WWUTT 621 Qualifications for Deacons?

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There are two offices in the church, elder and deacon. The elder cares for the spiritual needs of the church.

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The deacon cares for the physical needs. And just as there were qualifications for elders, there are qualifications for deacons when we understand the text.

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Many of the Bible stories and verses we think we know, we don't. When we understand the text as an online ministry committed to teaching sound doctrine and exposing the faulty, visit our website at www .utt

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.com. Now here's our host, Pastor Gabe Hughes. Thank you, Becky. In our study of the book of 1

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Timothy, we are still in chapter 3, but moving on to the section that talks about qualifications for deacons, verses 8 through 13.

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The apostle Paul writes, deacons likewise must be dignified, not double -tongued, not addicted to much wine, not greedy for dishonest gain.

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They must hold the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience, and let them also be tested first, then let them serve as deacons if they prove themselves blameless.

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Their wives likewise must be dignified, not slanderers, but sober -minded, faithful in all things.

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Let deacons each be the husband of one wife, managing their children and their own households well.

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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.

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And so, as we begin this section for qualifications for deacons, notice there's that word, likewise.

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So everything that we just read applying to overseers, that also applies to deacons.

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But the one thing that an overseer must be able to do that a deacon doesn't have to do is teach.

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But we're still looking at a model of a mature Christian here, whether you're talking about the overseer or you're talking about a deacon.

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You're talking about a person who is mature in the faith. They've probably been a Christian for a little while.

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The qualification that you see here in verse 9 is they must hold the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience.

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So like the elder or the overseer, they don't fancy themselves in wild notions, in speculations and things that would lead to division or conspiracy theories or myths or some of that kind of thing.

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But even a deacon is sound in his doctrine, believes the truth of the word of Christ and is able to articulate sound doctrine, even though they may not have that particular ability to teach.

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So all of those qualifications for overseers also apply to deacons. And I must also add that these qualifications that we see here for deacons also apply to overseers.

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Some of the language we see is the same, but in other ways, it's kind of like synonyms like here in verse 8, deacons likewise must be dignified.

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And at the start of chapter 3, we read that an overseer desires a noble task.

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So you have dignified and nobility. Those words are synonymous. We saw the word dignified applied to elders in a particular way as well, where it says in verse four, he must manage his own household well with all dignity, keeping his children submissive.

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And then the description of deacons likewise must be dignified, not double tongued, not addicted to much wine.

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And so the deacon, like the overseer, is a mature Christian. But when we're talking about mature

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Christians here, you know, as we applied the month of January to studying the qualifications for overseers mentioned in chapter three,

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I hope that the picture that was developed in your mind wasn't somebody that's like a super Christian, you know, above everybody else.

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The guy's just basically perfect. We don't call him perfect because he's a human being and humans are sinful.

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But I compare by comparison, he's he's up there above everybody else.

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Right. Well, that's not necessarily the picture we're supposed to have in our minds. There is a person who has in your congregation a robust, developed understanding of doctrine, of faith, of godliness, pursuing holiness.

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And this person is qualified to lead as a teacher or lead by example as a deacon.

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That doesn't necessarily mean that they're like a John MacArthur or an Al Mohler or a Mark Dever.

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I mean, I'm not on the level with any of those guys. And yet I meet the qualifications for being a pastor in my church.

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So we're looking for members within our own congregations who are able to lead by mature example.

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So Jonathan Lehman over at Nine Marks, he just recently responded to a question related to this. I think this was just last week.

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As a matter of fact, here's the question. So somebody wrote in. His name is Zach. He wrote in and said, I'm a deacon.

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And currently our church follows a solo pastor with deacon board model of church governance.

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Yet all of us leaders want to change our constitution to the biblical elder deacon model.

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We also believe the congregation would support such a change, which is great. This is something that our church went through a few years back.

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Zach goes on. But what should we do if there aren't any men ready to be elders? I aspire to be an elder someday, but I don't presume that I'm ready for that yet.

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Our pastor has presented the idea of recognizing some pastors from like minded churches to serve as temporary elders until we can raise up someone from inside.

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But something doesn't feel right about non members serving as our elders. Does the lack of prepared men mean we should tap the brakes on changing our constitution?

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And so here is the way that Dr. Lehman replied, Dear Zach. My first thought is praise

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God for all the unity, the leadership and congregation already share about moving in a more biblical direction.

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Second, no, I would not bring in outside elders. What makes an elder an elder is that his life and teaching make him a worthy example to follow for the

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Christian life. That presumes the congregation knows him and that he lives among them.

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When you bring in men from the outside and plop them down as elders, you turn their authority into something that it isn't authority by fiat.

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80 % of a good elders authority is informal. It works through trust.

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Third, pray for elders. Jesus loves to give to give good gifts to his church.

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Amen to that. Fourth, it's worth thinking about your standards of what an elder is.

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Are they higher than Paul's standards? Sometimes churches have an overly exalted view of what an elder is.

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Notice that everything Paul asks elders to be is pretty ordinary. Husband of one wife, temperate, not a lover of money and so forth.

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He's not looking for super Christians. That's where I got that term from, whatever that might be. So look around your church.

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Is no one above reproach able to teach and already gives himself to helping others follow

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Jesus? That's who you're looking for. If there's genuinely no one like that already, get to work discipling one another.

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Jesus will provide. Would I pause on the changing the constitution in the meantime? I might slow it down a little bit, yes.

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It puts the pastor in an awkward situation to have a constitution that calls for plurality eldership but then has to effectively say to all the men in the church, none of you are mature enough simply by his act of not nominating anyone.

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But really, is there no one? So disciple, disciple, disciple, and probably keep the conversation about a constitutional change alive, but move slowly.

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That's my two cents, not knowing your church at all. And that's really similar to what we did as a church.

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It was presented to the congregation. I think this is the model that we need to follow. This is the biblical model that we are presented a plurality eldership and then deacons.

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And these are the two offices of the church, elder and deacon. And so we began that process of changing our constitution, of coming to a right understanding of what the

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Bible says about those offices in the church, and then changing the constitution accordingly. And that process took us a little over two years.

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And then once we changed the constitution, it was a couple of more months before two men were presented to the congregation as who we believe to be qualified in that realm of mature

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Christians to be elders for the church. They had shown themselves faithful in teaching and and loving their wives and loving their families and and caring for that body of believers.

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And then it was about six months later, after a period of testing that we approved them officially to that spot.

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And now we have a plurality eldership, which has had at some point as many as five elders. But right now we're at four.

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So so anyway, this was how plurality eldership came about in our church and very similar to what

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Jonathan Lehman is saying here. And I totally agree. Elders should be raised up from within the church congregation.

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In fact, our church is a little bit unique in the sense that the last two pastors, including me and the guy before me, came from our church.

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So this wasn't a matter of hiring a pastor from the outside, the pastor that became the senior teaching pastor of the church came from the church itself.

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I was hired on as an associate pastor, which I did for two years. And then after the senior pastor left, then

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I was evaluated and called to be the senior pastor. So the last two pastors have come from within that church.

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I think that's a great model. Now, not every church is able to do that. And it doesn't mean it's wrong when a church starts putting feelers out for,

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OK, now we need another person to come along and it's going to fill this role as pastor. Some churches probably need to do that.

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But if a church can raise up a man who is able to fill that role, even in the position of pastor,

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I think it's a it's a great thing to do. Maybe a church can even support some young men in the church who are going to go to seminary and learn.

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And maybe if the Lord leads, bringing them back to that congregation and becoming a pastor there, or maybe

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God would take them somewhere else to pastor another church. Either way, that church has helped to raise up a man for the ministry.

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And I'm just kind of talking off the top my head here. I'm just kind of throwing out some ideas. But anyway, so the where were we?

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Yes, deacons. So these are the two offices of the church. We have elder or overseer and a deacon.

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As I've explained it to my church, the elder cares for the spiritual needs of the congregation.

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The deacon cares for the physical needs of the congregation. And this is actually one area that I differ with John MacArthur on.

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Dr. MacArthur does not believe that the deacon is an office. He believes that it's somebody who just fills in a needed role for a time, but maybe not continue in that particular role if that need isn't there.

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The example that he draws related to that is from the Book of Acts, where the first deacons are appointed.

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And they were appointed to care for the widows. This is Acts chapter six.

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Now, in these days, when the disciples were increasing in number, a complaint by the Hellenists arose against the

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Hebrews because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution. 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.

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Therefore, brothers, pick out from among you seven men of good repute.

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There's kind of another descriptor there of qualified men for that position of deacons full of the spirit and of wisdom whom whom you will appoint to this duty or we will appoint to this duty.

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But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word. And what they said, please, the whole gathering.

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And they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit. And this man is going to wind up being the first martyr who we read about in chapter seven.

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The first martyr was a deacon, Philip and Procurus and Nicanor and Timon and Parmenas and Nicholas, a proselyte of Antioch.

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These they set before the apostles and they prayed and laid hands on them. And the word of God continued to increase.

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And the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem. And a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith.

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So Dr. MacArthur's argument for this is that these men were just appointed to care for the widows.

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So if there isn't a particular need for deacon, therefore there doesn't have to be an office of deacon.

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It's just to meet a specific need. But I don't agree. And of course not because I'm a Baptist.

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So if it wasn't necessary to have an office of deacon, then why does Paul list it as an office in the church?

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He's talking about leaders in the church. So a person who leads by example through preaching and teaching is the elder or the overseer.

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Another person who leads by example by serving the physical needs of the church is the office of deacon to be able to provide relief for the elder that he not have to wait tables, but then can apply some of those needs that need to be met physically among the members of the congregation.

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That can be overseen by the deacons, and that's simply the difference between those two roles in the church.

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The elder has care over the teaching and the shepherding of the flock of God in spiritual matters.

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The deacon has the care for those physical needs, and especially that would include widows, but also other members of the congregation, those who are sick, those who might be going through a tough time financially, or there has been a tragedy in the family.

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And you might be thinking, well, that's things that all the members of the congregation can do. Yes, absolutely. Everybody can be involved in that, including the elders.

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And I have been involved in those things. But as far as being attentive to those needs and knowing how to allocate people to care for those needs and making announcements related to those needs, perhaps the office of deacon can be that one that is more aware of that kind of ministry in the church and is the first one to be able to jump at being able to care for those individuals that need it.

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So that's what the office of deacon would be for. And just like the elder or the overseer, a deacon should be raised up from within the congregation.

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You don't look outside the church for people to fill the role of deacon, right? So in the same way, we probably wouldn't look outside the role of the church for anybody who can serve as either a full time, part time elder or a lay elder.

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So the deacon, somebody from within that congregation who knows the church and is known by the church.

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Likewise, he must be dignified. He must not be double tongued. He is not a person who says one thing, but then does something else or says one thing to one person and then says something different to another person.

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This is a person who is consistent in their belief, consistent in their in their faith, in their actions.

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They are somebody who is noble, who is trustworthy within the congregation.

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Trustworthy is that that word that Jonathan Lehman had used in that response. So he is dignified.

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He is not double tongued. He's not addicted to much wine. So just like the overseer, he has control over himself.

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He's not given over into temptations of the flesh, but he's a disciplined individual.

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He is not greedy for dishonest gain. And so he's not he's not doing this to receive something from somebody, whether that would be money or or even just the recognition.

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It is a service that he does for building up the church. God has given him a servant's heart.

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And, you know, there's a joke that Tim Hawkins shared familiar with Tim Hawkins, the

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Christian comedian. He says, you know, servant's heart. Anybody ever starts telling me I have a servant's heart means they want me to stack chairs.

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And he says that in a grumpy way. And yeah, he's a comedian. And so it's funny. But for a deacon, it's his delight to do things like that, stack chairs or whatever else it might happen to be.

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Care for a widow's needs, care for the sick and the infirmed.

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This is something that he does leading by example for the church congregation.

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And he doesn't do this to gain recognition from anybody. He's not doing this for a claim or to feel important or to or to be popular or any of those other things.

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He's certainly not doing this for money. So I don't think that a deacon should be paid.

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Maybe if you have a huge church and you have somebody who's, you know, appointed in a position of like chairman of deacons, and he really does have a full time job on his hands to manage the other deacons, making sure needs are being cared for,

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I suppose in a situation like that, maybe you would have somebody who serves in that capacity as a as a job.

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I don't necessarily see it that way, but I've not put myself in that situation. So maybe there is a church that needs that particular role to be a paid position.

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But otherwise, he's not greedy for it. So just like the elder is not doing this for the sake of making a living for himself, the church certainly cares for his needs, but he's not a pastor because I needed a job and I could be good at this.

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And so that's why I'm being a pastor. He's not doing it to become rich or famous or any of those things. So the deacon likewise can't have that motivation in his heart when it comes to serving in that capacity.

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And he's known by the church as somebody who serves as a deacon. Another argument for why

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I don't think this is a temporary role, but it is something that the church has recognized and voted on and applied him to that particular position, because remember, the example that we have in Act six is that the apostles said to the church, choose from among yourselves men who are able to do this job.

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The apostles didn't choose them. The church chose them. And once the the disciples had appointed those men who would be in that position, then the apostles laid hands on them and prayed for them and then continued on with them with the ministry of the preaching and the teaching, while the deacons helped to serve tables.

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And just that analogy. So it wasn't limited to just caring for widows. It was service.

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That was what it was. They were appointed in that particular role to do. And so you have these men who had been chosen from among the church as of good character and able to be good examples for the body of Christ.

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And they hold to the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience. Verse nine. And we're going to come back to talk more about what that means in verse nine.

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But also, who can be a deacon? Is it just supposed to be men or can women also be deacons?

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And we've had that discussion related to elders. And we concluded matter of factly that an elder or an overseer must be a man.

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A man has to step up and lead, filling the role as God has designated it, that a man would lead in the position of pastor.

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All of the writers of the Bible have been men. The the apostles were all men.

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And so that's who it should be in the role of pastor or shepherd, teacher, bishop, overseer in the church.

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It should be a man. But how about the role of deacon? Because the command, as we had it given in in chapter two, was let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness.

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I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man.

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A deacon is not supposed to be a teacher. So can a deacon be a woman?

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That's what we'll talk about tomorrow. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you so much for the scriptures that for every question that we would have about the church and its function and its operation have been answered for us in the pages of your word by your apostles who wrote these things down for us.

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If there's something here that we don't understand, then it's our folly that prevents us from being able to understand what it is that you have said.

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But with great patience and labor, may we comb the scriptures. May we submit to their full authority and desire to know what it is that you have said about the function and the operation of your church and be able to serve in the ways that you have said we are to serve with a joyful heart, knowing that we have been saved from death.

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We have been forgiven our sins by the blood of Jesus Christ, and it is by our faith in him that we have eternal life in your forever kingdom.

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But while we live on this earth, let us be faithful to what it is that you have asked of us as your kingdom people.

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Give us the encouragement and the hope to face all of the struggles and trials that we'll go through today, giving glory to God in all things.

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And we pray and ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen. You've been listening to When We Understand the

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Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. We hope you are a part of the church family committed to gospel teaching, and we thank you for including us in your

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Bible learning. If you would consider a gift to this ministry, please visit www .utt

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