Qualified Coworkers
Men and women who assist
elders/overseers should, in essence,
be just as qualified as those
who manage and shepherd the church.
Here's Gene:
This particular Principle is really related
to the size of a church.
It's actually related to the size of the community
in which that church exists.
And this is the church in Ephesus.
It was a large city with a large church,
spread out through that large city.
Now this is what Ephesus looks like today.
It is one of the great archeological sites
in the world.
And this is kind of an overview
of the main street as you walk down
the main street.
And you can see the library in the distance.
This is just--and I'll use a metaphor--
a tip of the iceberg, as it were,
in terms of the city of Ephesus.
Because you can go into the hills around
and you'll find they are excavating.
This was a huge city--thousands of people.
And so the church was huge.
And consequently, the elders
and the spiritual leaders needed help.
And so here is the first real significant
reference in the biblical story of
the New Testament, to deacons.
And here he uses the word deacons.
And the Greek word is 'diakonoi'.
And really it's translated 'servants' in
a lot of places in the New Testament.
There's no job description that goes with it.
Simply, servants.
It's open-ended.
And we're going to see that these servants
that were appointed, both men and women,
were to help the elders and the overseers,
depending on what you call them.
The pastoral leaders in the church,
to do the work of the ministry
and maintain their priorities.
As I said, elders or overseers,
the word 'presbuteroi'--or 'episkopoi' the plural--
refers to those who we've just looked at
in the previous Principle.
Elders/overseers who give direction
to the church as shepherds.
Now again Paul says:
This is what they should be like.
These are the qualifications for those
who are coworkers.
And when you look at these,
they're basically the same as the qualities
for the pastors and the leaders.
Notice the qualities:
Deacons, likewise, should be:
worthy of respect, not hypocritical,
not drinking a lot of wine, not greedy for money,
holding the mystery of the faith
with a clear conscience.
They must also be tested first;
if they prove blameless,
[or having a good reputation,]
then they can serve as deacons.
So the qualities are very important,
even for those who are coworkers,
those who assist, those who help
the pastoral leaders.
So you see how important it is
to have qualified people who are leading.
Not perfect people but those who are
becoming more and more like Jesus Christ.
And these individuals were called
to walk alongside the spiritual leaders
in the church to help them.
Now as Paul is writing to Timothy,
you come across a verse that is
kind of puzzling. Because he says this:
Wives, too, must be...
Now why would he refer to the wives of deacons
and not the wives of elders or overseers?
Because I don't think that's
what he's talking about.
What he's talking about here,
that can be translated, 'women too.'
Or women who are serving as helpers.
Women who are serving to help
alongside men who are serving
to help the spiritual leaders.
They too must be:
...worthy of respect, [and] not slanderers,
self-controlled, faithful in everything.
And then he proceeds to go on
with additional qualities for men.
But first of all, I just want to call your attention
to an example of a woman
who probably was in that role.
And her name was Phoebe.
And Paul mentioned her when he wrote
to the Romans in the last chapter. He said:
I commend to you our sister Phoebe, who is a...
What? Servant--a 'diakonos,' is the singular:
...a servant of the church in Cenchreae.
So you should welcome her in the Lord
in a manner worthy of the saints
and assist her in whatever matter
she may require your help.
For indeed she has been a benefactor of many--
and of me also.
Some believe that she actually
carried Paul's letter to the Romans
all the way from Cenchraea,
which is right close to Corinth,
all the way to Rome.
Can you imagine the task
and how important that task was
to help Paul get that letter to the Romans?
And it's possible too that she was
a wealthy woman because there were
wealthy women in the New Testament.
Women like Lydia, the seller of purple
there in Philippi.
Or Mary, the mother of John Mark
who had this huge home in Jerusalem.
And consequently, she may have been--
she may have inherited a huge amount of money
in some way and been a benefactor.
But the benefactor
may have not necessarily been materialistic,
or material things, but rather helping generally.
So you see a beautiful example
of a woman who's in this deacon role.
Now he continues with the qualifications.
And here you see the real similarity to the
qualifications for the pastors and leaders:
Deacons are to be husbands of one wife...
Again, morally pure.
Only one woman in their life.
...managing their children and their
own households competently...
Same thing he said, basically,
to those who are to be the overseers
and the elders.
...For those who have served well as deacons
acquire a good standing for themselves
and great boldness in the faith
that is in Christ Jesus.
Now at this point I want to make
a very interesting observation.
When you study the history
of the development of the church
in the book of Acts.
For example, on the first missionary journey--
Paul and Barnabas. After they
had planted churches in various cities,
they returned to those cities.
And notice what they did:
When they had appointed elders
for them in every church...
And remember that in those days,
you only had one church in a city.
It hadn't grown and developed like we do
in our particular cultural situation.
...When they had appointed elders for them
in every church and prayed with fasting,
they committed them to the Lord
in whom they had believed.
It doesn't say: They appointed deacons.
Why? Well let me show you another observation.
This is when Paul left Titus in Crete,
after they had established churches.
And what does he say?
The reason I left you in Crete was to set right
what was left undone and, as I directed you,
to appoint elders in every town.
And by the way, that picture actually
is a picture of Crete--the island of Crete.
Where there were--and by the way
is one of the most pagan cities,
or pagan places in the whole
New Testament world, at that particular time.
And so he was left there to appoint elders.
Doesn't say deacons. Why?
Why is that true?
Well the fact of the matter is,
one of the first official appointments
in a church are those who are going
to teach the Word of God.
That's foundational.
And as a church grows numerically,
what's going to happen?
These elders, these pastors, are going to
need help: To deal with other issues
within the church. That are beyond
just teaching and preaching
and teaching and helping them to grow.
So consequently, we see the unfolding
of this process.
And we see it here in Ephesus
because Ephesus was a very large city,
with a very large church,
with a number of elders who definitely
needed assistance in relationship to
doing their work and their ministry.
So that's a very unique observation
and an interesting pattern.
One has to do with supracultural functions
that are true anywhere in the world.
What are they?
To manage that church
and to teach the Word of God.
Those are specific functions.
The deacon role, whether men or women,
no job description except one word:
servants.
To help carry out that ministry.
And to serve these individuals.
So it's a powerful concept.
So here's a question for Reflection and Response:
Though the individuals appointed
to assist the apostles in Acts 6
are not identified as deacons,
how did their function in the church
in Jerusalem illustrate the official deacon role--
particularly in helping to meet cultural needs?
Well let me take you back to that situation.
Before we read the Scripture,
let me simply say: This is when the church
was first founded in Jerusalem.
The apostles were there.
The Holy Spirit came
and the church was born.
So they were in process of dealing
with the founding of the church
prior to carrying out of the Great Commission
and moving out of Jerusalem
to plant churches in other parts of the world.
So here's what we read
in terms of Acts chapter 6.
And I've called this Maintaining Priorities:
The Twelve [referring to the apostles]
summoned the whole company
of the disciples and said,
"It would not be right for us
to give up preaching the word of God
to wait on tables. ...
Now the background:
Remember, the church was born.
Jews had come from all over the Roman world
for the 50-day celebration in Jerusalem.
And there were a lot of women--
widows--who came as well.
And after the church was born
and everybody decided to stay there temporarily,
who would run out of money first?
The Grecian widows.
There was no problem with the
Hebrew widows because they had family.
They were right there in Jerusalem, in Judea.
But what about these women
that came all the way from Rome
and all the way from Africa?
And they're all staying in Jerusalem
to see what was going to happen next.
Well they were neglected in the
daily distribution of food.
And so what did--and they came to the apostles,
these who were leaders actually.
And said to the apostles:
Our widows are being neglected.
And what happened?
The apostles said:
We can't give ourselves to waiting tables.
That's very important.
But the apostles said:
...Brothers and sisters, select
from among you seven men
of good reputation, full of the Spirit
and wisdom, [whom] we can
appoint to this duty.
But we will devote ourselves to prayer
and to the ministry of the word."
Now you see the correlation here.
The apostles were a prototype
of elders in a local church.
This was the first local church.
And the apostles were there in Jerusalem.
And at that point--at this point we're talking about--
they hadn't appointed elders.
Everything was growing and unfolding.
And later the churches would be
established and planted.
Not by the apostles, per se, who had
become permanent leaders.
But like Paul and Barnabas,
they appointed elders in every church.
But the apostles were a prototype.
Because they had to deal with the problem.
What was the problem?
God had called them to prayer and
to preach the Word and to teach the Word.
And they said:
We can't get distracted from that.
And so in essence, what we see
in Paul's letter to Timothy, in terms of
the church in Ephesus,
the same thing was true.
The elders, who are now over that church--
not the apostles. But the elders
who are permanent leaders,
should not be distracted from their priorities.
They need help. They need assistance.
Waiting tables was important.
That's a cultural situation
that happened there.
But if the apostles had become involved in that,
it would have taken them
away from their priorities.
And so what Paul is saying here in Timothy
is that the elders in Ephesus--
a large church--they need help.
But they need help from qualified deacons,
servants who can help them.
So it's a very important Principle
that we see unfolding throughout
the biblical story as the church
was planted throughout the Roman world.
So let me just review the Principle--
Qualified Coworkers:
Men and women who assist
elders/overseers should, in essence,
be just as qualified as those
who manage and shepherd the church.