Acts chapter 6 and prayer

[Sam]

Acts Chapter 6 and Prayer

Today (Sunday) I was reading Acts chapter 6 and verses 4 and 7 sorta jumped out at me.

Acts chapter 6 can be broken down as follows:
Spiritual Organization
1. The Murmuring verse 1
2. The Multitude verses 2-4
3. The Men verses 5-6
4. The Multiplying verse 7
5. The Mob verses 8-15

This setting is in Jerusalem. It is probably in the spring of AD 31 before harvest and food prices were high.

One year before this about one fourth (120 out of 500 members) of the church had been praying together in the Temple and had been baptized in the Holy Spirit. That story is told in Acts 2:1-4 and happened on the feast day of Pentecost or Shavuot. That was probably Sunday May 28, A.D. 30. At that time the population of Jerusalem was about 50,000 but on some feast days there could be as many as 2 million people in and around the city. When those disciples were baptized in the Spirit, they began to speak with tongues or languages unknown to them and soon a crowd of people were gathered. Peter stood up and began to preach. His sermon can be divided into three parts. First he explained what happened (Acts 2: 14-21). Then he explained why it happened (verses 22-28). Finally he gave the proof from scripture for all this (verses 29-36). This can be summarized in one sentence. The signs came from the Holy Spirit; the Holy Spirit came through Jesus; Jesus could confer the Holy Spirit because He is Lord and Christ. As Peter preached, the hearts of many of those in the crowd were pricked as they realized that their Messiah had come and they had killed Him. They cried out, “What shall we do?” Peter speaking for the group of believers told them to repent or turn to the Lord from their own ways and to follow that conversion up with a baptism or mikveh in water in the name of Jesus the Messiah. He also told them they could receive the same Holy Spirit Baptism that they had seen demonstrated just a few minutes before right there in front of them. We read that about 3,000 people were baptized that day and that the church had grown from hundreds to thousands in one day. Many who had come as pilgrims stayed on in Jerusalem and the church members began to share their homes and food with one another.

Now, one year later in Acts chapter 6 there were problems. Some of the widows thought they were not being treated fairly and were receiving less food than some of the others. The 12 Apostles couldn’t take the bickering and complaining any more so they proposed that duties like food distribution should be handled by deacons/servants. The way they explained this is found in verse 4 of chapter 6. They proposed that someone else take care of the food distribution so that they could “give” or “devote” themselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the Word. They did not want to compromise on time spent in prayer and the Word. This worked. After they were able to spend more time praying and ministering the Word, we read in verse 7 that “the Word of God increased; and the number of the disciples multiplied in Jerusalem greatly; and a great company of the priests were obedient to the faith.”

It is my opinion that the multiplication of converts is in direct proportion to the time they spent in prayer. Again today, God just seemed to impress upon me the importance of prayer and the need for prayer, both personal and corporate, for the growth and health of the church.

I have a habit of stuffing notes in my Bible and writing notes in the margins. These are some of the things that I have in Acts chapter 6 in one of my Bibles that I was looking at today:

From the book “Prayer Shield” by Peter Wagner, copyright 1992. Some of us on the Vineyard Prayer Teams read this book back in the 1990’s

Peter Wagner surveyed 572 pastors
57 percent prayed less than 20 minutes per day
34 percent prayed between 20 minutes and an hour per day
9 percent prayed one hour or more a day

Evangelical pastors pray an average of 17 minutes per day
Liberal pastors pray an average of 18 minutes per day
Pentecostal/Charismatic pastors pray an average of 46 minutes per day

Australian pastors pray an average of 23 minutes per day
New Zealand pastors pray an average of 30 minutes per day
Japanese pastors pray an average of 44 minutes a day
Korean pastors pray an average of 90 minutes per day
83 percent of Korean pastors pray one hour or more per day
33 percent of Korean pastors pray two hours or more per day

A 1982 issue of Leadership magazine said pastors pray an average of 22 minutes per day.

A Gallop poll (no date given) says:
88 percent of Americans pray to God
51 percent pray every day

John Wesley arose at 4:00 a.m. to pray for two hours
Martin Luther said, “I have so much to do today, I will have to to spent the first three hours in prayer or the devil will get the victory.”
John Welch, a companion of John Knox, spent 8 to 10 hours a day praying.

These are some marginal notes in Acts chapter 6 about prayer. I don’t remember where I found them so I can’t give you a source and I don’t have dates for them.

“we will devote ourselves to prayer” NASB, RSV
“we shall devote ourselves whole-heartedly to prayer...” Phillips
“Then we can spend our time in prayer...” NLT
“We’ll stick to our assigned tasks of prayer and speaking God’s word” the Message
“we will continue to devote ourselves steadfastly to prayer... Amplified
“we will give ourselves continually to prayer” Syriac
“to prayer and the ministry of the Word we shall give constant attention” Wuest
“we will continue to devote ourselves to prayer” Moffatt

“No man --I don’t care how colossal his intellect-- no man is greater than his prayer life” Leonard Ravenhill

Christians in America average spending 7 minutes a day in prayer and 23 hours per week in front of a television.

There are 24 hours, 1440 minutes, or 86,400 seconds per day.

The words “pray,” “prayer,” and “praying” occur 530 times in the Bible.

Shirley Dobson, Chairperson of the National Day of Prayer said, “I am more convinced than ever that we do not experience the power of God in our lives ... because we have spent entirely too much time talking about Him and woefully little time talking to Him.”

Per David Yonggi Cho (Korean pastor), in America he found the churches to be excellent in management, administration, and music but very poor in prayer. In Korea the pastors pray 2 to 4 hours a day and see good results. In America we sing, manage, and administrate --often well with very poor results.