I retired as a math teacher in June, 2014, and during that first year a number of people asked me what I missed most. My reply was that I missed working with students and doing math, but “I don’t miss grading a single paper! And I don’t miss a single committee meeting!” There is even a mathematical joke about it; don’t worry if you don’t get the joke – it’s mathematical. “What do you call a set with N elements with more than 2 to the N (that is, 2 x 2 x 2 x . . . x 2 with N factors of 2) subsets?” Answer: “A college faculty, and the subsets are called committees.” Partial explanation: a set with N elements has exactly 2 to the N subsets, not more.
 Probably most of you have similar attitudes about committees. However, here we are members of a church, and churches have lots of committees. Moreover, these committees have all of the same characteristics of those elsewhere. The committee meetings can be boring, inconclusive, too long, divisive, dominated by the chair or another member, off the point and ignored. Nevertheless, they are important to the church, since for many reasons not everything can be studied or decided by the entire church; for example, not everyone has an interest in every topic, or a lot may have to be investigated and explored before a decision can be made. This importance of committees to the church goes back to its beginning; here are some examples.

 In Acts 6 we read that there is a problem facing the early Church. The Hellenistic (Greek speaking) Jews brought up the fact that the Hellenistic widows were sometimes being overlooked in the daily distribution of food. Like any administration, they solved the problem by appointing a committee! And since the Hellenistic Jews brought it up, they were on the committee! We know this by the names. This was the “Choosing of the Seven” and one of the seven was the first Christian Martyr Stephen. The solution appears to have pleased all.

 Later Paul and Peter extended the Gospel to gentiles and had many converts, especially in Antioch. Some of the Jewish Christians felt that these gentile Christian converts had to adhere to all the tenets of the Jewish law, including circumcision; essentially they were requiring them to convert to Judaism. A council was held in Jerusalem and it was decided that this was not required of the Gentile Christians, but they needed to abstain from that offered to idols, from blood and from sexual immorality. Paul in the book of Romans would later make this more explicit; we are saved by God’s grace and not by works.

 The third example is not from the Bible. At the beginning of the fourth century there was some confusion and controversy in the Church. One of the issues was the nature of the relationship between Jesus the Son of God and God the Father. Some (e.g. Arius) felt that Jesus was begotten and hence at a lower level of divinity than God. The Emperor Constantine called, and chaired the Council of Nicaea (now in present day Turkey) in 325 AD. One result was the belief in the Trinity that we affirm today as the Nicene Creed.

 Pastor Art has been encouraging committees of the church to call their tasks ministries, which highlights their importance. The next time you are asked to serve on a Church ministry, please do; it is a part of doing God’s work. Read about the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15:1-20 and remember: God loves YOU unconditionally.

Jim

Today’s Reading: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Acts+15%3A1-20+&version=NRSV