House Rule #8 Select Qualified Deacons (1 Timothy 3:8-13) | Adult Sunday School

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He who keeps you will not slow

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May the slumber not sleep

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Is your shade on? No one shall not strike

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Your eyes to the hills

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May God be gracious to us and bless us

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And make His face to shine upon That your way may be known

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Your station Let the visions be glad And sing for joy

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For you judge the peoples With equity

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And guide the nations Always true

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The earth has yielded its increase

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God our God shall bless us God shall bless us

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Lands of the earth

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Fill our heads Praise you oh

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God Praise you

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Praise you oh

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God Let the peoples praise you

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Faithful wish neighbor

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With flattery May the tongue denounce

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Those who say with our tongue we will The same for which

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He longs The words of God Like silver if mine

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Then a furnace on the ground I stare but on time

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Every time it's all taken

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Good morning. Good to see each one of you here today. I invite you to open your

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Bibles once again to 1 Timothy. This morning we're looking again at 1 Timothy chapter 3.

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At what we're calling house rules for God's church. And this is rule number 8.

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Select qualified deacons. And there's an outline here. Rick has an outline. If you don't have one yet.

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He'll serve you. Which is our theme for the day. You get your illustrations wherever you can.

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You know. So I find them wherever I can find them. Before we do, let's commit our time to our

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Lord in prayer. And ask His blessing. Our Father, we do thank

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You that You have gathered us here today. We know it is by Your grace. We know that it is for the purpose of worshiping

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You. So we just thank You for that great privilege. And You made that possible through Jesus Christ our

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Lord. We pray now, Father, that as we study Your word. You would be our teacher by Your spirit.

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That You would help us to be hearers of the word. But also doers of the word.

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May You be glorified in it. And we just ask it in Jesus' mighty name. Amen. Last time we looked at the qualifications for elders.

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In 1 Timothy chapter 3. The first part. I'm getting a little bit of a...

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Are you all hearing that? Or is that just me? I never know if the ringing in my ears is just the normal ringing that I always have.

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But last time we looked at the office of elder. And how important that was to the church. And the priority that it is given in the word of God.

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And especially in this letter. We heard that. You hear that? Good.

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It's not you, sir. It's not me? Okay. I think we're there now.

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Maybe. Maybe not. The wonders of modern technology.

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Charles Haddon Spurgeon preached in the Metropolitan Tabernacle. That massive cavernous building without any amplification apparently.

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He must have had quite a voice. He did, yeah. Okay. I think we're good now.

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That sounds a little bit better. But the issue of elders we dealt with last time.

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Very, very important. And we saw that the basic definition in Scripture is a plurality of godly men.

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Who are charged by God with leading and feeding the church. So you have the imagery there, of course, of the shepherd.

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And that's what their task is. To shepherd the church. And we saw that the motivation is internal by the spirit of God.

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To lead the man to want to do that. And, of course, we want through the qualification for that. What we're going to see here in the qualifications for deacons will really be an echo of that.

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You're going to see some of the very same things. And it only makes sense, right? That qualifications that are spiritual qualifications would be pretty much across the board.

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It's not going to be compartmentalized into vastly different kinds of qualifications.

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And, by the way, these are qualifications, for the most part, for every single believer in Jesus Christ. We are all supposed to have these qualities in our lives as we grow in Christ.

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One of the observations that the students of the New Testament made is that when the church was born on Pentecost, it had already in place the concept of male leadership in the church.

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Of course, this would have come out of the history of the temple worship led by men.

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And also as the Jews were dispersed throughout the nations when they established synagogues, they were led by men.

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Christ had personally chosen the twelve. We know that Judas passed off the scene, as he did.

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He was replaced by Matthias in Acts chapter 1. So on the day of Pentecost, when 3 ,000 people were saved, the leadership of the church was in place in the person of the twelve apostles.

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And they basically functioned like the elders would function later on. Ministry of the Word and so on.

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Paul, of course, was added later. And as the church moved out into the world in that initial missionary movement, the churches were established and they needed shepherds.

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And so that apostolic generation would eventually pass off the scene. And it is very clear from the

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New Testament that there is not a succession of apostles. In spite of what various systems have taught and different movements have taught through the years, there are no more apostles.

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There is a succession, but it's not of people. It is of the truth, the Word of God, the

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Scriptures. This is what we pass on down to the next generation. So early on, God ordained that his church would be led by a plurality of godly men.

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And as Paul says in Titus chapter 1, who must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught, so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and to rebuke those who contradict it.

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So as we arrive at chapter 3, verses 8 through 13, the apostle

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Paul describes the qualifications for another office in the church. An office that apparently was not known at the birth of the church.

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The office of deacon. This is another group of leaders that is critical, absolutely critical, to the health and the functioning of God's church.

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On the day of Pentecost, recorded next to the twelve apostles, were the leaders of this brand new entity called the

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Body of Christ, the church. And the Jews, the Old Testament Jews, the Old Testament Jewish Christians now, would have automatically assumed that the church would be led by men.

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Again, because of the temple being led by men, and synagogues would have had male leadership.

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But there was not an office known as deacons. So when the need arose in Acts chapter 6, there was no office in place.

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And so the need came about and the apostles responded to that need.

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So this morning there on your notes, starting with Roman numeral 1, we're going to look at the office, and then the qualifications, and then the rewards.

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First, the office. Best place to start here, I think, is John chapter 13. Because even though the office is not mentioned there in the upper room, the mindset is, and this is really critical to understand,

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Christ wants to establish in his disciples the mindset of servanthood.

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And of course, in John chapter 13, he's gathering them in the upper room the night before his crucifixion, and he gives them very, very powerful audio, visual, and even tactile lesson when he washes their feet.

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It says in chapter 13, Now before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the

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Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.

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During supper, when the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray him,

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Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands and that he had come from God and was going back to God, rose from supper, he laid aside his outer garments and taking a towel, tied it around his waist.

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This would have been the garb of the typical household servant to wrap a towel around their waist to serve people.

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Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him.

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And of course, we know when he came to Simon Peter, they had that interchange, and then he has to later on tell them actually what he did.

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Verse 13, You call me teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am.

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If I then, your Lord and teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet.

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For I have given you an example that you also should do just as I have done to you.

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Truly, truly, I say to you, a servant, and here it's the word doulos, the absolute slave, is not greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him.

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If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them. So there at the very beginning, even before he dies on the cross, he wants to instill in his disciples the mindset of service to one another.

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And then in Philippians chapter 2, we won't turn there, but later on the

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Apostle Paul has to remind the Philippians of this same attitude. And you know that passage very well,

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Philippians chapter 2. Let this mind be in you that was also in Christ Jesus.

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And so then he talks about the servanthood of Christ and how his death on the cross was a sacrifice that paid atonement for sins, but it also becomes the model for how we are to consider ourselves in service to one another.

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So these are two foundational passages to look at as far as the office and how it had its actual initial beginning.

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It starts with the mindset, and then later on in Acts chapter 6, when the need arises, we see its development.

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This is B on your outline. So if you look at Acts chapter 6, this is thought by many to be the very beginning of the office of deacons.

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Now there are those that say, well, it really didn't start here because it doesn't formally call this an office or it doesn't call them deacons.

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But what we're going to see, I think, here is you do see the beginning of this office within the church itself.

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So here you have the church. It is after the day of Pentecost. The disciples are preaching and teaching in synagogue.

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And back up in chapter 5, of course, they meet opposition by the religious establishment of the day. And they're arrested.

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They're charged in verse 28 of 5. It says, We strictly charge you not to teach in this name, yet here you have filled

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Jerusalem with your teaching, and you intended to bring this man's blood upon us.

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How did they respond? They said, okay, we're never going to do that again. We're going home. We'll see you later. Goodbye. They didn't do that.

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Verse 29, But Peter and the apostles answered, We must obey God rather than men.

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Also very foundational to who we are and what we are. And then he gives that great sermon there from 30 on down in chapter 5.

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And he really just pulls out the old Louisville slugger. And this is some real blunt force evangelism here.

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Basically, he tells these Jewish leaders, You murdered your own Messiah. That's what he tells them.

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And then down in verse 38 and following, They are again called in, verse 40,

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And when they had called in the apostles, they beat them and charged them not to speak in the name of Jesus and let them go.

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And once again, Then they left the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name.

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And what did they do? Every day in the temple and from house to house.

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Very important little phrase there, house to house. They did not cease teaching and preaching Jesus as the

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Christ. Now the very next verse in chapter 6, verse 1, This is a little bit of a progress report.

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This tells you how the Holy Spirit responded to their obedience to the will of God, to obeying

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God. Now in these days when the disciples were increasing in number, a complaint by the

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

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The Hellenists were Greek -speaking converts to Christianity. They were Jews who had lived outside of Jerusalem, Judea.

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And of course the commonly spoken language was Greek, Koine Greek, Common Greek. It was a trade language and commonly spoken by people out in those areas, other countries.

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They were saved, came in, and they were part of the church. And there apparently was some sort of a conflict with the feeding of these widows.

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The Greek -speaking widows were being neglected in the daily distribution.

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By the way, that word is diakonia, the very word that we get the word deacon from. The word deacon is simply just a transliteration of the

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Greek word. It's just brought over into our language, basically untranslated. And here is this word, one of the part in the family of those words, diakonia, in the distribution.

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Apparently there was still some animosity within the church. You remember back in chapter 2 of 1

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Timothy where Paul talks about men leading worship, that he wants them to lead worship without anger or wrath.

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These were saved people, they were in the church, but there was probably still some residual animosity even between Jews and Gentiles.

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And at least here, something was going on between the Hebrew -speaking people and the

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Jewish -speaking people. They were making some kind of a division and some sort of an issue had arose and these

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Hellenistic or Greek -speaking widows were not being fed when the church would feed the widows.

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And the apostles then are going to respond. Verse 2 says, And the twelve summoned the full number of the disciples and said,

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It is not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables.

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Now we have the verb form, diakonene, of that very same word. Therefore, brothers, pick out from among you seven men of good repute, full of the

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Spirit and of wisdom, whom we will appoint to this duty. So here the twelve, the apostles, are functioning like the elders would function later on.

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They have oversight over the church, but they are also delegating responsibility to the congregation to select these men to serve the widows.

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And we're going to see why would the congregation be involved in that. Well, they have to be men of good report, good reputation.

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And who would know that? The congregation would know that. But they delegate that to them and it says,

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Pick out from among you seven men of good repute, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we will appoint to this duty.

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So even though they delegated the responsibility to select some men, ultimately, because they had oversight over the church, as elders do today, they were the ones that were going to actually make the final decision as to who would serve.

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But here's verse four, it's really important. But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry, by the way, also the word, diakonos, of the word.

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Even though there was a need arose in the church to meet this need, they delegated responsibility to find people to meet that need.

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They kept the priority of the word and prayer. This priority then extends clear into the church.

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This is one of the reasons you have elders dedicated to preaching and teaching the word of God. It's a priority of the church.

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And you have the deacons who help them maintain that priority by taking care of other things.

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Even though it's a critical ministry and it's a spiritual ministry, the preaching of the word and the teaching of the word is the priority of the church.

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Verse five says, And what they said pleased the whole gathering. And they chose

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Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit, and Philip, and Prochorus, and Nicanor, and Timon, and Parmenas, and Nicolaus, a proselyte of Antioch.

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Greek names, by the way. Pretty wise to do that. These they set before the apostles, and they prayed and laid their hands on them.

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And just to give you another progress report, to show you how the Holy Spirit honored their obedience to doing this and to maintaining the priority of the preaching of the word, look at verse seven.

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And the word of God continued to increase, 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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It's one of the first of six progress reports in the book of Acts. They obeyed God, they obeyed the leading of the

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Spirit, they kept the priorities where they should be, and yet they met the need that came up in the church, and God honored that, and the church continued to grow and multiply.

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And by the way, a great many priests became obedient to the faith. What you're going to see is, and it's really important to see, is that this internal ministry within the church is a powerful evangelistic tool.

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It may be the most powerful evangelistic tool. When Jesus, again, met with his disciples in the upper room, and it's back to chapter 13, a new commandment

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I give you, that you love one another, internal ministry, just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another, by this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.

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Powerful evangelistic tool is the internal ministry, the one another ministries of the church to the outside world.

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We may not think of it that way, but it is, and you can clearly see it here. They kept the priority of the word of God in prayer, and God honored that by multiplying their numbers right there in Jerusalem.

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Even in the midst of persecution, right? So, the origin of the office, the thinking, the undergirding mindset from John 13 in the example of Christ, but also in Acts chapter 6, the one another ministries of the

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New Testament is put on display. Well, what about the purpose? The purpose, of course, simply to serve.

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It's very important to see the office of deacons is a service ministry, and it is a ministry.

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The duties are not stated in our passage, as we'll see, because it covers just a wide range of duties.

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Certainly, it would have involved feeding the widows, if that was part of what they did then, and it would include that.

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But the main division of labor, so to speak, is that the elders focus on the feeding and leading, and the deacons focus on the other ministries of the church.

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The word is used more than 100 times in its various forms in the New Testament. For example,

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Matthew 4 .11, the temptation of Christ, after he was tempted by Satan, and Satan left him, it says, then the devil left him, and behold, angels came and ministered to him.

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In the ESV, that is the word deaconun, very same word family. They were deacons to Christ.

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And then in Matthew chapter 20, even before he got into the upper room, the Lord had to give his disciples a lesson in how their minds were supposed to get right as far as service.

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They anticipated the coming of the kingdom. There was a very high level of messianic hope and expectation in that time, in that place, and with those people.

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And here, they have the king right in front of them. They have the Messiah. They know who he is, and he's clearly proven to be the rightful heir to the throne of David.

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So there's a high level of messianic expectation. They expected the kingdom to be implemented at any point in time.

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And what did they do? They started jockeying for position in the coming kingdom. And two of them, as you remember, their mother tried to intercede for them.

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How embarrassing, right? Get your mother to go talk to Jesus. And of course, it says in Matthew 20, when the ten heard of it, they were indignant at the two brothers.

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But Jesus called them to him and said, you know that the rulers of the

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Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them.

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It shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant.

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The word is diakonos, deacon. And whoever would be first among you must be your slave, doulos.

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So here, just interchangeably, the word deacon and slave are in the very same context with the very same mindset.

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Even as the Son of Man came not to be served, diakono, but to serve, diakono, and to give his life as a ransom for many.

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Once again, Christ, the supreme example of service to those he loves. And hopefully these guys,

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I'm sure they were embarrassed at this teaching. But here you once again have this concept of Christ being the supreme example of service and servanthood to his flock, and those who follow him are to do the very same thing.

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So the origin, the mindset, of course, is before Acts chapter 6.

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But in Acts chapter 6, we really see the implementation of it, I think, there. And its development is along the way.

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When Acts took place, depending on how you date this, and different people date it, but let's say 30

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A .D. in Jerusalem, in Philippians chapter 1, and we looked at this last time, the Apostle Paul addresses the

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Philippian Christians. He probably wrote that around 60 A .D., about 30 years later. He addresses that letter to the saints in Philippi with the overseers and deacons.

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And he uses the word for overseer there, and deacons. So those two offices were in place at that point in time.

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And so you see that over about 30 year span of time, and then to our passage here in 1

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Timothy chapter 3, probably written around 62 A .D. So by this time, the office was well established, and what

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Paul is doing here with Timothy, he's going back and he's correcting what went wrong in Ephesus. They understood what the elders should have been doing, and he corrects that, and now he's correcting this idea of what the deacons are supposed to be doing, how they are supposed to be servants.

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So there's the office, its origin, its development, and its purpose is to serve. And again, the supreme example of that, in case you're wondering, is

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Christ himself, and that great passage in Philippians, let this mind be in you, is so important to see.

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Well, then we're gonna see the qualifications in verses 8 through 12 in our passage here this morning. And again, it's going to be very similar to what we saw for the elders.

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And first we, and no surprise, his character. Deacons, verse 8, likewise must be dignified, not double -tongued, not addicted to much wine, not greedy for dishonest gain.

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So his character starts out, it has to be dignified. It means worthy of respect, and it's essentially, basically synonymous with above reproach.

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We saw it two times in the criteria for elders, above reproach is mentioned, and we also saw it in Titus two times, above reproach.

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Doesn't mean without sin, it can't be that, that nobody would qualify for anything. But it means all of the accusations that are gonna come against a man who takes a stand for the word of God, who is slandered and accused of all kinds of things, they can't reach him and grab hold of him.

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That's the literal understanding of that word. Can't be laid hold of by these accusations. And then not double -tongued.

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He must speak the truth. He cannot say one thing part of the time or live one way part of the time and then speak or live another way another time.

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He must be a man of integrity. We're gonna see this a little later on when we talk about how he lives and his doctrine, his life and his doctrine.

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He's gotta be a man that is whole. In math, an integer is a whole number.

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It's integral. It doesn't have parts and pieces. And it's so typical nowadays.

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You hear somebody talk, and they talk pretty good. Somebody even in ministry. And then you find out over here they've lived a life of sin, and it's found out, right?

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Well, how did they do that? Well, so often these people, they're not integrated in their life and doctrine, and they make a separation.

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And they stack up a whole bunch of religious stuff over here thinking it's gonna balance out this sinful life over here.

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And the problem is the minute this gets so far separated, the thing breaks down, and it collapses.

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And when they get discovered, you realize, wait a minute, how could this guy, who's been a well -respected teacher or whatever he is in his so -called ministry, well, he's able to then, he says, separated these two things, and he's never been integrated.

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A man has to be not double -tongued. He's got to live, think, speak the same.

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And, of course, this is true for every single one of us. And then, not addicted to much wine.

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Not a drunkard. He cannot be controlled or mastered by anything other than the

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Holy Spirit. We saw this last time. What a person is addicted to controls them.

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It occupies them. They're always thinking about where they're going to get the next, you fill in the blank, to satisfy their addiction.

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They are not controlled or filled with the Holy Spirit of God. And then not greedy for dishonest gain.

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How he relates to money, and not just his own money, but to other people's money as well. Because very often, deacons are put in charge of financial issues within the church as part of their service ministry.

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They must be able to handle the stewardship of money with integrity. And then, his doctrine.

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Again, very important, but also true for every single one of us. It says that they must hold the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience.

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I think it was on page six of your notes, you have a list of the references to the faith that are in the

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New Testament. All of them aren't there, but there's quite a few of them there. It's talking about the content of our faith.

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We have our subjective faith, of course, in Christ. And those two, of course, are linked.

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But what it really is talking about there is their faith, the faith is the content of our faith.

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The objective word of God. The scriptures, the gospel, pure doctrine. He must hold the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience.

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Here we're back to this idea of being a whole person, right? If his conscience isn't clear, but his doctrine is, something's seriously wrong.

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You can't operate that way, you can't function that way. His faith must be held with a clear conscience.

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His main duty may not include teaching or preaching, but there's nothing to prohibit deacons from teaching.

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They should teach. There should be lots of teachers in the church. But he must be sound in his doctrine, as all the rest of us should be as well.

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And even though he may have some teaching responsibilities, it may not be the main thing he does as far as his service.

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But whether or not he teaches, he must still hold to and believe in sound or healthy doctrine.

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And so we see then his character, his doctrine, and then his testing.

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It says, and let them also be tested first. Then let them serve as deacons if they prove themselves blameless.

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In the life of a Christian, these two things always go together, you know, our life and our doctrine, as we're going to see.

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And so his testing would be a part of that. It doesn't say it's a formal test. He doesn't give a formal test other than pure doctrine and his life.

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And those things are always together. Our life, our morality, how we live, and it's often gathered up in the little word love.

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Paul often talks about your faith and love. He wants to see your love as a product of your true faith or belief.

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Go back to the supreme example. Jesus, we're told in John 1 .14, was full of grace and truth.

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He wasn't a good 50 -50 mix, by the way, like half -calf, you know. He wasn't a good blend.

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He was full of grace and full of truth like no other human being who ever lived. He was fully

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God and fully man. But these two parts of his person were there.

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Paul says in Ephesians 4 .15, we are to speak the truth in love. So both those things are there.

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Peter told his readers, 2 Peter 3 .18, his last words to the church, grow in the grace and knowledge of our

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Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. And even if you look over at chapter 4, verse 16, right there in 1

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Timothy, Paul's real concerned about Timothy's doctrine, but he's also concerned about his life.

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And he says, keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your heirs.

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And he's really concerned about his spiritual life, his morality, as well as his doctrine.

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Both of those have to be in place. So a deacon should be tested concerning these things.

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Titus was, if you go into Titus, Titus is very interesting. He's on the island of Crete, and Timothy of course is in Ephesus.

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Titus is mentioned 13 times in the New Testament, 9 times in 2 Corinthians. He was a big help to the

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Apostle Paul in Paul's Corinthian ministry. Read through 2 Corinthians, see how often

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Titus is mentioned. And in 2 Corinthians chapter 8, he's talking about this offering that is taken.

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It's going to be taken and given to people who are suffering during a time of famine. And Titus is put in charge of that, and Paul entrusts

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Titus. So Titus was a very trustworthy man. He certainly would have qualified as a deacon in Paul's ministry.

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Extremely helpful to him. So he is to be tested as far as these things, and even the men in Acts chapter 6 were tested according to that criteria.

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Full of the Holy Spirit and so on. Very, very important. And then D, his wife.

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This is probably a verse that has maybe the most interpretive issues swirling around it.

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The ESV says, Now, that word wife there, here it's plural, wives, can also be translated as woman.

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And how you understand that word being used here by Paul is going to decide usually whether or not you see this as the establishment of a third office in the church, an office of deaconess.

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The New American Standard says women. The Christian Standard Bible, wives,

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NIV took it to be women. Some, again, have taken this to be a third office in the church.

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And they'll use this passage and translate this as women so that there would be the establishment, they say, of an office of deaconesses in the church.

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They might go to Romans chapter 16 verse 1 and 2 where Paul talks about Phoebe. He commends

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Phoebe and calls her a deacon. And talks about how much of a servant she was to him and to others in ministry.

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But even there he's not establishing any kind of an office and doesn't talk about her as if she's part of an office.

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He simply is commending her for her service to him and to other people in the church. The word there is supplied by the translators.

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So the translators of the ESV obviously are taking this to be the wives of deacons.

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Very literally it says, Wives, likewise, dignified, not slanderers, sober -minded, faithful in all things.

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And others argue that if it's a reference to the deacon's wives, why is there no reference to the qualifications for the elders' wives back in chapter 3 verses 1 through 7?

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Why aren't the wives of the elders mentioned in the qualifications for elders? Not all elders are married, that could be.

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But there's also a very fundamental reason. Elders are in charge of oversight over the entire church, which would include men.

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And what has Paul done up in chapter 2 verses 11 through 15? He excludes women from that office for that very reason.

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They are not to have oversight or be in charge of men, have authority over men.

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So he eliminates that right out of the starting blocks there as far as a participant in that ministry.

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So when you see an advertisement for a church and it says pastors, and there's two names and it's the pastor and his wife are the pastors of that church, generally speaking, that arrangement is not going to be biblical because she is considered to be a co -pastor with him or a co -elder.

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That is not scriptural according to 1 Timothy. And so that's one of those arguments.

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If he is addressing the wives of deacons, it's not an office of oversight or ruling in that regard.

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And his wife very well could participate with him in anything she's qualified to help him with. And she should, right?

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If he's involved in feeding people, mercy ministries, those types of things, then she more than likely would participate in that even though she is not a deacon in the church, she could participate in that as well.

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Even church history into the 4th century, Canon 19, the Council of Nicaea, it's the first mention of the idea of women being deacons, and that's a long ways into church history.

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But if this is a reference to the wives of the deacons, one of the reasons that I take it that way, the very same word is used in verse 12, let deacons each be the husband of one wife.

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There it's singular, but it's the exact same word. Now if you're going to translate a word two different ways within an immediate context, you should probably have some pretty strong warrant from the context itself.

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And so it makes sense for this to be understood to be wives and not just generically women.

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In verse 12, also the issue of the deacon's management of his household comes up.

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And I think verse 11 is simply Paul introducing this concept. Who would be the deacon's most important person in his household?

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Men. Get it right. His wife, right?

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His wife is the most important relationship in his household. Not his children, they're important.

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Like I always tell my granddaughters when they were young, I love children when they're properly cooked. Or even the parental generation.

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There's an important principle in the scripture, clear back to creation, right? Is that the generation, when they're married, they become an entity.

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They become something very special and important. And that marriage, that relationship is more important than the previous generation and even the subsequent generation of children.

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They're going to pass away and the children, probably, will go out of the picture at some point in time.

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The marriage is still there and God brought those two people together for that purpose. And so I think what he's doing here, he's simply introducing wives into the picture because they're the most important part of this man's household.

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And so another issue is here too, if he is introducing a new office in verse 11, it's a little strange, just in the narrative here, to see him insert this issue of women deaconesses and then pick back up again talking about the requirements for deacons.

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It's a little strange and she has a pretty short list of requirements as well. So Paul probably would have talked about elders and then deacons, male deacons, and then deaconesses and he would have put more stress on the office but he really just sort of inserts this in here.

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So I think the best way to understand it is he's making a reference to the deacon's wives.

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

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Again, these requirements are requirements that every single Christian should strive for.

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And then again, we're still in this idea of his household. His wife, most important part of his household, but then the rest of his household.

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It says, let deacons each be the husband of one wife, managing their children and their households well.

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And here, once again, we have this idea. He needs to be a one -woman man.

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We talked about this last time. It's very same construction essentially, a one -woman man.

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He's talking about a man who's faithful to his wife, that he's not distracted by other women.

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He does not try to pursue other relationships outside of his marriage, but he focuses on his marriage as the most important relationship that he has.

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And then managing his own household well. It is observably true how this man manages his household.

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So, his character, his doctrine, his testing, his wife, and then his household. And again,

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I think D and E probably could be included in one category.

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His household, most importantly, is his wife in his household. Well, then the rewards.

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Very literally, this says, the serving well ones are obtaining for themselves.

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The serving well ones. If you just read this, you might think, well, this is talking about his rewards in heaven.

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Paul says, 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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The serving well ones are obtaining right now. That's a present active verb.

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They're right now, during this lifetime, obtaining for themselves a good or high standing before their congregation.

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And again, a good or great confidence in their personal faith in Jesus Christ.

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The little phrase, in the faith that is in Christ Jesus, governs both of these statements. So, you could kind of render it this way.

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As they serve well as deacons, they gain a good standing for themselves in the faith that is in Christ Jesus.

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And as they serve well, they gain for themselves a great confidence in the faith that is in Christ Jesus.

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Essentially, he's looking at the external, their reputation, good standing, and the internal, their subjective faith.

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They should have confidence in their faith in Jesus Christ. So, there's rule number eight, select qualified deacons, the office, the qualifications, and the rewards.

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It's important that we understand the rewards. Faithful service is rewarded by God.

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And the office of deacon is critical to the functioning of the church and the spiritual testimony of the church.

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It's not just a position of meeting some kind of material need. I understand how it works oftentimes.

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But it is a spiritual service to the church. And as we saw back in Acts chapter 6, it has a powerful evangelistic impact on the world.

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So, do you have any questions about what we've seen here? Yeah. Well, I wouldn't know.

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I mean, not that I know of. The question is, in the churches, and historically there have been quite a few, the

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Methodist church commonly would have deaconesses. The question is, have there been any problems that emerge in the churches that do have a board of deaconesses?

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Not that I know of per se, but then again, I've never been involved in one that does. So it's kind of I'm answering out of ignorance there.

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There may be. To me, the real issue is, what is prescribed in Scripture? And what does

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Scripture establish as far as what are the offices of the church?

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There was another question. Julie? Absolutely.

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Oh, yeah.

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I probably should have mentioned that. I'm sure I leave out an awful lot. Also left out that one of the arguments is, well, he is supposed to be a lover of hospitality, and certainly she's going to be involved in that.

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So you sort of have to stand back and look at the bigger picture of, what does a wife back to creation? Eve was given to Adam to be his helpmate.

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And so certainly, all elders, anybody involved in ministry of any kind, any man who's married and a

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Christian should be depending on his wife for a lot of things, to be his helper, to be his encourager, and so on.

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So, yeah, that's a good addition to this. And let's see, was there a question over here?

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We're not going to cover all the bases in a class like this, because personally,

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I wouldn't think so. I think it would be outside the framework of what Scripture calls for. No matter what, if it's a ministry of the church, the elders are in charge of it.

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In other words, they are the overseers of all those ministries. Now, if there's a delegated ministry of some kind to, obviously there's going to be teachers and Sunday school teachers, and there should be lots of women teachers in the church, they're just limited from exercising oversight over men.

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Question then comes in, okay, how old? Sixth grade boys? Seventh grade boys? At what point do they become under that framework of men?

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And that's something that churches have to just work out. Probably the best answer I can give you on that may not be a comprehensive one, but okay.

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Anything else from this? There's a lot of really good tools out there and books and publications available to help us understand these offices of the church.

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One of the best that I've come across is a pastor and an elder. His name is Alexander Strach. He's done some just exceptional work, especially early on his work on elders.

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He was responding really to the fact that in the big evangelical church, the office of elder just was sort of decaying as far as their biblical requirements.

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And his work on elders and the recovery of biblical eldership in the church is really, really good.

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He also wrote a very excellent book on the New Testament deacon. The title of the book,

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Minister of Mercy. And one of the things that's so good about it is he stresses the fact that this is a ministry in the church, and it's a ministry of mercy, even though it's a ministry that involves maybe meeting a lot of material issues in the church.

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Listen to one section that he talks about, and I think you'll get a sense of what he sees as the priority for elders as well as what the biblical criteria is.

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Through the deacons, the local church's charitable activities are effectively organized and centralized.

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The deacons are collectors of funds, distributors of relief, and agents of mercy. They help the poor, the jobless, the sick, the widowed, the elderly, the homeless, the shut -in, the refugees, and the disabled.

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They counsel and guide people. They visit people in their homes. They relieve suffering.

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They comfort, protect, and encourage people and help to meet their needs. In contemporary language, they are the congregation's social workers.

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Their work, though often hard and exasperating, is most precious in God's eyes.

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He is deeply concerned about the poor and the needy. And here he quotes James 127, the passage that Justin Peters preached on last

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Sunday. This is pure and undefiled religion, declares James, to visit orphans and widows in their distress.

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He goes on to say, Caring for the needy is essential business in authentic Christianity, yet the needy are often neglected and even despised.

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This should not be. The local church must care for its needy members, and the diaconate, the deacons, is the official church body responsible for this task.

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He goes on to say, The deacons hold a distinct office of loving service to those who are in distress, to those who are dear to God's heart.

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As is so admirably illustrated for us in Acts chapter 6, the deacon's office is essential to the local church and our witness for Christ.

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Stress on witness for Christ there. Deacons have the honor of modeling for the local church and a lost world

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God's compassion, kindness, mercy, and love. When the local church compassionately cares for people's needs, the world sees a visible display of Christ's love, which will draw some people to the

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Savior. So every local church needs faithful, dedicated deacons who have Christ's compassionate heart for the needy.

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And I can only add amen to that. Let's pray. Father, thank you for your word this morning and thank you for the clarity of it and that this office is critical to the functioning of the church.

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And as we have seen, it's also a powerful evangelistic tool to draw people to faith in Jesus Christ.

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We thank you, Father, for those who serve in this fellowship. May you bless them richly.

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And now, Father, as we gather to worship you, help us to come with hearts open to hear your word preached and to sing your praises, to fellowship with one another.

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Give great encouragement and strength to those who would lead us now. And we just thank you for all you're doing.