Sermon Tone Analysis

Welcome & Announcements

In about a month on February 5th during Sunday AM Worship, we will be having a baby dedication—I’m looking forward to it and I’m hoping that you are too.

I’m only mentioning it now so that when the service comes along, you aren’t completely thrown for a loop.

Let me remind you to continue worshiping the Lord through your giving.

To help you give, we have three ways to do so, (1) cash and checks can be given at the offering box.

Checks should be written to Grace & Peace; debit, credit, and ACH transfers can be done either by (2) texting 84321 with your $[amount] and following the text prompts or (3) by visiting us online at www.giving.gapb.church.

Of course, everything you give goes to the building up of our local church and the spread of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Prayer for Repentance and Adoration

Preaching of God’s Word (1 Tim 3:8-13)

Introduction

If you have your Bible, please turn it to 1 Timothy 3:8-13.

While you’re turning there, let me remind you of where we are in the text.

Remember that Paul wrote this letter to Timothy to encourage him but also to remind him to be watchful of false teachers and to be firm on what actual worship of the Lord looks like.

This idea of proper worship in the church really starts in ch. 2 but then continues in ch. 3 by showing us what we ought to look for in people who serve within the church both in leadership—the elders and by serving officially—the deacons.

Last week we took an in-depth look at the qualification for elders, which I explained wasn’t necessarily meant to be a checklist of qualifications, but rather more of a description of what elders are to be like.

I explained that there’s a reason for these descriptions and to overlook one or more qualification just because the person happens to be a good teacher or a good friend is simple foolishness for both the local church and the individual.

This week, we’re looking at qualifications for deacons within the church; and we’re going to follow a similar pattern to how we worked through last week’s section of Scripture, which I’ll explain after we read the text for this evening.

Let’s read 1 Timothy 3:8-13.

As we study this passage, (1) we’re going to start by discussing the term deacon, which will take us to a couple different passages before (2) we’ll discuss 1 Timothy’s qualifications for Deacons in vv.

8-13.

(3) Just before our application, we’ll take just a few minutes to discuss the similarities between deacon and elder qualifications and what the specific role of a deacon is before closing this evening in application.

This evening, we’ll learn what the purpose of a deacon is, what their qualifications are, and what exactly all this information means for us, as well.

Prayer for Illumination

What is a Deacon?

Our passage for this evening starts by stating deacons must be dignified, but the passage doesn’t really tell us what a deacon is—so it would be wise and beneficial for us to actually have a good definition of deacon before we continue.

In our modern-day churches, there are all sorts of different understandings of what a deacon is and in most instances, local churches have strayed from what Scripture actually teaches concerning deacons and have turned the office of a deacon into something that it isn’t.

For instance, in most Baptist churches in the United States, the deacon board is a quasi-elder group of people that have more authority in the church than they’re supposed to.

They become almost like the bosses to the elders, which subverts the authority structure given by God.

In many other modern-day churches, deacons are quasi-elder groups or they’re almost stripped down to basically nothing—where they don’t really do anything and it’s almost like an honorific title rather than a role within the church.

Of course, there are many of churches that fall between the two extremes, which makes sense because the actual biblical view of deacons falls in-between the two extremes, but I’ll get back to that later.

Deacon is what we call a transliteration, which simply means that unlike a lot of other words, deacon is not translated from a Greek word, it’s essentially spelled in English how it sounds in Greek.

Deacon is transliterated from the Greek word διακονος, which if it was translated, would be translated as servant—and I think that already gives us a pretty good idea of what a deacon is.

Unlike the words utilized for the role of elder, there is only one word for deacon utilized throughout Scripture, in the New Testament, it’s utilized approximately 31 times with almost every use referring to the person who serves another person.

If that’s the case, that deacon is a transliteration that could be translated as servant and if that’s the context that it’s usually utilized in the New Testament, which it is—then what most churches in the United States call a deacon actually isn’t what the Bible says is a deacon.

And that’s a significant problem not just because it means that those churches are misinterpreting Scripture and disobeying the order of the local church according to God.

But also because by disobeying the order of the local church, they actually do significant harm to the church.

When deacons don’t function the way that they’re supposed to according to Scripture, the elders end up pulling double-duty doing both their job and the deacons’ job, which causes the preaching and teaching to suffer because the elders aren’t able to focus on their primary responsibility—the ministry of the Word.

The best example of this is Acts 6 when the first deacons were chosen—we’re told that there were certain widows that were being neglected in the distribution of food.

The apostles flat out state that “it is not right that [they] should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables.”

And they call the disciples to pick out seven men of good repute, full of the Spirit and of wisdom who will have the ministry of service—to handle the temporal needs of the church.

The apostles state that if they were to handle the jobs that the deacons should handle, they would give up or neglect the job that they were called to do.

The church would’ve suffered.

Now, before we talk about what exactly deacons are to do (since Acts 6 really only mentions the distribution of food), let’s take an in-depth look at the qualifications for deacons that Paul lists in 1 Timothy 3:8-13.

Deacon Qualifications (8-13)

Notice the word likewise used just prior to giving us the qualifications for deacons.

It might seem like an inconsequential word, but the reality is that it shows us the importance of these qualifications for the role of deacon.

Occasionally, what you see in churches that have been around for a significant amount of time is that the church doesn’t have a plurality of elders, but rather one elder and a plurality of deacons that act like elders.

That’s usually done for a very specific reason—it’s usually because the church didn’t think that those deacons fit the qualification of elders, but they could possibly fit the qualification for deacons.

But the issue with that is that the qualifications are actually similar.

Paul’s use of the word likewise shows us the importance of taking qualifications for both roles utterly serious and to not give or take the roles of elder and deacon flippantly or lightly.

Paul uses the word likewise to show us that the qualifications for deacons are high just like the qualifications for elders.

So much so, that he gives almost just as many qualifications to deacons as he does to elders.

Because it’s a list and I want us to gain as much as we can from this passage, I’m going to state the qualification and then explain what exactly that qualification means:

The first qualification given is that a deacon is to be dignified, which isn’t a word that we utilize often, but really just means that a deacon ought to be worthy of respect.

They ought to carry themselves in an honorable way, so much so that when people see them, they respect them.

It is therefore assumed that deacons would live in an honorable way as well.

Meaning, they don’t just look like they’re honorable, but they are honorable in what they do and what they say.

To make it a bit practical—they reflect the fruits of the Spirit, which is precisely what the apostles in Acts 6 told the disciples to look for in a deacon—that he is full of the Spirit.

Not double-tongued is an idea that we don’t usually state in that manner anymore.

To be double-tongued means to be devious in your speech—it means that you’re a liar or a manipulator.

People don’t know whether you’re telling the truth or not when you talk.

In Charles Gounod’s opera Faust, the character Mephistopheles, who is a messenger of the devil fits the idea of being double-tongued.

In Faust the main character decides that he wants to be young again and through Mephistopheles sells his soul for youth.

Mephistopheles is someone who is double-tongued—he sounds flattering and charming.

He’s manipulative and he tricks and deceives.

If you’re looking for a more modern example—consider The Music Man in which the main character, Harold Hill is a con man who convinced a small town in Iowa to give him all his money to buy their children musical instruments so that they could learn to be in a marching band.

Hill is a fast-talking, smooth, flatterer that seeks to trick and deceive—he’s double-tongued.

I think you can tell why someone who is double-tongued shouldn’t be a deacon.

Some translations utilize the word sincere instead of double-tongued and that is a good way to look at this idea—deacons ought to be people that their word is solid and trustworthy.

The Bible says that deacons are to not be addicted to much wine and really the emphasis here is that a person who serves as a deacon isn’t to be a lover of alcohol and truthfully, we can now apply that to much more today than just wine and alcohol.

The idea really is that deacons ought not be addicted to anything whether it’s wine, alcohol, or any other substance that causes harm.

Of course, that isn’t to say that there needs to be a complete abstinence to wine or alcohol—it simply means that the deacon shouldn’t be addicted to wine or alcohol.

Deacons are not to be greedy for dishonest gain—it’s the idea of tipping the scales in your favor.

This can be a temptation for people who have official roles and titles within the church—to utilize their office within the church for their own financial gain.

Now, you might wonder what exactly this would look like—it looks like this: if you need your driveway plowed and you know someone in the church plows driveways and you go to that person and say something like this, “hey, I know that you plow driveways in the winter months and I’d like you to plow my driveway as well—since we go to the same church and I’m a deacon at the church, I think the church would be grateful if you gave me a discount or did it for free.”

Or it could look something more like embezzling or stealing from the tithes and offerings of the church.

Either way, it shows greediness and it a spectrum of dishonesty.

The next qualification is something that Paul mentions here and expounds on in next week’s passage.

They must hold the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience.

Because Paul speaks of this in a few verses, I don’t want to necessarily dig too deep into what this means, but I do want to clarify what it means because the wording might be confusing.

When the Bible speaks of a mystery, it’s speaking of something that was formerly hidden but is now revealed.

For instance, if you’ve ever watched the cartoon Scooby Doo—every episode had some sort of villain that was doing something terrible.

And the whole point of the cartoon was for the group of teenage mystery solvers to investigate the situation and reveal what was really happening.

That’s what the Bible means when it speaks of a mystery—it’s something that wasn’t quite clear, but has been made clear.

In this instance, it’s referring to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

The Gospel was something that had been hinted at throughout all the Old Testament, but it isn’t until the New Testament that the Gospel is shown in it’s entirety.

This idea of God being manifested in the flesh through Jesus was a mystery—something that was always going to happen, but was hidden from mankind until it actually did happen.

Paul is making the argument that deacons need to hold fast, to stand firm, to find their foundation in the Gospel.

To hold the Gospel with a clear conscience means that the person has no hesitation about the Gospel to the extent that they give continual obedience to God’s truth as revealed in Scripture.

Or in other words, they’re so confident in the Gospel that they obey God’s Word without hesitation.

The next qualification is one that is unique to deacons—elders don’t have this same qualification, but deacons must be tested first.

It is a little vague of a qualification in that it could mean a doctrinal test or it could mean a character test—it’s hard to say.

I personally think it’s a little bit of both—that there needs to be a time for a deacon candidate to show agreement with true doctrine before serving and there needs to be a time for a deacon to show his character before he begins serving.

Now, you might wonder who exactly is to test a deacon candidate and it’s really a combination of two groups of people—the congregation ought to be watching that person to see if their character and doctrine line up properly, but ultimately, it’s up to the elders of the church whether that person is suitable for the role of deacon or not.

At our church, we’ve intentionally built in a waiting period for deacons—deacons at Grace & Peace have to have been a member of the church for at least six months.

That six month period gives us time to test the person.

We’re told that deacons are to be blameless, which simply means that the person is to be without fault—though let me remind you, the idea isn’t so much a perfection but rather a general description of a person.

Meaning, the person isn’t going to be absolutely perfect on this side of eternity, but when someone accuses this person of any sort of sin, it should be that the accusation is hard to believe because of the individual’s character.

If you were to accuse this person of being a liar, it should be hard for that accusation to stick against the person.

That qualification applies to any sort of sin—if someone accuses them of being an adulterer, it should be hard for people to believe that accusation or if someone accuses them of being an absolute, mean jerk, it should be hard for people to believe that accusation.

Like elders, deacons are to be the husband of one wife, which is literally translated as a one-woman man.