Acts 6:1 “In those days when the number of disciples was increasing, the Grecian Jews among them complained against the Hebraic Jews because their widows were being overlooked in the daily distribution of food.”

There were no food stamps in the First Century A.D. The government social safety net as we know it didn’t exist.

That didn’t mean there was no help for the poor. The church conducted a ministry of love from its very beginnings. The Christian church in Jerusalem grew rapidly. You remember that in one day, the day of Pentecost, the membership jumped by 3000 people. A short time later the church had doubled in size again. You can imagine some of the challenges this posed for the early Christians. How do you keep track of all these people? There were no computers, no church management software, no Excel spreadsheets. It takes a long time to write down five or ten thousand names and addresses by hand, a lot of paper on which to write them, and a lot of people to keep them all straight. It is not too surprising that once in a while someone might fall through the cracks and be forgotten.

Some of these first Christians were wealthy enough to have property they could sell and give to support the early church. Some of them were quite poor. Widows were particularly vulnerable. Sources of income were very limited for women. If you were still raising children there was no daycare to speak of. Remarriage was often a woman’s best option to stay alive, but most men preferred a woman who had never been married, and men died significantly younger on average. Across all nations and cultures, hungry widows were an acute problem.

The early Christians distinguished themselves by the way they took care of each other. Several times in the early chapters of Acts Luke talks about the impressive generosity with which they provided for each other’s needs. A little more than a hundred years later the Roman writer Lucian thought he was criticizing Christianity when he observed that they did not spare trouble or expense in caring for the interests of their own community, and that they believed, as Jesus taught, that they were all brothers. Love and kindness, not just a pleasant sentiment but a proactive way to treat others, marked the first Christians. It flowed from their faith in Jesus’ great love and kindness for them in the sacrifice of his life on the cross. As John concludes in his first letter, “Since God has so loved us, we also ought to love one another” (1 John 4:11). This reputation was one of the reasons so many people were attracted to the Christian faith.

So we come to the issue in Acts 6. A rapidly growing church was having trouble keeping up with all its members and their needs. They had the desire to love and care for each other, but their organization lagged behind their growth. Jesus’ Twelve Apostles knew that they had to come up with a solution. Before we delve into that, let’s pause to consider what they did not do.

They did not excuse themselves or the church from living out the kind of love that looks out for a brother or sister in need. They did not say, “You know it takes a lot of money to pay the rent, and support the pastor and his family, and send missionaries. We can’t afford to be a charity, too.” I have heard church leaders object that it is not the church’s mission to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, or shelter the homeless. Technically they are correct. Jesus did not establish the institution for that per se.

But love more or less summarizes the individual Christian’s entire life. Can we somehow lay it aside when we start to work together as a group? We may not have the resources to feed and clothe the entire world. The early Christians weren’t trying to take care of the entire city of Jerusalem, either. But they took care of their own, body as well as soul.

The average Christian today gives just two to three percent of income to support his church, and only a tiny fraction of that for any other charity. We don’t have less than the early Christians had. We possess the same grace, the same forgiveness, the same freedom from sin, the same certainty of heaven. Materially, our lives are easier, not harder, in almost every case. The example of these early Christians is an opportunity to examine our own generosity and repent where needed.