The Church was in a state of agitation, and there was murmuring going
on because, as I have already said, a section of it thought that their
poor were unfairly dealt with by the native-born Jews in the Church.
And so the Apostles said: 'What is the use of your squabbling thus?
Pick out any seven that you like, of the class that considers itself
aggrieved, and we will put the distribution of these eleemosynary
grants into their hands. That will surely stop your mouths. Do you
choose whom you please, and we will confirm your choice.' So the Church
selected seven brethren, all apparently belonging to the 'Grecians' or
Greek-speaking Jews, as the Apostles had directed that they should be,
and one of them, not a Jew by birth, but a 'proselyte of Antioch.'
These men's partialities would all be in favour of the class to which
they belonged, and to secure fair play for which they were elected by
it.
Now these seven are never called 'deacons' in the New Testament, though
it is supposed that they were the first holders of that office. It is
instructive to note how their office came into existence. It was
created by the Apostles, simply as the handiest way of getting over a
difficulty. Is that the notion of Church organisation that prevails
among some of our brethren who believe that organisation is everything,
and that unless a Church has the three orders of bishops, priests, and
deacons, it is not worth calling a Church at all? The plain fact is
that the Church at the beginning had no organisation. What organisation
it had grew up as circumstances required. The only two laws which
governed organisation were, first, 'One is your Master, even Christ,
and all ye are brethren'; and second, 'When the Spirit of the Lord is
come upon thee, thou shalt do as occasion shall serve thee.' Thus these
seven were appointed to deal with a temporary difficulty and to
distribute alms when necessary; and their office dropped when it was no
longer required, as was probably the case when, very soon after, the
Jerusalem Church was scattered. Then, by degrees, came elders and
deacons. People fancy that there is but one rigid, unalterable type of
Church organisation, when the reality is that it is fluent and
flexible, and that the primitive Church never was meant to be the
pattern according to which, in detail, and specifically, other Churches
in different circumstances should be constituted. There are great
principles which no organisation must break, but if these be kept, the
form is a matter of convenience.
That is the first lesson that I take out of this story. Although it has
not much to do with Philip himself, still it is worth saying in these
days when a particular organisation of the Church is supposed to be
essential to Christian fellowship, and we Nonconformists, who have not
the 'orders' that some of our brethren seem to think indispensable, are
by a considerable school unchurched, because we are without them. But
the primitive Church also was without them.
Still further and more important for us, in these brief years of
brilliant service I note the spontaneous impulse which sets a Christian
man to do Christian work. It was his brethren that picked out Philip,
and said, 'Now go and distribute alms,' but his brethren had nothing to
do with his next step. He was driven by circumstances out of Jerusalem,
and he found himself in Samaria, and perhaps he remembered how Jesus
Christ had said, on the day when He went up into Heaven, 'Ye shall be
witnesses unto Me, both in Jerusalem _and in Samaria_, and unto the
uttermost parts of the earth.' But whether he remembered that or not,
he was here in Samaria, amongst the ancestral enemies of his nation.
Nobody told him to preach when he went to Samaria. He had no commission
from the Apostles to do so. He did not hold any office in the Church,
except that which, according to the Apostles' intention in establishing
it, ought to have stopped his mouth from preaching. For they said, when
they appointed these seven, 'Let _them_ serve tables, and we will give
ourselves to the ministry of the word.' But Jesus Christ has a way of
upsetting men's restrictions as to the functions of His servants. And
so Philip, without a commission, and with many prejudices to stop his
mouth, was the first to break through the limitations which confined
the message of salvation to the Jews. Because he found himself in
Samaria, and they needed Christ there, he did not wait for Peter and
James and John to lay their hands upon his head, and say, 'Now you are
entitled to speak about Him'; he did not wait for any appointment, but
yielded to his own heart, a heart that was full of Jesus Christ, and
_must_ speak about Him; find he proclaimed the Gospel in that city.
So he has the noble distinction of being the very first Christian man
who put a bold foot across the boundary of Judaism, and showed a light
to men that were in darkness beyond. Remember he did it as a simple
private Christian; uncalled, uncommissioned, unordained by anybody; and
he did it because he could not help it, and he never thought to
himself, 'I am doing a daring, new thing.' It seemed the most natural
thing in the world that he should preach in Samaria. So it would be to
us, if we were Christians with the depth of faith and of personal
experience which this man had.
There is another lesson that I take from these first busy years of
Philip's service. Christ provides wider spheres for men who have been
faithful in narrower ones. It was because he had 'won his spurs,' if I
may so say, in Samaria, and proved the stuff he was made of, that the
angel of the Lord came and said to Philip, 'Go down on the road to
Gaza, which is desert. Do not ask now what you are to do when you get
there. Go!' So with his sealed orders be went. No doubt he thought to
himself, 'Strange that I should be taken from this prosperous work in
Samaria, and sent to a desert road, where there is not a single human
being!' But he went; and when he struck the point of junction of the
road from Samaria with that from Jerusalem, looked about to discover
what he had been sent there for. The only thing in sight was one
chariot, and he said to himself, 'Ah, that is it,' and he drew near to
the chariot, and heard the occupant reading aloud Isaiah's great
prophecy. The Ethiopian chamberlain was probably not very familiar with
the Greek translation of the Old Testament, which he seems to have been
using and, as poor readers often do, helped his comprehension by
speaking the words he sees on the page. Philip knew at once that here
was the object of his mission, and so 'joined himself to the chariot,'
and set himself to his work.
So Christ chooses His agents for further work from those who, out of
their own spontaneous love of Him, have done what lay at their hands.
'To him that hath shall be given.' If you are ambitious of a wider
sphere, be sure that you fill your narrow one. It will widen quite fast
enough for your capacities.