SRoper
Puritan Board Graduate
Now in these days when the disciples were increasing in number, a complaint by the Hellenists arose against the Hebrews because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution. And the twelve summoned the full number of the disciples and said, “It is not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables. Therefore, brothers, pick out from among you seven men of good repute, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we will appoint to this duty. But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.” And what they said pleased the whole gathering, and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit, and Philip, and Prochorus, and Nicanor, and Timon, and Parmenas, and Nicolaus, a proselyte of Antioch. These they set before the apostles, and they prayed and laid their hands on them.
(Acts 6:1-6 ESV)
This is a follow up to a post from a year ago about how the number of church officers is to be determined. There was agreement that the number is based on the number of candidates that receive a majority vote by the congregation and not based on a predetermined number of slots. But how does Acts 6 factor into this? It appears that the number is predetermined to be seven [edit: in this particular case it was seven]. Isn't this biblical warrant for predetermining the number of positions ahead of time [edit: not necessarily seven positions, but some number determined by the need]?
What of teaching elders? Isn't the number of teaching elders almost always determined by the congregation ahead of time? Shouldn't there also be a predetermined number of ruling elders and deacons, according to the needs of the congregation?
I'm curious how these objections would be answered.
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