Like many Wesleyans, our church is reading participating in The Year of the Bible program. I like that many in our church are not only reading through the Bible this year, but are also trying to read with new understanding. I have read sections of the Bible that I have never read through before. Isn’t interesting how we gravitate toward our favorite books. Case in point, I usually gravitate toward the Psalms or one of letters in the New Testament. When we do that we forget what else is in the Bible. Some have been surprised as we have read through the Bible this year.

This morning we read Acts 6. We often think that the early church didn’t have internal problems. We consider most of them outside problems. The church in Acts was growing quickly and the first rumbling are heard in Acts 6. The Greek-speaking believers were set against the Hebrew-speaking believers, because the Greek-speaking believers we being discriminated against. It’s cool to see how they solved the problem quickly. One of the keys I see is that they quickly pulled together. They appointed seven to take care of the food distribution problem. The disagreement was quickly settled and as a result the gospel continued to spread. I think it’s interesting that because the Holy Spirit had come in power the apostles instinctively knew what to do. We took a look on Sunday of the power of the Holy Spirit; how men who were impulsive and competitive, when filled with the Spirit, worked together for the spreading of the gospel without fear. Just after this we hear the story of Stephen, “a man full of God’s grace and power,” who performed miracles and signs. Oh to be like Stephen. He was a man after Jesus’ own heart and full of the Holy Spirit. A man who stood up against the liars and told them how it really was. That’s my prayer today. To have the boldness of Stephen…