Someone once said that the church would be perfect if it wasn’t for people.  The problem is the church is made up of people.  So, without people, you would not have a perfect church, you would have no church at all.  The statement does imply this truth—every problem that arises in the church is a product of people.  The church is made up of flawed people.  It is something that we all have in common.

Because of this, problems arise in every local church.  Even the first-century church, under the guidance of the apostles of Christ, was not immune to this.  In Acts 6 we read of the problem that arose among them.

Acts 6:1–7 (ESV)
¹ 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. ² 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. ³ 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. ⁴ But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.” ⁵ 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. ⁶ These they set before the apostles, and they prayed and laid their hands on them. ⁷ And the word of God continued to increase, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith.

There is a lot to be learned from this by local churches today.  First, this problem arose when things were going great for the church.  Luke points out that this problem occurred in the days when disciples were increasing.  We know about the three thousand souls that were saved on the day of Pentecost, recorded for us in Acts 2.  By the fourth chapter, the number of disciples had increased to five thousand, and that was only counting the men.  The church was obviously continuing to be active in spreading the gospel, and people were being persuaded by the truth and being saved.

Furthermore, since the problem centered around the daily distribution that was being made (Acts 4:34-35), it is clear that the church was still very close and loving toward one another.  The church at Jerusalem was a church that was fully committed to the evangelistic and benevolent work that Jesus gave it to do, and they did it with the brotherly love and affection that God demanded.  Still, trouble raised its ugly head.

I am not going to take the time to dissect the specific problem they were having because it was unique to them and that time.  We would never experience the specific problem they experienced today.  The lesson, however, is still valid—no matter how good are going, problems are going to arise.  The question is how do we handle them when they come?  How did the early church handle their situation?

Again, specifics are not important here.  We do not have living apostles to intervene today.  What we should take from this account, however, is that the problem was addressed.  They did not ignore the problem in the hope that it would just go away.  The apostles did not accuse the Hellenists of overreacting or being too sensitive, or worse, deny that the problem even existed.  No, they listened, came to an understanding of the problem, and came up with a plan to resolve it.  The result was “the word of God continued to increase, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly…”

Since local churches are made up of people with faults, they are always going to have problems.  We are going to make mistakes.  There are going to be misunderstandings between us, and sometimes we are going to sin against each other.  What we must never do is act like the problems do not exist.  We have to confront them head-on, whatever the nature of the problem might be, and come up with a scriptural solution.  Problems that are ignored never just disappear.  Instead, they fester and become harmful to the church as a whole.  At the very least, problems that go unattended make it impossible for a church to grow and reach its full potential.  Let us learn from the early church and deal with problems as they arise.

As you wind down for the night, think about these things.