This week, I would like for us to spend our time together picking up where we left off last week. And as we enter back into the story of how these early followers of Jesus engaged in the co:mission that they were given, we come to a story that reveals for us the reality that the challenges that can come with partnering with God to advance His mission in the world not only come from outside the community of faith. The challenges that we can face when it comes to partnering with God to advance His mission in the world can also come from inside the community of faith. And it is in this story that we will see Luke reveal for us another timeless principle that is necessary to embrace in order to fully engage in the co-mission that we have been given by God to partner with Him in a way that advances His kingdom mission as we reveal and reflect Christ to those around us. So let’s look at this story together, beginning in Acts 6:1:
Now at this time while the disciples were increasing in number, a complaint arose on the part of the Hellenistic Jews against the native Hebrews, because their widows were being overlooked in the daily serving of food.
Luke begins this story by revealing for us a challenge that had arisen that posed a threat to these early followers of Jesus and the co:mission that they had been given. To fully understand the nature of this threat, however, we need to answer several questions. First, we need to understand the context in which this story was taking place. We then need to understand who Luke is referring to when he talks about the Hellenistic Jews and the native Hebrews. We then need to understand the context of what it meant to be a widow in the first century. So let’s take a minute and answer these questions.
At this point in the history of the church, many scholars believed that the church was composed of between seven and ten thousand people. In Acts 4:4, Luke tells us that the number of men that became followers of Jesus came to be about 5,000. That number does not include women or children. In Acts 5:14, Luke records that multitudes of men and women were being added to their number. Many people were traveling from the regions immediately around Jerusalem as word began to spread about this new movement called the church.
In addition, many people who had become followers of Jesus at the birth of the church had chosen not to travel back to their hometowns, but remained in Jerusalem. To give you a little bit of perspective, most historians believe that the population of the city Jerusalem at this time in history was around 25-30,000 people. So between one fifth and one third of the population of Jerusalem had become followers of Jesus in the span of months.
Luke tells us that amongst these early followers of Jesus there were Hellenistic and Hebrew Jews. Hellenistic Jews were those who were Jewish ethnically but spoke Greek and had lived outside of the Jewish nation. By contrast, native Hebrews were Jewish ethnically and lived in the Jewish nation and spoke Hebrew. Luke records that a complaint arose from the Greek speaking Jews against the Hebrew speaking Jews.
Now when Luke uses the word complaint, this word, in the language that this letter was originally written in, literally means to utter ones displeasure in a low tone of voice or to murmur under one’s breath. In other words, in the life of the community of the early church, there became an undercurrent of grumbling and murmuring. Conversations began to occur behind the scenes; conversations of grumbling and complaining. The undercurrent of complaining that began to occur behind the scenes involved a disparity in how widows were being treated.
To understand the significance of this disparity, we first need to understand the plight of widows in the first century. Before the message and teachings of Jesus, women were practically slaves, having little or no freedom and dignity. In the culture of the first century, that vast majority of women received their status and support from being a part of a family, first as the daughter of a father, then as a wife toward a husband. A woman was provided, protected, and cared for by her husband.
And because of that reality, when a woman became a widow at the death of her husband, she entered into a very vulnerable state. If her husband had not provided sufficiently for her and if there were no family to care for her, a widow found herself dependant on either remarrying or on the generosity of others. There were very few career working women in the region around Jerusalem during the first century.
Luke explains that widows who were Jewish ethnically but Greek culturally were being overlooked when it came to meeting their pressing and practical needs. While ethnically and culturally Jewish widows were being loved and served in way that met their pressing and practical needs, there was a lack of focus and attention that resulted in neglect towards those widows who were not ethnically and culturally Jewish.
And it was this tension from inattention that resulted in the early church facing a challenge. A challenge that did not come from outside the church; this was a challenge that came from inside the church. A challenge to resolve not only a tension between differing cultures that arose from inattention; this was a tension that involved meeting the pressing and practical needs that arose as a result of the co:mission that they had been given.
Tomorrow, we will see Luke record for us how the early church responded to this challenge...
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