The Rhythm of Conflict

Introduction

Acts 6:1–7 ESV

1 Now in these days when the disciples were increasing in number, a complaint by the Hellenists arose against the Hebrews because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution. 2 And the twelve summoned the full number of the disciples and said, “It is not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables. 3 Therefore, brothers, pick out from among you seven men of good repute, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we will appoint to this duty. 4 But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.” 5 And what they said pleased the whole gathering, and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit, and Philip, and Prochorus, and Nicanor, and Timon, and Parmenas, and Nicolaus, a proselyte of Antioch. 6 These they set before the apostles, and they prayed and laid their hands on them. 7 And the word of God continued to increase, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith.

I got to Cincinnati on Friday afternoon. And when Pastor John picked me up to dinner, I was delighted to hear A Love Supreme by John Coltrane playing in his car. I’m a jazz enthusiast, but more particularly am a John Coltrane enthusiast. My love for jazz began over 30 years ago with a love for John Coltrane’s music. Most of my sermons, including this one, have been written with his music playing in the background. It's my perfect study music, sermon prep music, relax music, whatever. I even used to workout to Coltrane.

I love his music because he was a master at the art of dissonance in jazz. Every song has a melody, a delightful sound that makes listening to it pleasurable. Dissonance is the use of notes that fall outside of that melody. They create a tension, a conflict if you will within the song. Those dissonant chords and notes can be piercing and shocking, but they get our attention and bring us into the story of the song. Coltrane was a master at drawing you in with the dissonance and creating tension as you long for the resolution, the restoration of the melody.

It’s like that when it comes to conflict in our lives. Conflict is a dissonant note. It’s surrounded by tension. We all know that conflict is unavoidable. We experience conflict in some measure probably every day of the week. But when it comes to the church, if there’s conflict Christians become tense and dismayed because we say, “that’s not how it’s supposed to be.” People who don’t follow Jesus or who struggle with Christianity see conflict in the church and say, “Christians can’t even get along like they’re supposed to. Why would I waste my time with that?” I think that in this text we see a rhythm of conflict within the church that takes us further than the portrait that either of those positions paint.

These seven verses are understood to be the beginning of a formal diaconate ministry within the church. That is, the beginning of a formalized ministry of mercy with people appointed to oversee that ministry. And it comes about as a way to resolve conflict. The rhythm of conflict, the pattern, the movement of it that we find in Scripture is that the Spirit of God chooses to use even conflict to bring about his purposes for the church. I have four “d’s” for us in this song, the Dispute in v. 1, Delegation in vv. 2-3, Devotion in v. 4, and Delight in vv. 5-7.

Dispute

Luke, the author of Acts, says in v. 1 that in “these days, as the disciples were multiplying, a complaint arose from the Hellenists against the Hebrews." The complaint was that the Hellenist’s widows were being neglected in the daily distribution of resources for those in need. Luke has already said back at the end of ch. 4 that there was not a needy person among them. People with means voluntarily sold land and property, and laid the money at the apostles’ feet so that those needs could be met. But now, there’s a dispute within the church over that ministry. Notice that Luke says, “in these days.” The “these days” he was talking about are described in the preceding verse at the end of ch. 5.

Acts 5:42 ESV

42 And every day, in the temple and from house to house, they did not cease teaching and preaching that the Christ is Jesus.

The apostles were focused on the ministry the Lord had given them. They did not cease their focus to teach and preach that Jesus is the Messiah.

And guess what, things are going well. In spite of persecution from the outside, from the Jewish council, on the inside of the church things are running smoothly. The disciples are increasing in number. Isn’t that how it works? Things are running well, then out of left field, there’s a problem. Here’s the deal. We shouldn’t be surprised that conflict arose. You’re dealing with people. Conflict will always arise in the church and in ministry and in life. The fact of the matter is, there isn’t anywhere you can go that will be conflict free. And that includes the church.

In this case the dispute is because of language and ethnicity. Religiously speaking, everybody in the church at this point is Jewish. They’ve become believers in Jesus as the Messiah they’ve been hoping for. There are thousands of them. Some of them are native to Jerusalem and they spoke Aramaic as their primary language. These are the Hebrews, and they’re probably the majority. The others are from the Diaspora. They aren’t native to Jerusalem, but came from other parts of the Roman empire. Some weren’t even Jewish by birth, but had converted to Judaism. These folks spoke Greek. They were the Hellenists.

This dissonant chord comes in the middle of a melodious song. And it comes as they’re trying to build a faithful community. Now there’s murmuring and grumbling. This can help us in how we understand conflict when it comes. Because in this case, no one was trying to harm anyone else. The neglect was real, but it was unintentional. It’s not as though the apostles are sitting around thinking, “you know, we really don’t like those Hellenists. Let’s shortchange them in the daily distribution.” There’s a language barrier, and there’s a natural inclination towards those you can communicate easily with.

My point is that even the exercise of “good deeds” doesn’t necessarily prevent conflict. Even your good intentions isn’t a preventer of conflict. Dr. Christine Pohl (Living Into Community: Cultivating Practices that Sustain Us),

“If you don’t have to sustain the relationships over a long term, it’s easy to generate a strong sense of community for a period. Sustaining community is even harder than offering hospitality to strangers. You need more than good intentions to have community. You think that if you’re doing something good, and you want good, it’s going to be good...There are plenty of opportunities in community for grumbling and envy.”

The church had instituted a “good thing.” The daily distribution of food and resources for the needy among them was an outstanding practice. But that wasn’t enough to prevent conflict. And even though it was undesired, the conflict wasn’t the enemy. The conflict was the opportunity. The question was is this conflict going to be destructive or constructive for the church?

Delegation

They begin to resolve the dispute, the dissonance in the song, with delegation. The twelve apostles called a congregational meeting with all of the disciples. They said to them, “It’s not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables.” If we’re not careful, we might think that they’re saying, “serving tables, this ministry to the needy is beneath us.” But that can't be the case because it's the apostles who'd been doing it all this time. If they had that attitude they would’ve never taken it on. The problem is that its become too much for them to handle, and the Lord is using this dispute to show it to them.

It’s similar to what we see in Exodus 18 when Moses was judging the people from sun up to sun down. Whenever there was a dispute people would come to Moses and he would make a decision. His father-in-law, Jethro, came to him and said, “what you’re doing is not good. You’re going to kill yourself trying to carry this whole load. You can’t do it alone. You need to appoint able men from the people who fear God, who are trustworthy and hate a bribe so that they can share the load with you.”

But notice how it works in the New Covenant community. The Spirit has been poured out on all the people. So the ability for wise discernment doesn’t reside in the leadership alone. The apostles say, “brothers and sisters (…) select from among you seven men of good repute who are full of the Spirit and of wisdom whom we will appoint to this duty.”

This is delegation. It’s not that the social needs, the physical needs of the people are less significant than the spiritual needs. No. Our physical needs are spiritual needs. This understanding is clear in the standard that the apostles set for the men who would be responsible for the mercy ministry. They had to be full of the Holy Spirit and full of wisdom. The apostles don’t mention that these men have to be administratively gifted. They don’t require a degree in social work. The requirement is godliness.

You have to love the balance here in what the apostles do. It’s not simply a top down approach. “We’re the apostles, so we make every decision.” It’s more like, “we’ve been preaching and teaching the word. And we know that the Holy Spirit has been given to the people to hear and respond and live out the implications of the word. So they have all that they need to decide who should be appointed for this ministry.” They bring the whole community together and empower them for this decision because they trust that the Spirit is at work in the whole church. There isn’t a fear that the church is going to mess it up. But I said this was a balance right? This is delegation, not abdication. They are delegating, empowering the church. “You have the Spirit. So you’re well able to determine which seven men meet these qualifications and should serve in this way.” But the apostles aren’t saying, “You decide and we’ll get completely out of it.” They’re not abdicating their own responsibility. “You decide, you select them, and we’ll appoint them to this duty.” You decide, we appoint.

Devotion

In this rhythm of conflict they are making their way back to the melody. The melody will end in delight, but before we get there, we see the third “D,” the apostles’ devotion in v. 4. The apostles basically say, “when we appoint the seven to this duty, we will be able to devote ourselves to prayer and the ministry of the word.” The conflict created a situation where the church had to respond and order things the way that they should be ordered in order for the church to be healthy. What was right and proper for the apostles to be primarily engaged in, to be busying themselves with was prayer and the ministry of the word. Their first work was to be constantly in prayer. Their second work was to teach and preach the gospel of Jesus Christ. I’ve made this point already, but let me make it again by quoting from John Stott’s commentary on this text.

There is no hint whatever that the apostles regarded social work as inferior to pastoral work, or beneath their dignity. It was entirely a question of calling. They had no liberty to be distracted from their own priority task.

They needed to be free to do what God had called them to do. Let me get technical for just a minute to reinforce the fact that there isn’t a “spiritual vs. physical or social” distinction being made here. The distinction isn’t, “we’ll deal with the important spiritual stuff, and we’ll appoint others to deal with the less important physical stuff like feeding the poor.” The distinction is between calling. Here’s the technical part. In v. 4 the apostles say, “we will devote ourselves to prayer and the ministry of the word.” The ministry of the word is the “diakonia” of the word. Back in v. 1, the dispute arose over the way the daily distribution was being administered. Well, the daily distribution is the daily “diakonia”. It’s the daily ministry. We’re dealing with two ministries in the church; two aspects of what it means to be the church; word and deed together. Preaching the word, and caring for the material needs of people. The apostles were called to one and the seven were appointed over the other.

A vital principle is illustrated in this incident, which is of urgent importance to the church today. It is that God calls all his people to ministry, that he calls different people to different ministries, and that those called to ‘prayer and the ministry of the word’ must on no account allow themselves to be distracted from their priorities…We need to recover this vision of the wide diversity of ministries to which God calls his people…True, pastors are not apostles,…but it is a real ‘ministry of the word’ to which pastors are called to dedicate their life. The apostles were not too busy for ministry, but preoccupied with the wrong ministry.

Delight

When folk are devoted to the thing they ought to be devoted to, you strike a delightful chord. What the apostles said pleased the whole assembly. They selected these seven men, Stephen, Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicolaus. They set them before the apostles, who prayed and laid hands on them, ordaining them to this ministry.

There are two delightful chords I want to point out here at the end. The first is that all seven of these men had Greek names. It’s likely that they were all Hellenists. Luke even points out that Nicolaus was a proselyte. He had been converted to Judaism. But the majority of the people were Hebrews, not Hellenists. All of the apostles were Hebrews. You now have some diversity in the leadership. The Spirit of God at work in the church had to have produced humility and wisdom in this process. Humility had to be at work for the Hebrews not to dominate the process, and say, let’s make sure we get our boys in office. It wasn’t a popularity contest. The majority was in agreement with the minority that the wisest thing, the thing that would produce the most health for the church was to have members of the minority appointed to this duty. They were willing to submit to the leadership of people from a different group. This wasn’t, let’s throw the Hellenists a bone to appease them. It’s, this is what it means to be the people of God, the body of Christ. This aspect of delight has particular reference to churches in the US that desire to love neighbors across lines of difference in Jesus’s name. The tendency in these situations is for the majority to be the dominant voice and perspective in any process. But love demands that we put others’ needs ahead of ours. And that will often look like centering the needs of those who are in a non-dominant position.

The second delightful chord is Luke’s summary statement in v. 7.

“The word of God continued to increase, and the number of disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith.”

The apostles were freed to continue their witness, and the word of God continued to increase, it grew in reach and depth. The people are growing as disciples of Jesus Christ, and new disciples are being added at a rapid rate. So much so that a large number of priests are becoming Christians. The seed of the gospel found fertile soil in an unexpected place; the priests. A large number of priests are repenting of their sins, and believing that Jesus is the Messiah.

The first note of the text in v. 1 was a delightful melody, that the disciples were increasing in number. The last note brings us back to that melody in an even greater fullness, the word is increasing, the disciples are multiplying, even priests are believing.

We have delight here at the end, but the rhythm of conflict will continue. Even in Acts, we’ll find more dissonant chords. Whether you’re a Christian or not, what you shouldn’t expect is that you’ll see the eradication of conflict when you look at the church. We have a New Testament that tells us that story. But what you should expect to see is the Spirit of God at work in the church providing wisdom in the midst of conflict. Our tendency in conflict is to respond with either fight, flight, or freeze. We either put up our fists or we run away and separate or we’re paralyzed and don’t do anything hoping that ignoring it will make it go away. What if there’s a better response than either of those three? When the dispute arose, the Hellenists didn't dig in and fight against the Hebrews as if they were enemies. They didn’t say we’re going to say nothing because maybe it’ll just resolve itself. But they also didn’t break out and say we’re going to start 1st Hellenist Church of Jerusalem. We might tend towards fight, flight or freeze, but the rhythm of conflict should revise our expectations of what church life is. There’s a better way. It’s the way of looking to the Spirit for what makes for health and peace.

Jesus says in Matthew 13:41 that there’s a day coming when he will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all law-breakers. Until that day comes, conflict and community will go together. Like or not, you will not have one without the other. However, it’s not a dire, hopeless message. Instead, there’s a rhythm to it that makes us delightfully dependent on the Spirit of God.