Problems and Priorities
Acts 6 revealed that after Pentecost the early follower's of Jesus grew very quickly and as growth occurred so did needs. The need I wrote about last week was the need for equal distribution of food to the Hellenistic (Greek) widows that were part of the early follower's of Jesus. As Wonderful as the experience of Holy Spirit and the growth of the follower's of Jesus was there was still the need to make some decisions and plans for this growing community.
So a plan to deal with this problem was to appoint 7 men to take this job of distributing food to the widows . This is interesting because it seems that some think that if people are filled with The Holy Spirit that everything will be fine and there will be no problems. But we see early on that things are not fine and there is the need to make some ministry decisions and priorities.
Also note that this project of feeding the widows was for 7 men to take this responsibility. Seven were chosen so there would be a person each day that is in charge of this important assignment. It is a curious feature to this story that each of the names of these mean are Greek. Curious I say, as one considers that the problem of food distribution was about the Greek (Hellenistic widows) being overlooked. Could this be a recognition that even in a community of people filled with The Spirit that there is the need for representation of all people?
What we are seeing is a group of people who have experienced the fullness of God's Holy Spirit and yet having to deal with "day to day" decisions and priorities. The same is true for any person or group. And I think the tendency is for us to think that there is an almost magical experience of The Holy Spirit that relieves us from very practical decisions.
REFLECTION: Do you carry notions that being filled with The Holy Spirit means that there will be no problems? Do we fail to recognize the need for good organization decisions for the Church?