12 Let deacons each be the husband of one wife, managing their children and their own households well.
6 If you put these things before the brothers, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus, being trained in the words of the faith and of the good doctrine that you have followed.
10 As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace:
The Pastoral Epistles are the books of the Bible that are written specifically to pastors for the sake of the organization of the church. You have 1 Timothy 1:1–6:21 and 2 Timothy 1:1–4:22, and you have Titus 1:1–3:15. And they are filled with church administration things. In Sabbath school we went over some of the things that happened at presbytery, and some of it just sounds very administrative. Well, that is 1 Timothy 1:1–6:21 and 2 Timothy 1:1–4:22 and Titus 1:1–3:15. They are called Pastoral Epistles. There we have not everyone holding the office, but that transition from large D to small d.
1 Timothy 3:8, 1 Timothy 3:12:
Deacons, likewise, are to be men worthy of respect, sincere, not indulging in much wine, and not pursuing dishonest gain…A deacon must be the husband of but one wife and must manage his children and his household well.1 Timothy 4:6: Timothy himself is a minister of the gospel who is called to be a deacon in pointing out to the brethren that
If you are a good deacon, you will point to Christ, and you will nourish the words of faith and sound doctrine.Imagine that. What nourishes faith? What nourishes sound doctrine from a preacher of the gospel? It is his deaconing, according to the Apostle Paul.In 1 Peter 4:10–11, Peter again calls on the whole church to take up this task of service and of deaconing: “Each one of us should use whatever gift he has received to [deacon] others, faithfully administering God’s grace in its various forms. Whoever speaks, is to do so as one who is speaking the utterances of God; whoever serves… (or
deacons) …is to do so as one who is [deaconing] by the strength which God supplies; so that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belongs the glory and dominion forever and ever.”So we see that small d deaconing and serving in the church is for that ultimate purpose. It is so that God would be glorified. So that people will look on and give glory to God. And that is what I want to be the challenge and the take away from this lesson.
I want you to consider the fact that as we move ahead and have plans of ordaining capital D Deacons and having our diaconate expand, it is not so that we can say,
Nathan EshelmanYou who get the office, you serve us. You do it. You take out the garbage. You are the ones that do all the stuff that we don't want to do. We have asked you to do it.No. You see, what happens is the large D Deacons – those that hold the office of the diaconate – are the organizers of all the small d deaconing that goes on. They are set apart so that we will all be able to serve. So that we will all be able to participate in the hands and the heart of Jesus Christ, so that people will look on and they will say, Give glory to God! Praise Jesus for the work that is done!1
8 Deacons likewise must be dignified, not double-tongued, not addicted to much wine, not greedy for dishonest gain.