"What they said pleased the whole community"

We just had the privilege of having Hlobisile Nxumalo, director of Acts of Faith, a youth program in Swaziland, lead our workshop March 1-2 at Bethany Bible School.  Hlobi is trained as an accountant, but her broader passion seems to be management and, in particular, management as it pertains to the church.  She led the students of BBS in thinking about how they lead and participate in meetings in their churches.  She emphasized processes of communal decision making and building consensus in the church on divisive issues.

In her presentation on Saturday, Hlobi drew our attention to Acts 6:1-7, the text which tells of the choosing of the first deacons in the early church.  Hlobi stressed verse 5a: "What they said pleased the whole community."  Within the text, verse 5a might be quickly overlooked, a throwaway comment on the way toward a greater point.  I suspected, nevertheless, that in fact Hlobi had directed our eyes toward the very structural heart of the text--and thus the interpretive key to its message as a unit.

As I investigated the structure of Acts 6:1-7, I found an unmistakable inclusio, a two-part frame marking off the text as a distinct unit of thought.  The text begins by emphasizing that, "during those days, when the disciples were increasing in number" (6:1); it ends with a similar thought: "the number of the disciples increased greatly in Jerusalem" (6:7).  In other words, the inclusio in the text pertains to the growth of the church; the church moves from growth to growth.  Growth is the frame of the text.

This is not to say, however, that the growth of the church is something to be taken for granted, an inexorable harvest of increase until disciples of Jesus cover the earth as the waters cover the sea.  On the contrary, the growth of the church passes through many troubles and trials, progressions and recessions more akin to the tides crashing on the beach during the course of a day.  Thus we read that, "during those days, when the disciples were increasing in number, the Hellenists complained against the Hebrews because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution of food" (6:1).  With an initial burst of growth comes conflict.  Precisely on the heels of triumph comes frustration.  The sailing of the church is not smooth.  As the disciples were increasing, the Hellenists were arguing against the Hebrews over the equality of care for widows.  The church increased; the church was dividing.

The conflict over equal care, a matter of justice, might have destroyed the church, fractured the hard-won work of Christ's cross which had broken down the dividing wall of hostility between Hebrew and Hellenist.  Instead, however, the conflict was an extension within the life of the church of the cross of its Lord, an opportunity to confront the powers of injustice and dispel them through perseverance in love for others.  So it was that "the twelve", the acknowledged leaders of the church, "called together the whole community of disciples" and proposed a distinct course of action toward justice (6:2, 3-4).  Their proposal--the appointment of deacons (servant leaders) to be responsible for the distribution of food to Hellenist and Hebrew alike--"pleased the whole community" (6:5a).  The community which the twelve had "called together" to discuss the problem of injustice was the same community which was "pleased" by the appointment of deacons.

One of Hlobi's main points, therefore, was that the transformation of the conflict, signaled in the story by the satisfaction of the "whole community" (v. 5a), was the involvement of the "whole community" in the decision-making process.  Because the twelve had "called together the whole community", the "whole community" was "pleased".  The solution to the problem belonged to the whole community as much as it belonged to the twelve.

In addition, we might add the following lessons from this text:

1. Don't rest on your laurels.  Times of frustration are bound to follow times of triumph.  Frustration need not have the final word, but the church will need to work through conflict.  In the positive, this might be expressed, in the parlance of the New Testament's apocalyptic texts, as the injunction to "Keep awake" or "Here is a call for the endurance and faith of the saints" (Mk 13:35, 37; Rev 13:10).

2. Growth is dependent upon maintenance.  The increase of the community is related to the health of the community.  The church's inner life affects its outer witness.  The life and processes of the community have a direct affect upon its capacity for attracting outsiders.  The church must thus attend to its inner life, to the maintaining of justice among its members, and to the spiritual practices that enable it to attend to the needs of members.  Thus the twelve were wise in not forsaking "the word of God in order to wait on tables" even as the "waiting on tables" through the appointment of deacons was the solution to the needs of its members.  Spirituality and justice are the requirements for lasting growth.

-Joe

"Feed my sheep (don't count them)"

Though I have no way of verifying it, my memory tells me that I have heard a number of Pentecostal and Charismatic leaders over the past several years quote from--of all books--1 and 2 Chronicles. Aside from that, another observation of said church leaders is their obsession with numerical growth. They want to preside over a "big church", have so and so many new congregations planted by such and such a date, and have a new "3,000 seater" building built by such and such a date. Something else I suspect--more through second-hand reports than firsthand experience--is that the conception of discipleship that accompanies such goals is training people who "get saved" to themselves do basic evangelistic work. This basic evangelistic work, focused on "getting people saved", means giving a short presentation of the gospel of a sinful humanity redeemed by Christ's death and offering others an invitation to repent of their sin and welcome Jesus through a formulaic prayer. In other words, in this conception, discipleship is not, first and foremost, training in the life and words of Jesus, but grounding in a particular method of salvation.

This whole schema has been rehearsed and critiqued time and time again, and probably sounds familiar to those reading it here. Consequently, I do not wish to again offer that same tired critique--if only it were truly tired. It seems, however, based on the endurance of this conventional Christian understanding of salvation, that some words of alternative wisdom still need to be said. Which brings me to--of all places--1 Chronicles 21.

Pastor Ntapo recently referred to the story there, another version of which also appears in 2 Samuel 24, as evidence that what seems to be the prevailing ethos of Charismatic Christianity in southern Africa is out-of-step with a biblical faith centered in Jesus Christ. In the story, David, in the waning days of his reign over Israel, is "incited by Satan to count the people of Israel" (as an aside, it is interesting that in the narrative of 2 Samuel, it is God, not Satan, who is the subject who "incites" David) (1 Chr. 21:1//2 Sam. 24:1). Both versions of the story, in spite of their differences, condemn the action of David in counting his people. Indeed, it is David--the shepherd whom God appointed to lead God's "sheep" (v. 17)--upon whom responsibility rests for the sin of counting the people. It is David, the leader, the "pastor" of the flock, whose obsession with numbers leads to disaster for the sheep: "seventy thousand persons fell in Israel", casualties of the "pestilence" God sent as punishment for David's sin (21:12, 14).

If David was not to count the people, what should he have done? And if an obsession with numbers leads ultimately to destruction, what kind of an orientation leads to life?

Perhaps David might have remembered Gideon, that judge who preceded him in the history of Israel, with whom the troops of his charge were "too many" to fight God's battles; rather, it was with "300", down from an original 32,000, that God delivered Israel from the Midianites (Jdg. 7). Perhaps David might have remembered his earlier life, he who found discomfort in the sophisticated armor and weaponry of Saul, choosing instead "five smooth stones and a sling"--by which he triumphed over a giant and put an entire army to flight (1 Sam. 17:38ff). Perhaps he might have "looked forward", as did his forefather Abraham (Jn. 8:56; Heb. 11:17-19), to the Christ who was crucified, rejected by the crowds for his refusal to fight with the weapons of flesh and blood--but exalted by his Father for "enduring to the end" (Mt. 24:13).

All this is not to say that numbers are a sign of unfaithfulness. It is to say that the seeking of numbers bears little resemblance to ministry in the mode of Christ. God will count the sheep; let us feed them with the words of eternal life (Jn 6:63, 68, 21:15-19).

-Joe