Hellenist and Hebrew
From the very day of Pentecost, the Jerusalem congregation had embraced a number of Hellenists, or foreign-trained Jews, though we have no means of knowing what proportion they bore to those born in Palestine, called by Luke "Hebrews." It is certain that their influence must have been out of proportion to their numbers. They were men of higher average intelligence and energy than the villagers of Judæa, or the small traders of the capital, and were not likely to acquiesce silently in any neglect which, from being in a minority, they might suffer at the hands of the home-born.
I. The creation of the office of deacon showed all the better that it did not mean to show anything, how unfettered the new kingdom of Christ is by external regulations; how full of self-regulating power, how unhierarchical, how free, how unlike great modern Church establishments; how like a great family of brothers dividing among themselves the work to be done.
II. Another thing which the act of that day did, and was recognised even at the time as doing, was to begin the severance between the spiritual and temporal work of the Church. It had become impossible any longer to continue the serving of tables with the ministry of the Word. That the work might be well done, a division of labour was called for, and the Apostles could not hesitate which side of their double office they should abandon. To bear witness to the saving work of Jesus Christ is not a secondary or accidental function of the visible association we call the Church. It is its very end, its raison d'étre,its one task, to which all else is a mere accessory. Still, it deserves to be remarked how carefully the new office and its duties were lifted out of the atmosphere of mere business into that of worship. The men eligible to office are to be full of the Holy Ghost as well as of wisdom. They are to be set apart to their work with equally solemn religious services, and symbolical acts of consecration, as if their work had nothing to do with serving tables. The earliest instinct of the Church was a perfectly true one, that no office in the kingdom of God can be discharged as it ought to be, no matter how exclusively external or secular it may appear, unless it be discharged by a spiritual man, and in a spiritual way. All the servants of the Church must be first servants of her Master, "men of honest report, full of the Holy Ghost."
J. Oswald Dykes, From Jerusalem to Antioch,p. 207 (see also Preacher's Lantern,vol. iv., p. 641).
References: Acts 6:1-7. E. M. Goulburn, Acts of the Deacons,p. 1; Homilist,3rd series, vol. iv., p. 311.Acts 6:2. J. Baldwin Brown, Christian World Pulpit,vol. viii., p. 309. Acts 6:5. Bishop Simpson, Sermons,p. 159. Acts 6:7. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xiv., No. 802; J. N. Norton, Old Paths,p. 292.Acts 6:8-10. E. M. Goulburn, Acts of the Deacons,p. 41.Acts 6:8-15. Homilist,3rd series, vol. v., p. 12.