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Seven Deacons were Appointed

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(Acts 6:3)

Brothers, choose seven men from among you who are known to be full of the Spirit and wisdom.

We will turn this responsibility over to them

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After the Holy Spirit came on Pentecost Day, miracles began to happen in Jerusalem. The Apostles and the people in the church received the Holy Spirit and they became brave so they started to evangelize.

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Through their evangelism more and more people in the Jerusalem church started to believe Jesus. The Apostles did the work of teaching the words of God to the people who believed God.

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Aside from teaching the words of God, the Apostles also shared food. They also gave food to the poor people in the church. They tried their best to share the food equally.

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The more people got to believe in Jesus, the more time the Apostles had to share food. Because of that, they were no longer able to share the food equally.

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However, because of that complains started to grow among the people. "Why do they give more food to people using Hebrew but why don't they give enough food to us poor widows who use Greek?" The people using Greek were complaining that it wasn't fair.

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The 12 Apostles gathered the people and said: "We are doing the work of teaching the words of God and sharing the food together so we are becoming careless of the ministry of teaching the words of God. This isn't right."

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"Brothers, choose seven men from among you who are known to be full of the Spirit and wisdom. We will turn this responsibility over to them and will give back our attention to prayer and the ministry of the Word."

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The people thought that the idea of the Apostles was good. Then, they chose the most acknowledged seven men. The name of those seven men were Stephen, Philip, Procorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicolas.

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The people brought the seven men to the Apostles. The Apostles laid their hands on their heads and prayed. Those seven men became the first deacons.

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The chosen deacons did the work of sharing the food to the people equally as much as possible. The problem in the Jerusalem church was solved.

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The Apostles were able to pay their full attention back to the ministry of teaching the words of God since the seven deacons were appointed. As a result, the words of God spread out widely and more and more people gathered to Jerusalem.

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Amazingly, even the people who served as priests among the Jews believed in Jesus. Everybody felt that the words of God had amazing power.

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Where ever people gather several problems can arise. The Jerusalem church was the first early church to believe Jesus but even in that Jerusalem church, they complained because of sharing food.

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But the Apostles appointed seven deacons and worked together to do the ministry. Through that, they solved the problems and bore good fruit. God gives us good results when we become one and work together.

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Like the Apostles we should try not to be greedy when we do something. Pray to have a big heart which can cooperate and work together with our friends. God is glad when we value others and work together and through that God makes us bear lots of good fruit.