Deacons – Part 5

by | Jun 17, 2006 | Deacons, Ecclesiology

The Diaconal Ministry in Acts 6:1-6 Acts 6:1-6 provides the church with an originating account for the office of deacon.  Its description is invaluable to see several aspects of diaconal ministry, especially in the issues of roles between pastors and deacons (the Twelve and the Seven), pastors and congregation (Twelve and the multitude), and deacons and congregation (the Seven and the multitude). The passage begins with the setting of an ever growing group of disciples and the emergence of a complaint arising from one segment of the burgeoning church, namely the Greek speaking Jews.[1]  The language barrier between the Hellenistic Jews and the Hebrew Jews seems to have been causing an oversight to occur in meeting the needs of the Greek speaking widows in the Christian community.  Luke expresses that the complaint was that an ongoing oversight was being felt by the Hellenistic widows and that the complaint was no mere contentless murmuring.[2]  The widows were being neglected in the daily “service,” which may indicate that there was more involved than the mere handing out of food.  It is possible that the term used here (diakonia) refers to a very broad sense of service and might have included monetary as well as food assistance.[3]  This oversight may have been also related to the inability of the Twelve to be able to adequately administrate the daily service of the widows as well as their need to give themselves to prayer and the ministry of the word (6:2, 4).  The church at this time may have numbered close to 20,000 people in Jerusalem, thus making the leadership and administrative needs enormous...

Deacons – Part 4

by | Jun 3, 2006 | Deacons, Ecclesiology

Parallels Between Acts 6 and Later Deacons Acts 6:1-6 can be seen as the demarcation of the beginning of what would eventually and officially be termed deacon ministry. First, there is a linguistic parallel. The key problem in Acts 6:1-6 is a diakonia (service) problem. The Hellenistic widows were not being served (6:1, diakonia). It was not agreeable to the apostle’s to forsake the word of God in order to serve (6:2, diakonein) tables, because the ministry (6:4, diakonia) of the Apostles would be devotion to prayer and the word. Acts 6:1-6 is fundamentally a passage about diakonia (service). As noted previously, the term diakonia or diakonos can have a very broad range of ministry including physical service as well as the service of preaching and teaching. It clearly has both senses here. However, the focus of the passage is not upon the diakonia of preaching but upon the diakonia of serving the widows, because the Apostles needed assistance so as not to neglect the diakonia entrusted to them. The question remains then in the remaining two passages in the New Testament that directly refer to an official group of leaders who serve alongside the overseers (Philippians 1:1 and 1 Timothy 3:8-13), as to why they are called by this term (diakonoi)? When this linguistic parallel is seen in light of the yet to be mentioned structural/functional and selection parallels, it becomes much more clear that Acts 6 is referring to a deacon body; unofficial as of yet in the development of the church, but nonetheless, an acting body of servants. Second there is a structural and functional parallel...

Deacons – Part 3

by | May 23, 2006 | Deacons, Ecclesiology

I was too busy putting in a sprinkler system at The Capranica Villa yesterday to be able to read or post anything related to the blogosphere. So here’s what I should have posted yesterday on deacons: An Examination of Acts 6:1-6 in Regard to Deacon Ministry Objections and Answers Acts 6:1-6[1] is a passage widely discussed as to whether it has any direct or even implicit reference to the ministry of deacons. On the one hand, opponents to the view that deacon ministry is in view in this passage note that the noun diakonos is never used of the seven men chosen to assist the Apostles in the church in Jerusalem. Furthermore, some would argue that there is no indication in the book of Acts that this group of seven continued to exist in Jerusalem or even outside of Jerusalem once the initial complaint that created their need was satisfied (Acts 6:1). Also, while the book of Acts mentions elders on several occasions, the book never mentions a group of deacons. A further mark that some use to indicate that deacon ministry is not found in Acts 6 is that when the church in Antioch sent famine relief to the Jerusalem church, mention is made that it was brought to the elders of the church, not the deacons. Lastly, it is noted that neither Stephen or Philip continued in their role among the Seven of assisting the Apostles in caring for the needs of the widows in the Jerusalem church.[2] Adequate answers can be given to these objections. First, though the noun diakonos is not used in the Acts...