Acts Lesson 16: Growing Pains and Gains

The Early Church grows both in numbers and in spiritual maturity, which is not without it's "pains"! With growth by multiplication comes “growing pains”; more potential problems arise whenever bigger numbers of people are involved. With growth, there is always the need to make adjustments; there is the need for the spiritual leadership to wisely delegate the workload of the ministry with others who are spiritually qualified. As Moses learned through the wisdom of his father-in-law Jethro, he could not single-handedly “do it all” (Exodus 18:13-26), so the twelve Apostles discovered they could and should not attend to all the multi-faceted aspects of the ministry alone. Fortunately, the Early Church was led by twelve Spirit-filled men, who rightly handled the first threat to the beautiful unity of the Church with God-given wisdom. What the problem was and how the Apostles took care of it is the subject matter of this lesson, entitled, “Growing Pains and Gains”. The outline for this look at Acts 6:1-7 consists of two parts: I. “Slighted Widows” (6:1-4) and II. “Seven Workers” (6:5-7).