Dennis Tuuri

Acts 6:1-7. And in those days when the number of the disciples was multiplied, there arose a murmuring of the Grecians against the Hebrews because their widows were neglected in the daily ministration. Then the twelve called the multitude of the disciples unto them and said, “It is not reason that we should leave the word of God and serve tables. Wherefore, brethren, look ye out among you seven men of honest report, full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom, whom we may set and appoint over this business.

But we will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the word.” And the saying pleased the whole multitude. And they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Ghost, and Philip, and Prochorus, and Nicanor, and Timon, and Parmenas, and Nicolas, a proselyte of Antioch, whom they set before the apostles. And when they had prayed, they laid their hands on them. And the word of God increased, and the number of the disciples multiplied in Jerusalem greatly, and a great company of the priests were obedient to the faith.

Apologize for the incorrect date at the top of your orders of service today. I prepared these probably a month ago before I recognized that Easter was on the 26th. So we just put it off a week that talk and inserted an Easter message and that’s why the date’s wrong.

This morning, we continue with our series of six talks going over the church and the institutional function of the church as it were—the officers and church organization and structure. We started with talking about three forms of polity and then we talked two weeks ago about the eldership and its Old Testament antecedents. This morning we’re going to talk about deacons. So we’ve chosen the passage from Acts 6 that we believe is the establishment of the first set of deacons and the initiation of that office in the New Testament church.

Don’t be too intimidated by the long outline. I think we’ll go through this material fairly quickly, at least the first half of the outline and maybe spend a bit more on the second half. It’s just a very detailed outline. It doesn’t indicate I’m going to spend a lot of time on each point. We have in Acts 6 a very compact piece of scripture, very beautifully organized, full of important implications and insights that are essential for reconstruction.

The passage begins with the blessings of God—noting the increase and the multiplication of the disciples that was occurring is the direct blessing of God in verse one—and then it ends in that same way, that the blessings continue and more people come to the faith, and that how that little passage of scripture ends in verse 7. So between 1 and 7, the book ends with blessing, as it were. We have this center portion that shows the possibility of some real problems in the early church—the first dissension actually in the church, early Pentecostal church. We have here in this one little picture a very compact description of the church as it’s described throughout the New Testament and also as it points back to the Old Testament.

We have the establishment here of the apostles accord. The apostles have been established. They are in the teaching and praying ministry. They now select seven men that would become, I believe, the office of the deacons to serve the tables as they are serving the ministry of the word, the service of the word. And so those two offices of the institutional church are established in Acts 6. So you have a little microcosm picture here of the church, and so it’s a very important piece of scripture for us.

The officers that are appointed here are blessed by God—I believe with perpetual status and increased blessings are folded for them later in the scriptures as well as for the church in which they function. And I guess that one picture you have here then is victory established through internal dissensions. As other portions of the book of Acts shows, this victory over external enemies and problems. And so here we have victory through God’s appointed means and secondary means—the officers of the church.

And it’s an important passage too because there’s just generally a scarcity of information in the New Testament what the deacons are or do. And so you have this account of what it seems very clearly and has seemed over the centuries to most Christian scholars—very clearly that this is the establishment of the first deacons. You’ve got this portion of scripture which is quite short. You’ve got some qualifications listed in 1 Timothy 3 that we’ll talk about in a couple of minutes.

Few verses there. We have a salutation in Philippians 1:1—the bishops and the deacons. So we know that they were the second office, as it were, that we talked about a couple of weeks ago when talking about two offices or more. And the scriptures definitely assert two offices, but that’s really about it in terms of the specific ministry of the deacon. And so we want to look at this passage very closely and also see how this passage may relate to other passages and look at the Old Testament antecedents of the office of deacon as well.

Now, first I wanted to spend briefly a little bit of time talking about the perpetual nature of the office. And I’m going to use here the outline notes that you have there—those six points under point one under the perpetual nature of the office come directly from John Owen’s work “The True Nature of the Gospel Church”—as does much of the first half of the outline. And I’ll be quoting from John Owen quite a bit here in terms of how he did a very good job of summarizing the official function of the deacons, their permanent nature of the office, et cetera.

And things that not many people would disagree about. We want to spend most of our time in terms of things we’re going to consider from a little different perspective in the second half of the outline. So we’ll move through this first half pretty quickly.

First of all, Owen stated that the perpetual nature of the office of deacon is indicated by the continuing need of the vulnerable. Here in Acts 6, you have widows specifically in the administration who have a need. And Owen said correctly that the poor you’ll always have with you, as our savior told us. We’ll always have widows, fatherless, aliens—people who are vulnerable in society and who need special administration of grace from the institutional church. And since the need is perpetual, then also the thing that was designed to meet the need, which was the establishment of these seven deacons, is also perpetual.

Secondly, Owen says that we have the continual need of the eldership. The second reason why the diaconate is established here in Acts 6 is first to certainly serve the tables, the ministration of the widows, and extend grace to the vulnerable. But it also, of course, is specifically to alleviate the apostles who then were later superseded or followed rather by the eldership—to alleviate them from those sorts of ministrations. They were called to minister by teaching the word of God, by studying it, and by prayer. And to do that correctly, they need another office to take away the administrative duties from them. And that need also is perpetual throughout the church age. The eldership are always going to have a need for diversity of function within the officers of the church. And since that need is perpetual, the office to meet that need established in Acts 6 is also perpetual.

Third, Owen cites the salutation in Philippians 1:1, and we have the specific mention of two offices that Paul writes to. He writes to the congregation and then he writes to the bishops and the deacons in the congregation. And so the perpetual nature of the office is pointed out there.

Fourth, the qualifications for the office listed in 1 Timothy 3. And you remember that chapter in 1 Timothy 3 gets some sets of qualifications for those who aspire to the bishop—to be bishops or elders. The term is used interchangeably in the New Testament. It establishes those qualifications. Then goes to discussing the qualifications of the deacons. And so there we have established qualifications. First Timothy is written specifically so that they might know how to behave themselves in the household of God. It’s given to instruct them in the institutionalization of the church as an organism that happens over time and with God’s blessing.

And so those qualifications for that second office are very important to us to indicate again the continuing nature of that office in the church.

Fifth, the continual nature of the office is indicated by the service of the deacon indicated at the end of those lists of qualifications. And in that list of qualification in 1 Timothy 3, we read that they continue—it isn’t just a list of qualifications. It is essentially also an acknowledgement of the continuing service in that office. Specifically, we read in 1 Timothy 3:13 that they that have used or served in the office of a deacon. And so the perpetual service of the deacon as well as the qualifications of it are listed in 1 Timothy 3. And so that again indicates the perpetual nature of the office.

And then finally, that verse says that if they do that, if they use the office of a deacon and serve correctly, if they use the office of a deacon well, they purchase to themselves a good degree and great boldness in the faith which is in Christ Jesus. Now, in terms of what that second half of the verse means, we’re going to talk about that more in a couple of weeks when we discuss the honor due to office holders. But suffice it to say now—the reason we quoted—is the sixth reason: there is a continuing blessing assigned to those people that inhabit the office of deacon and serve well in that function. And so the continuing nature is said in 1 Timothy 3.

And so it’s another proof of the perpetual nature of the office of deacon.

Okay, that’s good. But now we have to talk about what that office is. And that, of course, is the rub. It’s been the rub throughout church history for 2,000 years. And each of the major divisions of polity that we talked about before—congregationalism, Episcopalianism, Catholicism—each has its own particular thrust to this ministry of what they think the deacons are, and they are quite radically different one from another.

And so it’s important that we look very closely at what these deacons’ duties are. And again, we’re going to turn to John Owen here and his work from volumes 15 and 16 of his collected works, and specifically his work on “The True Nature of the Gospel Church.” Owen talked about the deacon’s office. I’m going to address the service or the ministry of the deacons under two specific headings. The first is administration of benevolences and the second is administration of the church.

The first of these two is not really disputed by too many people. It’s the second one that is some matter of contention. The first one is obviously indicated from our text in Acts 6—administration of the widows, administration of benevolences, charitable works of the church institutionally are talked about here. That’s rather obvious. And so I’m going to go through these things that Owen cites very quickly because it should be somewhat obvious, but it’s good for us to think through it a little bit in terms of some of the implications of this.

First of all, the deacon has duty in terms of benevolence administration that he must engage himself in. And after talking about that a little bit, we’ll talk about the characteristics in which he is to perform these duties.

In terms of his duties, he has duties first to the vulnerable themselves. Of course, he must—if he is going to serve the ministration of the widows or later those people that are what I would call vulnerable in a church—the scriptures specifically mentioned along with the widows throughout the scriptures: orphans as well as the strangers or aliens in the land, as people that need particular extensions of grace to them. We’ve talked about that a lot. The demonstration of the royal virtue that we have being kings under King Jesus is that we extend grace to others because God has extended grace to us. And specifically, that’s measured out and given to us symbolically and demonstrated to us in a particular sense in terms of how well we minister and extend grace to the three classes that I’ve mentioned: widows, fatherless, and strangers.

And so here, one of those groups is signaled out in Acts 6, but I think it should call to mind the other groups as well. And it says the deacon is supposed to be part of the way the church reaches out and extends grace to those people. And so if he’s going to do that, the first thing he’s got to do is acquaint himself with the needs of the widows, the fatherless, and the strangers in the midst of the church, and additionally any others that are in particularly hard times and may need some help from the church institutionally or from the church individually and its individual members.

And so the deacon has to work to acquaint himself with the needs of the congregation. And that is not always an easy task, but it’s certainly the one he must first do in order to then administer the institutional church’s portion of relief for those things correctly.

The second part of his duty toward the vulnerable themselves is to administer that correctly. He must do this—and you have it in parenthesis here in your outline: in part. Now, the reason I put that in part in there is to remind us that primarily in the scriptures, the obligation for relief of people who are poor or who have specific needs in the midst of a covenant community, the primary portion of those duties fall to individuals within the church, not to the institutional church. And in that sense, the deacon is to know specific needs, know people that can meet needs, and get those people together.

Now, the church has an actual, of course, institutional role to play as well. Specifically, certainly in terms of widows, and maybe other people as well—but specifically in terms of widows because we’re told later in the epistles that widows are to be put on a list if they are over a certain age qualification and have served well. And the understanding there is that they’re still involved in some sort of work in the church, and they’re to be supported by the church institutionally if their families don’t support them.

And so the church has an institutional role to play. We know from that point, version of scripture, and so the deacons would administer that benevolence fund specifically under their oversight and control. So those are the two things that he must do in terms of the individuals themselves.

Secondly, he has a role to the congregation. He must acquaint the congregation with those needs having discovered them themselves. And since the primary method that God has given us in scripture to relieve needs—those methods being the poor loan, gleaning, and a use of our portion of our tithe for the relief of widows, fatherless, and the strangers individually, not corporately necessarily—since those things are true in the scriptures, the deacons who understand and acquaint themselves with the problems of the vulnerable then must pass that information on to members of the congregation.

So his duty to the congregation is to keep them informed of those sorts of needs.

Secondly, he is to stir them up, as it were, to perform these functions well. Owen, in writing on this, says that the office and the work of the deacons is to excite, direct, and help them in the exercise of that grace and discharge of the duty therein incumbent upon them—speaking of the congregation here and their duties incumbent upon them. Nor is any man by instructing or entrusting rather a due proportion of his good things in the hands of the deacons for its distribution absolved thereby from his own personal discharge of it also. And so the deacon has a responsibility to stir people up, as it were, to meet the needs that he has discovered and then communicated to them.

And third, he is to admonish them if they don’t do this. And if he knows that there are people in the congregation that don’t extend grace and compassion, and since he’s specifically given administration of benevolences, Owen says—and I believe correctly—that he is to admonish them in the necessity of performing that duty of extension of grace.

So that’s his requirements to the congregation.

To the eldership themselves, of course, the deacons have a responsibility. Again, to acquaint the elders with problems, because frequently the scriptures are clear that—not always, but certainly frequently—problems of a spiritual nature and problems of an economic nature or of a need for grace can go together. And so the eldership should be kept in mind of particular problems that are existing in various families in the congregation, and the deacon has a responsibility to help him to do that.

Secondly, he gives an account to the elders. The elders collected the funds. Under the New Testament epistle writings and the writings of the book of Acts, they are essentially the overseers of the church—the elders are—and of the funds as well. The deacons administer those funds under the direction and oversight of the elders. And so they must account to the sitting eldership as well and seek advice from the eldership in terms of these matters as well.

And then also to relieve the elders—of course, that’s one of the reasons why they’re established in Acts 6—to help the elders not be burdened by the work that they’re not really equipped or called by God to do specifically, in which another person is. And so the relief of the elders from those responsibilities is also a duty that they have. And Owen talks about that at some length again in “The True Nature of the Gospel Church,” and he does so in a very good fashion, and I’d commend it to you.

Finally, Owen mentions the attitude the deacons are to have in order to accomplish these tasks: those attitudes being mercy, cheerfulness, diligence, and faithfulness. Owen writes that he is to have mercy to represent the tenderness of Christ towards the poor of the flock. Romans 12:8—cheerfulness to release the spirits of them that receive against thoughts of being troublesome and burdensome to others. Third, he’s supposed to have diligence and faithfulness, by which they purchase themselves a good degree and great boldness in the faith which is in Christ Jesus. And so those are some of the characteristics that the deacon must have as he administers these funds. And if you think about the benevolent nature of this stuff, that becomes rather obvious—that mercy, cheerfulness, and diligence and faithfulness are requirements of the diaconate.

Okay. Now, so far we’ve talked about things that most churches, at least in the Presbyterian tradition, would agree with and have actually implemented to varying degrees in churches. But I think that there is a second matter of overall church administration that we want to spend a little bit more time on—obviously, stating the obvious in this administration of benevolences. And to do this, as we’ve done before, I want us to look at Numbers 11 and Acts 6 side by side.

And so you might want to mark those two places in your scriptures as we consider those two portions of scripture—Acts 6 and Numbers 11. And additionally, I’ll be referring also to Deuteronomy 1:9-15, which we talked about a couple of weeks ago, of course. And as you’re turning to Numbers 11 and Acts 6, I’d remind you that what we’ve said before, and what I am convinced is correct, is that in Deuteronomy 1, Moses gives the accounts of two selections of two types of officers, and he compiles them together into one description.

Specifically, he says in verses 9 to 15. Don’t turn to Deuteronomy 1, but keep find your places in Numbers 11 and Acts 6. But in Deuteronomy 1, the overview of this is the following:

“And I spake unto you at that time, saying, ‘I am not able to bear you myself alone. Remember that he’s not able to bear them. And why? Because the Lord your God hath multiplied you, and behold, ye are as this day as the stars of heaven for multitude. The Lord God of your fathers make you a thousand times so many more as ye are, and bless you as he hath promised you.’” That’s verse 11 rather of Deuteronomy 1.

“Verse 12. ‘How can I myself alone bear your cumbrance and your burden and your strife? Take you wise men and understanding and known among your tribes. Three things he says here: wise men, understanding, known among your tribes. And I’ll make them rulers over you.’

“And he answered me and said, ‘The thing which thou hast spoken is good for us to do.’ So I took the chief of your tribes, wise men and known, and made them heads over you, captains over thousands, captains over hundreds, captains over 50s, captains over tens, and officers among your tribes.”

And he takes the captains over the tens, 50s, hundreds, and thousands. He says he also made officers. And he’s combining together then the accounts of Numbers 11 and Exodus 18 into Deuteronomy 1. Numbers 11 is the selection of 70 officers—Hebrew, Shotrim or Shotim. Probably not pronouncing that correctly. Exodus 18 is the selection of the judges who would rule in terms of judicial matters by teaching the word of God and counseling people and then also administering judicial decisions when it’s required. And so he takes Numbers 11 with the officers and Exodus 18 with the judges and puts them together and says this is how he established the administration of the body of the covenant community in the wilderness.

And this is what he established. And then we know, as we’ve talked about before, from other passages in Deuteronomy that he says when you go into the promised land, appoint judges and officers—same two offices.

Okay. Now, I’m going to list, and I’ve listed on your outline, seven specific commonalities between Numbers 11 and Acts 6—commonalities in those two texts for us.

First of all, complaint arises. In Numbers 11, verse one, it says, “The people came, became like those who complain of adversity in the hearing of the Lord.” In Acts 6, of course, we read that as the disciples were increasing, a complaint arose. And so in both situations, you’ve got a complaint on the part of people.

Secondly, you have on the part of the mixed multitude, this complaining occurs. On your outline, it’s a little bit ambiguous. I’ve got—I tried to put it down to one or two words. So we have complaints and then mixed and then underneath that multitude. And there’s a reason I did that. The reason is first of all, the second point of commonality is the mixed multitude under the description in Numbers 11. And then the Grecian or Hellenic Jews who are doing the complaint in Acts 6. So in both situations, you have people outside of the normally recognized body of Israel.

In Numbers 11, of course, they were Egyptians and other races who went with the Israelites when they departed from Egypt. And so there was a profession of faith there in the God of deliverance, Yahweh. And so they’re part of the covenant community, but they’re separate. I mean, they’re not like the normal group of Hebrews that came out of Egypt. And then in Acts 6, of course, you have Hellenic Jews who are in the city at the time of Pentecost. They stay there upon conversion to become part of that covenant community. And there’s another similarity or commonality—that this complaint arises first on the part of the mixed multitude. In Numbers 11, you can read that in verse 4. And in Acts 6, of course, it says it right in the first verse that they were Hellenic Jews who were complaining.

Third, another point of commonality is that these complaints arise… Oh, okay, I have them mixed up. Okay. Third, the idea—the single word “multitude” on your outlines is to indicate the blessing that had preceded the complaining that occurred. And in Acts 6, you know, it says that as the disciples were increasing, these things happened. And there’s a relationship between this large group of people now coming to Christ in Acts 6 and then the resultant problem with administration of the table’s administration for the widows in the context of that.

So it’s blessing from God that creates the problem, or at least the context in which sin can be entered into. So blessing brings new trials, new evaluations from God. And indeed also in Deuteronomy 1, which we read, Moses said that because the Lord your God had multiplied you in verse 10 of Deuteronomy 1, that he was not able to bear them because of the multiplication of God—of the promised covenant people rather.

So in both cases you have a dispute on the part of mixed multitudes as a result of God’s passing in super abundance the numbers of the covenant peoples.

There’s another commonality in the text. Fourth, the dispute is specifically over food. And in the context of Numbers 11, they start remembering what they ate back in Egypt and they say, “We need meat to eat.” In verse 4, they’re complaining because of the lack of food. They’ve been given manna. They were tired of manna. They wanted meat to eat. And they thought of Egypt. And again in Acts 6, the problem is a food problem with the distribution of the ministration, which was the daily food given to the widows. So we’ve got complaints, mixed multitude, blessings of God, and food.

Fifth, a commonality of point is that God then appoints administrators and directs his people to appoint administrators in Numbers 11 and in Acts 6. In Numbers 11, to meet this problem, God says, “Pick out 70 men of the elders.” And remember, the elders are like the subgroup, all the heads of households and heads of families that represent the core of men from which special officers are taken in the Old Testament and also in the New Testament. It’s also assigned to the specific office in the New Testament church, and the specific functions in the Old Testament—but essentially, the elders are men. It’s, for instance, all the heads of household of Reformation Covenant Church are seen as the group of elders at RCC from which officers are taken out of. So he says take elders, and he says take those who are officers. Okay? And I’ll put them in charge of the administration, to share with you Moses, the burden which you share in terms of administrating this people. And so these were elders, but they were also officers. And remember, we said that in back in Egypt, there were officers or foremen over the work.

And so Moses takes officers and makes officers or administrators of them—in essence, the same way that he took judges or headmen, chief men, and made chief men of them in Exodus 18. So he appoints administrators in Numbers 11 to solve this administrator problem. And in Acts 6, again through his sitting authority, the apostles on this situation—as opposed to Moses in this situation—the apostles then say, “Select out seven men who have these qualifications and I’ll put them in office.”

Now, remember I pointed out that in Deuteronomy 1, the qualifications that Moses repeats—in this, this combining of Numbers 11 and Exodus 18 and Deuteronomy 1—Moses says that the qualifications were three: wise men, understanding, and known among your tribes. And in the account in Acts 6, we have three essential qualifications put forward as well: you are to pick out men of good reputation, men known among your tribes. You’re to pick out those full of the Spirit, and the Spirit produces understanding. The Spirit writes the law upon our hearts and gives us understanding. And then third: bit of wisdom. And so you have a correlation even in the qualifications that are listed for these two sets of officers.

But in any event, administrators is a common feature of the two texts to solve the specific problem.

Sixth, there is a divine enabling. By God having established these administrative people to administer the people of the covenant community, in Moses’ time, God then takes the spirit that’s upon Moses and puts it upon the 70 men, and they prophesy—is an indication the spirit has been transferred. God’s enablement of Moses is now produces an enablement for the people that he appoints to serve administratively the 70.

And so in Acts 6 as well, the apostles say, “Pick these guys out, and then we will ordain them. We’ll lay hands upon them.” And again, you have that idea of the transference of authority, enabling from God and office through the imposition of hands. It’s not magical. It’s an indication that God’s hand is upon this person. He has set this person in office. He has divine enablement from God to fulfill the functions of that office. And that’s what’s pictured in Numbers 11. And that’s what’s pictured in Acts 6.

Seventhly, the result of that is blessing. Acts 6—that’s quite obvious. We said that at the end, Acts 6:1-7, the context is two bookends of blessing: the blessing that creates the problem, and the blessing that then is a result of solving the problem according to God’s chosen means, the institution of deacons. And in the text from Numbers 11, we’re going to have to look at Deuteronomy 1 for that indication of blessing.

And remember, we said that in Deuteronomy 1:10, Moses says, “The Lord your God hath multiplied you.” And he talks about the blessings. Then he says in verse 11, “The Lord God of your fathers make you a thousand times so many more as you are and bless you as he hath promised you.” And so their past blessing, which produces a problem, problem correctly responded to on the part of the people, means blessing from God for the future. And so that’s another commonality between those two texts.

So what I’m saying here—what I’ve said before and what I think is accurate according to the text—is that we have, if we want to let the scriptures interpret the scriptures and we want to see what Acts 6 is telling us about, then we want to look for other correlations in the scriptures to Acts 6. And Numbers 11 has so many correlations as I think it would be a real mistake to overlook the implications of that. And I think that’s one reason why God doesn’t give us more information in terms of the functions of the deacons—because he gives it to us if we look at the whole of the scriptures and let the scriptures interpret itself.

Now, I said before, when we talked about this a couple of years ago, that this is a little bit novel in the writings that I’ve read in terms of the office of deacons throughout church history—this idea that there’s this correlation between Numbers 11 and Acts 6. It’s important that I notify you about that so you don’t just go running off and think everybody believes this. They don’t. But on the other hand, I have come across other sources that seem to indicate the same thing, and I’ve cited three of them. And let’s look at those first. I’m going to change the outline a bit here.

Let’s move to the confirmation of this by other esteemed men. Well, let’s not—let’s proceed at the outline we have. But it’s important to say here that if you’re having questions about whether this is really something kind of goofy on my part, suffice it to say that we’ll be citing sources here in a couple of minutes from very respected and esteemed men that say pretty much the same sort of thing.

Now, if we have this correlation between Numbers 11 and Acts 6, which I think we do, that means there’s a correlation between the Old Testament office that was established in Numbers 11—the officers—and then the judges and officers that are appointed in every town, and the deacons’ function in the institutional church. And more, as we’ll see—what were these officers of the Old Testament? If we find that out, it’ll tell us something a little bit better about whether or not we can see the correlation with the deacons as well.

De Vaux, who is one of the best writers in terms of understanding the culture of the ancient Israelites, comments on the establishment of Levites as officers during Jehoshaphat’s rule in Jerusalem. And he notes that it is distinct from the scribe. Now, I bring that up because a lot of people say “Shotrim” is just the root of that means to write or as a scribe. So all these guys are is scribes. They’re just, you know, people that write down things. They don’t really do anything else. But in 2 Chronicles 34:13, the scribe is listed as a separate function from the officer or Shotim. And that’s why your King James version translates the word Shotrim almost always by officer or even once or twice by ruler. Makes it separate from the scribe because it is separate from the scribe according to 2 Chronicles 34:13.

De Vaux says that the officers seem to be clerks of the court, clerks attached to judges, and notes the charge of forced labor that they exercise in Exodus 5:6. They were in charge of the forced labor in Egypt, like we said. And he also notes this: in administrating forced labor also occurs in 2 Chronicles 34:13, as well as the officers having administrative rule in the army in Deuteronomy 20.

Let’s turn to that section in Deuteronomy 20. There’s an interesting correlation between this and something that was written later by a man going back over church history.

Deuteronomy 20 is the account of the people going to go into battle. He says, “When you go into battle, this is what you got to do first.” The first thing you do is the priests address the people. They tell the people, “Be strong, be courageous. God is with you.” And so the first few verses of Deuteronomy 20, the priests go in there and encourage the people and tell them that God is with them.

And then after the priests go through and do that, in verse 5 it says: “The officer shall speak unto the people, saying, ‘What man is there that hath built a new house and hath not dedicated it? Let him go and return to his house, lest he die in the battle and another man dedicate it. What man is he that hath planted a vineyard and hath not eaten fruit of it? Let him go.’ Verse 7, ‘What man is there that hath betrothed a wife and hath not taken her? Let him go, return to his house.’ Verse 8, the officer shall speak further unto the people, and say, ‘What man is there that is fearful and faint-hearted? Any cowards here? Let him go and return to his house, lest his brother’s heart faint as well as his heart.’ Verse 9, ‘When the officers have made an end of speaking unto the people, that they shall make captains of the armies to lead the people.’”

And so the officers here are responsible for going and instructing, calling out to the people, the exemptions that God’s law provided and required for military service. And so you’ve got these officers, these Shotim, serving administrative function in the context of the military. And they do that by going through and calling out the requirements of God’s word. And so it’s interesting here too to see the priests and then the officers working in conjunction to prepare the army for military battle.

Now, in regards to the use of the Shotim here to make public declaration of exemptions from military service, it’s interesting to note a quote by Samuel Miller in his book “The Ruling Elder.” Speaking of church history, he writes the following: In his book “The Ruling Elder,” the deacons in the third, fourth, and fifth centuries are everywhere represented as the common heralds or criers of the church. That is, when any public notice was to be given, when the catechumens or the penitents were to be called upon, allowed to come forward or to withdraw, or when any public proclamation was to be made in the course of the service of the church, it belonged to the deacon’s office to perform this duty.

And you see, that’s remarkably like this thing that they’re doing with the military. They’re calling out the catechumens, the penitents—who comes, who goes—speaking forward the requirements of God’s word in administering the people in that way.

Additionally, Miller goes on to say: “Hence he was called the crier and was said to cry aloud or to make proclamation. It belonged to the deacons also to keep order at the doors when the service was beginning, to see that the worshippers were seated in a quiet and orderly manner, to stand around the communion table when it was spread, and with fans made either of dried skins or peacock feathers to keep off the flies from the consecrated elements. And after the consecration of the sacramental elements, to bear them to the communicants. These and a variety of other subordinate duties were considered as pertaining to their office.”

And so Miller describes for us there that in the second, third, and fourth centuries of the church, indeed the deacons serve this administrative function and very closely parallel the use in Deuteronomy 20 of their use in military service to cry out the requirements of God’s law.

Now, while we won’t go through all the references to the Shotim or officers in the New Testament, suffice it to say that one problem when looking at offices in the Old Testament—and we saw this with the elders when we went through that a couple of years ago—is that there seems to be a cross-disciplinary presence of officers or functions in different areas. And what I mean by that is the Shotim, for instance, the officers, there are officers indicated in Numbers 11 and also in Deuteronomy 31:28 as serving in civil functions. Okay? And that’s what they’re doing in Numbers 11. This is not a religious function. They’re serving a civil function of administration to the people.

Also, in 1 Chronicles 26:32 and following and 1 Chronicles 26:32 and following, they serve a civil function there. Okay. The officers also, however, in 1 Chronicles 23:4, 26:29, 2 Chronicles 19:11, and 34:13—all of which are on your outline so I don’t have to read them slowly—the officers serve a religious and a judicial function. Okay? And then in other passages of scripture, such as the one we just read from Deuteronomy 20, they serve in a military fashion. Deuteronomy 20:5, Joshua 1:10, 3:2, 1 Chronicles 27:1, 2 Chronicles 26:11—you have them there in terms of their military function.

Now, this has some implications for us. But suffice it to say that for the purposes first of talking about the function of the officers: if you go to these verses, you’ll see that they have these administrative functions either in terms of the civil order, the military order, or the religious order, or the judicial order. All these things had officers at work. And among the Levites themselves, there were officers or Shotim who did these administrative functions. Okay, very important to remember that the administration then that the Shotim performed moves across disciplinary lines—rather, in other words, it goes across all these different subject areas—religious, judicial, civil, et cetera. So if we look at that and see that what these Shotim were doing in each of these functions was administrative duties, okay, then what that tells us is this: there is a correlation that we pointed out between Numbers 11 and Acts 6, which means the deacons should be seen as probably not just administering a particular portion of the church’s temporal interest—being benevolences—but rather their administration probably will go across the whole line, won’t it? The administration of all the church functions.

So one other point to be kept in mind here is this: helps us if we look at the Shotim and its use across disciplinary lines, we know that the term deacon and service is used relating to the church and the state rather in Romans 13. And that’s another reason why in the New Testament the office of the deacon is a little tough to nail down, because you have service—the concept of service—and the word actually means to serve. You’ve got that going across disciplinary lines as well.

And so in Romans 13, the state itself is called a deacon, or a minister of God, a servant of God. Well, if you understand that the administration of the civil magistrate, the judicial function—not the civil man, but the civil order, the judicial function, religious function of the Old Testament—was to be seen administratively as service to God, then it makes sense why the state is called in Romans 13 a deacon as well. There’d be deacons, administrators, within the civil state as well as judges. You see? So again, that shows this correlation between those two functions.

So what I’m suggesting by all this is that the deacons, the function of the deacons, is to administer not just the benevolences but the whole temporal affairs of the church. The administrative duties of the church are performed by the deacons.

And now I want to quote a couple—as I said, these other authorities—to indicate, to kind of flesh this out a bit for you, and also to show that this isn’t just, you know, crazy Dennis saying these things and nobody’s ever thought this before. If that was the case, I’d want you to be very suspicious of what I say.

First of all, John Owen himself. And I mentioned before, while he spends most of the time in “The True Nature of the Gospel Church” discussing the deacons’ duties and benevolences, toward the end of the section, he says the following:

“Whereas the reason of the institution of this office was in general to free the pastors of the churches, who labor in the word and doctrine, from avocations by outward things such as wherein the church is concerned. It belongs unto the deacons not only to care and provide for the poor but to manage all other affairs of the church of the same kind such as are providing for the place of the church assemblies, of the elements for the sacraments, of collecting, keeping, and disposing of the stock of the church for the maintenance of its officers and incidences, especially in the time of trouble or persecution. Hereon are they obliged to attend the elders on all occasions to perform the duty of the church toward them, receive directions from them. This was the constant practice of the church in the primitive times.”

And so Owen himself states in “The True Nature of the Gospel Church” that it’s not just restricted to benevolences. It’s to administer all the outward affairs of the church. And I think he says that correctly.

Additionally, James Henley Thornwell in his collected writings—he was a southern Presbyterian living the time of the Civil War. He says in his collected writings… he says that the term table, well let’s see, that the duties of the table, the administration of the benevolence to the widows, is by way of an example of the functions they’re to perform in lots of other ways in the institutional church as well.

He says the following: “The common method of instruction pursued in the scriptures is to inculcate general truths by insisting on their particular applications rather than by dealing in abstract statements.” And you know that’s true. True. And that’s one of the reasons we have trouble with the scriptures sometimes—is we always want these abstract statements that we’re used to thinking about in our day and age. But the Bible is very practical, and God gives us the instructions in these areas by way of specific examples and applications. Okay?

“For instance, he says, the savior, when he speaks of special providence, he doesn’t lay out a doctrine of abstract special providence. He talks about how the very hairs in your head are numbered or the bird—none a bird falls to the ground apart from the father’s knowledge and will. And so God uses these examples to indicate a general truth behind the example.”

He says: “As then it is frequently the method of scripture to teach by example, where is the impropriety in supposing that the attention to the poor enjoined upon the deacons was intended to include the whole department of secular business with which the church was to be concerned. It is certain that the reason assigned by the apostles for ordering their election applies just as strongly to the collection and dispersement of funds for one purpose or for another.”

He said the reason was to get rid of secular distractions. Now, secular probably had a different connotation in the days of Thornwell 100 years ago than it does today. He didn’t mean they were irreligious. He meant they were temporal or outward affairs that they were concerned with.

He says again: “It must be perfectly obvious to every mind, every candid mind, of the entire secular business of the church was entrusted to the deacons, that the one specific duty is mentioned in accordance with the general method of scriptures as a specimen of a class, and that the reason of the appointment determines the extent of the duties.”

Posed the reason for the appointment to free the apostles from administrative duties gives us the basic idea of the office. He again gives an application in terms of the administration due to the widows as a specific particular in terms of what the deacons were to do. But if we restricted to that, we’ve miscounted the whole point—is what Thornwell is saying, and I think correctly.

“It is plain also that the deacons acted for the whole college of apostles. And Thornwell also makes the point that as you have elders who meet together in session, or presbyter, representing the denomination’s interests over those specific areas of teaching and prayer, so also Thornwell is making the point in this article that deacons should be seen the same way—that not only do you have deacons in local churches, but if you’re in a denomination, you would have deacons who would also then be representing the denominational interest in the administration of its affairs. Okay, rather than creating a whole new office that the scriptures know nothing about—trustees boards, whatever it is—he says these offices should simultaneously ascend that chain, as it were, of the denomination and not just be seen in the local offices.

Now, if you realize that Moses put together tens, 50s, hundreds, and thousands with the idea of officers—Exodus 18 and Numbers 11—then that same thing seems to be indicated there. And he said, “Appoint judges and officers.” And we can sort of expect that there’ll be some sort of rough correlation between the numbers of both because they’re two sides of how community must be managed through teaching and instruction and counseling and judicial affairs, and then in administering and ruling, as it were, in that sense over the outward affairs and the administrative functions required of the church or the community or the civil state or the business. You see, both those things go together.