The Role of a Deacon (Acts 6:1-7; 1 Timothy 3:8-13)

Announcements

There are two sign-up sheets at the entrance, one to bring snacks on Sunday morning, the other is for November 7th. On November 7th, we’ll be celebrating our one-year anniversary as a church with a meal in the afternoon. The church will handle the main dish of course, but we’ll need help with side dishes, desserts, and drinks. If you’re able and willing to help with those needs, please sign up for whatever you’d like to bring. Be aware that you’ll need to bring warm side dishes in something like a crockpot to keep it warm through the service until we eat together; I think by that time, we’ll have a refrigerator in the kitchen, so we won’t need to worry about cold items as much, but hot items need to be kept in something that we can plug in to keep it warm.

On October 30th, 2021 from about 12:30pm-until sometime in the evening, we need 4-5 volunteers to help us with an outreach ministry during the Philipsburg Revitalization Corporation’s Harvest Event. We’ll be passing out hot apple cider, maybe popcorn, candy, and flyers for the church just outside of our building. If you’re interested in helping, please contact Natalie ASAP.

On November 7th, 2021 we have a quarterly business meeting and an annual budget meeting after the service. All of our business and budget meetings are open to the public, so all are welcome to join us. If you are a member, please plan on being there, because we have several items to vote on that Sunday.

Let me remind you to continue worshiping the Lord through your giving—we give because God so graciously have provided for us and have blessed us. To help you give, we have three ways for you to do so: (1) in-person giving can be done at the offering box at the front of the room, digital giving can be done by (2) texting 84321 with your $[amount] and by following the text prompts or (3) by visiting us online at graceandpeacepa.com and selecting “giving” in the menu bar. Of course, everything that you give goes to the building up of our local church and the spread of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Prayer of Repentance and Adoration

Sermon

Introduction

This evening’s message as the first since we’ve restarted our Wednesday evening’s Bible Study & Prayer times is going to be a little different. Prior to suspending our evening services, we had been working through the book of Psalms, but since this is our first week back and because we plan to vote in our first deacon on November 7th, I thought it would be worthwhile for us to have a sermon dedicated to what exactly a deacon is and what their role in the church is. That along with the fact that many of us come from different church backgrounds in which deacons had different roles, necessitates that we know precisely what a deacon in our church and what a deacon will do within our church.

So, let me start by encouraging you on two things, and then we’ll start looking at what the Bible says about deacons:

First off, let me start by encouraging you to consider everything you’ve ever thought and learned about deacons from previous churches that you’ve attended or have been a member of and let me encourage you to essentially forget all of it.

And the reason for forgetting all of it, is simple, many churches have adopted practices for their deacons that aren’t actually based on the Bible. That’s not to say that this was done with bad hearts or that they had nefarious intentions in what they were doing, it’s just to say that many churches have adopted practices from the secular world and they’ve added ideas from business, psychology, and philosophy to the polity of their church; and these practices have essentially become tradition at their church.

At Grace & Peace, since we’re blessed to be a church plant and we don’t have traditions to worry about, we have the opportunity to look only at what Scripture says and develop our church polity only from Scripture, which is what we’re doing today.

So, forget what you think you know about deacons, because all we’re concerned with, is what Scripture says about deacons.

Secondly, let me alert you to the fact that the Bible doesn’t tell us a lot about the role of deacons within the church. It gives us enough to know what differentiates between deacons and elders and it gives us enough to have a good idea of what deacons are supposed to do, but the Bible isn’t comprehensive in all that deacons are nor in all of what deacons do.

That might sound worrying for you because it might make it sound like we don’t have enough to go by, but let me assure you that this isn’t something to be worried about, it’s actually something to be thankful for.

Because the Bible is more fluid in what deacons can do and what deacons are, it actually opens up more people who are Scripturally qualified to be deacons.

If the Bible was extremely rigid in defining a deacon’s role, less people would be able to serve in that position.

Now the downside to the lack of comprehension when it comes to what deacons do and who they are, is that it opens up several different ideas of what deacons are to do and what deacons are to be—the lack of detail from Scripture is why so many healthy churches have different ideas of what a deacon is.

So, this evening’s message has two specific purposes—it is to explain exactly what the Scriptures teach us about deacons; and then the message will shift into what our church will do concerning deacons. In particular, what are we supposed to look for in our deacons; and what are our deacons supposed to do? And just in case you’re worried that this message isn’t for you, because you don’t want to be a deacon and you never will be a deacon, rest assured, that this message will be applicable to you as well—you will learn what to look for in your church deacons as we prepare to vote for our first deacon, you will learn what you should go to your deacon for help with, and you’ll learn that many of the qualifications for deacons are characteristics that should be seen in your life as well.

Now there’s one thing that we need to discuss before we jump into the passage, and that one thing is simple, I just want to give you a definition for the word deacon. It’s a church word that we utilize quite frequently, but most people have little to no understanding of what it actually means.

The word deacon is a transliteration of the Greek word. A transliteration is just a technical term in linguistics that tells us that the word isn’t actually a translation of another word, it’s the same word that’s anglicized.

The word is a transliteration of the Greek word διακονος and whenever a word is transliterated, it’s typically because there aren’t good ways to translate the word and deacon happens to be one of those words.

That difficulty in translation is seen in the different definitions for deacon in our modern-day dictionaries

Concise Oxford Dictionary, “a lay officer assisting a [pastor]” or “(in the early Church) an appointed minister of charity.”

The Cambridge Dictionary, “a lay person (an ordinary person without religious training) who helps with the organization of the church.”

The definitions aren’t exactly helpful, they give some ideas as to what a deacon is, but because they’re transliterating a word it’s a bit hard to come up with a definition. Some Bible dictionaries give a little bit more details:

The Lexham Bible Dictionary says that a deacon is “one who serves in an official capacity in the church as a deacon. The office of deacon may parallel the role of the assistant of the synagogue.”

Which brings us a little closer to what the word means, Burtchaell writes that “there are two primary classes of church leadership offices in the New Testament: that of the overseer and elder, and that of the deacon. Deacons do not hold teaching or ruling authority in the church but exercise responsibility for the physical needs of the congregation.”

Which brings us to what the word διακονος actually means. The Greek word διακονος can rightly be translated as servant. In the church, the word deacon was probably utilized in order to differentiate between a servant in socio-economic status and a servant within the church. Because servants were such a big part of the Roman culture, they might have utilized the word διακονος to differentiate between one who serves the church and one who serves outside of the church. And that translation for διακονος gives us a more precise idea of what a deacon is.

So, let me give you a biblical definition for a deacon before we jump into Scripture: a biblical deacon is precisely what the word deacon means. He is a servant that willingly and faithful serves his church, his congregation, and his pastors by utilizing his spiritual gifts in such a way as to meet the temporal needs of the local body of Jesus Christ.

We’re going to be looking at two passages in depth this evening, both of which are vital for our understanding of deacons within the local church. If you have your Bible with you this evening, please turn it to Acts 6:1-7. While you turn there, let me give you some background information as to what is going on in Acts 6. The book of Acts is the second of two books written by Luke to a man named Theophilus with the purpose of providing an orderly account of both Jesus’ life (in his record of the Gospel) and the start of the church (in the book of Acts).

The book starts where the Gospel according to Luke ends off, after the resurrection of Jesus and before his ascension Jesus gathers all the disciples and tells them that they are going to be his witnesses in Jerusalem, and in Judea, Samaria, and to the end of the earth. Jesus makes thinks statement and commissions them to be his witnesses and then Jesus is lifted up into the heavens. The apostles choose a new apostle to take the place of Judas Iscariot, and then we’re told of the Holy Spirit coming and permanently indwelling the believers for the first time.

It is the ascension of Jesus and the indwelling of the believers that kickstarts the growth of what eventually becomes known as the church—we see large amounts of people repenting from their sins, calling on the name of the Lord, and believing in Jesus; and this number builds and builds as the apostles continue to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ throughout the area. By the time chapter 6 comes around, thousands of people have come to know Jesus Christ and many signs and wonders were performed by the apostles as validation for their message from God. The large amount of new disciples is the reason behind what’s about to happen in Acts 6:1-7. Let’s read the passage as we start to dig into Scripture.

Acts 6:1–7 ESV

1 Now in these days when the disciples were increasing in number, a complaint by the Hellenists arose against the Hebrews because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution. 2 And the twelve summoned the full number of the disciples and said, “It is not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables. 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. 4 But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.” 5 And what they said pleased the whole gathering, and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit, and Philip, and Prochorus, and Nicanor, and Timon, and Parmenas, and Nicolaus, a proselyte of Antioch. 6 These they set before the apostles, and they prayed and laid their hands on them. 7 And the word of God continued to increase, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith.

This evening’s sermon is going to be a little different in that we’ll be looking at several different passages. We’re going to start with Acts 6:1-7, which is the first mention of a deacon within the local church. Because it is the first mention of a deacon, it’s actually the main passage that we’re going to look at—it gives us the establishment or installation of the first deacons of the local church (though it never actually uses the word deacon in the passage), it explains a little bit of the purpose of a deacon, and some of the requirements. This passage will be our main text, but after we work through this passage, we’ll also take a look at 1 Timothy 3:8-13, which gives more insight into the qualifications of a deacon. And then we’ll wrap this evening’s text by looking more specifically at how the role of a deacon will play out in our church and as individuals within the church.

Prayer for Illumination

The Installation of Deacons (Acts 6:1-7)

Our first text for this evening is the first mention of deacons in the Bible, but like I mentioned, it’s a little different because while it’s clear that it’s speaking about deacons, it doesn’t utilize the term deacon.

We’re told in Vs. 1, “Now in these days when the disciples were increasing in number, a complaint by the Hellenists arose against the Hebrews because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution.” There are a number of details that are worth noting in this verse.

Clearly, this is still early on in the history of the church, because the church was only instituted a few chapters before this point, but even early in the church’s history, there were large numbers of people repenting from their sins, believing in Jesus, and joining the church.

We’re told that at this time “the disciples were increasing in number” and within that large amount of disciples were a large amount of widows. When the Bible refers to widows it’s typically referring to women whose husbands had passed and for whatever reason, their children were unable to take care of them.

Remember also, that this is the first century—there weren’t government helps including medicare and there wasn’t a Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. Typically, if a person’s family had passed and they were unable to provide for themselves, they would be forced to resort to begging.

Thankfully, the church recognized the need and so the church would step in to care for them with all their needs, including making sure they had food to eat—what Vs. 1, calls the “daily distribution.”

People within the church would regularly go to distribute food to those in need, but it’s clear that the system they had organized wasn’t quite working, because “a complaint by the Hellenists arose against the Hebrews because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution.”

There is a little bit of a societal, racial difficulty at hand here—they’re all Jewish people, but the Bible differentiates between what it calls the Hellenists and the Hebrews.

They’re both part of the Jewish people, but the Hellenists were those that were probably raised outside of Israel, and thus, spoke primarily Greek instead of Aramaic. The Hebrews refers to those that were probably raised inside of Israel and thus, spoke primarily Aramaic, the native tongue of the Jewish people.

So, there’s already a divide between the two groups and when both sides join the church, that divide causes those who the Bible calls Hellenists to rise up and complain that the other Jewish believers were intentionally neglecting the Hellenist widows and because they were being intentionally neglected, those that were Hellenist widows were missing out on life-sustaining sustenance that they needed.

Because of the large number of new disciples within the church, they needed to determine a better system to handle the needs of the people.

And so, in Vs. 2, we’re told that “the twelve (referring to the apostles) summoned the full number of the disciples and said, ‘It is not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables. 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. But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.”

This is the first time where we see two official offices or roles within the church. And it sets up a divide that we still follow even until this day when it comes to how the church is to function—the twelve would continue in what they call the ministry of the word and prayer, while these seven men would handle what they call serving tables.

This division of duties is essential because it’s clear that due to the large amount of people, they were unable to effectively care for all the people. The Hellenists had laid out a criticism that their widows were being neglected, so the apostles respond by recognizing that the combined task of teaching and providing temporal aid was too great for just them.

And because of the large amount of people, they recognized that they were unable to do both, they were unable to fulfil their teaching responsibilities and the responsibility to provide relief to the widows properly and the only way to solve this problem was by enlisting additional help.

Because according to the apostles, “It [was] not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables.”

Now, I do want to clarify, that they aren’t setting up a false dichotomy here. They aren’t making a claim that serving tables is any lesser than preaching and vice versa, both are important in their own way.

What they’re making a claim to, is this, that for them, whom God had called to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ, for them to be distracted with meeting the temporal needs of the people and then neglect the spiritual needs that they could only answer through preaching and teaching, would be wrong.

Howard Marshall, “It is not necessarily suggested that serving tables is on a lower level than prayer and teaching; the point is rather that the task to which the Twelve had been specifically called was one of witness and evangelism. The solution to the problem was the appointment of a new group . . . to serve tables.”

And I would argue that this extends beyond just serving tables to all things that we would consider temporal needs of the church, but we’ll talk about that a little bit later.

The apostles tell the brothers to “pick out from among you seven men of good repute, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we will appoint to this duty,” which gives us three characteristics of the men who were to be chosen for this duty. We’re not going to spend a lot of time talking about these characteristics because these characteristics are repeated in 1 Timothy 3, so we’ll talk about them then, but nevertheless, the apostles tell the disciples that these men were to be:

Off good repute—meaning that their reputation amongst the people was good. The disciples typically thought of these people as godly men who sought after the heart of God.

They were to be full of the Spirit—meaning that their life was to be characterized by righteous living empowered by the Spirit of God

And they were to be full of wisdom—meaning wisdom from God, not what the world considers to be wise.

And again, Vs. 4, tells us that the whole purpose was so that these men could handle the temporal issues of the church while the apostles would handle the spiritual needs of the church—in particular, the preaching, teaching, and prayer.

After hearing the qualifications, the disciples picked seven men, the apostles prayed for them and laid their hands on them, and the word of God continued to increase, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly.

Acts 6:1-7, gives us the first mention of deacons within the church and it gives us three of the qualifications that someone must meet before becoming a deacon, but beyond this, the passage doesn’t give much information. That’s intentional, because Luke wasn’t trying to record everything about deacons in Acts 6 and the fact that the church was just starting off plays a little bit into why there aren’t a lot of details. Later in the New Testament, once the church had been started and well established, the Apostle Paul had sent a young pastor to Ephesus to pastor the church there. And part of his responsibility as the pastor of Ephesus was to equip qualified men to be elders and deacons of the church. In Paul’s letter to Timothy, in 1 Timothy 3:1-13, we read of several qualifications for church leadership. The first seven verses are dedicated to qualifications specifically for elders and the last six verses are dedicated to qualifications for deacons. Let’s read 1 Timothy 3:8-13 so that we can get all of the qualifications for deacons down.

Qualifications of Deacons (1 Timothy 3:8-13)

1 Timothy 3:8–13 ESV

8 Deacons likewise must be dignified, not double-tongued, not addicted to much wine, not greedy for dishonest gain. 9 They must hold the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience. 10 And let them also be tested first; then let them serve as deacons if they prove themselves blameless. 11 Their wives likewise must be dignified, not slanderers, but sober-minded, faithful in all things. 12 Let deacons each be the husband of one wife, managing their children and their own households well. 13 For those who serve well as deacons gain a good standing for themselves and also great confidence in the faith that is in Christ Jesus.

In addition to the qualifications listed in Acts 6 for deacons, to be men of good repute, full of the Spirit, and full of wisdom, Paul gives these qualifications. Now we aren’t going to spend a lot of time digging through each qualification, but I want to clearly state what they are and explain anything that might be confusing:

Vs. 8 says that “Deacons likewise,” and we have to stop there just briefly because of the word likewise. It is important to note that the likewise refers to Paul’s previous statements concerning the qualifications of elders.

By utilizing that one word, Paul makes it clear that there are many similarities between the qualifications for the two positions, in fact, they’re almost identical in listing with the exception of one qualification that’s given to elders that isn’t a necessity for deacons.

That on differing qualification is this, that elders are required to be apt or able to teach. Elders are required to be spiritually gifted with teaching because the elders are the ones responsible for teaching and preaching the Word of God to the people.

Someone who isn’t gifted with teaching shouldn’t be an elder simply because elders are required to be able to teach—their responsibilities include the oversight of the ministry of the Word of God—if they can’t teach it well, they can’t be an elder.

However, beyond that one exception, all of the other requirements are identical. And thus, what are considered qualifications for deacons are really qualifications that all church leaders are to meet.

Like the elders, deacons are to meet certain qualifications, and these are the qualifications that Paul lists, I’m going to read them to you, and then I’ll explain what each of them means:

Deacons are to be:

Dignified—the idea of being dignified is to be worthy of respect. Think back to high school, in almost every high school class there is a class clown, the one who is always joking around, poking fun at people, the one who no one can ever take seriously—that person would not be a good deacon. Deacons must be men worthy of respect—serious men of dignity, not clowns.

Not double-tongued—the idea of being double-tongued is the idea of saying one thing to one person and another thing to another person. In our modern-day vernacular, we’d call that person two-faced or devious in his speech. This is a person that can’t be trusted because he is a liar. Deacons must be men of integrity—not liars.

Not addicted to much wine—note that this isn’t saying that a deacon cannot drink, it’s that a deacon cannot be addicted to much wine. Drinking itself isn’t a sin, it’s drinking to excess that is sinful. A man who is addicted to much wine can’t be trusted to make decisions, his addiction prevents him from being sound in mind at all times. I would argue that this is an argument against deacons being addicted to any and all substances, whether that’s wine or other substances.

Not greedy for dishonest gain—dishonest gain is the idea of the person who tips the scales in his favor. He tricks people into bad deals intentionally for his own profit. A deacon is not to be greedy for this sort of gain.

They must hold the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience—they must be firm on their belief in Jesus Christ. They must stand firm without hesitation. A deacon ought to be able to say that he believes in Jesus Christ and the fundamentals of the faith without reservation.

They must prove themselves blameless—this doesn’t mean that he is without fault, because we all know that on this side of eternity, we cannot and will not be perfect. We’ll all struggle with sins until the day we leave this world, this is the idea that characteristically, the deacon isn’t characterized by sin. When you think of that person, you don’t automatically think of sinful behavior, in fact, it ought to surprise you if he is caught up in a sin. A deacon is to live a life that isn’t characterized by sin.

The husband of one wife—this qualification for deacons has caused confusion for quite some time, because many people believe that it eliminates anyone who has been divorced and anyone who has been widowed and then remarried. There are three issues with these ideas:

(1) the Bible does give exception to divorce for certain reasons—God is not a fan of divorce, but he does allow for divorce in the case of abandonment, adultery, and abuse. In these cases, it would seem odd for God to punish someone who is otherwise qualified because they were abandoned, or their spouse cheated on them, or there was abuse in the relationship.

(2) when it comes to someone who has been widowed, the Bible is clear that marriage is only until the death of one spouse. Or in other words, the moment that someone has passed on into eternity, that couple is no longer married.

(3) in Greek, it has nothing to do with divorce. If we were to translated the passage word-for-word from the Greek to English, the Bible actually says “Deacons must be man of one woman.” Or in other words, this has nothing to do with whether a person has been married and divorced or married and widowed. This is actually talking more about the idea that the deacon isn’t to be what we sometime call a “ladies’ man.” He should be known as a womanizer, he shouldn’t be married to someone, but flirt with everyone else. A deacon, if married, ought to be completely and utterly devoted to his one wife. A deacon, if in a serious relationship, should be utterly devoted to his one girlfriend or fiance. A deacon is not to be engaged in multiple relationships with multiple women. He is to be a one woman man.

They must manage their children and their own household well—this is the idea that if they have children and if their children still live at home, their children ought to be well-behaved. They are to obey their parents; and of course, everyone knows that children won’t always behave, but this idea is that a deacon’s children shouldn’t be known for misbehaving, they should be known for being well-behaved. Deacons are to manage their children and their own household well. They are to lead their homes, they are to have their finances under control, they are to live their lives well.

It’s also of note that there is one verse dedicated to the qualifications of the deacon’s wife, Vs. 11, “Their wives likewise must be dignified, not slanderers, but sober-minded, faithful in all things.”

Their wives are to also be worthy of respect

Their wives are not to slander—they shouldn’t be gossiping, they shouldn’t be utilizing their tongue to talk down on other people—they shouldn’t be known as the town gossip

Their wives are to be sober-minded and faithful in all things.

Vs. 13, closes off this paragraph by saying that “those who serve well as deacons gain a good standing for themselves and also great confidence in the faith that is in Christ Jesus.”

Those who fulfill their servant roles faithfully will have a good standing before their fellow Christians who appreciate the beauty of humble, selfless, Christ-like service

And those who fulfil their servant roles faithfully will have great assurance in their own faith. Humble service is a true test of one’s motives. Deacons who are faithful will discover if his efforts were prompted by a Christlike spirit of selfless service, or by his own motivations.

Duane Litfin, “When a deacon has indeed ‘served well’ his ministry builds confidence in the sincerity of his own faith in Christ and of his unhypocritical approach to God.”

Now as we move into application, I want us to look at the application in two ways. First off, I want to spend some time talking about the Role of a Deacon at our local church—what is the role of a deacon at Grace & Peace Bible Church. Secondly, I then want us to look at how we can apply these passages to our lives today apart from utilizing them to choose deacons.

Application

The Role of a Deacon at Grace & Peace Bible Church--What we see from both texts is a list of qualifications that must be met by a deacon and the idea that deacons handle temporal issues so that the elders can handle the spiritual issues of preaching and teaching. The idea being that elders are utilizing their spiritual gifts to preach and teach and deacons are utilizing their spiritual gifts to meet the physical needs of the church—neither group is better or worse than the other, they’re simply utilizing their spiritual gifts in different ways to meet the needs of the church. Now that statement is a little vague and we need to put a little more meat on the bones of the statement in order to understand how deacons are going to function within our local church context:

We’re told in Scripture that deacons are required to meet certain requirements. You can’t just pull a random person into being a deacon, whoever the deacon is has to meet certain prerequisites; and those requirements are spelled out very clearly

A deacon must be dignified, not double-tongued, not addicted, not greedy for dishonest gain; they must hole the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience, they must be tested, they must be blameless, they must be a one woman man who manages their household well; and if they’re married, their wives must be dignified, not slanderers, but sober-minded and faithful in all things.

Acts 6 says that deacons are to be of good repute, full of the Spirit and full of wisdom.

Thus, in our local congregation, only those that meet these requirements are allowed to be deacons—anyone who doesn’t meet these requirements shouldn’t even be considered.

Now, when it comes to how exactly they’re supposed to function as a church, the Bible gives us some give into the specifics, but it does tell us in Acts 6, what their focus is supposed to be:

Deacons are not elders, and thus, deacons are not charged with teaching, preaching, and leading the church. Deacons are very literally the servants of the church—based on the word itself, how we see deacons function in Scripture, and the requirements necessary.

Thus, at Grace & Peace Bible Church, our deacons are not leading the church, they’re here to serve the church in the same way that the deacons did in Acts 6.

Acts 6 talks of the first deacons serving tables, but it wasn’t just serving tables, it was the meeting of temporal needs so that the elders could focus on spiritual needs.

Benjamin Merkle, “Based on the New Testament, the role of the deacon is mainly to be a servant. The church needs deacons to provide logistical and material support so that the elders can focus on the Word of God and prayer.” He goes on to explain the differences between the two roles within the church based on the qualifications of each role.

“The New Testament does not provide much information concerning the role of deacons. The requirements given in 1 Timothy 3:8-12 focus on the deacon’s character and family life. There are, however, some clues as to the function of deacons when their requirements are compared with those of the elders. Although many of the qualifications are the same or very similar, there are notable differences.”

“Perhaps the most noticeable distinction between elders and deacons is that deacons do not need to be “able to teach.” Deacons are called to “hold” to the faith with a clear conscience, but they are not called to “teach” that faith. This suggests that the deacons do not have an official teaching role in the church.”

“Like elders, deacons must manage their house and children well. But when referring to deacons. Paul omits the section where he compares managing one’s household to taking care of God’s church. The reason for this omission is most likely due to the fact that deacons are not given a ruling or leading position in the church—that function belongs to the elders.”

“Although Paul indicates that a person must be tested before he can hold the office of deacon, the requirement that he cannot be a new convert is not included. Paul notes that if an elder is a recent convert ‘he may become puffed up with conceit.’ One implication concerning this distinction could be that those who hold the office of elder are more susceptible to pride because they possess leadership over the church. On the contrary, it is not as likely for a deacon, who is in more of a servant role, to fall into this same sin. Finally, the title ‘overseer’ implies general oversight over the spiritual well-being of the congregation, whereas the title ‘deacon’ implies one who has a service-oriented ministry.”

Or put another way—elders lead the church; deacons serve the church. Elders focus on spiritual needs, deacons focus on temporal needs.

Nathan Rose, says “Deacons don’t lead or oversee the church. This is the role God has given to the elders. Instead, they humbly serve the congregation by ensuring practical matters are met. In so doing, they free the pastors from doing these tasks so that [the pastors] can devote themselves to teaching, praying, and leading. For example, a deacon may handle benevolence requests so that a pastor can prepare a sermon. A deacon may take care of the church’s leaky roof so that the elders can focus on equipping and counseling others. Of course, some overlap may occur, but by and large, deacons handle physical and logistical needs and elders tend to spiritual matters.”

So, what are our deacons at Grace & Peace Bible Church going to do? They’re going to serve the church; and they’re going to focus on temporal needs of the church—here’s some ideas of what that will entail:

Now that we have a building, the building needs to be taken care of—our deacons are going to be the primary contact when it comes to taking care of the building.

Now that doesn’t mean that they’re going to do everything themselves, they will not do everything themselves, but they’ll be the ones responsible to gather volunteers to help clean, to make repairs, and to do work days in the church.

If something doesn’t work right (the plumbing leaks, the heat seems to be running off, or the ceiling collapses), the deacons will take care of it.

That also includes finding volunteers to make sure the auditorium is ready for worship, to clean, and to provide support during services.

As we continue to grow the finances of the church becomes more complex. The elders remain responsible for the financial business of the church, but the deacons will assist in helping to formulate a budget and they’ll help in issues of benevolence, administering aid to the needy. And speaking of benevolence issues, on occasion, our deacons will be relied on to handle visitation or what we would call congregational care, particularly during times when the pastors are unable to handle visitation or congregational care.

We don’t have ushers in the same sense as some churches do because we don’t take our offering up in the same way that some churches do (and that was an intentional decision that if you’re curious about, you can ask me about at a later time), however, we do require ushers for one thing in particular—when we partake of the Lord’s Supper.

Now an elder will always preside over the Lord’s Supper, but the deacons are responsible to distribute the Lord’s Supper. Or put another way, at this current time, I will still stand up front—I will explain what communion is and why we do it; I’ll ask a deacon to simply pray for the elements, the deacons along with their volunteers will pass out the elements (the bread and the cup), and then I will read the text that leads us to take communion together.

The elders will lead the church in taking communion and the deacons will serve the church while taking communion.

Now of course, this list hasn’t been comprehensive, and there are other logistical needs that our deacons will assist in, but I think that’s about all that we have time to talk about during this sermon.

Our deacons will serve the temporal needs of the church so our elders can focus on the spiritual needs of the church.

Now some of you have been listening intently at this sermon and in the back of your mind, you’ve been thinking “what does this have to do with me? I’m not a deacon and I don’t think I’ll ever be a deacon.” And this is where your application comes in:

All Scripture is breathed out by God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness that the man or woman of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

That includes passages that seem like they might not have anything to do with you—so these passages concerning deacons are worth you learning for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness. How can they be profitable for you?

First off, they teach you what to look for in your deacons. Because of Acts 6 and 1 Timothy 3, you now have a better idea of what a deacon should look like—so when we vote for our first deacon in November, you now have a better idea of whether our candidate matches those qualifications or not and you can vote accordingly.

Utilize the truth of these passages to be sure that the people within the church are qualified the way that they’re supposed to be.

In addition, studying these passages have given us insight into what our deacons are actually supposed to do—they aren’t a quasi-elder board, they aren’t the ones responsible to lead, teach, and preach, they are the ones who are to serve the church by utilizing their spiritual gifts to meet the temporal needs of the congregation, the church, and the pastors.

So, when we do have deacons instituted within our church, don’t look at them with false expectations. They aren’t the leaders, they aren’t the teachers, they aren’t the preachers. They’re the servants of the church, treat them as the servants of the church.

Now, lastly, the last bit of application that I have for you is actually simple. You may not be a deacon, you may never want to be a deacon, and you may never be a deacon, but the qualifications to be deacon are characteristics that all Christians should strive for because these characteristics aren’t just qualifications to be deacons, they’re characteristics that God expects all Christians to live by:

So we can rightly work our way through 1 Timothy 3:8 and ask ourselves these questions:

Do we live in a way that is worthy of honor? Or do we live in a way that’s characterized by sin?

Are we sincere in what we say? Or are we two-faced in how we speak with other?

Are we addicted to wine or really any substance? Or are we filled with the Spirit of God?

Are we greedy for dishonest gain? Or are we righteous in our dealings with others?

Do we hold fast our faith with a clear conscience? Or is our foundation insecure?

Do we live life in such a way that we would be considered blameless? Or do people think that we’re guilty of every sort of sin?

Are we devoted to our spouses? Do we manage our own household well?

Which is a lot of think about and consider, but it’s necessary because God expects these things of all believers, not just deacons and not just elders.

Be authentically sincere with yourself and ask these questions. When you find yourself in a situation in which you don’t live the way you ought, then do the right thing—repent, turn back to Jesus, and keep seeking God.

In our modern-day church culture, the role of a deacon is often misunderstood, but I hope that tonight, you understand that deacons are the servants of the church who seek to meet the temporal needs of the church, the congregation, and the elders. I hope you see that we must seriously look at our deacons and deacon nominees to be sure that they meet the qualifications listed and that we don’t expect more from our deacons than what the Bible teaches us.

And my hope is that as we’ve worked through these passages, that you’ve seriously looked at your own heart and your own life and you’ve asked yourself if these characteristics represent you—because even if you are never a deacon in a church, these are all characteristics of godly people who seek after the heart of God.

Prayer Requests

Caleb Miller - Medical Issues

Alan Wisor - Medical Issues

Pastor Jason Ormiston of Family Baptist Church in Minneapolis--he accepted the call to pastor the church about two months ago. The church itself is a revitalization effort in the urban center of Minneapolis. Two weeks ago he sent out an update concerning a staff member being robbed by gun right outside of their building. Pray for their safety and their revitalization effort in Minneapolis.

Pray for our remaining church members and attenders that have yet to return to regular church attendance.Pray for the remaining renovation work

We’re currently $5,000 short of completing all of the projects. Continue to pray for the Lord’s provision of these funds.

What we’ve already paid for and what we have supplies for will hopefully be done with in the next week or two. The rest will be done as more funding comes in.

And continue praying for our mission and vision for Philipsburg and the surrounding areas, that we continue to make mature believers of Jesus Christ.