Have You Not Read S2E28 - Deacon Boards

Welcome to have you not read a podcast seeking to answer questions from the text of scripture for the honor of Christ and the edification Of the Saints before we dig into our topic. We humbly ask you to rate review and share the podcast.

Thank you. I'm Andrew Hudson joining me today or Michael Deere and David Kasson all right, so we have a I guess a follow-up question to one of our previous episodes about the roles of Well church governance pastors elders deacons.

David you receive this question. Yeah, what do you got? Well, we we had an episode regarding.

What do you do when a pastor has too much power and Based upon a true story, but there but we expanded it to different kinds of Churches as well in this particular church in question where we get the impetus for this question.

You basically have a single pastor and then a deacon board and somebody had asked me as it says Well, if I could ask a follow-up question, I went yeah, please Go ahead. It says what do you do when the deacons have too much power as like, what do you mean?

It's like well How do you handle like a really strong, you know deacon board and then I started to ask the question. Okay, let's What does what does the Bible say about deacons? What is really the biblical role of a deacon and the deacon board more or less is a modern invention like okay, so we treat some of our deacons as junior elders.

And perhaps we shouldn't we see them as as leaders in our in our churches and a lot of the Qualifications for an elder also match up with Deacon sure, especially when it comes to character and that makes a lot of sense.

You have shepherds elders Who have to have high character because they're handling the Word of God and then you have deacons have to have high character because they're handling Money, so I think it'd be important for us to ask the question What's the proper role of a deacon and how how should how should we Address an issue with deacons wielding too much power in a local congregation.

How would you address it biblically?

Christ as the Head of the Church and the Whole-Church Role in Discipline

Ultimately, I think it would be the agreed-upon goal that Christ would be seen clearly as the head of the church that it would be obvious and genuine that Christ would have the authority in the church.

Now, how does that manifest? Well, the the word is the scepter of his authority. We should be in agreement with the Bible. The churches should be structured and organized in agreement with the Bible. And so that's why we would be looking at the roles of deacon and elder as described in the scriptures and the role of the congregation.

So we find that it is the instruction to the whole congregation to pursue church discipline. To say yes. I am my brother's keeper. I am my sister's keeper and to walk through those steps of initially privately.

Seeking to win your brother or win your sister concerning an offense a sin and so on and if that doesn't work then taking to Take another person. So it'd be two or even three and then ultimately to the whole church.

The issue must be rightly addressed. So if there's a situation where somebody needs to be put outside of the church. That is not to be done by a single pastor. That is not to be done by a handful of elders.

That is not to be done by the deacon body. That is to be done by the whole body the whole church. It is a whole church thing and so the elders must lead the whole church in that regard. So that's something to remember in terms of there being.

That severe mercy the idea of course is still even then that the person who has been put outside the church would be one in the Realization of what they've lost and so when you think about you know, where the authority of the church is it is in Christ.

He is Lord and he organizes his church in this particular way and so if you have a situation where you have a church where there is like one pastor and And Their church polity is structured so that they have one pastor and then they have several deacons and then they have a congregation.

Then this would not be submitted to The Lordship of Christ that is not an agreement with what how what he said about how the church is to be organized. Again, now all churches recognize. We're not the perfect church.

I mean, they'll say that to people seeking membership. I want you to let you know we're not perfect. Okay. But we are to be sanctified we are to be washed with the water of Christ's Word ever more. Brought into growing into maturity growing to maturity.

We're not making excuses here saying well, we're not perfect and we ain't even gonna try. That's the wrong attitude. So we should look at the biblical differences between elders and deacons and we see that there are deacons plural a Church singular there are elders plural in a church singular.

This is the manifest witness of the scriptures. There are there is a very toxic controversy. Within some denominations about that Southern Baptist is one of those I was in seminary when a lot of the major fights against Having a plurality of elders in a Southern Baptist Church was going on the seminary I went to and they used to forbid any of their professors from being a member of a church.

That was Calvinist that Debate kind of faded and the new debate was they did not allow any of their professors to be a members of a church that had a plurality of elders because they consider that to be the path to.

Liberalism and the destruction of the church a plurality of elders. Yes, because they say path to liberalism.

Yes, they saw that as Presbyterian ism and they had plenty of examples. Sure. See here there. Yes, and there was a straw man fallacy, but they wanted to protect Congregationalism at all costs. So anyway, there is plenty of room for a plurality of elders within the congregational life.

There's that that's not a controversy in the scriptures. But what do you do if you have a single pastor and you have a bunch of deacons? Isn't it interesting? It's an interesting that the authority would flow to a group of men in the church.

Wouldn't be better to do it rightly in the way that Christ prescribed so but what do you do? Well deacons are to be. Those who who serve there to be reverent? They should be double-tongued not given a much one not greedy for money holding the mystery of the faith with a pure conscience.

They should be tested. They are to be husbands of one wife ruling their children in their own house as well. So there's some qualifications for the deacons, but what are they supposed to do acts? Chapter 6 shows us a division of labor between the those who would be elders.

Leading out in the preaching and teaching in the in the prayer of the prayer ministry of the church leadership in that way and the deacons are to be concerned with the property held in common the that which was given to the church for the for the good of the ministry, so.

Interestingly, yes in some cases in some churches The deacons are treated like sort of like junior elders. Also in other churches who do have plurality of elders. Some of the elders are treated like senior deacons and you've got elders doing deacon work and you've got deacons doing elder work and other churches and Honestly, we know what Christ prescribes is best and over time he will unfailingly Sanctify his church.

He will wash his bride with the water of his word. But if there is a local church who is in constant rebellion against him and investing in toxic structures. Eventually, he will put that candle out and there won't be a church there anymore and there are a lot of empty buildings.

Pass them all the time. Yeah, and it's like what what happened to that church, you know I guarantee you it wasn't violent persecution that put them out. It was disobedience to Christ at some level in some fashion in some way somehow.

There was a failure somewhere. And now the people who were left and had to close up shop. Maybe they were the faithful ones. But there was a history of disobedience somewhere that brought that to an end.

So How do you proceed? Right, if you're in a church that has a single pastor and a deacon board, you know, what do you do? Like hang on a second. This is a biblical why pastor a church like that? Like I was the I was the only guy I was they called me preacher.

Hey preacher I was the pastor when I interviewed with my said Why do you want a pastor because this is a small church, you know, and so why do you want a pastor? They told me because we need someone to handle the hard stuff.

You know, I was 25 and was like, well, that's interesting. Like you're here's a here's a 45 year old man. And here's a here's a 58 year old man and they're looking at me. They want they want a pastor to handle.

I'm 25 years old. What are you talking about? Yeah, I still bastard him. But I mean it was like, you know, yeah, but here's what what was happening. Were they were they giving? Homilies and teachings you bought vocationally had guys coming to fill it in from from a local seminary okay, you know and.

So what how they were structured they had two deacons and then they had a board of trustees. Okay, and there were three guys who were on the board of trustees and that sounds more like a business structure.

Yeah, so here's what is it? Yeah, it was in their Constitution everything. So here's what happened the two deacons. They were praying men very concerned about the spiritual health of the people. They were prone to teach one of them led the music and they just served it now.

They also, you know. They were organizing things and doing logistic things and one of them was handling the finances of the church as well. He was a banker. They seem like good men. Yeah, and then the trustees they were always concerned about the property of the church.

How do we improve it? How do we make sure that and so I had trustees who were deacons and I had deacons who were elders. And they didn't know it. They didn't know it and there was no way on God's green earth that this 25 year old was gonna come in and change the polity of that church No possible way.

So what I did was I began to try to cultivate Eldership in the two deacons. I began to try to cultivate that and I began to try to cultivate deacon like things amongst the trustees praying that over time.

That the labels would eventually be changed to confess In agreement with God what the spirit was doing, right? So ephesians 4 tells us that the holy spirit gives to the church everything that the church needs including the pastors and teachers.

So as we look at those passages that deal with the distinctions between elders and deacons. We know that elders teach and rule and and have that kind of spiritual authority and you mentioned act 6. There's some other passages where you have The deacons as far as the office goes.

As far as they like an official deacon. Handles money serves the poor does those kinds of of acts that are you know acts of service? I mean the word is diakonos. And it's translated either servant or minister through a couple different places.

I mean you have places where paul Um said he called himself a fellow. You know his collage is one the gospel of which I paul became a minister. It's diakonos, you know, he called timothy who was the pastor of that church.

He calls him a good servant same thing but when we read about it in first timothy Three it appears to be more of a an official servant. It appears to have an office. So this word is used as servant and minister and and so those those are all the yes.

But it appears to have some kind of official rendering and it appears also Not appear. It's pretty clear. It has a narrow scope. Yes, and it deals with giving it deals with money. It deals with serving serving tables in the case of except giving to the poor in other places so is that is that the correct understanding a Distinction between elder and deacon and and having a deacon board at a church with one teaching elder I mean, we should have a couple of elders but having that deacon board.

Is that necessarily a bad thing, you know a quote-unquote board.

Biblical Polity, Elder Bodies, and Deacon Bodies

Yeah, and again, we use the term board because that's kind of our american context. Um, but It's more biblical to talk about the elder body and the deacon body. Right because it is recognized in that ecclesiastical language that church.

Language from the bible that not every elder does exactly the same thing. But together we function we serve together and we're not, you know vying for different positions and in Contra distinction to one another trying to say well, I want to do that and then you don't want to do that.

Same thing with the deacon body. I was just talking to one of our deacons here the other day encouraging him and how he is serving the deacon body by being a good communicator and. That they needed somebody to be a good communicator and that others could do other things that he couldn't but he was really Serving the deacon body and making them more effective by being that communicative.

Go between for the deacon body and so it's good to recognize What a deacon is first of all and to recognize them as a as a body. Those who are equipped by christ for the service of his church. And so they could they can thrive in that role if you begin to invest into the deacon body the governance the authority of a board.

To run the church. That's not what they were called to do if you if deacons run the church. It will look like a business. It will feel like a business. Why. Because they are attuned to business matters.

But if elders are leading the church. Then it'll look different. It won't be about business considerations. It will be about Kingdom considerations. It'll be about the advance of the gospel of christ that kind of thing so.

What we see in the text though in the scriptures is that there was a need for plurality of elders and a plurality of deacons. Working together as brothers and the division of labor between the two so that deacons do what deacons do and elders do what elders do and they Benefit from one another that are complimenting one another but they're not getting in each other's way or trying to take over The things that the others are doing.

Elders should be leading the deacons showing through the scriptures. Exhorting them to serve. And deacons are to be stirring up everybody including the elders in the church to service. Organizing that providing for that so on and so there is a happy Collaboration between the two bodies.

That is a true blessing to the church. Now, if you don't have that, how do you promote that? Well number one Ephesians four again the holy spirit sovereignly grants to the church all. That the church needs so you have to pray you have to pray and ask god to provide and trust that he will and you need to.

If you're a member of a church and there's like one pastor and there's a deacon board. Okay, then you need to both pray and then exhort and encourage Those who are in leadership. Concerning these biblical models.

It's not something where you bring the bible in and say look here. You all are doing wrong and you all should resign. Okay, you should encourage the pastor and say If I happen to come across somebody in the church who has a desire and a gifting for teaching.

What would you suggest we do to encourage that man? Right because i'm you're praying for him, right? You're praying for rain. So get out your umbrella. Okay, you're praying for another teaching leader elder kind of person to be to cut to be in this church.

So you need to talk to the pastor. What do I do? Okay begin to plant those seeds begin to talk about those things there's no way that I as a 25 year old could have Changed the polity of liberty baptist church but God has his ways.

And the week after I was gone the man who was still their pastor stepped in. And he has a lot of wisdom. I mean silver hair. Okay. Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. And he led the church through those final Steps and led them into a biblical polity where the deacons became the elders and the trustees became the deacons.

He did that and I was able to come back for the ordination services and all of that. I couldn't have done it, but he did it, you know what and they're still working on that. Yeah, our history of our church was one in which there was one pastor one elder and he ran the church.

And the deacons better do what he tells them to do. Well in this sense you have you have elders you have an elder who was leading. But he didn't have anybody to help him and he did have a deacon body doing what deacons did.

But still it wasn't a biblical model. His name was harry boydston. He himself saw that preaching expositionally through the book of acts. Reading about how paul appointed elders plural in each church singular and he realized we don't have that model.

So he started it and it wasn't great. It wasn't robust. It wasn't wonderful, but he started it and then god continues to work that forward christ continues to sanctify the body till Today our elder body is far much more stronger far more biblical than it used to be.

Because jesus is doing that christ is doing that and and our deacons are are better than they were. You know Years ago when I when I first came why because christ is sanctifying the body christ is building that up.

So it's a long-term thing it's not something where you see that things are out of alignment and You have to snap your fingers and say throw the lever. Yeah, right. It's not something you can do overnight.

Christ doesn't do it overnight. We sure can't. But we need to be heading that direction so if there's a church that is you know if this church is a situation where it has an unbiblical polity and it is Zealously committed to the unbiblical polity no matter what you may need to find a different church.

That sounds like people who are replacing the word of god for man-made tradition to hey, this is this is it's been you know. This is the way that this church has been for for 80 years. Yeah, no creed, but culture.

Yeah.

So our culture that that's the only creed we need is the culture we've built here. Yeah, you know then that then you're in trouble.

So if you are part of That congregation where it's always been that way that's that's a difficult battleship to you know to turn around. Yes without a doubt. You could also be in the situation where you had a healthier model multiple elders a deacon board that does deacon things and people have started to Leave during and you're in a controversy like in in this church.

You've got one elder left a deacon board and you got some kind of issue with the uh, the head pastor you know, it's like it's it's so natural for us in the united states in Modern time. Well, we would go to our deacon board.

They're they're leaders in the church. We just we think along those lines from what you just said. We actually don't don't do that. The deacon board or the the deacon body is made up of good men. It's like okay.

Let's go talk to these guys not because they're deacons but because they're older and mature and of christians of high character. Okay, great but it's not uh, we had talked about this as far as the church discipline goes you have go to person one-on-one then two to three bring elders and Then you tell it tell it to the deacon body.

No, you tell it to the congregation the deacon body. Isn't the next step they have a specific role. And but they are part of the congregation at that point. So if you have a deacon board that has a lot of power, it's quite possibly you're in a church that has unbiblical polity and if you have a Deacon body that is doing deacon things and is very robust, but you still have only one pastor.

Okay that that's or only one elder. Okay, but at least you have a deacon body that's doing deacon stuff and they're not acting as junior elders. So you could also have that that possible, you know example and I don't know where where you if you're listening to this Uh where you fall in that in that spectrum?

But you have to start with the distinction between the elder. And the deacon and make sure that one the men filling those roles are staying in those in those lanes because they complement each other. So well, they're not blurring those and I think you made a really good point that you have a plurality of elders and a plurality.

Of tickets to to add a little bit of mix into their. Larger churches tend to be structured at you know, like corporate entities. And you have people with the title of pastor, uh, like facilities pastor, you know, how do you shepherd those toilets brother?

I don't I don't really know. Um or administrative pastor this guy. He's just running, you know, he's running the uh excel Spreadsheets for the church and and uh running the office keeping those secretaries hopping and you know.

Making sure that the you know, the mother's day out daycare thing keeps going baby business. Yeah, he's doing everything that a very high level deacon should be doing but he's got he's got the name pastor on him.

And maybe some of the other churches are like we need more biblical polity. We're gonna call you an elder now. Hang on a second. He's doing deacon work and and again good work important work and hey, this is great.

And maybe he should be paid for it, even though he's a deacon. There's no problem with that in the bible. So call but call him a deacon. He's a deacon. He should not be somebody who is like holding spiritual authority spiritual leadership in that in that sense.

Is he a godly man? Great, you know a good example in the church great. Um, but he's not a pastor and so there's confusion about that. And so in a situation you have a whole bunch of staff and they're called something other than pastor.

They're called something other than deacon and nobody knows what it is. You know, let's get biblical about it. Let's be very clear so that we're following christ and we know where those lines are. Also in smaller churches the reason why you have you know, the deacons have like this.

They're the ones who stay there a long time, right? They're the locals. They're the backbone. They're they're the steady on of the church pastors come and go especially smaller churches pastors are there just for a little while.

And then they move on a seminary primes young pastors for burnout. Right because they go to they get large cities in a urban Context to go to a seminary where everybody all the professors there go to larger churches city churches all the books and textbooks you read are written by people who go to larger churches city churches and then you go out to Some sort of rural context to pastor your first church and it blows up and you call them unbiblical.

But what just happened was was culture shock. And you have no idea how to love people from a rural context and how they operate and you look at the deacons. And you're like, you know, they're the problem.

You know, they're just stubborn and they don't want to follow jesus and there's not a spiritual drop of anything in them. And you write them all off has happened time and time and time again. But when you get in there and you begin to learn the people there begin to love them for who they are.

I don't care if they have you know possum brains with their eggs in the morning. You love them and you eat the possum brain eggs in the morning and you have that black coffee that you know. You can't hardly stir because it's so thick you go be with them and you love those people and shepherd those people.

Titus had to shepherd cretins for goodness sake you can shepherd country folk. And when you get in there, you're going to find that the elders the deacons who are there. Some of them have just given so much time and money to the church.

Just trying to help it keep going. All right, and they're going to be deacons. And then you have some deacons there that they're godly men. They pray the most they've been teaching sunday school for 20 25 years.

When there was no pastor and so-and-so's mother died. They're the ones who are there. Hello to your elders. Okay, and you're not going to get there overnight. But you have to get to know the people and love them and discover who is who?

According to how the spirit is operating and then begin to promote those Distinctives until finally we can put the labels on that the spirit already has. Yeah, where would we be without him? There's yeah spirit among us.

It's amazing. All right. Thank you for addressing that with the word. What media have you been consuming that you'd like to talk about. Okay, I like. Um, this is a book i've went through. More than once all dog-eared and underlined so on so forth.

It's called dominion and dynasty a theology of the hebrew bible by stephen dempster what he does is he goes through the Old testament as it was organized in the in the jewish bible so the torah the neviim and the kethuvim the law the The prophets and the writings and you'll even hear this mentioned in the new testament the moses and the prophets and the writings and this or the psalms and Very interestingly the way in which the old testament.

Or the hebrew bible is organized tells a very important story and what I love about uh, stephen dempster's work in this is showing how it tells a purposefully incomplete story and sets everything up for a resolution.

In a in one who was promised messiah. So I really really love his book. Good stuff. I have um,.

On actually on the recommendation of of my teenager. I have been reading a star wars book.

I know that's star wars you nerd. I know I know.

Just kidding. It's true. It's it's it's totally true. And and some people will listen to saying, you know, don't don't like the The genre or sci-fi and don't uh, certainly don't like what it has become many years ago.

The writer timothy zahn did a series of books and this first one is called heir to the empire. And i'm actually going over the the 20th anniversary edition and i'm doing the audio book. It's read by Mark thompson.

What I love about it has sound effects. It has different voices. It's it's like listening to a radio drama and like yourself. I commute often for work. So I listen to a lot of things and high quality art high quality writing poetry people who make excellent cars.

Beautiful paintings or really good narratives. We should be thanking god for beautiful music thanking god for you know, beautiful paintings and thanking god that he has Gifted people with with storytelling and with with any content obviously you always filter it through through the scriptures.

I mean Christ is our lens. But in this particular case, uh timothy zahn, I think is an is a an amazing writer. I'm thoroughly enjoying it and I am thankful, uh to my my teenager for introducing me to him.

Speaking of nerding i'm gonna go Non-spiritual book so i'm in a software engineering course and i've i've been learning about up until now object-oriented programming. But there's other paradigms recently.

I was learning or have been learning about functional programming. Specifically through the use of a language Derived from erlang called elixir. So i'm reading a book about using elixir for really big things you call me.

I know Tongue-in-cheek, right? Um it It was it was built to do big things. I want to learn to do big things. Uh, there are a lot of big things to be done. There are a lot of big things to be done here so.

That's what i've been getting into. One day i'll be building projects with it knowing about object-oriented programming and functional programming. So There there's always something to learn. God's Great creation that he has made sometimes it's the beauty of art.

Sometimes it's the beauty of mathematics. Thank god for both. Michael, what are you thankful for? I'm thankful for prospects for expectations for hope. For having things on the horizon that are good. That are noble to work for.

Knowing that our labor is not in vain because christ is risen from the dead so that planning things expecting good things to come. Anticipating things is all well and good that it's not it's not hopeless and I'm, so thankful that because christ has risen from the dead I can do things like plan for a family vacation and talk about what our Our summer session sunday school classes are going to be about and think about.

The the future years and decades of this church and how we can do things now. That will matter then. Amen.

Uh, i have been uh off work for a couple of days. Um, so yeah, but basically three days in a row. Where I was uh off and just got to do Work in the yard, uh, and I have been thankful for good weather.

It's been sunny, you know. Part of the cloudy and and It was just nice to get out into the dirt and I was pulling out plants and and putting things. Uh, you know relocating stuff and Tearing out thorny bushes and cutting stuff back and and my my wife was out with a giant Hedge trimmer and just just just slicing stuff.

It was I wish I got it on film because it was it was fantastic. She was just tearing it up and and she really didn't it did a nice job. But you know, I was doing two to three hours of of this outdoor kind of manual dirty labor.

It was great. Because it's so much of what i've done. I was is is intangible. It's spreadsheets. It's staff meetings. It's it's emails and and it's it's nothing that you can see but I I come back to the house and I can see just the the work that has been done and beautifying the property and you know Taking out old stuff putting in new stuff and and you take a Take a shower after all of that and you get all the grime and stuff.

I do just feel really satisfied. And and we were made For work, it's good. And after a day of that and you see what you've created. You just you're satisfied. So i'm i'm very thankful for the work. Uh the time off sharing that with amy as well and just creating something with our hands.

It was great.

I'm, thankful to god for my wife. I know on previous podcasts. We've talked about complementarianism. Uh, not in a goal in of itself. But my wife does compliment me and and by that i'm not saying good good things about me.

Uh, that's that's not what i'm thankful for compliment, right? I I tend to be very introspective. I I do a lot of thinking. I do a lot of planning mind type things. My wife. I thank god for her love of gardening.

I thank god for her love of getting out to the trail sometimes dragging me to get out to the trail. It's all great things spending time outside with with her. Our children the other day. She recently had a birthday.

She wanted to get tennis rackets for the family. So we went out and played tennis. I haven't played tennis in 10 Maybe 20 years. I mean a long time, but of course I pretended like I knew exactly what I was doing, right?

Um, but it was it was a wonderful time and if it wasn't for her wanting that for the family We wouldn't have done that. I thank god for her. I thank for the thank god for the way he made her. It's an amazing thing to to be truly united to.

Your wife your your one flesh. I'm thankful to god for that. And that wraps it up for today. We are very thankful for our listeners and hope you will join us again as we meet to answer common questions.

And objections with having not read.