Deacons

How They Serve and Strengthen the Church

Matt Smethurst

• Publisher: Crossway
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781433571657
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Systematic Theology & Ethics

How Can Deacons Mobilize Service in the Church?

Deacons are essential to a church's health—yet confusion abounds regarding their biblical job description. What's their God-given role in a local congregation and how do they relate to the church's overall mission?

In this short book, Matt Smethurst makes the case that deacons are model servants called to meet tangible needs, organize and mobilize acts of service, preserve the unity of the flock, and support the ministry of the elders. Clearing away common misconceptions, Smethurst offers practical guidance for deploying deacons and helping churches to flourish.

1

The Backstory and the Blunders: How Deacons Have Functioned

The Nazis, it turns out, did not like deacons.

After the Netherlands fell to Germany in 1940, deacons in the Dutch Reformed Church rose up to care for the politically oppressed, supplying food and providing secret refuge. Realizing what was happening, the Germans decreed that the office of deacon should be eliminated. Responding in a General Synod on July 17, 1941, the Dutch believers resolved, “‘Whoever touches the diaconate interferes with what Christ has ordained as the task of the church.’ . . . Whoever lays hands on diakonia lays hands on worship!”1

The Germans backed down.

Deacons Through the Ages

Most diaconal stories are, of course, less historically momentous. Rarely are they less beautiful. For two thousand years deacons have shone as they’ve served churches and communities around the globe. The witness of history is plain: a congregation without biblically functioning deacons is impoverished, but a congregation with them is incalculably rich.

How, then, have deacons functioned through the ages? The question is neither irrelevant nor dull; it is practical. If you are a follower of Jesus, then Christian history is your history. Studying it is like opening a photo album and flipping through your family heritage.

So let’s begin. Embark with me on a flyover survey—admittedly fast and fragmentary—of the diaconal landscape since the apostolic age.

Early Church

Deacons were held in a place of honor in Christianity’s earliest centuries. Based on the precedent of Acts 6:1–7—a passage generally seen to establish, or at least preview, the office—deacons in the early church were tasked with supporting the work of pastors by caring for the “outward” or “physical” concerns of church life.

Historian Rodney Stark notes that deacons in the early church were of “considerable importance,” assisting in liturgical functions and administering the benevolent and charitable activities of the church.2 A series of fourth-century treatises called the Apostolic Constitutions further outlined diaconal duties: “They are to be doers of good works, exercising a general supervision day and night, neither scorning the poor nor respecting the person of the rich; they must ascertain who are in distress and not exclude them from a share in church funds, compelling also the well-to-do to put money aside for good works.”3 Historian Charles Deweese aptly summarizes:

They visited martyrs who were in prison, clothed and buried the dead, looked after the excommunicated with the hope of restoring them, provided the needs of widows and orphans, and visited the sick and those who were otherwise in distress. In a plague that struck Alexandria about AD 259, deacons were described by an eyewitness as those who “visited the sick fearlessly,” “ministered to them continually,” and “died with them most joyfully.”4

Indeed, it was this kind of risky, self-giving love—modeled often by deacons—that bewildered the Roman world. As the African bishop Tertullian (AD 155–220) observed, “It is our care of the helpless, our practice of lovingkindness that brands us in the eyes of many of our opponents. ‘Only look,’ they say, ‘look how they love one another!’”5

It is all too easy to lose sight of the spiritual value of deacons because their role is so practical in the life of the church. But many of the earliest deacons were giants of the faith, and they defended it with valor. Two stories must suffice.

First, let’s travel to ancient Rome, epicenter of the mightiest empire on earth. Only eight years have passed since Emperor Decius sought to exterminate all who refused to pledge allegiance to his sovereign rule. Untold Christians were killed. It is now AD 258, and a man named Laurence is one of seven deacons serving in Rome; his task is to oversee the church’s money and distributions to the poor. In August the news hits: Decius’s successor, Valerian, has issued a chilling edict—all bishops, priests, and deacons must be rounded up and killed.

Laurence is soon taken before the magistrate. The offer: surrender the treasure of the church, and you will be freed. The deacon agrees. He only requests three days to retrieve it. Leaving the court, Laurence wastes no time. He entrusts the church’s money to safe hands, and then gathers together the sick, the aged, the poor, the widowed, and the orphaned. At last he returns to the court, pitiful band in tow. Incensed by the commotion, the magistrate demands an explanation. Laurence responds, “Sir, I have brought what you asked for.” Then, gesturing toward the people he’s gathered, he declares, “These are the treasures of the church.” Subsequently sentenced to a martyr’s death, the deacon endures the flames with startling calm, even quipping to his executioners, “You may turn me over; I am done on this side.” The spectacle of Laurence’s profound courage makes a great impression on the people of Rome, leading to many conversions.6

Now fast-forward seventy years, and let’s journey southeast to Telzeha (in modern-day Turkey). Persecution against Christians has again intensified, this time under Licinius. New emperor, new edict: citizens must repair the altars and sacrifice to the god Jupiter. What happens? A deacon rises up:

Now Habib, who was of the village of Telzeha and had been made a deacon, went secretly into the churches in the villages. He ministered and read the Scriptures, encouraged and strengthened many by his words, and admonished them to stand fast in the truth of their belief and to not be afraid of the persecutors. . . .

Many were strengthened by his words . . . and were careful not to renounce the covenant they had made. When the men appointed with reference to this particular matter heard of it, they informed [Licinius], the governor in the town of Edessa: “Habib, who is a deacon in the village of Telzeha, goes about and ministers secretly in every place, and resists the command of the emperors, and is not afraid.”7

Not afraid indeed. Enduring a barrage of questions from the governor without wavering in his faith, Habib is burned at the stake. Stories like these offer a glimpse into the breathtaking conduct of the earliest deacons—and their steady yet staggering impact on the Roman world.

As the church sought to manage geographical expansion and as various heresies popped up to threaten the faith, a formalized hierarchy was developed to streamline—and centralize—decision-making authority within the office of bishop. So rather than only two church offices (bishops and deacons) there were now three: bishops (overseers), presbyters (elders or priests), and deacons. With the advent of this “monarchical episcopate” system—one bishop overseeing a geographic area—the primary role of deacons shifted from agents of charity to, essentially, secretaries to the bishop. They increasingly functioned as on-the-ground liaisons between the region’s bishop and its local congregations.

Despite gradual distancing from the New Testament pattern, deacons continued to perform biblical tasks. Yet this didn’t hold. Mark Dever summarizes the fateful decline:

As the monarchical episcopate developed, so did a kind of monarchical diaconate beneath it. As the role of bishop developed, so did the role of archdeacon. The archdeacon was the chief deacon of a particular place and might be described as a deputy concerned with material matters. . . . Abuses eventually crept into the office of deacon, and deacons—especially archdeacons—became quite wealthy. How ironic that those who were meant to serve others instead used others to serve their own desires!8

Middle Ages

With this shift away from charitable work, two developments in the Middle Ages caused the diaconate to deteriorate even further.

First, the office was reduced to a mere steppingstone to the priesthood. Second, and more concerning, charitable giving came to be viewed as a means of saving one’s soul and lessening another’s time in purgatory. “By the Middle Ages,” Cornelis Van Dam laments, “the chief motive for giving to the poor was to gain entrance to eternal life.” The tragic downward spiral was complete, it seemed, as deacons soon “ceased to function in any biblical way.”9

The time had come for a diaconal reformation.

John Calvin’s Influence

No Reformer was more influential in restoring the diaconate to its ancient model—of ministering help to the poor and dist...