Acts 6:3
ESV - 3 Therefore, brothers, pick out from among you seven men of good repute, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we will appoint to this duty.
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The number seven symbolizes God's perfection or completion. God created the earth and its inhabitants in seven days and the Bible shows the number seven again and again throughout scripture. It may be that seven is a symbolic number that the apostles chose in building up the first board of church deacons. But it also may be that based on the number of followers they had, it was necessary to spread the work to seven men in order to accomodate the needs of the early church.
The answer is given two verses earlier (Acts 6:1), in which it reads that the widows were being overlooked in the "daily" serving of food. Obviously, if they had to serve these meals every day it made sense to divide the work and designate one person to be in charge of each day.
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