Catholic Commentary
The Growth of the Church
7The word of God increased and the number of the disciples greatly multiplied in Jerusalem. A great company of the priests were obedient to the faith.
Acts 6:7 describes the expansion of the early Church in Jerusalem following the resolution of an internal dispute, with the Word of God growing continuously and the number of disciples greatly multiplying. Notably, many priests from the Temple became obedient to the faith, signifying a mass conversion among those who had previously upheld the sacrificial system that Christ fulfilled.
When the Church got its internal life right—feeding widows, organizing ministry—the Word of God broke through every social and religious wall, even converting the priests who had handed Jesus over to death.
The phrase hypēkouon tē pistei — "were obedient to the faith" — is also theologically charged. Faith (pistis) is here treated not merely as an interior attitude but as a body of teaching, a fides quae creditur (the faith which is believed), to which one submits in obedience. This Pauline resonance (cf. Romans 1:5: "obedience of faith") is significant: genuine faith involves not intellectual assent alone but the submission of the whole person to the revealed truth entrusted to the Church. The priestly converts' obedience is an act of the will as much as the intellect — a surrender of an entire way of life and social status.
Catholic tradition finds in this verse a remarkable confluence of ecclesiological, sacramental, and missiological themes.
The Word as Agent of the Church's Life: The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that "Sacred Scripture is the speech of God as it is put down in writing under the breath of the Holy Spirit" (CCC 81) and that the Church "has always venerated the divine Scriptures just as she venerates the body of the Lord" (CCC 141, citing Dei Verbum 21). Acts 6:7 illustrates this dynamism: the Word does not merely inform — it transforms, multiplies, and builds up the Body of Christ. St. John Chrysostom, preaching on this verse (Homilies on Acts, Homily 14), marveled that the Word spread despite persecution and internal conflict, concluding that precisely when human resources fail, divine power is most manifest.
The Conversion of the Priests and the Fulfillment of the Old Covenant: The Church Fathers read this priestly conversion as the inaugurated fulfillment of Old Testament priesthood. St. Irenaeus (Adversus Haereses IV) saw in the Levitical priesthood a preparation for Christ's eternal priesthood. The priests' "obedience to the faith" signals that the Mosaic order does not vanish but is completed — its innermost meaning revealed and transcended in Christ. This resonates with Nostra Aetate §4 and Catholic teaching on the Church as the fulfillment of Israel's hope. Furthermore, the Council of Trent (Session XXII) and the Second Vatican Council (Presbyterorum Ordinis §2) both affirm the unique dignity of the ministerial priesthood — a dignity pre-figured in the Levitical order and perfected in the one priesthood of Christ, into which ordained ministers enter sacramentally.
Growth Through Order and Charity: Pope Benedict XVI, in Verbum Domini (2010, §93), taught that ordered ecclesial life — including proper ministry structures — is a precondition for effective proclamation. Acts 6:7 confirms this: the Word multiplied because the community established right order (the diaconate) and freed the Apostles to focus on prayer and the ministry of the Word (6:4). Institutional integrity and evangelical fruitfulness are inseparable in Catholic ecclesiology.
Acts 6:7 presents contemporary Catholics with a searching question: what are the internal disorders in our own communities that, if resolved, might unleash the Word of God more freely? The early Church's growth did not follow the resolution of a doctrinal controversy but a pastoral one — the neglect of widows. When the community attended to justice and charity, and when leadership was structured rightly, the Word expanded of its own inexorable force.
For today's Catholic, this means that evangelization begins at home: in the quality of parish community life, in the attentiveness to the poor and overlooked in our midst, in the proper exercise of ministry. The conversion of the priests is also a challenge: these were men with the most to lose — social standing, professional identity, a centuries-old liturgical tradition. Their obedience to the faith models what conversion costs and what it demands. Every Catholic is invited to ask what personal "priesthood" — what entrenched identity or comfortable system — God may be calling them to lay at the feet of the one true High Priest.
Commentary
Acts 6:7 — Literal and Narrative Analysis
Acts 6:7 functions as one of Luke's characteristic summary statements — a literary device he employs throughout Acts (cf. 2:47; 9:31; 12:24; 16:5; 19:20; 28:31) to punctuate a completed episode and signal a new phase of the Church's life. Here, it closes the narrative of the appointment of the Seven (6:1–6) and prepares the reader for the ministry of Stephen (6:8ff). Understanding its three components reveals a dense theological payload packed into a single verse.
"The word of God increased" — The Greek ēuxanen (ηὔξανεν), imperfect tense, conveys continuous, ongoing growth. Luke does not say "the number of Christians increased" but "the word of God" itself grew. This is not a careless personification. Throughout Acts, Luke consistently treats the Word as the primary agent of the Church's expansion (cf. 12:24: "But the word of God grew and multiplied"). The Word is dynamic, almost biological — a seed that germinates and spreads. This usage echoes the Hebrew dabar (דָּבָר), the creative and effectual Word of YHWH in the Old Testament, which does not return empty (Isaiah 55:11). Luke is telling his reader: what is happening in Jerusalem is not a social movement — it is the eschatological Word of the Lord doing its inexorable work. Notably, this expansion follows immediately upon the resolution of the internal dispute over the care of widows (6:1–6). The Church's fidelity to right order and charitable service cleared a path for the Word to advance. Interior harmony bears evangelical fruit — a structural insight of lasting importance.
"And the number of the disciples greatly multiplied in Jerusalem" — The Greek eplēthyneto (ἐπληθύνετο), also imperfect, reinforces the continuous, swelling nature of this growth. The term "disciples" (mathētai) is Luke's favored designation for Christians in Acts, emphasizing ongoing formation in the way of Jesus, not merely formal membership. Jerusalem is significant: this is the city of the Temple, the Passover, the Crucifixion, and Pentecost. It is the geographical and theological center from which the gospel radiates outward (cf. Acts 1:8). That the community continues to grow here, in the shadow of the Sanhedrin and the priestly establishment that handed Jesus over to death, is itself a sign of the resurrection's power.
"A great company of the priests were obedient to the faith" — This clause is the verse's most electrifying detail. The Greek ochlos polus tōn hiereōn (ὄχλος πολὺς τῶν ἱερέων) — literally "a great crowd of the priests" — signals a mass movement, not isolated conversions. These were not lay Israelites but — the serving priests of the Jerusalem Temple, men whose entire identity was bound up in the Mosaic sacrificial system. Their conversion carries enormous typological weight: those who once offered the shadows of sacrifice were now embracing the reality to which those shadows pointed — Jesus Christ, the one eternal High Priest and perfect Sacrifice (cf. Hebrews 7:26–28; 10:1–14).