Customarily these seven are called deacons (from the word serve). From the text it is clear that the apostles were the primary “board of directors” and the seven deacons were a subsidiary part of the early organization of the believers in Jerusalem. Notice something about the apostles and the deacons that will keep coming up in this book: both groups knew what their particular mission was and kept that mission in clear focus, undiluted and undiverted as they carried it out. The apostles’ mission