The Qualifications of Deacons

The following comments are for chapter 13 of Batsell Barrett Baxter's book, The Family of God, concerning the qualifications of deacons and a few related topics.

Deacons are servants, helpers in the church, who look after certain aspects of church life.  The task can be anything from helping those in need to just making sure everything gets done that the church needs to have done.  A deacon can be treasurer, but a treasurer does not have to be a deacon.  A deacon can be a teacher or education coordinator, but that duty also does not have to be done by a deacon.

Facetiously, someone told me once that a deacon is defined by the duty of mowing the lawn of the church building.  Then, as now, my hope is that the office of deacon would not be defined or contained by one duty, and yet it truly is the day-to-day and week-to-week practical things that characterize the responsibility of a deacon.

Baxter says deacons are often men who are younger and perhaps more physically able than elders, but in practice, it seems to me that is all relative.  The reason he mentions younger men is that some qualifications for a deacon seem to indicate that his family might not have progressed to the point where his children are members of the church.

In Acts 6 certain men were appointed to take care of the Grecian widows, so that they would not be neglected in the distribution of food to the needy.  That way, the apostles would have more time for spiritual matters.  Commentaries through the years have debated about whether these appointed men were simply that and nothing more, were actually elders, or were in fact the first deacons in the early church.  One writer makes the interesting point that if the men appointed in Acts 6 are not deacons, then we have no place in the Bible to find what deacons are supposed to do.

The qualifications for deacons in 1 Timothy 3:8-13 are not as numerous or varied among different translations as are those for elders.  The most interesting one by far is where, in the middle of the list, it addresses characteristics of women.  Is there a precedent for deaconesses?  Using the King James Version in his commentary, David Lipscomb does not come right out and say that he thinks this mention of women refers to the wives of deacons.  Most translations and commentaries today do make that statement.  One good reason is that, farther in the list, Paul writes that a deacon must be the husband of one wife.  That might still leave room for argument about a deaconess, but it seems certain that women deacons were not described by the inspired writer.

Romans 16:1 says that Phoebe is a servant of the church in Cenchrea, using the same word as for deacon,  but if you find a reliable scholar willing to use the term deacon to describe her, that writer is not likely to say that her status is that of a deacon as described in 1 Timothy 3.  She is a servant, surely, and a church member who takes seriously her role in the ministry of the church.

We will again look at the variant translations for the qualifications, and we will discuss how both deacons and elders can be appointed in a congregation.  While most translations say that elders should not be "given to, indulging in, fond of, or addicted to drinking wine, the qualifications for deacons undoubtedly say the same thing, except that the phrase is "much wine."  With all we know about the use of wine in Bible times, do we really think today that deacons may drink, but elders should not?  This bears closer examination, and Baxter gives a list of the most compelling reasons why any Christian, including those who would be deacons and elders, cannot justify drinking.  To me, the church is a place where people find refuge from things like drinking, and the more you think about it, the more you realize that a life of faith and an intoxicating habit just do not go together.  We will talk more about it in class, and it promises to be an interesting discussion.