Deacons

The Work of Deacons

In first century Greek culture, a diakonos was a servant who served food. Throughout the New Testament, the word diakonos is used to refer to various people who exhibited a nature of service to others, in which cases it is translated variously as servant or minister. In Philippians 1:1 and 1 Timothy 3:8-12 it is translated deacon based on the context, referring to those who serve a special role in the local congregation, appointed by and serving under the leadership of that congregation's elders.

In Acts 6 the church was brand new and was growing rapidly in numbers. A problem arose because the Hellenists (Greek-speaking Jews) who had converted to Christianity felt like their widows were being overlooked in the daily distribution (diakonia) of food. The apostles called the congregation together and said, "It is not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve [diakonein] tables." They appointed seven men from the congregation whose specific assignment was to coordinate the daily distribution of food and make sure no one was being left out.

The specific roles of elders and deacons had not yet been established in Acts 6. However, various forms of the word diakonos are used in this passage to describe the specific ministry of serving food that needed to be organized and coordinated. This suggests that the appointment by church leaders (apostles in this early setting, elders later when the church was more well-established) of specific men to serve in specific ministries speaks to the role that deacons (diakonos) would eventually serve in the church.

So the work of deacons is to serve the local congregation by organizing and coordinating the various ministries to which they are assigned by the elders.

The Qualifications of Deacons

In 1 Timothy 3:8-13, the apostle Paul spells out the kind of men that God wants serving as deacons in the church. Those who serve the Lord's church as deacons should be:

1. DIGNIFIED
2. NOT DOUBLE-TONGUED
3. NOT ADDICTED TO MUCH WINE
4. NOT GREEDY FOR DISHONEST GAIN
5. HOLD THE MYSTERY OF THE FAITH WITH A CLEAR CONSCIENCE
6. BLAMELESS
7. THEIR WIVES MUST ALSO BE DIGNIFIED
8. Not slanderers
9. Sober-minded
10. Faithful in all things
11. THE HUSBAND OF ONE WIFE
12. MANAGE HIS CHILDREN AND HIS HOUSEHOLD WELL

CREDITS:

Borrowed and adapted from "Elders, Deacons and the Church" (Part 1 and Part 2) by Mike Mazzalongo for BibleTalk.tv. (BibleTalk.tv materials are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. The contents of this page are made available under the same license.)

Greek translation and meaning of diakonos from Mike Mazzalongo (see above) and Bible Study Tools.