First Timothy, Lesson 17

All righty, well, did we need to go back on the last question? I don't know. I felt pretty good about the simplified response, or the conversation there. Yeah. It's good. I didn't know. I listened to it. Did you have something else you wanted to add? No. OK, we can go then on to lesson 17. And this is 1 Timothy chapter 3, verses 8 through 10. And I'll read them.

Deacons. So now we've just gone through the section on elders and all the qualifications there. Now, Paul's given Timothy direction on what to do with deacons. So deacons, likewise, must be men of dignity, not double-tongued or addicted to much wine or fond of sordid gain, but holding to the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience. These men must also first be tested, then let them serve as deacons if they are beyond reproach. So just remember, this comes immediately after the verses that Paul gives on the qualifications of elders in the local body. Now, he's focused on deacons.

And again, this is in the local body. And that's just another thing also that, you know, again, kind of as with Holly Hills and even the Plymouth Brethren and that, there isn't a church governing body that like the Catholic Church or the Presbyterian Church or the Baptists or whatever. This is local. When you look in scripture, it's really to the local body.

And Paul goes around and sets up elders and deacons at local bodies. There isn't a, you know, ultimately a governing body in Rome or in Jerusalem or anything like that. These are now individually run bodies or local individuals in local bodies. You don't find in scripture where there is Paul calling out, well, we need a big administrative head over everybody here. So it's important that he's giving these qualifications because these are the people who run the local bodies. So, these are important verses for how we run and how the local body is administered.

So, before we get into the Greek definitions and other references for deacons, how would you define or describe a deacon? Done, silence again. So you don't know what deacons are. We have a title and these men that run around and we call it... I've been in at least one church where the terms were kind of confused. The deacons was the term they applied to really who is more so the elders. And then I've been in churches where the elders really were doing pretty much exclusively the work of deacons and nobody was really taking spiritually. Hence why Paul gives these instructions. So what's your definition of a deacon? It means to be reverent. Reverent, but what is... These are qualifications, but what is a deacon? A servant, say. A servant. Humble servant.

Okay, make sure your mics are on, too. Are you hearing those, Miles? Some of it. Yeah, so make sure your mics are on, just so Miles can hear. So a servant, I think that's probably the best description, and also with the Greek word servant. Now, you can say a humble servant. That's probably from these qualifications. But a servant. So I don't normally do this, but I'm going to read through a lot of this. Usually I like the interaction, but there's a lot of information that Mike had put together, and I've added some about this.

Because there really isn't a Greek word for deacon. It's not a specific term. Now, there's words we're going to look at that are servants and things like that, but deacons is a translation or transliteration to the English for deacons. The noun deacons needs careful attention because it is not a translation of the Greek, but a transliteration of the Greek. from Zodiatis, the derivation is uncertain.

According to some, it comes from Deaconess, in the dust laboring, or running through the dust. Others derive it from D-A-Q, the same as D-I-Q. Greek is horrid, to hasten related to, or to pursue. So those are the closest words. So there are three allied words here. First, there's the D-A-K-N-E-O, which means to serve. The second is the word which means service. The third here is the word diakonos, which means servant.

So again, the definition of what Donna said for deacon is probably, the words are all derivations of servants or to serve. These are fairly routine words in the New Testament occurring just over 100 times. There are household words in the first century since the New Testament world was one in which servants and masters were a fact of life. Diakonos could refer to a household servant, as in John 2, 5, and 9, where it's translated as servants.

And then in Matthew and Mark, teach that the servanthood is a position we must all assume in order to achieve true greatness. It also describes what our relationship should be to the Lord, as found in John 12, 26. In Romans 13, 14, government is described as a minister, diakonos, of God to you for good.

Sorry, this is just a lot of different information, but it's harder to try and put little pieces of it. Can I go back and address something you brought up that I think is really, really important? the way God created the church early on is still the method, still the principle, still local, still autonomous.

Is that the way it's supposed to be in 2025? Yeah, point to scripture that is otherwise. Yeah, that's the point. As we've talked to in Sovereignty and different things, he doles out different responsibilities, husbands, wives, children, and then he's doled out the responsibility of elders to run the local body. And so that's really where the direction of the church is supposed to be.

I don't know if they're supposed to be, well, I shouldn't say that. It's hard for me to understand that, you know, where you have a church of 5,000 or 10,000, and you have elders and deacons that are ministering individually to the body. I can't prove that from scripture, but I don't see that in scripture, and I find it hard that elders would be able to minister to 5,000. If you had 10 elders and had a church of 5,000 or 10,000, You know, you have to minister to 2,000 or 3,000 people. How do you do that?

The answer to that is small groups. But is that elders? That's not right. I'm being funny. I mean, that's their answer. They break it down into small groups, but those small groups are led not by elders or deacons. Right, and so what is the teaching?

Is it, you know, you could... It could be any comical, whatever thing you want to talk about as a group. Now, I don't want to say that that's the... totally wrong, but I mean, if the elders are very tight and work on, you know, very... teaching those small group people very intimately, very directly... You could have 15, 30 of them...

Yeah, I mean... administer the oversight. You could, but it's not as controlled as what the scripture says, which is elders. They're the ones who are responsible. And so, I can't say that that's totally wrong, but I think it would be hard to go with what we see here. Yeah. Honestly, I don't think it's biblical. I'm struggling that, you know, I guess if the elders work and really teach Yes, but that's stretching it. And I totally agree. It's small bodies is what I think this is, that you have intimacy between the elders and the local body. That's what he's setting up here. You can't have oversight in small groups.

Right. Right. I mean, there's 10,000 people. Right. Whatever they are. Right. And even though an elder may teach and there's 10,000 people out there, That's only the beginning. I mean, you need to minister to that person. Shepherding is a knowledge of the sheep. Exactly. And, you know, some is pastor, some is teacher, some is, you know, and there's the pastoring part of that, which is an elder. And so you don't get that. So you may be able to teach as an elder to a 10,000, but you can't pastor them.

What's funny, Addie, all of you, and she understands the difference. Now, they're in a different spot as children, like young people. They're trying to lose young people and, you know, get to know them, but this is their home. This is where they know that they would find their ultimate oversight in terms of the biblical matters of their life, outside of our family. So, there are stranger situations in today's society where you end up going and doing different things with younger people and being introduced to them. Obviously we don't have a lot of that right now, but their oversight and their leadership still comes from polygists.

And I go to Camp Elam. Camp Elam is to plant the seed, do the things, but the growth is based on the local body. We never say we're going to be the one who makes them grow. We always say, go back and get into your local body. And that's the responsibility of the elders of that body to help them grow. So, and they can discuss whatever, you know, we have a camp and right or wrong or whatever that, but, and that's what they should do. That's what the elder should do is question everything, you know, taught anywhere else or in a small group. So, yeah, I mean, it's always back. And that's why I really made that point is that this is for local bodies. This is how, at least in scripture, the church is supposed to run, the local body is supposed to run.

It's not a business. It's not a business. And that was kind of what Miles was saying, too. Some of the elders become businessmen or some of them are board of elders. It's almost like a board of directors. It's like, is this a business or a body? And so I kind of agree with Miles. Occasionally you see that where there's a board of elders, which they're basically just counting the pennies and the sheep.

That's all they do. And the deacons or the teachers are the ones who go out and teach. But it's really the responsibility of the elders to do that or to be overseeing that. I mean, you can have other teachers, obviously. We can have teachers, but it's still under the control and direction of the elders.

A lot of these places have term limits on elders. I can't imagine the Lord calling you for, you get two years and then step aside. What was that? You're too elder. Yeah, you're too old for being elder. I kind of have to think about that a little bit, you know. Whether you're an elder for life or not, I don't know. I think you are. Until you disqualify yourself based on the scripture. Yeah, I have to think about that. So basically a bunch of stuff.

The Greek word is generally used if a servant is seen from the standpoint of his activity of service. So all those definitions basically point to what Donna says, a deacon is a servant. So we have Paul defining the qualifications here in 1 Timothy. Who was probably the first one to be a deacon? And what was the best actual description of what deacons are called to do? Can you think of a scripture that Who would be the first one you think of as a deacon? My mind goes to Acts 6. Thank you. And who would that be? Stephen. Thank you. I didn't think that was going to be a hard question.

And we'll look at Acts 6, 1 through 6. Now at this time, while the disciples were increasing in number, a complaint arose on the part of the Hellenistic Jews against the native Hebrews, because their widowers were being overlooked in the daily serving of food.

So the Twelve summoned the congregation of the disciples and said, it is not desirable for us to neglect the word of God in order to serve tables. Therefore, brethren, select from among you seven men of good reputation, full of the spirit and of wisdom, whom we may put in charge of this task. But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word. The statement found approval with the whole congregation, and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit, and Philip, Procorius, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenides, and Nicholas, a proselyte from Antioch.

And these they brought before the apostles, and after praying, they laid their hands on them. So that was really the first of the deacons. And it was stemming out of a need, because the elders wanted to teach, or the apostles wanted to teach. And so this is before Okay, this is before Paul and setting up churches. So this is just at the beginning of the body. And they were saying that the apostles wanted to teach, but they were getting distracted by, well, I got to feed these people. So they set up basically the deacons at this point. So Stephen, I think, and this group of seven are the first in deacons, the servants to take the burden away from the elders, or the apostles at this point, elders eventually, to do what they do, teach and instruct. So that was the beginning of it. Okay with that? As a need is recognized, God feels you. Hopefully, yes.

Well, I also think that the early church in Jerusalem, when you study Acts and other places, they were people of the way. They were Christians, but they still were pretty Jewish in how they conducted things. They went up to the temple and they did all that kind of thing until they got persecuted and had to spread. And then the next church you talk about is the church in Antioch, which seems to be a fairly large church, although they functioned like we were talking about here, you know, like when they sent Paul and Barnabas out and they could send John Mark with them.

How do I say this? As the church spreads, I think that this pattern of small churches becomes the norm. Yeah, I don't think when Paul was traveling all through Asia and all through, you know, all of his missionaries, these weren't big churches. These weren't houses. And you see that occasionally in the description, there was a house.

And you know what's interesting about that, is that you go into these towns. And if there were 10 Jewish men in the town, then they had a synagogue. If there were nine, they did this. So they'd go to the synagogue and preach, and then people would be saved. And so they'd start a home church. Right. They'd move it out. Yeah. I'm just thinking of something else.

Well, I'm actually going to address a little bit of this when we have the Lord's table on some of this and in the meetings and how they're called out. Question two, describe a man of dignity. So from verse eight, deacons likewise must be men of dignity, not double-tongued or addicted to much wine or fond of sordid game. So what is your definition of dignity? See, you know, of course, what I'm going to do, but I want to hear yours first. Can I read Webster? Oh, of course. Go ahead and look it up. No, I'll go. I just want to get yours before you get into this. So before, see, I'm very predictable.

Well, we talked a little bit about this last week with men of respect, right? They are respected both internally and externally. I think that's good. Other thoughts, Ray? I think it shows that they're serious about what they're doing. Interesting. You know, that they're not there, put it this way, they're not there just on Sunday. That what they're called to do is important to them. Stay with it.

Interesting, both of those two come up in Miriam. So these formal reserve or seriousness of manner, appearance and language. Seriousness, the quality of state of being worthy, honored, or esteemed. High rank, office, or position, a legal title of nobility or honor. So again, I think it's respect, seriousness. I think both of those came up in there. And again, I just go to see what the English is before we get into what the Greek meaning is.

The Greek word is semnos, to worship, venerate, venerable, reverend, reputable, dignified. Semnos represents not only earthly dignity, but that which is derived from a higher citizenship, a heavenly one, which is the possession of all believers. There lies something of majestic and awe-inspiring qualities in semnos, which does not repel, but rather invites and attracts.

So, do you think it would be an important qualification for a deacon, one who is serving the body of Christ, to be a man of dignity? Yeah. I think it has to. You know, if you aren't, the flip side of that is, you know, you're not honest, you're not, and do you want that in the body? It's not reflecting the life of Christ. So I think you have to have a man of dignity in this position. If not, your message is muddled, so to speak. And this also goes to the replication outside of the church and things like that, too. So, this was a note from Mike.

The word dignity, which Trench says, the word we want is one in which the sense of gravity and dignity of these inviting reverence is combined. While dignity is inherent meaning of the word, the concept of earned and deserved respect is also part of it. The idea of nobility and seriousness is also included. This seems to combine several aspects that were given for the qualifications of an elder. So we're going to go back to the above approach, respectable, peaceable, have a good reputation with those outside the church. Those are all, I think, things that also fall under the category of dignity, and those were given for an elder. So this is kind of the abbreviated, somewhat for the deacons, dignity, which I think wraps a lot of those same things that the elders had, or the qualifications for an elder.

Yeah, Mike. The other thing I've noticed is that in this idea of dignity, there are certain men in your sphere of influence that when you're with them, you spend all your time talking about the Lord. They're not talking about the Broncos, yeah, maybe they won or they lost, but it's not that big a deal. God's word is a big deal to them. They want to talk about that, and you want to talk about it. And so, in all aspects of how it affects the way you live, and I think that's the dignity, you can tell what's important to a person. just by listening to what the subjects he wants to talk about.

All right, Nick, turn off the recording of the game. I think, too, whether it's elders or deacons, the body of Christ does look to the elders in their way of life, just for kind of seeing how to live. You know, they always told the leaders to a higher standard. And why should I live like that if I see him doing this?

So elders and deacons both should be dignified and just have a serious talk with the Lord. What I think goes back to respect too, how do you follow the leadership of somebody you don't respect? It comes down to that. It's hard to respect somebody if they're not dignified, honored, peaceable, all these qualifications. It's hard to respect them when they aren't meeting these qualifications. Good? Dignity?

Does double tongue mean telling everyone everything? Diarrhea of the mouth? From verse 8, deacons likewise must be men of dignity, not double-tongued or addicted, much-wined, fond, or sore. So not double-tongued. So what do you think double tongue means?

Is this a good thing or a bad thing? A liar. Okay, well, it can be. And there's another aspect too. That's what my first reaction is too. But also double-tongued. I would think it's when you act one way in church and then one way outside the church. Bingo. Basically lying about your life, as if I'm Joe Christian on Sundays and I'm a horrible boss on Monday. Or I'm saying one thing, oh, Christianity, Christianity, and then I get out and I do a Peter. What? I'm not a Christian. Why are you bothering me? You're talking one thing here, and to a different audience, you're saying something different.

So I think that's the aspect of the double-tongued. I'm saying one thing here, oh, great Lord, the great Savior, yeah. Out here, I'm like, ah, no, let's go party. Let's weed out churches. Did you read The Hungry Heart today? I did, yeah, actually. I was thinking about this this morning. I'll read part of this one paragraph.

We're not to overcome the lust of the flesh in order that we may walk in the spirit. We are to walk in the spirit in order that the lust of the flesh may be overcome. Right. That principle fits right here. Yeah. Because somebody who aspires to be an elder or deacon to some degree they walk in the spirit and the flesh is overcome, not because they've tried really hard, but because they've trusted.

Well, it's also, I'm thinking about that now that I say that too, it's also, you know, uh, you can be Joe Christian and fake and then you're, you know, you're living a different life and saying a lot of different things went outside of here. So, you know, so the word double-tongued dilagos from Zodiac, it means double-tongued, two-faced, deceitful in one's words. The word double-tongued dilagos says one thing and meaning another, and making different representations to different people about the same thing.

So that's where I said the double part. You may be lying, you say one thing over here and then you say something else over here. It could be lying or you just say one and then you tell a different audience a different thing. So that's the double tongue part, yeah. Yeah, I think there's a couple of distinctions I'd like to bring up. One is, I think that this word double tongue has to do with being insincere.

You're not convicted by the message that you're communicating. You can struggle, though. You can struggle through those things, but you can't be in a place where you're insincere with those things, where you're saying one thing, And then also saying another thing. Yeah. Right. So you can but you can struggle. Oh yeah. No. Yeah. But this is almost a purposeful. This is purposeful. Yeah. Not not a struggle but a purposeful you know misrepresentation between your insincere insincere kind of just That reminds me of when I was a young Christian at the Young Life Golf Tournament.

I'm on the practice range hitting balls and the guy next to me works for Young Life and this guy was knocking them. So I said to him, I said, man, you can really hit the ball. He said, golf is my thing. And I said, I thought the Lord Jesus was your thing. Yeah. So in young life, he's here. But in reality, this is where his energy and focus is.

So last one is qualification. This qualification means he must not be one who tells different stories to others about the same thing. One must not alter his account of a matter depending on who he is talking to. This does not mean that everything must be told to everyone. So this is just, again, two different stories saying two different things. So that's the double tongue, double. It's a different thing.

That's what I was going to say, Courtney. When I hear that term, I think of, you know, having the ability to tell people what you think they want to hear. And, you know, people get really good at this, kind of adjusting on the fly, you know, as the person you're talking to drops certain, you know, hints and things, and you kind of pick up the way they think and what they want to hear, and you sort of just you know, massage your language, the way you talk about things to sort of suit that person, and it's, the opposite would be what Mike did to that guy. That guy didn't want to hear that. Yeah, no, I think that's right.

And again, it's just, it's, again, the two-faced part. I think that was another one. You know, you look one way and you say a thing, and then it's, massage it, like you said, miles over here to somebody else. And it's kind of like Play-Doh. You're moldable. You're this way, and then you mold it again, and you're over here.

And it's not, I think, convicted of the message, convicted of who you are in Christ or what you believe. And then you change that in a different audience, or you say something different in a different audience. I think sometimes that's a struggle, because as you grow spiritually, sometimes you're conflicted about doctrine. Yeah. Because you, well, I always thought it was this, but now I'm learning about this. Well, which is it? And sometimes, as a teacher, you think, well, I'm not that educated on this issue, I can't teach it. I'm conflicted about it.

Perhaps that brings us back to the governing point of this. This is talking about deacons. a member of the body, local body. This is about deacons. So it's an office with respect and all these different things. So that's different than just somebody who's a new convert, which again we'll find out in the qualification for a deacon. Don't grab somebody fresh off the gospel message. So that, yeah. Something that keeps coming to mind here is that the deacons are those who have to deal with things like the finances of the local body.

And you really can't have someone in that situation who is going to, you know, not just be forthright. I mean, they've got to be, they can't be kind of telling people what, you know, can't be changing the story from one person to another in the church. They've got to be really straightforward and honest about things.

So you're two down from this. So addicted wine is the next, and then the third one, next one after that is fond of sordid game. So that's where the respect and how you look at money and monetary and all the different things. Fond of sordid game. You really don't want that person controlling the finances or anything like that.

So let's get two more. Yeah, exactly. Oh, man. Ooh, well, I guess we'll start with 4 next week. I think we're. At 45, I see the people leaving out of the other 1. so we'll start a question for next week. So let's close. Heavenly Father, we thank you. Thank you again, just for your word and just the direction that you have on how to administer in the local body.

First, with elders, we've seen all those qualifications and the reasons why you have the qualifications for an elder. Now, as we look at deacons who serve, the very similar qualifications that in a local body that you want people who are above reproach, who are respectable, dignified, and all these different qualifications. You want the same in the deacons who are out front serving and administering money, all the different things. You want there to be no doubt about the conviction of the deacons and their love of the Lord and just that they reflect the life of Christ in their activities. So we just, we thank you again just for your work that gives us direction on how to run the local body and that you have certain aspects for elders as well as deacons. So we just thank you for that. We just pray for the next meeting too, that all is said and done will honor and glorify you. And it's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.