Prejudice in the Early Church

During the early days of the church the Apostles had set up a “daily ministration” that included “serving tables” for widows. This probably would have been a central location where widows could come and be fed by members of the church. During the course of this problems arose between two classes of widows; “Hebrew” widows and “Grecian Jew” widows. These were Christian widows of course but the “Hebrew Widows” would have been converts from Jews who had been raised in Judea and the “Grecian Jew Widows” were those who had lived outside of Judea. In general, those Jews from Judea thought they were better than the Jews who were from other countries. They were prejudiced.

The problem was that some thought the Grecian Jew Widows were being discriminated against at meal time. How might that happen? Well it might have been true. Maybe the Hebrew Widows were getting the best tables or getting a bigger serving portion. Maybe they were getting seconds and the Grecian Jew Widows weren’t. Maybe those serving were more amiable toward the Hebrew Widows than the Grecian Jew Widows. Or maybe it wasn’t true at all. Maybe the Grecian Jew Widows were just very sensitive.

Wherever the problem lay… it was a problem and needed to be addressed and the Apostles offered a solution that everyone agreed with. Sometimes in the church today we have similar problems. Let’s do our best to not even give the appearance of discrimination but if there’s a problem that we can’t reconcile lets discuss it with the leaders of the congregation and hopefully we can find a solution that everyone can agree with.