Do Your Part Scripture Acts 6:1-7

The early church was expanding rapidly. A problem arose between the Christians who spoke Greek and followed Greek culture (Hellenist Jews), and the Christians who spoke Hebrew and followed Jewish culture (Jews). The Greek Jews complained that their widows were not receiving food distributions as planned. Widows were typically taken care of by the group because they could not do so themselves without husbands and if they had no sons. So the apostles gathered with all the disciples and explained that the apostles could not stop their preaching about Jesus to take care of these common tasks because preaching was more important. So they decided to elect 7 men to be responsible for the tasks and Stephen was chosen to lead them. These are generally accepted to have been the first deacons in the church. This is a simple message today. It identifies that everyone is called by God without different skills sets and spiritual gifts for purposes that help the entire body of Christ, the church. Examine your own skills and interests and strengths to consider how God may have planned for you to take part in the church, helping and serving Him and others. At that time, people were needed to preach, to teach, to manage, to help those in need, and many, many different jobs and responsibilities. All of them were considered to be equally important. It is a fact that God has a plan for each one of you, and that He has given you certain gifts to be successful in life but also to accomplish His plan for your life that involves you serving and helping others. It would be a mistake to ignore your gifts. And He expects you to nurture them and make them as strong as possible. What types of things are you good at that you may need to examine further? Everyone at some points what God has in mind for them in this world. It all starts with your spiritual gifts. The sooner you figure that out, the less time you will waste, and the sooner you will find a path and plan that God placed there for you to be successful in life and in Christ. Apologetics lesson (answering tough questions and criticisms about Christianity) If God has everything in my life planned, how can I have free will? This debate has gone on for many centuries and continues today. It is often termed predestination vs. free will. Some people believe that God controls absolutely everything in our lives and that even though it seems like we have free will, God controlled the decisions we made. Centuries ago this philosophy was put forward by John Calvin and is sometimes called Calvinism. On the other side from the 1500s is Arminianism, developed by Jacobus Arminius, and it claims that free will trumps everything and that we have complete control over our lives. What do you think? Certainly there are many places in the Bible that indicate God is sovereign (in complete control) and that He planned us and everything before the world even began. In fact, the Bible indicates that He decided who the elect (saved) would be before He made the universe. However, the Bible also indicates that God gave us free will. Lucifer, then Adam and Eve, all made choices to reject or rebel against God on their own. Surely it doesnt make sense that God forced them to do those things. So what is the answer? This is a debate I suggest you study and contemplate further on your own. My own belief is that both occur and that the answer is more in the middle and is possible because of Gods omniscience (all knowing). Heres a possibility. God knows everything that has happened and that will ever happen. Because that is true, He knows the future history of the world. So it is easy to see that He already knows who would be saved, so saying that He chose the elect before the universe was made is merely a function of Him knowing the outcome before it happens so essentially, He recognizes or chooses the elect. The question comes up in your individual choices about how it could be that God accomplishes a plan that He has specifically for you when you still have the freedom to choose and make all your own decisions. This has to do with a type of knowledge we assign to God called middle knowledge. In modern terms we now call this philosophy Molinism, developed by a 16th century Jesuit named Luis de Molina. Gods middle knowledge is the idea that He can create circumstances in our lives to influence an outcome, knowing that we will make a certain choice given that set of circumstances. Or that He knows there is a high probability that we will make a certain choice. Suppose we make a different choice. Well then God creates another circumstance, and another and another until He gets the outcome that He wants. In this way, Gods overall plan for our lives will always be achieved because He will continue to create circumstances and events until His outcome is achieved and His plan for us is accomplished. Gods middle knowledge piece of His omniscience reconciles the problem of God controlling everything versus us having full free will. What do you think?