God's Qualifications
for a
Deacon
Acts 6 and 1
Tim. 3:1-13
The early/Bible church had several organizational
styles: Jerusalem was a style that was unlike other styles, with the
saints having all things common and an almost communal church style. [Acts
2 & 4] The saints in Corinth were different, and the Aquila/Priscilla
church in their home was different still. The point is that church
organizations vary, but there are certain realities and
management/administrational aspects that are dictated by God’s word.
Certainly this is true: no church is administered (or should be, that is)
by friendship and personality, but by the word of God.
There is an over-arching concern that God has for all
ministers and pastors and that is that his saints should not be abused; as
he told Peter, he tells all ministers, to feed his lambs and his sheep.
[John 21:15] Lambs are baby sheep, and they should grow into adult sheep;
if they do not, those lambs are retarded, stunted in their growth. A
minister’s feeding must
be toward the growth of the lambs into sheep, but never grow lambs into dependent
sheep; instead, sheep that can stand on the word of God and think for
themselves and be able to discern Satan and all his tricks. [2 Cor. 2:11;
Eph. 4:13-14]
A child that stays at home after adulthood, asking
his parents to make decisions that he or she should be making for
himself/herself is a retarded child. He is not as God plans nor as
society accepts as normal. Likewise, lambs who never grow are retarded and
not as God plans. We are to grow into him; we are to grow unto perfection.
But today, in many churches there are Christians who, after years of
supposedly being saved, still ask pastors to make decisions they should be
making for them. This is often bred in them by insecure ministers
who preach dependency on themselves. God NEVER intended this. Instead,
Paul, in Hebrews, chides ministers for their juvenility and infantile
mindsets. When you should be teachers, you need that one teach you
again the first principles of the doctrine of Christ. You need milk and
are a babe. [Jer. 6:16; Eph. 4; Heb. 5 & 6]
I have seven children, and from the least to the
greatest, they are independent adults, making their own decisions. My
youngest is in college in another state. Yes, I give advice when asked
(and if I see a need) but she must make her own decisions and face the
consequences of those decisions. That is what she and all of them were
taught, and that is responsibility and adulthood. That is what lambs must
be taught and grow into—sheep/responsible adulthood. If they do not,
something is wrong, not only with them, but also with those ministers who
are teaching and supposedly guiding them. But to decipher their wrong, we
should do as Paul did when meeting the disciples of John the Baptist:
seeing their defectiveness, he looked to their antecedents to examine
them. If a saint is retarded (and do not deceive yourself, one is retarded
if that person has been saved some 5-100 years and is still going to the
preacher for decisions he/she should be making himself/herself) we must
look at their teachers to see what it is they are teaching.
Concerning the purpose a church organization or any
organization, it is developed to carry out a greater purpose or act than
can be carried out by a single or smaller number of individuals. Sometimes
their need may be the mere fellowshipping and spiritual strengthening of
the saints, sometimes it may be the physical aiding of the saints,
sometimes it may be the building of the structures for the saints, etc.
The early church primarily cared for the needs and nurturing of the
saints, and they remembered the poor and needy. [Acts 6; Gal. 2:10]
In the standard church order, the ministry of the
deacon is a lofty position that may have been overlooked in a number of
current churches. In the Jerusalem Church, the finances and governance
were administered by deacons; the ministers, rightly so, were not
concerned with money—unlike many ministers today, whose primary concern
is money to buy expensive cars and other worldly goods. [Acts 6] The
apostles studied the word, prayed, and administered the word. The deacons
administered the things of the church in the natural; the ministers
administered the things of the spirit—there were no ministers collecting
offerings as we shamefully see today.
But these deacons we not pastors’ patsies. They
were selected by the people as an independent branch of the church to
function in a specific way, and they were appointed by the ministers. Yes,
some of these deacons were evangelists as well, but their number one
function was to administer those needed carnal matters in the
church—distributing to the needs of the saints.
Deacon Position and Qualifications
Concerning the deacons, God used an occasion of dissension among the
Grecian Jews and the Hebrew Jews because of their widows being neglected
to give the ministry of the deacon to the church. The ministry of the
deacon was not spoken of by Jesus during his earthly ministry because the
institution of the church was not established in the apostles’ minds,
hence, the saints/apostles could not have understood a deaconship properly
or not at all. Jesus said that he had many things to say but they could
not then bear them. [John 16:12] This deacon ministry was one of those
ministries given to the church through the Holy Spirit.
God had the apostles specify how deacons are to be
selected and their qualifications: The church must select them and the
apostles appoint those selected. Second, they must meet the qualifications
found in Acts 6—honest men, full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom,
etc. Furthermore, Paul gives more qualifications for a deacon: he must
be grave, not double-tongued, not given to money, and one who holds the
mystery of the word in pure conscience. These men should first be proved
and must be blameless in that office. These men must also be married and
be the husband of one wife; their wives must be grave, not slanderers,
they must be sober-minded, and faithful in all things; they must rule
their children and their houses well. For those who serve in the office of
a deacon purchase a good degree and certain boldness in the faith. [1
Tim. 3:1-13]
We hardly hear of these biblical qualifications for
deacons. But a close examination of these qualification and those of the
bishop will show that they are almost the same. But then, we have bishops
who should have NEVER been ordained, called or referred to as bishops.
Many are so far removed from these qualifications and godliness that
one should not even call them brothers (and in some cases sisters)! It is
as if many of us care nothing about God’s qualifications and God’s
word, but rather our own desires. Yet, in society, we would not allow a
doctor to practice medicine without meeting certain qualifications, but we
allow those who are dealing with far greater aspects of ourselves than the
physical body to guide us without being qualified. This is not risky; this is suicidal to our eternal souls!
The apostles had the selected deacons brought to
them, and when they had prayed, they laid their hands on them, only then
were they deacons. That is the procedure God has laid down for selecting
and appointing deacons. [Acts 6:1-6] We see through Stephen and
Phillip’s actions that these deacons may also be ministers/evangelists.
[Acts 7 and 8]
This position is very important; as you can see, Paul
instructs Timothy, a bishop, of the qualifications of a bishop along with
the qualifications of a deacon.
The deacon position attends to the collecting of
offerings by the saints that have to give. They administer those
offerings/collections to the needs of other saints and the upkeep of the
church of God. It does not become the ministers of a church who minister
the word of God to serve tables. [Acts 6:2] They must give themselves to
the word of God and prayer.
Indeed, Paul writes that a minister must study to
show himself approved of God—there are many who are not approved of God;
they may have been called but not chosen/approved. [Mat. 22:14] And since
study is a weariness to the flesh, [Eccl. 12:12] when it is done
regularly, those who do it become workmen and need not be ashamed because
they rightly divide the word of truth. [2 Tim. 2:15] But those who are not
given to study need to be ashamed because they fail in their duties to get
enough from God to feed the lamb and sheep with the milk and meat of God’s word.
[Heb. 5:13-14] When they fail to study the word sufficiently enough to get
something from God to feed his people but teach them anyway, they feed
them milk and become oppressors of God’s people.
[Isa. 3:12] And when the word of God is not rightly divided, it is
NOT the word of God.
The deacon ministry is important, for it lightens the
load of ministers in the church and it saves him from the temptation of
money, which has led many ministers away from God into their own world of
worldliness and carnality.
Deacons and the Offering
The deacons are those who collect and distribute the collection for and to the saints of God. They are also the ones who administer to the house of God. It is not fitting, and it may even be a shame for a minister/pastor to collect offerings and serve tables. Of course, if that minister has no one but himself, he has to do everything, but as the assembly grows, he should ask the saints to select men according to the qualifications of scripture that he may appoint deacons to take care of the finances and the administration of those finances. The minister should never be given to money and the concerns of money, lest he be tempted and carried away from the word. To get the depth of God's word from God, a minister must give himself totally it—study it, pray about it, and walk in it--there is no substitute for precisely and meticulously walking in God's word and allowing it to become a lamp unto your feet and a light unto your pathway. [Psa. 119:105]
When that is done, you are striving for perfection and the word is daily and hourly becoming a habit in and with you; then that habit is inculcated into your very being so that God's word is who you are; it is a mental gestalt that guides your conscious and subconscious desires and behaviors; it is a child who has grown up into a family and the behaviors and thoughts of that family are who that child is; it is the elder son in Luke 15, who has allowed all that he has to co-mingle with his father's and so grow with the father's and is indistinguishable from his father's. When my father died, he had left me as executor of his will. The oldest sibling commented that she saw why my father had appointed me executor--"You are just like dad," she commented. I took a great deal of pride in that because I respected my father.
Without that type of walk with God, you will NEVER get the deeper truths of God's word, and there are truths of God's word that can only be gotten through the doing of it, not merely reading or studying it.
Money distractions harm the focus of the serious
minister of God; that is why God has arranged for money and its administration
to be the purview of the
deacons.
Concerning the offering collected from the saints,
God has instituted a free-will offering, certainly not a tithe; that is an
Old Testament doctrine that has no application to New Testament saints. I
am aware that this system is employed in many churches, but it is a
serious spiritual wrong for New Testament Christians to pay tithes. But in
many carnal churches, headed by carnal ministers who are given to a lofty
lifestyles there is often a tithe system in place. But the offering of
saints is primarily for the needs of the saints and for remembering the
poor. Yes, the ministry is to be supported, but certainly no minister of
God should be clothed in this world’s goods as if he were a butterfly.
Yet, this butterfly effect is exhibited in church-bought Rolls Royce and
Mercedes Benz cars, overly expensive clothing and housing, under the
irrational logic of fools, namely this, “I want my pastor to have the
best. We are the head not the tail,” etc., and other intrigues of carnal
minds.
Bishop's Qualifications
and
Apostle's Qualifications
The Word of
Truth Ministries
Copyright
© 2005 by The Truth of God
