Read­ing Time: 2 minutes

Introduction

Due to the zeal and ded­ic­a­tion of the apostles, the Gos­pel mes­sage expan­ded bey­ond the bound­ar­ies of Jer­u­s­alem and the Lord con­tin­ued to add to the num­ber of believ­ers. Giv­en such rap­id expan­sion, some dif­fi­culties were unavoid­able. The com­mu­nion of the believ­ing com­munity should be kept intact and should not be com­prom­ised for any reas­on. It is the respons­ib­il­ity of reli­gious lead­ers to find solu­tions to emer­ging prob­lems in the com­munity. The apostles were wise enough to halt the quar­rel which was about to emerge with­in the community.

The Twelve intervened

Sequel to the com­plaint of the Hel­len­ists, the Twelve imme­di­ately summoned the entire dis­ciples for solu­tion. Worthy of note is how the Twelve spoke with one voice. Jesus’ pray­er in John 17 that they be one is finally real­ized. Very touch­ing are the words they addressed to the com­munity. “It is not right that we should neg­lect the word of God in order to wait on tables. Now friends, select from among yourselves sev­en men with good repu­ta­tion, full of the Spir­it and of wis­dom, whom we can appoint to this task, while we, for our part, will devote ourselves to pray­er and to serving the word” (Acts 6:2–4). These words indic­ate those who did the shar­ing were not get­ting it right. The Twelve made three import­ant points: they can­not aban­don their primary duty; the com­munity knows those who can do the shar­ing well; doing so will enable them focus on their mission.

Conclusion

Often, prob­lems among Chris­ti­an com­munit­ies are not resolved because those respons­ible are not object­ive. The con­tem­por­ary soci­ety is marked by value and pri­or­ity mis­place­ment. The Twelve apostles were able to lib­er­ate them­selves from dis­trac­tions. Some­thing many lead­ers today are not cap­able of doing. They demon­strated that divi­sion of labour is a primary key to the suc­cess of any organ­iz­a­tion. In a fam­ily, organ­iz­a­tion, gath­er­ing, com­munity, Church, town, State, nation where each minds his or her duty, there is always pro­gress, hap­pi­ness and friend­li­ness. For each per­son to give his or her best, people must be giv­en the chance and be allowed to work freely without undue inter­fer­ence. The Twelve simply sug­ges­ted to the com­munity of the need to select those who can do the work. They neither interfered nor con­di­tioned the selec­tion. Can such hap­pen today in our vari­ous Churches and organ­iz­a­tions? We always pro­ject our per­son­al and selfish interests to the det­ri­ment of the entire com­munity. Even after read­ing pas­sages like Acts 6:1–7, we con­tin­ue in our old fash­ion. We read the Scrip­tures without any inten­tion of apply­ing them in our lives. Most of our Churches and com­munit­ies are char­ac­ter­ized by amaz­ing con­fu­sion because people are not doing what they should do.

FOR DETAILS, GET YOUR OWN COPIES OF THE BOOK “THE WORD OF LIFE:
SUNDAY REFLECTIONS” (vols. I‑II-III)!! The reflec­tion for the 5^th Sunday of Pascha is found in The Word of Life, vol. I, pages 255–262. Happy reading!

For details on how to get it, con­tact the author on this link: https://m.me/uchennabiblia?fbclid=IwAR2yeg4a6sDGBp9QGkIvKj6FSADumMokN6lshdE0zuo-JHs6qOmlhA7jyHo
or email me at: postmaster@uchennabiblia.com
or simply send an SMS on 08116100926, and I will get back to you.

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