1. Introduction:
Let’s talk about the deacons. When I last taught this subject, I covered it in a matter of minutes, but I have learned a lot about deacons and their function over the last couple of weeks, so let me share this information with you. First, a short introduction! Deacons are an important part of the local Church. Without them, just as without any other component of the local Church, it cannot function effectively as God designed it to. Deacons are male believers with various spiritual gifts of administration and helps. Collectively, they are the system over which the pastor has authority for the administration of the local Church. They are to take responsibility for various areas of administration in the local Church. These include organization and running of a prep school to educate children, maintenance, finances, grounds, music, nursery, Church outreach and community relations as well as other areas. A large Church is going to have more areas of responsibility than a small one, obviously!
In terms of this responsibility, no one deacon has charge of all areas of local Church administration except the chairman of the board of deacons. Each deacon has his own area of expertise and his authority is limited to that area of expertise. Each deacon is directly responsible to the chairman of the board of deacons for the fulfillment of his area of delegated authority. The chairman of the board is directly responsible to the pastor for the administration of the local Church. He has direct authority over every deacon. Though many pastors want to assume direct responsibility of administration, he must delegate that responsibility to the chairman of the board. He must also ensure that as he delegates responsibility to his board of deacons that he also delegates the authority for the fulfillment of these responsibilities as well. This is an important principle. A pastor must let go of the details and let those with the expertise do their job. So, the deacons are individually accountable to the chairman of the board, and collectively accountable to the pastor-teacher.
2. Origin of the Office of Deacon
The office of deacon seems to have come about to resolve a conflict between the “Hebrews,” or Jews proper, who spoke Hebrew and the “Hellenists,” or Jews of the diaspora, who spoke various dialects of Greek, and read the Septuagint version of the Bible instead of the Hebrew. Evidently, jealousy and antagonism had developed early on between the two segments in the Christian community. The Hellenists alleged that their widows were being overlooked in the daily distribution of alms. The apostles advised the disciples to find seven men of integrity, who were consistantly filled with the Spirit. They needed to be men of practical wisdom knowing how to appply the doctrine they had learned. These men were to take responsibility for the distribution of alms. Good common sense was needed to resolve this conflict. Application of Bible doctrine under the filling of the Spirit produces the highest quality common sense! This would allow the disciples free to devote themselves entirely to the spiritual functions of their office, that is, praying, studying and teaching the Word of God. The Book of Acts 6:1-6 documents this:
ü Now at this time while the disciples were increasing in number, a complaint arose on the part of the Hellenistic Jews against the native Hebrews, because their widows were being overlooked in the daily serving of food. So the twelve summoned the congregation of the disciples and said, “It is not desirable for us to neglect the word of God in order to serve tables. “Therefore, brethren, select from among you seven men of good reputation, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we may put in charge of this task. “But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.” The statement found approval with the whole congregation; and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit, and Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas and Nicolas, a proselyte from Antioch
Seven men were chosen. These men appear from their names to have been Greek believers. Now, the name “deacon” is not applied to them at all in the New Testament; they are simply called “the seven” in Acts 21:8. The fact that these seven were chosen to deal with the immediate needs of the congregation indicates that the function of deacons is to be subordinate to the pastor, freeing his time to study the Word and to teach the same to the congregation. The deacons were to care for the material needs of the congregation. So the office and function of the deacon was to fulfill two purposes: first, to relieve the pressure on the pastor, secondly for proper execution of Church responsibilities.
3. Vocabulary:
-DIAKONOS: It is a common word that means “minister” or “servant” and is used many times in the New Testament in a non-technical sense that is, not referring to those holding the office of deacon.
-KUBERNESIS: This word refers to an administration or governments, the governing of a local Church.
-PROISTEMI: This word means leadership, in the sense of presiding, guiding and caring for.
-DIAKONIA: The word refers to the concept of a ministry or service so it refers to the gift of helps, not the office of deacon.
4. Spiritual Gifting
Just as in the case of the pastor-teacher, the first qualification to be a deacon is spiritual. A person to whom this office is given must have grown spiritually to the degree that his spiritual gift is recognizable. Then, the pastor of the local Church must identify, among members in his congregation, those who possess those gifts which function to administer a local Church. It is the responsibility of the pastor to identify men who have this gift and appoint them into the appropriate slot. The pastor does this as a part of his leadership function which has been delegated to him, not any member of the local Church. This, again, emphasizes the importance of local pastoral leadership. The pastor who fails to do this eventually loses in his spiritual life as well his pastorate because he finds himself trying to fulfill both his office and that of administration. One man cannot do both. The very existence of the spiritual gift and office of deacon emphasizes the fact that the primary responsibility of the pastor is not administration. Although the prevalent tradition is for the congregation to vote for deacons and Church officers, it is really the job of the pastor to identify these gifts among men in the congregation and to appoint them as Church officers. I have never witnessed a congregation, through its vote, to reject the choice of a pastor.
These men are responsible for the function and administration of a local Church. No local Church can function without deacons. The gifts of administrative leadership definitely carry authority because these men are delegated authority to fulfill their mission of administration. Now in this section we are going to look at both this gift and another category of gifts, that of ministry and service, which is often confused with the office of deacon. So first, we will look at the gift of administration and leadership, then at the gift of ministry and service.
Gift of Administrative Leadership: The gift of administration must be possessed by Church officers and some deacons, especially the chairmen of standing committees. A standing committee would include members of the congregation with other spiritual gifts, to include the gift of helps. Half of the responsibility of this spiritual gift is specified in 1 Corinthians by the noun KUBERNESIS, which means administration or translated in the King James Version as governments.
ü And God has appointed [for His own use] in the Church, first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, administrations, various kinds of tongues. 1 Corinthians 12:28
In this paragraph, Paul points out that there is a “priority list” for the gifts, not that some gifts have more significance than others. Each gift is important and each individual believer is important. This appears to be a priority list in terms of importance or rank in terms of local Church function. The first three gifts certainly are or were in the early Church in terms of authority. The second list after “then” refers to support gifts.
An important fact that the pastor must understand when making his choice of deacons is this: The ability to administer in the local Church is not necessarily the same as the ability to administer in business, in the military, or in a bureaucracy. This is a spiritual gift designed by God for local Church function. The ability to run a company or to fill a position of management or of business leadership is not. Leadership in the secular world is motivated by profit, whereas those in Church leadership must be motivated by love for God and characterized by virtue love for people. It must not be dictatorial. When you lead in a local Church, you must be aware that those whom you lead are also motivated by love for God. There can be no lording it over people. Of course, there are many other leadership and mangement styles used in the secular world other than dictatorial. But the fact remains that this is a spiritual gift and not skill learned in business school! I would suspect, however, that the man who applies his spiritual leadership to business would certainly be in a postion to succeed there, if it is God’s plan for his life.
The other half of the responsibility of this spiritual gift is found in Romans 12:7-8:
ü …he who exhorts, in his exhortation; he who gives, with liberality; he who leads, with diligence, he who shows mercy, with cheerfulness. Romans 12:8
As we mentioned earlier, a big part of the deacon’s spiritual gifting is spiritual leadership. A deacon often is in charge of a committee that fulfills a certain category of administration within the local Church. This requires the function of leadership. So we are concerned with the phrase: “he who leads” here. “Leads” is the present middle participle, nominative masculine singular of the verb, προί̈στημι PROISTEMI. In its purest sense, this verb refers to leadership, being placed in front of others. However, we must take into consideration the context in which the verb is used. In this passage, was well as in others, the context for leadership is love for both the Lord and for those who are being lead. Virtue love toward people is the most basic expression spiritual growth,while personal love for God is the most basic motivation within the spiritual life. It is by means of both these categories of love and gratitude that spiritual growth is expressed. So, this spiritual gift requires that this leadership be exercised in virtue love.
This leadership is to be carried out with “diligence.” This noun is dative, feminine, singular of σπουδη SPOUDE. The idea of proper motivation, efficiency and giving forth intense and honest effort are carried in this word. So, the two words KUBERNESIS and PROISTEMI together refer to administrative leadership.
This spiritual gift is held by deacons, those who fulfill administrative responsibilities on missionary boards; leaders of Christian service organizations; those who lead and administer the training of children in the local Church; Church officers and chairmen of standing committees or other organizations within the local Church. Apparently, this gift is given to men only. The gift of administration, then, is linked to the function of the local Church. One important distinction must be made. A person can be great in administrating some business or organization, but that does not necessarily mean he has this spiritual gift. The gift of administration calls for more than simply effective administrative function. It is a spiritual gift which is sensitive to the needs of the local Church and how these needs are best administered. Men with this administrative leadership spiritual gift must chair the various committees in the local Church; such as the Church office committee, finance committee, membership committee, missionary committee, nursery committee, prep school committee, property committee, and ushers committee. Each area is a specialty requiring special knowledge…Now, I mentioned that a person who is in a position of leadership in a secular business may not succeed in a leadership capacity in the Church. This is Spirit empowered leadership. However, I suspect that a deacon can be successful in the secular world, bringing to his business those principles of the Word of God and the filling of the Spirit.
Service Administrative Gift: This next spiritual gift which we will discuss does not belong here, but rightly in the study of the congregration. I’m discussing it here because the vocabulary invovled often leads to confusion. I am differentiating this spiritual gift of service administration from the spiritual gift of administration. This is called the gift of ministry or the gift of service. The gift of ministry or service is found in Romans 12:6-7.
ü Since we have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, each of us is to exercise them accordingly: if prophecy, according to the proportion of his faith; if service, in his serving; or he who teaches, in his teaching; or he who exhorts, in his exhortation; he who gives, with liberality; he who leads, with diligence; he who shows mercy, with cheerfulness. Romans 12:6-7
Now, this gift does not belong to a deacon, per se. But I am going to discuss it here because it is often confused with the office of deacon because of the Greek word that designates this gift.
The Greek noun DIAKONIA is translated “ministry” in the KJV; or “service” in better modern translations. Some confusion arises because DIAKONIA resembles DIAKONOS. DIAKONIA which though often transliterated “deacon,” actually refers to a spiritual gift of service given to both men and women. DIAKONOS, on the other hand, is an office in the local Church, held by a man serving on the deacon board. This gift (DIAKONIA) functions in the administration of the local Church. It means ministry or service; it does not refer to the office of deacon in the local Church. This gift is given to men and women. Those who have this spiritual gift should serve on committees and in specific administrative functions in the local Church, on mission boards, in Christian service organizations. The deacon, who is the chairman of the committee, has the gift of administration. Those who serve on the committee have the gift of ministry or service. This makes for effective, administrative function in the local Church. This spiritual gift is strictly administrative without the leadership function provided by the Holy Spirit. They are the ones actually discharging the responisblilities of that office. An interpretive translation of Romans 12:7 would be this: "If service, then serve within the framework of the gift of service.” The spiritual gift of service or ministry is one of the more common spiritual gifts among men and women alike. It is from this gift that so many things are done in the local Church. This explains the feminine form, "deaconess," in Timothy. No woman has the spiritual gift of pastor-teacher, the spiritual gift of evangelism, or the spiritual gift of administration. But this shouldn't keep ladies from teaching children, from personal witnessing, or from functioning in the administration of the Church if they have the gift of service. In this instance as well, a woman definitely has voice in a local Church within that context. Can a woman function as a deacon without the spiritual gift? We’ll note in a moment that when Paul lists the integrity factors for deacons he does include a couple for women. My opinion is this: that a woman may certainly fill a position of administrative responsibility if she has no authority over a man. A woman is not to have authority over men in the spiritual realm.
5. Qualifications:
The qualifications or integrity factors of deacons are given in 1 Timothy 3:8–13. Deacons are to be typified by the following eight characteristics. Let’s look at the passage then look at a list of the qualifications that must charterize a deacon:
ü Deacons likewise must be men of dignity, not double-tongued, or addicted to much wine or fond of sordid gain, but holding to the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience. These men must also first be tested; then let them serve as deacons if they are beyond reproach. Women must likewise be dignified, not malicious gossips, but temperate, faithful in all things. Deacons must be husbands of only one wife, and good managers of their children and their own households. For those who have served well as deacons obtain for themselves a high standing and great confidence in the faith that is in Christ Jesus”. Timothy 3:8-13 NASB
a. Worthy of Respect, Above Reproach: This includes being free from criminality and things whereby leadership would fail because of prejudice and other things.
b. Not Hypocritical, Not Deceitful
c. Not Addicted to Wine or Drugs
d. Not Given to Dishonest Gain
e. Holding to Doctrine with a Clear Conscience
f. Having Been Tested: Denotes a Degree of Spiritual Maturity
g. One Wife: No Polygamists Please
h. Good Managers of Their Own Household
So with this in mind: here are a couple of policies I think we need all to follow. The principle here is that the deacons, who are lead by the chairman of the board, is responsible for the day to day operation of the Church. If a member or a group of members of the congregation want to change anything dealing with the Church, a procedure, meeting time, change of schedule, these things need to go before the board of deacons or the chairman of the deacons. No one member of the board of deacons has the authority to change things without conferring with the chairman of the board who confers with the pastor. The pastor, in the same way, confers with the board of deacons when considering a change for whatever reason. When it comes to our function as a group of people getting together, it is a give and take thing between the congregation, board of deacons and pastor. With a group this size, it is more a matter of formality than anything, but I believe that a procedure is always important to avoid confusion. Because the board of deacons is in charge of the day to day operation of the Church, if we change any schedules, it should go through the chairman of the board. Of course, he can delegate that to whom ever he wishes.
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