Acts 6:2

προσκαλεσάμενοι δὲ οἱ δώδεκα : whatever may have been the irritation caused by the pride or neglect of the Hebrews, the Apostles recognised that there was ground for complaint, and thus showed not only their practical capacities, but also their freedom from any partiality. οἱ δώδ.: only here in Acts, but cf. 1 Corinthians 15:5, where St. Paul uses the title as if it were well and widely known, and required no explanation from him. It is found six times in St. Luke's Gospel, and no less than ten in St. Mark's. See also above Acts 1:26; Acts 2:14. τὸ πλῆθος = the whole Church, not the hundred-and-twenty, as J. Lightfoot. The expression is a general one, and need not imply that every single member of the Church obeyed the summons. For the word πλῆθος and the illustration of its use in religious communities on the papyri by Deissmann, see p. 73. The passage has been quoted in support of the democratic constitution of the Apostolic Church, but the whole context shows that the government really lay with the Apostles. The Church as a whole is under their direction and counsel, and the Apostles alone determine what qualification those chosen should possess, the Apostles alone lay hands upon them after prayer: “The hand of man is laid upon the person, but the whole work is of God, and it is His hand which toucheth the head of the one ordained, if he be duly ordained” (Chrys., Hom., xiv.). The dignity of the Apostles, and their authority as leaders of the Church and ordainers of the Seven, is fully recognised by Feine, but he considers that their position is so altered, and the organisation of the Church so much more developed, that another source and not the Jerusalem Quellen-schrift must be supposed; but if, as Feine allows, such passages as Acts 4:34; Acts 5:2, belong to the Jerusalem source, it would appear that the authority of the Apostles in the passage before us was a very plain and natural development. καταλείψαντας : on the formation of the first aorist see Blass, Grammatik, p. 43, and also Deissmann, Neue Bibelstudien, p. 18; Winer-Schmiedel, p. 109. διακονεῖν τραπέζαις : there seems to be an intentional antithesis between these words and τῇ διακονίᾳ τοῦ λόγου in Acts 6:3. The Twelve do not object to the work of ministering, but only to the neglect of ministering to the higher sustenance for the sake of the lower (Hort, Ecclesia, p. 206); thus Bengel speaks of the expression as used with indignation, “Antitheton, ministerium verbi ”. διακονία and διακονεῖν are used for ministrations to man, although more usually of man to God; cf. Acts 19:22, of service to St. Paul, διακονία, Acts 11:29; Acts 12:25, of service to the brethren of Judæa in the famine, Romans 15:25; Romans 15:31 2 Corinthians 8:4; 2 Corinthians 9:1; 2 Corinthians 9:12-13, of the Gentile collections for the same purpose, so too probably in Romans 16:1 of the service rendered by Stephanas to travelling Christians, cf. Hebrews 6:10, and its use of the verb in the Gospels of ministering to our Lord's earthly wants, Luke 8:3; Luke 10:40 (both noun and verb), John 12:2; cf. also Luke 12:37; Luke 22:27; Matthew 4:11; Luke 4:39; see further on the use of the word in classical Greek, Hort, Ecclesia, p. 203. The word had a high dignity conferred upon it when, in contrast to the contemptuous associations which surrounded it for the most part in Greek society, Epictetus remarks that it is man's true honour to be a διάκονος of God (Diss., iii., 22, 69; 24, 65; iv. 7, 20; cf. iii. 26, 28), and a dignity immeasurably higher still, when the Son of Man could speak of Himself as in Matthew 20:28; Mark 10:45; cf. Luke 22:27. “Every clergyman begins as a deacon. This is right. But he never ceases to be a deacon. The priest is a deacon still. The bishop is a deacon still. Christ came as a deacon, lived as a deacon, died as a deacon: μὴ διακονηθῆναι, ἀλλὰ διακονῆσαι ” (Lightfoot, Ordination Sermons, p. 115). In the LXX the verb does not occur at all, but διάκονος is used four times in Esther 1:10; Esther 2:2; Esther 6:3; Esther 6:5, of the king's chamberlains and of the servants that ministered to him, and once in 4Ma 9:17; διακονία is also found in two of the passages in Esther just quoted, Acts 6:3; Acts 6:5, where in A we read οἱ ἐκ τῆς διακοίας (BS διάκονοι), and once in 1Ma 11:58, of the service of gold sent by Jonathan to Antiochus. What is meant by the expression here? does it refer to distribution of money or in kind? The word in itself might include either, but if we were to limit διακονία to alms, yet the use of the word remarked upon above renders the service higher than that of ordinary relief: “ ministration ” says St. Chrysostom (although he takes it of alms, Hom., 15), “extolling by this at once the doers and those to whom it was done”. But τραπέζαις presents a further difficulty; does it refer to the tables of exchange for money, a rendering which claims support from Matthew 21:12; Matthew 25:27; Luke 19:23; John 2:15, or to tables for food, Luke 16:21; Luke 22:21; Luke 22:30 ? Possibly the use of the word in some passages in the N.T., and also the fact that the διακονία was καθημερινή, may indicate the latter, and the phrase may refer to the actual serving and superintending at the tables at which the poor sat, or at all events to the supplying in a general way those things which were necessary for their bodily sustenance. Zöckler, Apostelgeschichte (second edition), refers the word to the ministration of the gifts of love offered at the Eucharist in the various Christian houses (so Scaliger understood the expression of the Agapæ). Mr. Humphry reminds us that the words were quoted by Latimer (1548) in a sermon against some bishops of his time who were comptrollers of the mint.