unique to the early church, but there are many such problems today as well.
Even today, when a lot of new members come, old members do not work, and in the past, they say that I have done everything I have done, resulting in an invisible conflict with the new members.
This is because the essence of faith has been lost. When nothing loses its essence
It is a problem in the church.
In the church, Jeolla-do and Gyeongsang-do gather with each other, and if you get together as college classmates, there is no problem on the outside and the atmosphere seems to be very good, but it creates problems on the inside.
However, if we emphasize the Holy Spirit and Jesus in the church, these problems will disappear.