13 - Deacons (4)

From 6^th October 2005:

In this session we will wrap up our considerations on what the Bible has to say about the role of Deacons.

Background

We have seen we saw that the word ‘Deacon’ comes from the Greek term ‘Diakonos’ = ‘servant or minister’. We saw in fact that it is translated only 3 times as ‘Deacon’, 7 as ‘minister’, and 19 as ‘servant’ or ‘servants’ or ‘helper’, with a whole variety of people in the NT who could be said to be ‘deaconing’, from women (Matthew 27:55) to angels (Mark 4:11) to table waiters (John 2:5) to the Lord Jesus himself! (Mark 10:45).

Nevertheless there are clearly distinctive tasks of deaconing to which the New Testament seems to draw specific attention and mark out. We saw looking at Acts 6:1-7 that while the apostles were ‘deaconing’ in their ministry of the Word and prayer, the men chosen by the church to solve the ‘problem’ which had occurred were ‘deaconing’ (serving) in a very different sense.

We then saw that the men chosen by the church in Acts 6:1-7 were called to an organisational and caring role, which established a task and structure for the Church. It was important because its effect was to protect the Church from division by ensuring proper organisation and that tasks required were fulfilled in a thorough and Godly way. We understood that the men thus chosen had to be mature and Godly so that they could carry the burden of criticism that would inevitably strike when fulfilling their given tasks. In this way the apostles were freed up and supported to continue their ministry (deaconing) of the Word of God and prayer.

Last week we saw that the people thus chosen as deacons were chosen for specific tasks in mind. In Acts 6:1-7 we saw that the particular task was to organise what seemed a very menial task, both doing it and ensuring others do it. We also looked at the qualifications of people set aside for this office of deacon in 1 Timothy 3:8-13.