![]() ![]() It is important to understand at the outset that in a biblical context, the Greek words from which we get the word deacon have meanings no more specific than the meanings of their English equivalents. But it broadened beyond that and came to mean any kind of service. The New Testament text uses three primary words that refer to deacons: d iakonos, which means “servant” diakonia, which means “service” and diakoneō, which means “to serve.” The original use of this group of words might have been specific, meaning the service of waiting on tables or serving people food. How is the word deacon used in the New Testament? My conviction is that when a church becomes as concerned about maintaining high standards of purity and integrity in leadership as it is about upholding a specific form of government, that church will prosper, and it will begin to fall more in line with Scripture-not only in the form of government it adopts, but in the lives of its people as well.ĪNSWERING THE KEY QUESTIONS ABOUT DEACONSġ. Unfortunately, that is the point so often overlooked in all the debates about forms of church government. That fact in itself teaches us much about God’s view of church leadership: What a man is is the issue, more than what he does. We read a lot about what qualifies a man to be a deacon, but little about how deacons are to minister in their role as part of a local church. Scripture itself is vague about what specifically deacons are to do. The ministry of a deacon is so different from church to church that when a person says he is a deacon, you usually have to ask several questions to find out what, if anything, it is he actually does. Still other churches bestow the title as a badge of honor, like “reverend,” but for laymen. Other churches appoint almost everyone who is a regular attender as a deacon. In some churches, the deacons are the official board, the legally recognized managing body. The title deacon seems to have as many different connotations as there are churches to bestow it. Click here to purchase this as a booklet. ![]()
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