Latest / Tabernacle Talk - A Bible Study Podcast with Pastor Bryon Self / 1 Timothy 3:8-13 - What Should Deacons Be Like?

Transcript

1 Timothy 3:8-13 - What Should Deacons Be Like? · Tabernacle Talk - A Bible Study Podcast with Pastor Bryon Self

0:00
Welcome to Tabernacle Talk. Tabernacle Talk is a Bible study
0:03
podcast brought from Tabernacle Baptist Church in Essex, MD.
0:07
I'm your host, Brian Self. We hope this podcast encourages
0:10
you to know Christ, grow in his word, and show his love to
0:14
others. Let's dive right in.
0:15
Welcome back to Tabernacle Talk and looking forward to today's
0:19
episode. This is another one of those
0:21
ones that might get me in trouble, but that's OK, and I'm
0:25
looking forward to it. I am a rabble rouser, if nothing
0:29
else, and I'm looking forward to spending some time in the Word
0:31
with you guys today or tonight or whenever you listen to this
0:36
particular episode. We've been walking through the
0:38
letter of First Timothy. Paul wrote this letter to his
0:42
son in the faith, Timothy, as he left him behind in Ephesus so
0:47
that Timothy could help that young church that Paul himself
0:52
had started. And it spent three years
0:54
pastoring there because it was in trouble.
0:57
And there were false teachers. There were people that were
1:01
teaching things that were not true about the Old Testament
1:04
law. There were people that were
1:07
trying to bring in like Jewish fables and genealogies and
1:12
different things into that local church.
1:16
There were people that had just made a shipwreck of their faith.
1:20
There was arguing that was going on.
1:23
Anger was a predominant, was a predominant attitude and emotion
1:30
that was there within that church.
1:32
And so Paul had sent Timothy already.
1:35
He'd left Timothy in Ephesus so that Timothy armed with what he
1:40
knew from the Holy Spirit, from the apostle Paul and those that
1:44
had trained him throughout his life that he could help out the
1:48
young church. And in the last two episodes, we
1:51
looked at as Timothy was there, he was going to need to set up
1:58
more pastors, more elders, more overseers or the older word
2:04
bishops. He was going to need to set up
2:06
more of those individuals within that church at Ephesus.
2:11
And so Paul, let him know, here's the kinds of things, the
2:15
characteristics that you should be looking for with these
2:18
individuals that will be the leaders of this local church.
2:23
The goal being as you have godly individuals that are leading,
2:27
then you do not have the same types of problems with false
2:31
teachers or wicked leaders that the church had been having.
2:36
So, but in a church, there is more than just the senior
2:42
leadership, those leaders, those elders that we've been talking
2:45
about. There are also those that
2:47
Scripture calls, depending on which verse it is, deacons,
2:53
servants, or ministers. These are all one word.
2:58
In Greek it is the word diaconon, which as I've
3:02
mentioned to you guys before, one of my pet peeves in Bible
3:06
translation is when people don't actually translate the word,
3:10
they just transliterate it. So for instance, the word
3:13
baptism come in English comes from the Greek word baptizo.
3:18
So baptizo, baptism. The word baptizo is a verb.
3:23
It means to submerge, to plunge, to place under or inside.
3:29
That's what the word means. You would not say the word
3:32
baptizo means baptize. That would be nonsensical.
3:38
The word Deacon is a little bit like that.
3:41
The Greek word is diaconon. This would be a servant or a
3:47
table waiter would be the words that you would use to describe
3:51
these individuals. So I'm going to read through the
3:54
verses. Then I'm going to call our
3:57
attention back to a passage that we were in two years ago on
4:01
Tabernacle Talk, Acts 6. And then we're going to take one
4:06
quick look at Romans 16, as these are the passages that we
4:11
have that talk about people that are described with this word, a
4:16
Deacon or a servant. OK, I'm going to as I read
4:22
through verses 8 through 13, I'm going to the first time through,
4:29
I'm going to say deacons. But then every time after that,
4:31
I'm going to use the word servants because that's what the
4:34
word means. Deacons, servants likewise,
4:38
should be worthy of respect, not hypocritical, not drinking a lot
4:43
of wine, not greedy for money, holding the mystery of the faith
4:47
with a clear conscience. They must also be tested first.
4:51
If they prove blameless then they can serve as servants,
4:57
wives or women depending on your translation.
5:00
So it would be the wives or the women.
5:03
Likewise should be worthy of respect, not slanderers.
5:07
Self controlled faithful in everything servants are to be
5:12
husbands of one wife, managing their children and their own
5:15
households competently. For those who have served well
5:19
as servants acquire a good standing for themselves and
5:23
great boldness in the faith that is in Christ Jesus.
5:28
All right, so here's these list of qualifications for church
5:33
servants. Now this is an office.
5:35
This isn't just generically saying anyone that would, you
5:40
know, pick up trash at a local church or someone that would do
5:45
the nursery schedule at a local at a local church.
5:49
That is not what is encompassed here in the word servant.
5:52
This is a dedicated office. Now, if you'll recall, back in
5:57
Acts 6, there was the Church of Jerusalem and it had absolutely
6:02
blown up. And I, I say that in the best
6:05
possible way, like there had been tons of people that had
6:08
come to faith in Christ. They were being discipled.
6:11
But now there were a lot more people than just that initial
6:15
120 that had been in the upper room at the beginning of Acts 2.
6:21
So the Church of Jerusalem, they needed help meeting the physical
6:25
needs of a specific subset of the congregation.
6:29
So it wasn't that the entire congregation needed something,
6:32
it was 1 subgroup of the congregation.
6:36
In this case, it was the Hellenistic Jewish widows, that
6:40
is ethnically Jewish women who had lost their husbands and
6:48
their kind of culture was Greek, not I'll, I'll say Pharisaical
6:57
Judaism. So they did not go through and
7:00
and try and follow all of the Old Testament laws like the
7:06
what's referenced in scripture as the Hebraic Jews.
7:10
They didn't do that, but they were still ethnically Jewish.
7:14
And so these widows, every single day there was food that
7:19
was being given out from the church to widows that were in
7:24
need. And I assume given the other
7:26
portions of Scripture, it was probably also going out to the
7:29
fatherless as well. So kids that did not have
7:33
parents that they were being given food.
7:36
And then the widows who no longer had husbands to provide
7:38
for them, they were being given food.
7:41
However, the Hellenistic Jewish widows were not being given
7:46
food. They were being neglected in the
7:48
daily administration of food. And so this group of women
7:52
needed help, so they brought it up to the apostles.
7:56
The work of meeting that particular need was going to
7:59
take substantial time away from the pastors of the church
8:03
spending time in spiritual matters that the the at that
8:07
point, the apostles and at least by Acts 15, we also have elders
8:12
there in the church at Jerusalem as well as the apostles.
8:16
So the elders there are like man, we it, it would not be good
8:21
like we are the spiritual advisors of the church.
8:24
And if we cannot spiritually advise people, and if we cannot
8:27
be praying for people as a result of the fact that we're
8:31
doing these menial tasks, that would not be good for the
8:35
spiritual health of our community.
8:37
And so it wasn't that they said this is unimportant, we can't be
8:40
bothered with this. They said what we're doing is
8:43
important and what is happening here is important as well.
8:47
So the apostles presented the qualifications of the type of
8:52
men that they needed and the amount of individuals needed to
8:56
lead the task to the congregation who selected those
9:00
servants, those table waiters who would wait the tables, who
9:03
would set out the food for the Hellenistic Jewish widows?
9:07
So the apostles did not say here are the table waiters for you
9:13
all. They said we want you guys to
9:16
look and see in the congregation who has the character that is
9:22
needed for someone that is going to be able to deal with this
9:26
situation well. People with the Holy Spirit,
9:31
people with wisdom, people who are full of faith and good works
9:35
and being given the qualifications of what these
9:39
guys should look like, the congregation said, Oh, these
9:42
seven men fit the bill perfectly.
9:46
And upon the selection of those men, based on the character that
9:50
they were exhibiting at that time, the apostles then prayed
9:55
over the men and commissioned or ordained them to the task of
10:00
waiting tables. So this is the first mention of
10:04
this type of office, the office of Deacon or servant, or maybe
10:09
I'll say it this way, lead servant in the local church.
10:15
So what we can read from Acts 6 is that these deacons are not
10:21
intended to be, if you will, a rival assembly or a rival board
10:27
to the elders. It doesn't work like the Senate
10:31
and the House of Representatives inside the United States
10:37
government. And it's not like, OK, we have
10:38
the pastor and that's like the president, and then we have the
10:41
elders and that's the Senate, and then we have the deacons,
10:43
and that's the House of Representatives.
10:45
No, that's not how it works. In the church.
10:48
We have our our leaders, which is our elders, and then we have
10:52
the, if you will, the lead servants, the ones that help to
10:55
take care of menial tasks so that our spiritual leaders are
11:01
freed up to be able to do the overseeing and shepherding work
11:05
that God has called them to do. The deacons were not called to
11:11
be over the entire congregation. They were only called to help
11:15
with this particular need at this particular time.
11:19
It was a servant. It's a table waiter.
11:22
A table waiter isn't responsible for everything in the, in the
11:25
restaurant. I worked at a Chick-fil-A for a
11:27
small amount of time and I did some front of house stuff.
11:31
I did dining room care. I did some, what do you call
11:37
that drive through? I, I worked there as well and I
11:41
was not in charge of inventory for the store.
11:44
I was not in charge of cooking the food.
11:47
I was not in charge of the decorations for the, uh, for the
11:54
restaurant. I was a table waiter.
11:56
I had one purpose and that was the purpose that was given to me
12:00
at that particular point in time.
12:03
And so this is what scripture describes as the case for
12:07
deacons. So I'm going to run now through
12:10
these verses and thankfully, I went through and I'd done a talk
12:15
with some of our teaching church leaders a couple years ago and
12:20
walked through some of these passages.
12:23
So if you're like Brian, you seem to be having a little bit
12:26
more structure in today's episode than previous episodes.
12:31
You are not wrong. It's because two years ago I
12:34
wrote some things down, and I'm grateful that I did that.
12:36
So here's what Paul tells Timothy about those that would
12:40
serve in particular areas at the church, if you will.
12:45
These are the ones leading in service to help with practical
12:49
needs to make sure that the overseers, the elders, the the
12:53
pastors are able to do their spiritual work and their leading
12:58
of the congregation at large. Sometimes there are smaller
13:01
needs that need to be looked after.
13:04
OK, verse #8 deacons, servants likewise should be worthy of
13:10
respect. This is these should be persons
13:13
of dignity. They should be dignified
13:17
individuals. That they aren't clowns.
13:20
They are people that you can count on, that you know this is
13:23
a good and a godly person. It says not hypocritical, that
13:29
they aren't insincere, they're not double tongued, they're not
13:32
2 faced. They're not one way when they're
13:34
talking to you and a totally different way when they're
13:36
talking about you behind your back.
13:39
That they have a consistency of character.
13:42
If someone's going to serve people in the church, you want
13:45
them to be sincere in the way that they are interacting.
13:49
You don't want someone that will be nice to the widow's face and
13:52
then behind your back talk trash about her.
13:55
That would be an awful thing, says not drinking a lot of wine.
14:00
This is given too much wine or addicted to much wine, prone to
14:05
drink much, given to excessive drinking.
14:09
So this is very similar to what's mentioned earlier in the
14:13
chapter as it pertains to overseers or bishops, that the
14:19
deacons should not be the servants, should not be ones
14:22
that are unable to exercise self-control.
14:27
Because especially when you're dealing with as many of the
14:30
deacons were, when you're dealing with financial matters,
14:34
when you're dealing with lots of food or fellowship meals, when
14:40
you are perhaps caretaking for financial matters, it would be
14:45
really, really, really important that they be able to exercise
14:49
self-control. That way everyone is safe and
14:52
everyone is in a good position, which is then what it goes on to
14:57
say there at the end of verse #8 not greedy for money they don't
15:01
want. Some other translations have it
15:04
dishonest gain or filthy lucre or not pursuing dishonest gain.
15:11
They are not doing anything that they're doing for money or in
15:16
order to get money from others. Instead that they are caretaking
15:22
for others. They're not taking advantage of
15:23
others. Verse #9 it says holding the
15:26
mystery of the faith with a clear conscience, that your
15:31
deacons should not be someone that you're not totally sure
15:34
whether or not they know the gospel.
15:37
These should not be individuals that they know what's right to
15:42
do, but they only sometimes or rarely do it.
15:46
This should be a person that can go like, yeah, my my conscience
15:49
is clear before God, like I love the Lord.
15:52
I firmly believe the gospel, you know, by grace through faith.
15:55
And so this is something that I want to pursue in my life.
16:01
That is absolutely should be the case just because a person is
16:05
skilled in a particular area. So let's say you know a
16:09
particular Deacon in the Jerusalem church there in Acts
16:14
6. Like let's say there's a guy and
16:16
he's a phenomenal chef. Just being a phenomenal chef
16:20
would not then mean let's make him a Deacon.
16:24
It's not your capabilities that it's not your capabilities that
16:29
would make you able to be a Deacon.
16:31
It is your character. Now, character plus capability
16:36
is wonderful, but capability without character is just
16:40
totally unacceptable. And even in my time as a lead
16:44
pastor, in my time as an associate pastor, even in my
16:49
time in college, being able to see various ministries, I've
16:54
seen over and over and over again the destruction that comes
16:58
to a church when ungodly people are placed in positions as a
17:02
result of what they can do or as a result of the fact that they
17:05
volunteered rather than the fact that they had good character.
17:10
You never want to go further than your character can sustain
17:15
you. And it's on the elders, on the
17:18
pastors of a church to make that determination and make that
17:23
judgment call. Again, not disparaging anyone to
17:28
the congregation at large. They always want to be
17:30
shepherding and guiding and leading people towards greater
17:33
faithfulness to Christ. So that just because someone
17:37
can't do it today doesn't mean in three years or seven years or
17:41
10 years that the person might not have grown in their
17:45
character by that time. So pray for your elders, pray
17:51
for your pastors, that they would have keen eyes and ears of
17:58
discernment, that they would be listening to the voice of the
18:00
Holy Spirit. Even as we would read all
18:04
throughout Acts, we know when a person should be brought into
18:10
church leadership, whether as a missionary, an elder, a Deacon,
18:14
whatever. By listening to the voice of the
18:17
Holy Spirit that we go based off of what the Spirit has already
18:20
said in the Word, and then we listen to His voice as He speaks
18:24
to us and guides us into all truth.
18:27
Even today. Verse #10 says they must also be
18:33
tested or proven first. If they prove blameless, then
18:39
they can serve as deacons or servants.
18:43
That there ought to be a testing period for those that would be
18:47
the lead servants in a local church.
18:49
Give them a test first to serve without the, you know, serve
18:55
without the title, serve without the leadership portion of it.
18:59
And if they serve well and they have good character, then that
19:03
would be someone that you would be interested in as officially
19:07
naming them a Deacon. And it says here, if they prove
19:12
blameless, like I talked about two episodes ago, that doesn't
19:15
mean that they have no flaws, they have no sins, they never do
19:18
anything wrong. It means there's nothing that
19:20
you can hold onto, like grasp onto into their life and go
19:25
listen. They are a liar.
19:26
They are greedy. They are, you know, racist.
19:30
They are this or that. That would never be something
19:33
that we would want to have happened with the servants of a
19:37
local church. Then verse #11, and this is
19:41
where I'll get into just a little bit of trouble.
19:45
This word is a word that can, depending on context, mean women
19:51
or can mean wives. So verse #11 is either talking
19:55
about the wives of deacons or just talking about female
20:00
deacons. Now let me take it first from
20:03
the angle that I grew up hearing and probably wasn't until like
20:09
2023 that I had heard any other view on this.
20:13
So let's take it first from the angle of if this is talking
20:18
about deacons wives. Now this is interesting because
20:21
there is no description given for how the overseers or how the
20:25
elders wives are to be. In fact, there's nowhere in
20:30
Scripture that would give any indication for the character
20:34
that an elder's wife needs to have.
20:38
So that's very interesting. But it says wives likewise
20:42
should be worthy of respect just like their husbands, not
20:45
slanderers. That is, that they're not trash
20:48
talking people. Again, if this is talking about
20:50
the wife of a Deacon, the Deacon serves someone and happens to
20:54
know, oh, yeah, there's this situation going in, going on in
20:57
their life or man, they're really struggling with this
20:59
temptation and with this sin right now.
21:01
And the danger would be that then the wife would tell someone
21:06
else and begin to slander others.
21:09
Or if there's perhaps a thing of unity in the church, as in Act
21:13
6, where there was fighting going on between the like
21:17
Pharisaical Jewish individuals and the Hellenistic Jewish
21:20
individuals, that that could have split the church, but the
21:24
deacons came and they were able to provide unity in the body.
21:30
And so it might be that as certain people are spatting
21:33
within the church that a slanderous wife could then say,
21:38
man, I am just so sick of this person constantly, you know,
21:42
trashing the church or trashing my husband or trashing our
21:45
elders. And they can cause slander
21:48
within the body of believers, which would be a terrible thing.
21:51
It also says self controlled, as already mentioned with the guys
21:56
faithful in everything that they have a consistency of belief in
22:01
their life. There's someone that you can
22:03
count on. Now the other way that this
22:07
could be taken and has been taken throughout church history
22:11
has been that this could be referring to deaconesses.
22:15
So you might say, OK, well why would it be deaconesses instead
22:20
of deacon's wives? Because the word can mean it
22:23
means women at its basic level, and then in some context it can
22:28
mean wives. So let me just go through the
22:33
one scriptural reason. Well, this verse would be a
22:37
scriptural reason #1 why we would say, OK, we think that a
22:41
Deacon can be a female in some settings, that they can be
22:45
assigned to help with a subset of the church, to help with a
22:49
practical need. The place, the other place that
22:54
we see this mentioned in Scripture is in Romans 16, one
22:57
where we're told that Phoebe, who was the Courier of the
23:00
letter to the Romans. So Paul writes the letter of
23:02
Romans, he gives it to Phoebe and Paul describes her as a
23:07
diaconon of the church at Centria that were deaconon.
23:12
That's that same word servant Deacon that we read here in this
23:16
passage and in Philippians one, which are the other two places,
23:19
the only two other places where by name deacons are mentioned in
23:23
Scripture. And that scene in them calling
23:28
her a a deaconess is clearly seen in the text of the New
23:32
International Version, the New Living Translation, the Revised
23:35
Standard Version, the New Revised Standard Version, and
23:38
the Amplified Bible. And it's noted in the footnotes
23:42
of the Christian Standard Bible, the English Standard Version,
23:45
the Legacy Standard Bible, the New American Standard Bible, the
23:49
Holman Christian Standard Bible and the New English Translation
23:52
and more. So this is something that even
23:55
in your Bibles, any, most any of your Bibles that have footnotes
24:01
are going to mention that that he or she's a servant, a
24:06
deaconess of the church at Centuria.
24:09
And less suspicion arise that a deaconess is a like modern
24:14
feminist innovation. That's like, OK, well, we gave
24:17
them the right to vote. Now they want to be deaconesses.
24:20
Clement of Alexandria, who lived from 1:50 to 2:15 AD.
24:25
So that's within 100 years after the New Testament is written.
24:30
Clement mentioned deaconesses in his commentary on 1st
24:34
Corinthians and the Roman magistrate Pliny the Younger,
24:38
who lived during the time when the New Testament was written.
24:41
He lived from 61 AD to 113 AD. He writes to someone else about
24:47
his having tortured 2 deaconesses in order to find out
24:52
more information about the Christians.
24:53
So literally while the New Testament is being written, we
24:56
have letters of Roman leaders torturing deaconesses in order
25:01
to find out about Christians. So to me at least, that was a
25:07
great comfort to go, oh, OK, so this isn't a new thing.
25:10
This has been something that churches have believed and
25:13
practiced over the last 2000 years stemming from, you know,
25:18
all the way from Romans 16 and that first century all the way
25:22
till now the more historical understanding of first Timothy
25:27
311. So what you would see perhaps
25:31
prior to, I don't know when the cut off for that would be, but
25:35
within the first couple, 100 years, right after Scripture is
25:38
written, the historical understanding of First Timothy
25:41
311 is that it is in reference to deaconesses as seen in the
25:45
text of the American Standard Version, the Amplified Bible,
25:49
the Legacy Standard Bible, the New American Standard Bible, the
25:52
New International Version, the New Revised Standard Version,
25:55
and the Revised Standard Version, and in the footnotes of
25:57
the Christian Standard Bible, the English Standard Version,
26:00
and the New English translation. So all of these, this is a
26:05
possibility. So I'm not here right now to
26:08
necessarily say like, hey, you have to believe this way or that
26:12
way. Just know if you have a church
26:15
that practices that and you wonder why do we have female
26:18
deacons, This would be why because it's talked about in
26:20
Scripture in multiple places. The early church testimony and
26:25
even writings from Romans during the 1st century tells us that
26:30
this existed. And so it shouldn't come as a
26:33
shock to us in that instance, much the same way deacons are
26:38
not called to teach as a result of their role.
26:42
That's what we read about elders, that elders, overseers
26:45
are. They have a responsibility.
26:46
One of their qualifications is they have to be capable of
26:49
teaching apartment to teach. No such instruction is given to
26:53
the deacons. So it's completely in line with
26:55
what we read in First Timothy 211.
26:58
Paul says I don't allow a woman to teach or to usurp authority
27:03
over a man, but to learn in submission.
27:06
So it lines right up with that that someone does not have to be
27:11
a man in order to wait tables for widows and someone does not
27:16
have to be a man in order to take a church letter from one
27:21
place to another place, which is what we're told in Scripture are
27:26
the roles are two of the roles that deacons play.
27:29
They do a menial task to allow the elders of their church to be
27:34
able to do their spiritual work and leading verse #12 deacons.
27:39
Servants are to be husbands of one wife managing their children
27:44
and their own households competently.
27:47
So here, and for those that would say that deacons can only
27:52
be that deacons can only be men, they would say here it doesn't
27:58
say that they are to be the husband of one wife or the wife
28:01
of one husband. And also you guys, even from
28:04
First Timothy chapter 5, I actually think that argument has
28:08
some validity and should be given some worth with that.
28:11
However, it was very, very uncommon then as now for women
28:18
to have multiple husbands. This was a patriarchal society
28:23
and so the the much more common thing to happen would be that a
28:27
man would have multiple wives, not that a wife would have
28:31
multiple husbands. That would just be a tremendous
28:35
oddity within scripture. Or even as you look at the
28:38
entirety of Scripture, you don't see anyone that lives that life
28:44
other than I'll say maybe Herodias who left her husband to
28:48
marry Herod. So I just want to mention that
28:52
as well, that this would be an instruction that would be needed
28:56
for the men, but it wouldn't be needed for the women because
28:59
that wasn't something that was that happened there in that 1st
29:03
century Roman culture. So deacons are to be husbands of
29:06
one wife that they are one women type of men, they're not
29:11
sleeping around, they're not sexually immoral, and that they
29:13
are faithful to their spouse, managing their children and
29:18
their own households competently, exactly the same as
29:20
we saw last episode. For those who have served well
29:23
as deacons acquire a good standing for themselves and
29:27
great boldness in the faith that is in Christ Jesus here.
29:33
When deacons do their jobs well, they are well respected within
29:37
the local church and they are able to have boldness about
29:41
sharing their faith because everyone that knows them knows
29:44
this is a helpful person. This is a person who aids our
29:48
church. This is a person that I can rely
29:51
on and that I can trust. And so deacons are a wonderful
29:55
blessing to a local church. I'll level with you guys if
29:58
you're here. We are 29 minutes in.
30:01
This is the very last thing I'm going to say.
30:03
If you would pray for Tabernacle Baptist Church, I am praying for
30:07
the Lord to guide in some specific areas where we really
30:11
have some needs as a church body to be able to have people
30:15
helping out with practical needs for the church in order to allow
30:19
the elders and frankly myself as an elder to be able to dedicate
30:25
myself to the work that God has for me.
30:29
But I know that deacons are not just someone that is nominated
30:32
by the pastor. It's not just someone that's
30:35
willing to do a thing and needs to be someone that God is called
30:37
to the purpose and that the church body recognizes that the
30:41
Spirit is moving in them in that way.
30:43
So if you would, please be in prayer for our church as we are
30:47
in need of deacons. Thank you and I pray that God
30:51
blesses you today. If you have any comments,
30:53
questions, let me know. Would love to interact with you.
30:56
And if you have any angry comments, please text or e-mail
31:00
them my way. We'll be happy to converse with
31:04
you, but have a wonderful day.