Deacons and Deaconesses: Do Independent Baptist Churches have Biblical precedent for both? (Part One)Most denominations I'm aware of have at least (at a minimum) one pastor/elder and if large enough one deacon. Some have one pastor and multiple deacons and some also multiple elders and with multiple deacons. We've discussed elders and congregations already but who are these deacons? Men or women? Servants? What are the requirements or expectations? Do they teach or have authority? Are they a rotating board? I would guess by what I can read and have experienced for over twenty five years in independent baptist churches that how you define the "purpose" or "function" of a deacon defines more who qualifies for this position than what the Bible actually says. So on that note what does the Bible actually say? On another note, where have we made up as roles the Bible never gave or potentially never intended by God?
To evaluate the scriptural data available there are two potential options? (To be fair, we could even ignore what the Bible says and make it up--don't laugh we do this more than you think). First, we'll examine the references to deacons as a noun. Then secondly, to examine the references to serving or acting as a deacon in verb form. We are left to appeal to the only forms where this church activity even exists. From there it just gets more complicated dealing with two divisive or contested verses: Romans 16:1-2 and 1 Timothy 3:11. So let's begin.
The noun διάκονος appears 29 times in the NT and six times in the LXX. In the KJV it appears as three terms: minister, servant, and deacon (3x). At face value the terms minister and servant help us understand what role we're talking of in the local church. The three references to the term deacon are simply transliterations and don't help us much. By way of reminder, a transliteration is copies the underlying letters of another language into the letter of the receptor language. For example, consider the term ἄγγελος. A transliteration would be the term angel. You can almost without knowledge of Greek see with your own eyes the letters A-N-G-E-L. If I wanted to translate the term I would use another English word such as messenger. So simply seeing the English word deacon doesn't help much. However, the uses of this term contain several contextual issues of great importance which will be discussed in detail later. For example, these individuals minister or function as servants to include Christ himself modeling a servant (Rom 15:8-9). The three references to deacon (as a church "office") will be given special attention (Philippians 1:1 and 1 Timothy 3 (2x)). And of course once we get a good NT basis for what a deacon is or is not maybe this will help with Phoebe's role/function in Roman 16 as well.
As for the verb form: to minster or to serve how does this help us understand this role? Simply by the numbers it occurs 37 times in the NT. The NT has the following senses for this verb: to serve, to minister, or to wait on. No references to a leadership role. This is a role or function or service. Consider some examples. Jesus came to serve (Mt 20:28). The angels served Jesus (Mt 4:11). This was not the focused mission of the apostles (Acts 6:6). Remember Mary and Martha. One of them was zealous in serving (Lk 10:40). So this act of serving/ministering is seen by men, women, angels, and even Christ himself. So the subjects who perform this verb doesn't help much. This is a simple term for serving/ministering to other people of multiple genders and classes.
So what can we take away? Christ served. Angels serve. Men and women serve. There appears to be nothing inherent in this term of any idea of leadership. These are servants in particular situations. So to really get at the church function of deacons we'll have to dig into the references where they have been transliterated for this church function. We'll have to look at each one of our "deacon" passages. What do they tell us? How do they help us understand this role/function within the local church?
I'm afraid the NT available data for word studies is not helpful to answer this question. However, it does provide some interesting starting points. First, the underlying Greek in noun form is translated as servant, minister, and three times as deacon. Second, similar results are for the verb form: to serve or to minister. So to answer this dilemma we'll need to focus on the contexts where the term deacon is actually used as a local church role/function.
Read. Enjoy. Comment.
No comments:
Post a Comment