Analysis of Bible Passages and Questionnaire

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Step 1: Grasp the text in their town. Summarize the original situation and the meaning of the text for the biblical audience.
During this stage in the early church, people from all walks of life were coming to follow Jesus Christ; however, the Gospel message did not go past the Jewish people. This does not mean that only full-blooded Jews were coming to the faith, but “Grecian Jews” were coming to the faith as well. The church was doing what they were supposed to do—support and help out widows and orphans. This service they seemed to understand quite well. However, the true Jews were looking after their widows while letting the other widows struggle. The twelve disciples realized that this situation was a problem that needed fixing but realized that they couldn’t deal with all of the, so called, minor problems because they had to put time into teaching and preaching the Word of God. Therefore, they had some Godly men (laymen) from the church elected to the title “deacon” in order to make sure that the entire body was being taken care of.
Step 2: Measure the width of the river to cross. What are the differences between the biblical situation and our situation?
In the situation found in this text, there were only Jews that were part of the church. In today’s world, the church is made up of people from all walks of life—the church has gone past Jerusalem. Also, in this situation, it is shown that the church was having a hard time feeding the widows. In today’s church, one of the primary responsibilities of the church is not to necessary provide for the widows (this doesn’t mean that the church can and should if need be). The people were elected for the soul purpose of making sure that the church was being fair with all of its member...

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...e and look after the people who truly need their help. Jesus said that that greatest commandments were to love God and love others (Matthew 22:36–40). Therefore, the church needs to show love to the people who are in desperate need. For example, the church should help in relief missions, homeless shelters, people in their congregation who are struggling financially, physically, and spiritually (this can include widows). However, whatever the church does, it should not expect anything in return but rather, just serve.
The church should also have other people in the church, besides the senior/lead pastor, who can help with the needs of the people. The work of helping people along with teaching the Scriptures can be too much for one man to handle. The church should have leaders in the church to help take care of issues that do not directly need the pastor’s attention.

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