Ep 392 – Acts 6:1-9

No doubt you believe that God is at work in and around your life. But sometimes it may appear that He is either distant or distracted. The nature of your circumstances can leave the impression that God is nowhere to be found. And this usually happens when things don't appear to be going particularly well or quite as we had expected them to. What we have in the first nine verses of Acts 6, is a scene where the newly found church of Jesus Christ runs into some unexpected conflict. And what makes this scenario especially surprising is that the conflict came from within. It was an internal struggle, between fellow believers. And it would be easy to assume that this was outside the will of God. After all, Jesus had prayed that His followers would be one, just as He and His Father are. But we must look closely when examining a text like this one. There is much going on that we don't see at a cursory first-glance. There is little doubt that God was at work in those early days of the church. He was working behind the scenes, directing the paths of the disciples and orchestrating the timing of each and every event. He had a bigger plan in mind. He had future ramifications already predetermined for what appeared to be spur-of-the-moment, unplanned situations. And what appears to be unnecessary and unhelpful conflict in the camp is going to turn out to be the sovereign hand of God preparing the church for future growth.