Have We Sold the Church Short on Deacons?
The Bible is clear that work of deacons is vital to the health and smooth-running of the church, but in recent years there has been such a focus on developing word ministry in the church, it may be that we have sown the seeds of the practical failure of many churches for lack of deacons. Deacons Are Key Let me try and explain. In Acts 6:1-7, we hit one of a series of obstacles to the church at the start of the book of Acts. Conflict arises in the Jerusalem church because of the way food is distributed to the widows of the church. The Hebraic Jews seem to be preferred to Hellenistic Jews (Acts 6:1). This is a real problem that needs a practical solution, but it needs to be a solution that does not distract from the word ministry of the apostles (Acts 6:2, 4). So they appoint seven mature and godly men to deal with this practical issue, which ensures the spread of the word of God. These seven have usually been thought of as deacons because of the repeated use of the diakon- word group in...
