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 bone of contention

“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” (Acts 6:1). This was the reas­on for the quar­rel among the new and increas­ing Chris­ti­an com­munity. To be noted is that the Hel­len­ists and the Hebrews were the same people sep­ar­ated only by lan­guage. While the Hel­len­ists were the Greek speak­ing Jews in Dia­spora, the Hebrews were the nat­ive Palestini­an Jews who prob­ably spoke Hebrew and Ara­maic. Put dif­fer­ently, while the Hel­len­ists were Jews liv­ing out­side Palestine, the Hebrews were also Jews who lived in Palestine. In oth­er words, while the former lived abroad, the lat­ter lived at home.

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 COPY OF THE BOOK “THE WORD OF LIFE” (vol. I)!! The reflec­tion for this Fifth Sunday of Pascha is found on 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 08055265909, and I will get back to you.

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