Church Servants

In our adult Bible study at church we spent last week looking at leadership within a NT church. I am distinctively baptist because I believe the Scriptures most clearly articulate what baptists have historically believed. Therefore it would come as no shock to anyone that I strongly believe in two offices within the local church body. However, I have discovered through studies, that the positions of elders (shepherds) and deacons has a wide variety of applications. Often baptist churches have thought that the pastors and deacons are opposite offices functioning in some sort of balance of power. With the deacons’ job being to “keep the pastors in check” while the pastors’ job is to find some way to get his agenda through the deacon board.

When I study the Scripture, I wonder where that idea ever came from. Nothing could be further from the NT example and instruction regarding these two complementary roles with the local Body. Sadly, many of those in leadership lack to the fundamental quality necessary for these two offices to serve seamlessly–Trust. How often the pastors don’t trust the deacons to get the job done and so they take it upon themselves to do what is the deacons’ God given responsibility. (I suppose pastors might complain that often the deacons don’t do the job and it has to be done, but that is no excuse for crossing over roles on a continual basis). And how often deacons believe they must step in to make up what is “lacking” (at least in their perception) of the pastoral leadership. But if both offices would trust God that he has gifted and enabled His leadership, and not seek to be the “church police” regarding the other, great advances of growth would occur within the local church.

Both offices are servants of God serving his flock, the church. The deacons serve the physical needs of the church, while the pastors/elders serve the spiritual needs of the church (Acts 6:1-4). Right away the tendency can be to suggest then that the pastors are more important than the deacons. While the Bible does give precedents to spiritual food over physical food, in Acts 6, the lack of physical food for the Hellenistic widows was creating a spiritual problem. In other words, the elders (in this instance the Apostles) were having difficulty providing spiritual nourishment because the physical was lacking and disunity was growing. I see here one of the greatest responsibilities of the deacons of a church; they serve by promoting unity and preventing distractions that draw the heart and mind of the people away from the spiritual. What a great spiritual task, to manage the physical needs of the church well enough to hinder division and dispute within the body. Every pastor would take heed to encourage the deacons in this task. Here also, we see that the pastors/elders were responsible to not cease the service with the Word and prayer in favor of meeting physcial needs. Both are spiritual offices because we, as humans are spiritual and physical and the one affects the other more than we probably understand.

Both are servants, the deacons serving in the physical realm to promote unity and growth, and the elders to serve in the spiritual realm to promote unity and growth. But where is the “division of labor” so to speak? I think that these two job descriptions sum up the responsibility of the pastors and deacons. Deacons 1.enable the saints to do the work of the ministry (Acts 6) by providing for the physical needs to do so (promoting unity, managing the financial, supporting the ministry of Word and prayer). In other words, they remove that which would distract the saints from the work of the Gospel ministry, by enabling seamless, cohesive service to God. The elders 2.equip the saints to do the work of the ministry (Eph. 4:12). They teach, preach, guide, care, oversee, and pray for the people and they are equipped to serve Jesus Christ.

When these two offices function in harmony and uni-purpose, God is glorified as his church program “works” and the mission of Christ is moved forward. Praise God for his great wisdom in ordaining these two offices for the benefit of the local church.