fbpx
Home - Breaking News, Events, Things-To-Do, Dining, Nightlife

HPNM

Grunt Work: Service in the Kingdom

image
  • Christians should follow the example of Jesus, who despite being the Son of God, came to serve.

He’s the guy you wanted to invite to every party.

I have a friend who, whenever we used to invite him for fellowship in our home, would stand up after a couple of hours and announce his impending departure….then proceed to wash dishes, take out the trash, and pick up in the den. After everything was set in order, he would say “Good-bye” and head to his car.

He was blessed with what I call the spiritual gift of “grunt work.” My friend’s service reminds me of veteran missionary E. Stanley Jones’ unusual take on Acts 6. In that scripture passage, murmuring arose from the Grecian Jews against the Hebraic Jews “because their widows were being overlooked in the daily distribution of food.”

The twelve Apostles needed some people willing to do grunt work. They told the “brothers” to choose seven men to take care of “waiting on tables.” To be sure, the deacons were to be “full of the Spirit and wisdom.” Still, it was a job to which the Apostles themselves seemingly didn’t aspire. Among the seven chosen were Stephen and Philip. Meanwhile, the Apostles gave their “attention to prayer and the ministry of the word.”

Bible colleges and seminaries teach this as a great act of delegation and commend the lesson to their students. Not Stanley Jones. The Twelve, he said, “drove a wedge into life between the material and spiritual….a disastrous division.” The consequence, said Jones, was that “the center of spiritual power shifted…to the Seven.”

Wave goodbye to the Apostles for the most part in the rest of Acts. Not so the deacons and a later recruit. “It was Stephen, head of the Seven, the lay group, who precipitated the revival in Jerusalem, which won ‘many priests to the faith’ and brought his own martyrdom.”

“It was Philip, another member of the Seven, who first preached the Gospel outside Judea, went to Samaria, and all Samaria turned to the Lord. It was Philip again who first preached the Gospel to an Ethiopian and, through him, helped to found the Ethiopian church, still extant. It was Philip who had ‘four unmarried daughters who prophesied.’”

“Then Paul took over, in large measure, direction of the Christian movement.” Jones’ assertion is that, on the whole, the Apostles are largely non-players in the rest of the account of Acts because of this “wedge” move.

Whether one agrees or disagrees with that analysis, I nonetheless have long since decided that my heroes in life are not those on the platform who pray and minister the Word but the ones who are willing to do the servile jobs and typically-unnoticed tasks of the Kingdom.

Most local churches have at least some of these people: men and women who always seem to be the first ones to arrive and the last ones to leave. They sweep, mop up the spills, clean the commode, teach in some forgotten corner of the church, and certainly haven’t been paid or possibly even thanked for these efforts for decades.

Still, they serve.

I am reminded of Paul, who wrote about the hardship of his calling: Five times receiving from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. Three times beaten with rods, once stoned, three times shipwrecked, constantly on the move, making tents to make ends meet. In danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from his own countrymen, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false brothers. Laboring and toiling without sleep; frequently without food, cold, naked. Still, onward (2 Corinthians 23 28).

I am reminded of John Wesley. In his journal entry for January 4-9, 1785: “On this and the four following days I walked through the town and begged two hundred pounds in order to clothe them that needed it most. But it was hard work, as most of the streets were filled with melting snow, which often lay ankle deep, so that my feet were steeped in snow water nearly from morning till evening. I held out pretty well till Saturday evening, but I was laid up with a violent flux.”

Wesley was 82 years old at the time he wrote that account and had, in all likelihood, the most recognizable visage in all England. Still, he begged until he was sick.

Most of all, I am reminded of Jesus who, having emptied Himself (Phil. 2:5) knelt down as God-in-the-flesh and washed His disciples’ feet at a final meal before being betrayed, denied, humiliated, spat upon, jeered, whipped, pierced, and hung to die. A rather shocking display of grunt work, and all because of love.

The word for service in the New Testament is diakonia. It comes from two words in the Greek…dia- which means “through” and konia which means “dust.” Through the dust. It’s where the grunt work happens best.

Not typically much reward there. Or salary. Or recognition. Still – In. The. Dust. It is how the Kingdom advances.

Read original article by clicking here.

Local Dining Stream

Things To Do

Related articles