Title: House Rules
Series: Upon This Rock
Author: Randy Tomko
Date:
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 45:45 — 41.9MB)
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The early church faced many challenges in how to live together, how to navigate different ethnic and social backgrounds, how to promote peaceful relationships. The church today faces all the same challenges!
Sometimes facing those challenges involves laying aside privilege so that the community might be encouraged and fortified. That is the act of being the church…
6 But as the believers[a] rapidly multiplied, there were rumblings of discontent. The Greek-speaking believers complained about the Hebrew-speaking believers, saying that their widows were being discriminated against in the daily distribution of food.
2 So the Twelve called a meeting of all the believers. They said, “We apostles should spend our time teaching the word of God, not running a food program. 3 And so, brothers, select seven men who are well respected and are full of the Spirit and wisdom. We will give them this responsibility. 4 Then we apostles can spend our time in prayer and teaching the word.”
5 Everyone liked this idea, and they chose the following: Stephen (a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit), Philip, Procorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicolas of Antioch (an earlier convert to the Jewish faith).6 These seven were presented to the apostles, who prayed for them as they laid their hands on them.
7 So God’s message continued to spread. The number of believers greatly increased in Jerusalem, and many of the Jewish priests were converted, too.
Act 6:1-7 (NLT)
