“And in those days, when the number of the disciples was multiplied, there arose a murmuring…” (Acts 6:1)

We’ve all seen it. Just when things start to work smoothly, something stops progress. A team member suffers an injury, a business loses a productive staffer to a transfer, a community says goodbye to a neighbor who kept everyone together when personalities clashed.

Churches are not immune. When the early church was starting, periods of amazing growth often came with periods of testing. The Book of the Acts records conversions in the thousands followed by all sorts of trouble. Acts 6:1 is an example. In the same verse, we read that “the number of the disciples was multiplied” and that “there arose a murmuring of the Grecians against the Hebrews, because their widows were neglected in the daily ministration”. Multitudes came to know Christ, and murmuring broke out immediately.

What to do? Acts 6 shows us two powerful principles that the early church used, and the results were astounding. Astounding results are not guaranteed, of course. God may have other things in mind to accomplish, but the principles are rock solid.

First, the twelve insisted that their main ministry should be the Word of God and prayer. They could have been distracted from that ministry, but they knew that the church in Jerusalem was growing so fast that new believers needed a foundation in the Word of God. They also knew that a murmuring church could easily occupy their time and energy as they put out fires. Notice their priorities: “It is not reason that we should leave the word of God, and serve tables” (6:2), and “we will give ourselves continually to prayer, and to the ministry of the word” (6:4). With the widows murmuring about being neglected, the twelve could have lost their focus, but they didn’t.

Second, the twelve wisely oversaw a plan to put godly, qualified people in charge of a critical project. Rather than choosing just any available people, the twelve told the multitude of disciples to choose “seven men of honest report, full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom” to address the murmuring widows (6:3). Stephen was one of those seven, and when he and the seven were challenged by ungodly men disputing with Stephen, he preached one of the most powerful messages recorded in the New Testament in response (Acts 7).

Responding to murmuring is no place for grandstanding or needless force. Acts 6 shows that the plan to choose the seven (probably the first deacons written about in the New Testament) “pleased the whole multitude” (6:5), and stopped the murmuring. It is not mentioned again in Acts. The murmuring was overwhelmed by prayer, the Word of God, and biblically qualified leaders.

May our modern response to murmuring follow the sound pattern of Acts 6.