The Jerusalem Church and Change
The explosive number of conversions in the early church was both exciting and problematic. It must have been exciting for the 12 disciples, and the core group of believers who had witnessed the resurrected Jesus, to see God doing his work so powerfully amongst the Jewish nation in Jerusalem. But we also see that this growth was causing tensions.
In Acts 6:1–7 we get a glimpse of this tension as the Christian community grew (6:1). While all being Jewish, there was a divide amongst the Christians between the Grecian and Hebraic Jews, and the issue at stake was the distribution of food to widows. Their solution was to appoint seven men to oversee this distribution to all. The genius of this solution was that the seven men they picked were all (apparently) Grecian Jews.
But note at this point, the people who made these decisions were still the centrally controlled Jewish Christians. Change was happening, and a shift in workload, but the authority and influence was still centrally within the Jewish nation, particularly with the twelve apostles.
