02 Servants & Slaves

If you've been around church for any length of time, you will know that the word deacon is an English transliteration of the Greek word *diakonos*, which means servant. Of course deacons do need to serve, but I think sometimes we've become so focused on the term servant that we can lose sight of other aspects of what this office is all about.

Deacon Means More Than Just Servant

As with a number of terms in the Bible, the term *diakonos* can be used both in a very technical sense and in a general sense. For example, there is an office of an apostle, but then apostle can be used more generally of anybody who is sent.

Likewise, the word *diakonos* or deacon is used in terms of an office. But sometimes throughout Scripture, it's used more generally as servants. It is used essentially for all of us. It's used for Jesus, and even Paul describes himself as a deacon. When Paul describes himself as *diakonos*, I'm pretty sure that what He wasn't saying was, "I carry the office of deacon in the church."

He was an apostle, perhaps even a fellow elder. How are we meant to interpret this? Why the word deacon? Why was that word borrowed when the requirement for this office became evident? They needed a word for the office, so they had to borrow a word.

Believers as Slaves and Servants of Christ

Why did they choose the word *diakonos* for servant? Well, we don't know exactly why they chose the word, but I've got some ideas. One day I will ask the guys and they'll tell me. But we need to understand this as well. When we look in the New Testament, believers in general are referred to as *diakonos*, or deacon, but sometimes also *doulos*, or slave.

We are all slaves. Unfortunately some of our biblical translations, in an effort to minimize the emotional component of that word, put the English word "servant" in, but it often should read "slave." We need to understand that all of us, every follower of Jesus, is called to be a slave to Christ and is called to a life of service.

Serving Well Is Not the Qualification for Deacons

So, when we see somebody in the life of the church and they've been around a while, and they've been serving really hard, and serving really well and serving really faithfully, I often hear somebody says, "Oh, we must make this person a deacon. They serve really well."

But serving really well, as we look biblically, is not the qualification of a deacon. Serving really well is the qualification of a believer. And if we reduce the qualification of deacon to just somebody who serves, we then relegate normal believers to people who don't even serve.

Then, with the best of intentions, we can end up destroying the concept of a priesthood of all believers. We will talk about qualifications of deacons in a future episode. But when we look at the deacons, they're not just servants; they're servant leaders. There is a leadership component to what they do.

Deacons Serve at the Command of the Elders

They don't carry the government of apostles or elders, but they do have responsibilities that they oversee. Bearing that all in mind, I looked again at the word *diakonos*. And as with many English words, there are shades of meaning. One aspect to the word *diakonos*, other than servant, is it means somebody who serves at the command or request of another.

For me, that's a really helpful way of looking at what the office of deacon is all about. Yes, all of us serve the command or request of another, being Jesus. But in a more technical sense, deacons are those who serve at the request or the command of the elders.

So the elders carry the government and then they work alongside in partnership with deacons. The deacons then carry out the requests, the needs, and the commands of the elders. In order to do that, of course, there needs to be leadership. We need to see that deacons are far, far more than just leaders.

Deacons Must Be Full of the Holy Spirit and Wisdom

In Acts 6, when it says, "Let's pick some men for this office or for this role," the first thing it says about Stephen is he was a man full of wisdom and the Holy Spirit. I don't know if the others were also full of wisdom and the Holy Spirit, or whether it was just Stephen, looking at the grammar.

But it seems to me, in general, that deacons should be full of wisdom and the Holy Spirit. Let's look at those things. Why must deacons be full of the Holy Spirit? Because leadership within the Kingdom of God is so different to leadership in the business world, in the corporate world, or outside of the church.

Leadership in the church needs to be Spirit-led. We cannot afford to lead simply through principles, through rules, through systems, through going through a list. We need to be those who lead as we are being led by the Holy Spirit. Deacons need to be men and women of wisdom.

What Biblical Wisdom Means

What is wisdom? Well, wisdom and knowledge are linked. Knowledge is retaining information or having facts at our disposal. Wisdom is the ability to make the right use of that information. The old joke is, knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit, not a vegetable, whilst wisdom is knowing not to put them in a fruit salad.

And that is a big part of what wisdom is. But wisdom biblically has another component as well. Wisdom, as we look at Proverbs and other scriptures, incorporates a moral dimension to it as well. The idea is that wisdom is following God's ways. So, we want deacons who follow God's ways in order that they can lead other people into those ways.

Because we can't lead people where we haven't gone. We can't give people what we haven't got. As Bob Mumford famously said, and we repeat this ad nauseam: If I say I've got mumps, but I've got measles, and you come into contact with me, what are you gonna catch?

You're not gonna catch mumps, you're gonna catch measles. You're gonna catch what I have, not what I say. And so deacons fulfill a tremendously important, in fact, a critical, essential role in the life of the church. Not just of serving, but of implementing the vision and the values, the requirements of the government of the church, the elders and the apostles. The deacons then apply that practically with responsibility, with a degree of authority, with wisdom, with the Holy Spirit. So, just serving doesn't make you a deacon. Just leading wouldn't make you a deacon.

But somebody who can lead, who can be a servant leader and who fulfills the qualifications that we'll cover in another session, is what deacons are required to do. If we look at Philip and Stephen, once they were set into place as deacons, we see they don't just scrub floors, they don't just wait on tables; they are far more than servants.

Stephen and Philip as Examples of Deacon Leadership

Stephen preaches powerfully with a revelation from the Holy Spirit that leads him to be the first martyr. And Philip goes and does signs and wonders and brings revival to Samaria. It is interesting as well that in Acts 2:42-47, it says many signs and wonders were done through the apostles.

But in Acts 6, we see Philip, who's a deacon, doing signs and wonders. So, we see that again, the role of deacon is not just servant, but somebody who is able to lead by example, represent who Jesus is and what Jesus wants, and be somebody like Paul in a sense, who is capable of saying, "Imitate me as I imitate Christ."

I'm not saying don't serve. I'm saying serve well. I'm saying serving well is not in itself a qualification for being deacon. If you are a deacon, or if you're a potential deacon, I want you to bear these things in mind and ask yourself: Am I carrying the appropriate level of leadership in the church?

And am I leading people in the right direction according to the visions and values that have been set by the governmental authorities that Jesus put in place?