Dennis Tuuri

# SERMON TRANSCRIPT – Reformation Covenant Church
## Pastor Dennis Tuuri

Outline for today. So, if you grabbed one of those, and I hope you did, you can just read along with the text there, or just open your scriptures to Acts 6:1-7. In today’s service, of course, we’re going to have ordination of Roger W. as deacon, installation of Roger W. as deacon, and John S. as elder. So, I thought it’d be good to briefly review what the scriptures tell us about these two offices in context. So, please stand for the reading of God’s word.

**Acts 6:1-7**

Now in those days when the number of the disciples was multiplying there arose a complaint against the Hebrews by the Hellenists because their widows were neglected in the daily distribution. Then the twelve summoned the multitude of the disciples and said it’s not desirable that we should leave the word of God and serve tables. Therefore, brethren, seek out from among you seven men of good reputation full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom whom we may 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 the Holy Spirit, and Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicolas, a proselyte from Antioch, whom they set before the apostles. And when they had prayed, they laid hands on them. Then the word of God spread, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem and a great many of the priests were obedient to the faith.

Let’s pray. Father, we are delighted that you have revealed so much of our world to us. Thank you for revealing who you are, who we are, and how to govern ourselves correctly. We thank you for this particular portion of that revelation of your word to us. And we pray now that your spirit would work in our midst. Give me clarity of thought and speech, Lord God, as I try to speak forth truths consonant with your word.

Help us, Lord God, to understand what it is as we do today in this ritual action of setting apart these men to serve in the church of Jesus Christ. And we pray that the end result of this would be as well the empowerment of men and women of husbands and wives and fathers and mothers and children to work in the context of the family government in which you placed us out some of these same truths that we see in church government.

We ask this through the mighty and powerful name of the Lord Jesus Christ in union with him. We ask this. Amen. Please be seated.

Well, we turn to the typical text. This text has been preached on any number of times in relationship to church office and specifically relationship to ordination or installation of elders and deacons in the church, which is kind of funny because there are no elders and the word deacon is not used in the text. We have apostles and then these seven men not called deacons. So, I’ll get to that in a minute that we have to be careful about asserting too much of what we might know what these texts teach. But this is a text that establishes government in the context of the church and it seems appropriate and good to talk about it as we move toward the ritual of ordination and installation here in the latter part of our service.

I’ve given you a structure that I didn’t spend a lot of time on frankly but I think it kind of flows out one of these bookend sort of structures that I’ve given you before. For it’s a little bit different because I’ve taken B and C sections and kind of coupled them together. There are more complicated structures in scriptures than simple bookend structures and this would be a little bit like that. But I think that clearly what we have here is a section of scripture right things are multiplying something has to have you done and then they multiply greatly they multiply in the context of a mixed multitude and at the end the multiplication greatly is tied to obedience of priests which is interesting.

But so we can kind of think of that together that God is bringing Jew and Gentile together and the priests now are becoming obedient to the faith as they see whatever happens here work its way out. This somehow is linked textually at least to their becoming obedient to the faith, which I think should point us in the direction of some Old Testament reference going on here.

But so we have that kind of obvious section marked off by the word of God that these seven verses form a section and there’s repetition going on. You know, they say, “Well, you know, it’s not good that we should be distracted from the word to serve tables, so set some guys over it.” You know, it’s also interesting, by the way, that this text is the one that’s commonly used to talk about deacons as those that serve the table or give people food. And yet, really, as we’ll see in a couple minutes, there’s nothing directly said about food benevolences in this text, much as you might think there is.

We’ll get to that in a few minutes. But in any event, you know, we don’t want to be distracted to do this and then it says they did it. So bookends and then bookends this is what we ought to do and this is what we do and that’s interesting because at first the qualifications of the men are stressed full of wisdom and the Holy Spirit and then at the end they’re particularly named. So you have this idea of men who are lives are being transformed in a particular way but then they are articulated as individual persons right so kind of a corporate individual aspect in the text kind of a qualification But really these are personal men whose names are actually listed for us.

Now just in passing two of those men are kind of interesting for consideration of this text. Philip and Stephen. Stephen will be martyred in the next chapter. He’ll be speaking powerfully the word of God and this brings about his martyrdom. Philip will actually go and preach to the Ethiopian eunuch. So two of these guys deal with the prophetic ministry of the word for some in some way. Now, we’re ordaining deacons here.

And so, you know, what does that mean? Well, we can’t talk about that in great detail today, but we’ll touch upon it. So in any event, there’s this personal qualifications and what God has done in their lives, but then they’re individually named as well. And I think if you look at the text this way, the very heart of the text is this ministry of the apostles. These are not elders, right? These are the apostles, but we take them to be a symbol of the coming elders.

And we take these seven to be a symbol of the deacons. Well, it’s the whole point of this is so that the apostles might not be distracted from the word. In the very middle of the text on the outline, I’ve given you the centrality of prayer and word. But we will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the word. So the centrality of prayer, the ministry of the word in the context of multiplication.

And in this context, we have the establishment I believe of the second office of deacons. Most people agree with that. So we got what we’re doing today set in the context of trying to accomplish the centrality of the prayer and word and the apostles called to administer those and the elders devotion to them and then the bookends is this movement of blessing which produces the need and then greater blessing and victory.

So I’ve entitled the talk elders deacons and victory or blessings from God. So we’ll come back to this in a little bit more specific detail in just a couple of minutes. But now we go to the notes on your outline and the first note first observation and note that I make there is the importance of government. I selected songs to be sung today that stressed the kingly office of God stressed his government stressed his sovereignty in coming to judge and deal with us.

And then the psalm that we responded we read responsibly and sung stressed God’s administration of government through particular men. Moses, Aaron, and Samuel. Government is of course exceedingly important and how we constitute our governments is of vital significance. And so, I take it as kind of a given that we understand that the government is important. And when we get around to the institution of the church, the government should be seen as very important.

We don’t just want to make up whatever we think would work out like be kind of a neat idea to us today. You know, when Elder W. was reading the form that we’ve used for 20 years at this church, most every time, not every time, but most of the time, prior to the baptism. I thought, well, you know, maybe just some informal words be good enough. But, you know, we live in a culture where informality is everything and to maintain some forms that bring us to a sense of formality, bring us to a sense of soberness in what we do and are reminded of the great truths summed up not by what we’re thinking today or what I thought last night, but by some men who took time to write forms.

You see, this is a good thing for us and that’s involved in the governance of the church. Church government is of vital significance. Now family government is exceedingly important as well. Today some pastors have wanted us to declare this as celebration of marriage Sunday because the civil government is moving away from the idea of Christian marriage. And many of you got the email this week. Senator Smith, one of our senators introduced a law to give people cohabitating together the same benefits of married people in certain regards.

It’s a movement to accommodate the homosexual lobby who want to have their marriages so-called recognized. But really, as Dr. Dobson pointed out in something that was circulated, and one of you gave it to me, really, it’s really an attack upon the whole idea of Christian marriage, as has made evident in some recent editorials. What civil government does in terms of marriage is important. And so, some people have suggested that this be a day when Christians realize that this doctrine is under attack at the civil level and we should lobby our people and pray hard before God to get it to be maintained, to get this constitutional amendment finding Christian marriage paths. So, marriage celebration day is something and I think it’s a bit ironic that what they what they admonish people to do on the Lord’s day in marriage celebration Sunday is to pray and fast.

You’ve heard me say before that the Lord’s Day is not a day for fasting. Lord’s Day is a day for feasting. And I personally a day of celebration of Christian marriage, you know, I think I’d rather think of it in terms of feasting and conjugal relationships rather than prayer and fasting. We’re always seen as promoting being against things as opposed to being for the great delights of Christian marriage.

But the point of all this is that government is important. What they do in Washington DC and Salem is important. It affects us. What how you govern your home affects greatly what happens when I do marriage counseling. You know what I usually will do is I’ll come in with Ephesians, right? The basic roles of husband and wife delineated there. Why? Because in Ephesians, Paul’s running to a group of new Christians and stuff and he’s saying, “Well, this is all the great stuff about God. Now, this is how you order the government in your home. There’s a particular structure. We’re not left to say, well, in our culture, we think it should be like this in the home. No, Paul says there are some basic obligations of husband and wife that are differentiated. Some things in common, some things differentiated.

How you govern your family is very significant in whether you please God. And the church tells you brings instruction from the word in how to govern your family. So some have said that the church should be seen as having primacy in some respect to the government of the family. We want to be careful with that language, but we want to say that to a certain extent we’ve seen some of that, right? Jesus on the cross brings together a disciple and his mother rather than talking to his mothers and his brothers. He tells his disciples, who is my family when the family comes to say you’re crazy or whatever it is, those who believe in me.

So there’s a definite the 12 are gathered and they’re given the dominion mandate in Matthew 28, the repetition of it, not the family. So the church is a very important institution because it brings instruction and the word of God to bear on the family and on the state. So how we structure our church government is of great importance and we want to try to do it right.

But the second point is that God has holes all over the place when it comes to some of these matters. What do I mean? The text we just read, the one that you have to turn to look at kind of the role of elders and deacons, doesn’t say elders and doesn’t say deacons. There are holes in this text. Now, God wants us to do a couple of things. One, to try to flesh it out with the rest of his word. But secondly, he wants us to be humble. And the problem we had as a church early on was we try to do everything biblically. And then we’d arrive at biblical conclusions and then we would implement it. And the end result was that whatever we implemented must be the only way because if that’s what we say the Bible says must be the way you ought to do it.

And if you’re not doing it that way, the implication, whether it’s stated or not, is that you’re not doing it biblically. What we have to recognize is that God’s word leaves all kinds of things unclear. They are not patently obvious. And as a result of that, we should be very humble. We have to do the work of executing the text and discovering how does God want us to structure government. But some men have made that inquiry and gone so far as to say this is the only way.

And they’re not humble before God because these are difficult texts. For 500 years after the Protestant Reformation, we have myriad forms of government. Right? Just take the major branches coming out of the reformation congregational Presbyterian and Episcopalian and under Presbyterian completely different structures of very significantly different structures between the reformers on the continent and what they did and the Presbyterians on the island in terms of church government.

The island higher authorities denominations the continent broader groups. So there’s a all this diversity. Now we’re going to say that we’re going to figure it all out and I’m going to tell you today what I think and I am and that’s the way it should be. No. See, God’s holes bring us humility as we go to these texts. Now, you got to structure your government somehow. You got to pick and choose and decide what’s best.

I believe that long term what’s going to happen is that the major three strands coming out of the reformation. I think they all have taken one aspect of the truth to the detriment of others. Congregationalists, the autonomy, the authority of the local church, Presbyterians, the need for graded courts, appeals, broader assemblies. Episcopalians have stressed that those broad assemblies. There are bishops, pastors to pastors. Only 90 95% of their conflicts are nothing to do with church court like the Presbyterians. They’re doing it pastorally, you see. So there are different elements that have to be brought back together.

So before I tell you what I think that what this means, this text for us today, you know, I wanted to make sure that we recognize the humility of what we have to do. Reconstructionists have tended to take a particular period of Old Testament history, the tribal form of government, and I think somewhat to the detriment of an analysis of kingdom and empire structures. You know, God gives us the most detail in the Old Testament, the tribal period. So, we sort of say, well, that’s it. That must be what it’s supposed to look like. No, things progress as a history grows and matures and builds up as a culture does rather. And so, you have to be very careful as you analyze case laws and structures. What’s the context? We want to approach the study humbly.

Okay, having said that, there are a lot of holes we will not be able to fill in today or for probably a thousand years in the church. But there are some holes that should be filled in. And the holes are there not because God hasn’t thoroughly clearly told us certain things, but because of our ignorance, our ignorance of the Old Testament, our ignorance of the particular terminology that’s used in the New Testament. And I want to fill in some gaps. First fill in some gaps with the epistles. Philippians 1:1, Paul and his address to the church at Philippi greets the congregation of the saints with the bishops and deacons.

So we have a salutation to a church that only gives greetings to two offices. Bishops, which is the translation of the Greek word that we would translate maybe overseer. I believe that bishops, elders, pastors are all the same thing. And this is the term that’s used. You got one office and then deacons as a separate office. So the evidence seems to be that while we may not know from Acts 6, is this two perpetual offices.

We have evidence from the epistles that there are two offices that continue on. They’re overseers and deacons or servants. And the overseers are elders. In 1 Timothy 3, which is a passage we’re quite familiar with, I hope there are only two sets of qualifications given. If a man desired the office of an overseer or bishop, yada yada. The deacons, yada yada. So, there’s two people addressed in the epistles. There’s only two sets of qualifications. And if we wanted to look at some texts, we’d see there are only two ordinations, formal ordination rites given. The one where we have here the laying out of hands of these seven that I think are deacons and then later Paul talks to Timothy about the gift that was conferred upon him with the laying out of hands of presbyters, elders in the church. So there’s two ordinations described in the New Testament for two offices.

This is why this church is held to a two office position. And so part of the gap in what Acts 6 is talking about is some but filled in by these other texts from the epistles that tell us there were two offices greeted two sets of qualifications two pictures of ordinations in terms of these two offices even in 1 Timothy 5:17 a text used to buttress up the three office position we read let the elders who rule well be counted worthy of double honor especially those who labor in the word and doctrine well it’s an interesting text because what it says is they’re all elders number one there’s not elders and then pastors, ruling elders and teaching elders necessarily.

It seems like there’s a differentiation of function, ruling and teaching, but you know what it says is the ones that be considered worthy of double honor are those who rule well, the ruling elders, right? And it says particularly those who labor in the word and doctrine. I don’t have time to do this today, but what the scriptures teach is the idea of ruling wedded with the teaching of the word and doctrine.

That’s how you rule. You don’t rule ultimately by the assertion of authority or by votes in session. The way you govern people is to instruct them in the word of God and how it applies to them. And I think that I’m not, you know, again, we say this with humility, but I think when we separate as two separate offices, not just functions, ruling elders and teaching elders, pastors and then guys that rule the congregation, then our tendency, it doesn’t have to happen, but the tendency is to separate ruling and teaching.

And so the pastor’s teaching and then the elders run the church and whatever the pastor might say about worship is called into question and you know they’re not going to rule by means of the word anymore. You see and in the scriptures I could go through a whole study of this showing this combination of ruling in the context of teaching. So we think that two offices elders deacons not three two functions that elders can be distinguished into which are rules and teaching.

And so that’s kind of filling in some holes. More holes can be filled with an understanding of the Old Testament. There’s some truths going on here being taught, I think, that would have sent off some clear pointers back to some specific Old Testament texts in the context of what we’re doing. Look at Deuteronomy 1 in your scriptures, please. Deuteronomy 1. I’m going to start at verse 9.

And what is going on here, of course, is they’re getting ready to enter the promised land. And Moses is reminding him what happened. What happened in the wilderness for the last 40 years? And he addresses government because it’s important. What does he say? He says, “I spoke to you at that time saying, I alone am not able to bear you. The Lord your God has multiplied you.” Sounds familiar? They had a problem that had to be fixed in the wilderness because of the multiplication of the people. They got a problem in Acts 6 because of the multiplication of the disciples in the church.

And he tells him then, he says, “What did I tell you?” Well, I told you in verse 13, I told you, “Choose wise, understanding, and knowledgeable men from among your tribes, and I will make them heads over you.” Well, that sounds pretty familiar, too, doesn’t it? Choose out from yourself, guys, and I’ll make them heads. So, it seems like some parallelism going on here. And then it’s interesting. He goes on to say in verse 16, I took the heads of your tribes, wise and knowledgeable men, and made them heads.

Isn’t that interesting? I took the heads and I made them heads. I took guys who are functioning that way that you recognize that but then I made them that thing. You see he brings them into office and now very interesting what he says. I took the heads of made them heads over you. What kind of heads? Leaders of thousands, leaders of hundreds, leaders of 50s, leaders of tens and officers for your tribes. Well, if we don’t know the wilderness wanderings very well, we’ll get this wrong, too.

Moses is conflating. He’s bringing together two different historical accounts. So you got a hole right now. What does it mean? Officers over 10, 15,000 thousands and the or rulers over 1000,000 and officers. Well, I’ll fill in the hole. In Exodus 18, his father-in-law gave him wise advice. Bill Gothard is dead wrong on this. His father gave him correct biblical advice in terms of judging cases. Jethro tells him Jethro was a gentile God-fearer, not an idolater.

And he gave them godly advice to Moses, the elder that God always uses the Gentiles to help build his people in church all the way leading up to the combination of the two in the New Testament. And he told them, well, you know, you’re hearing these cases all day long. What you want to do is set up guys with tens, 50s, hundreds of thousands, graded courts, we would call them, so that if it’s too tough for the head of the 10 extended families, he can then turn it over to the next layer up.

It’s a too great a matter. Either can’t figure it out or people think he wasn’t fair and had some reason to say that. Or if he just couldn’t figure it out, he can refer it up. And the idea is not that you’re just referring it to another elder. You’re referring it to a guy who is wiser than you. This is the episcopalian system I’m talking about here. We don’t just want to have an appeal court consisting of guys on the same level as you.

We want some gay heads, guys who are well studied in the scriptures, casualry. This is sort of what we have in the United States, right? We’ve got courts, we got appeals courts, federal courts, Supreme Court. By the time they get to that level, they better know their stuff. They’re not just another lawyer. Well, that’s what’s positive here. So, that’s one side. But then he also says officers. What’s that? That’s from a different historical account.

I just talked about Exodus 18, the wisdom that Jethro gave Moses. And the other citation on your outline is Numbers 11. Now, let’s turn there. Turn there in your text if you would. Numbers chapter 11, beginning at verse 4.

So, what I’m saying is Deuteronomy fills in the holes by saying there were two basic officers of the Old Testament church. And those two officers first of all are guys that ruled. By the way, in that account in Exodus 18, he talks about in Jethro’s instructions, not just setting up the courts. He says, “Instruct these guys in the word because those guys are going to know how to judge cases as you instruct them in the law of God.” Again, you see teaching and ruling brought together, right? They rule by means of the word just like the elders do. Then in Numbers 11:4, another problem happens. Now the mixed multitude who are among them, bingo, light goes off, right? Mixed multitude. What happens in Acts 6?

It’s a mixed multitude, right? There are Gentiles or Hellenists, it called who thought they were being ignored in the distribution. They’re widows. You got Jews and Greeks are being brought together in the same church. In the wilderness wanderings, you’ve got Hebrews and Egyptians. And the Egyptians are starting to get upset about the way things are going. That’s why this whole British Israelism physical descent of Abraham and all that stuff is just so much hokum and poppycock because the people of God that came out of Egypt were a mixed multitude.

That’s not bad. They were converting the world. You see, they were all Israel together. They all received those festival systems, etc. But in any event, back to our purposes, this mixed multitude gets upset. They yielded to intense cravings. So the children of Israel also went again and said, “Who will give us meat to eat?” So they it’s a mixed multitude. They get upset about food, right? And somehow the widows are getting upset about the distribution in Acts chapter 6.

Well, what does God do? Well, what he does is he tells Moses to appoint officers. Same term that’s used in the Deuteronomy passage. 70 men who are going to become officers. Okay? Same word. So Deuteronomy 1 is talking about the problem with judging people according to the word and the problem of administering food. He’s going to send him a whole month’s worth of quail. That’s going to take a lot of work to administer.

And the administration tasks that Moses, he already, you know, said, “I need help judicially and in teaching.” Now, he says, “I need help administratively with this huge multitude and distribution of food.” And God says, “Here’s 70 officers to help you administer the benevolence of quail until it comes out your nose.” Moment of judgment in this. So he says in verse 16, “Gather me 70 men of the elders of Israel.” Elders, don’t let that throw you.

These are the old guys, right? Terms used a little differently in the New Testament. The elders are like an official office, but generally speaking in the Old Testament, elders are just the old guys. Guys able to grow a beard is what the word probably had its origins in. So take some of those guys whom you know to be the elders of the people and officers over them who you know to be not just older but wiser and they’re already kind of functioning in a way that help administrate the families.

Anyway, see, same thing, right? Took your heads, made them heads. Take guys that are wise and full of the spirit. We’ll put them in office, the elders say. So, here, same thing. Take these guys, bring them to the tabernacle of meeting that they may stand there with you. Then I will come down, God says, and talk with you there. I will take them. The spirit that is upon you will put that same upon them, and they shall bear the burden of the people with you that you may not bear it yourself alone.

So, he’s providing for a bureaucracy of administration to administer the temporal needs of the church in the wilderness so that Moses isn’t distracted from his work. And then the text goes on later to tell us that the spirit does indeed come upon those guys and God takes of the spirit that was upon Moses. God comes down place the same upon the 70 elders we’re going to have laying out of hands. It’s that picture placing upon them the blessing and power of God for office.

And these 70 guys, God places that spirit on them. It happened when the spirit rested upon them that they prophesied although they never did so again. So there’s a realization that these are not just guys who are good at administration that the spirit of God is going to empower them in a knowledge of God’s word and they speak forth God’s word in some way here in the text. And what’s interesting to me and I didn’t think of that till my studies this week, never made this association before, but it then mentions that 68 of these guys were one place and two guys Eldad and Medad were another and those guys prophesied and Joshua I think says oh stop him from doing that and Moses says oh would that all God’s people would prophesy right we’re always kind of want to protect our vested interests and stuff and we’re all tempted to that but what’s interesting to me is that specifically then the actions of two men are indicated by the text is saying that the spirit rested upon them they were among those listed and then they’re among the supposed to prophesy.

So, specifically, two individuals are named who speak forth and prophesy. And I just think it’s kind of interesting to relate that to Stephen and Philip again in the Acts record where two men end up prophesying, speaking forth the word of God. It seems to me that this text very clearly makes all back to Deuteronomy 1 and then back to Exodus 18 and the account in Numbers. And I think what we’re seeing here is as God’s church multiplies, just like he had done in the wilderness, is God provides two kinds of officers.

Two kinds of office. Those that teach and rule and have general oversight over everything as Moses did in administration. And then those who administer particularly the temporal elements of the church institutional mixed multitude multiplication problem over food holy Pentecostal bureaucratic group here empowered by the Holy Spirit for their work of administration. I think it’s the indications are clear that this is what’s being talked about or what’s being alluded to in Acts 6.

And that’s why I think the priests at the end, they see this. They understand the correlation. They’ve got some of their holes are already filled in as they see this. For us, you know, we need to have these holes filled in. So, I think that’s kind of the Old Testament hole filling that I wanted to do from that period.

And I might just mention here in passing that we could do a whole study about the continuing office of that set up these 70 and then later in David and Solomon well for instance in Deuteronomy 16 God says you shall appoint judges and officers in all your gates two officers again see judges and officers now these officers are normally thought of as scribes secretaries but we could go to texts in the Old Testament to differentiate the officers from the scribes the officers would utilize scribes to get their work done but they weren’t really ultimately just typists they were holy administrators to administer the affairs of the city the way that the judges ruled in the context of the city and made decisions.

So I think that this two office position that we see in Acts 6 has long historical precedents in the Old Testament which help us to think through it a little bit help us also to understand the differentiation of what those functions do so that’s filling in some holes from the Old Testament. We could also talk profitably and I would encourage you to do this in your home. Every home has the same kind of governance rather government two I mean every family two officers right you got a husband and a wife dad and a mom and there is similarity here.

I think that you know certainly not some kind of rule but I think that mothers of course are given over much administration of the home. In the New Testament it talks about mothers as being governors overseers in the home. See governors the way that deacons oversee certain matters in the church. you know wives oversee particular matters in the home so that the husband is not distracted from his primary job of being outward focused and doing that dominion work by applying the word prayer and the worship of God to what his mission is outside of the home.

So I think we can think profitably about the roles of elder and deacon and the Old Testament judges and officers and the 70 spirit-filled bureaucrats and the heads of tens 50s hundreds and thousands is being reflected as well in the context of the home. So, so that fills in some of these holes that God leaves in our particular text. These are holes of ignorance. not holes that are there intentionally necessarily, but to drive us back to a consideration of what we’re to do.

Now, our offering song at the end of all this is going to be “Give Us Homes Built Firm Upon the Savior.” The church is the household of God. Church is the family of God. And Timothy It says that very explicitly that the church is the pillar and foundation of God’s house. And so the house here, while both offices are male and representation to represent God’s oversight, the house here images your house at home with two sets of officers.

Husbands who do not see their wives with a holy respect empowerment to do the task that she’s called to do are missing the whole point of what that family government is supposed to look like. And wives that don’t recognize the general oversight responsibilities that the husbands have. Husband oversees everything in the home. Delegates a good deal out of it to the wife. Same thing in the church. The elders, the term bishop means to oversee, to supervise, looking over everything.

But they, you know, here clearly the apostles are doing this work before they set this up. So it’s not like they never get involved with it, but the time comes when it’s a distraction from their major work. So the deacons operate under the oversight of the elders the way the wife operates under the oversight of the husband. And so when we see what’s going on here today and participate in the ordination installation, Lord willing, you see the implications of that for your home at least in this regard and then in another very important regard.

We’ll talk on in just a minute or two as we get to the actual laying out of hands. Okay, filling in some holes. Let’s fill in some holes with the text itself now finally, right? Let’s look at the details of the text very briefly and see the correlation to what we are doing today. There’s the context of the need which is blessing, growth, and multiplication. You know, Elder W. and I are going to Houston on Wednesday. We’ll be returning on Saturday. Please pray for us. You know, the CRA is growing as a church. The government of the CRA is as important as the local church government. It’s important we get this stuff right as we grow and make changes. The growth is causing some problems. Guess what? It always does. That’s a neat thing. God gives you growth and blessing and then you get to learn more about how to govern correctly.

And we’re going through some stuff trying to figure out wording of the Constitution and what we should do. It’s important you pray for us and it’s important you recognize that we’re seeing our involvement in the CRA so important. We’re spending four days gone and we spent I spent many hours in preparation this last week. I spent four days up in Alaska getting to know a church that we’re sponsoring in the CRA and you know being at that church reminded me of the importance of this group to us as well.

Being part of an organization keeps us with that humility keeps us in the context of involvement with other men in groups. It’s part of that extended church. Keeps all those things in front of us. Our strategy map addresses our need to cooperate with and help build the CRA as part of our extended community as a demonstration of that. Very important for us as a church to stay hooked in. Took us many years to get there and we want to put in whatever hours are necessary, reasonably so, without being distracted from our work here to help that group grow.

Well, you know, as a church grows, you it creates some problems and so you need to do something. That’s the context is the blessings of God. Secondly, we have the need. And the need specifically is the specialization of function. And I’ve kind of alluded to this already, but you know, the apostles say it’s not good that we should be distracted from the word. So what happens is as the administrative requirements of the church grow, it distracts the elders from their main function of the word of God.

So there’s a need for a specialization of function. The elders are supposed to not just study the word but study it so they can preach it. Teach it to the church corporately individually. I guess I use the word counseling but really it’s just individual or family instruction preaching and teaching the word and elders are called upon to do that both corporately and individually. And this last week went to a couple homes brought the word to bear brought it to them in a teaching exhorting sort of function.

That’s what we’re supposed to do. And the administrative needs of the church begin to crowd this out in the context of Acts chapter 6 2 Chronicles 3 in the time of Hezekiah we read that Hezekiah commanded the people who dwelt in Jerusalem to contribute support for the priests and the Levites that they might devote themselves to the law of the Lord that they might be encouraged in the scriptures in the word and the law of the Lord that’s the reason you give tithes is to reduce the amount of financial concerns and stuff that the guys have to do, the elders who are over you and serving to you and ministering to you, those things distract.

And when tithes aren’t paid in the Old Testament, the Levites go and get second jobs or maybe even primary jobs. And now the word stops. So the same thing was talked about that the priests and the Levites, their whole focus was the same thing. It was the word. To that end, he exhorted the people to pay the tithe so that they could be supported and encouraged in that word. So here officers are needed so that the elders might be supported and encouraged administratively in terms of their time as opposed to their money to this particular task.

And then we have the deacons themselves. And here’s where we got to one more little correction to how we look at this text. The text tells us, let me in Acts 6, why don’t you turn back there if you’re not back there right now. And so the textiles that in those days number of the disciples multiplying there arose a complaint and then verse 2 the 12 the 12 summoned the multitude of the disciples and said it’s not desirable that we should leave the word of god serve tables what does it mean serve tables well D.A. Carson in his book Exegetical Fallacies points out that you know the bulk of the preaching of this text is just dead wrong because what they teach is well tables we know what tables are that’s where the food goes and so these guys were needed to actually serve the tables to set up a food program for the church the widows would come in and eat off of.

But Carson points out that this phrase to serve tables is a Greek phrase that meant at the time to engage in the financial oversight of a particular unit. They were the money tables is what’s being alluded to here, not the eating tables. And indeed, the evidence of the early church fathers is the same thing. You know, they say, well, they were supposed to administer the money tables of the church. So we have the common Greek of the time that indicates this means financial administration and then we have the witness of the early church saying this means financial administration.

This text is not a text primarily about the benevolence ministry of the deacons. Now it’s in the context of making sure the widows were supported. It has that element to it. But the specific task that the apostles were setting men in place as deacons for was to administer financially the affairs of the church money tables and the particular language that’s used here means that real authority is granted to them.

It didn’t mean just go write the checks. It meant that in some way major elements of the temporal affairs of the church were being given over to these spirit empowered administrators of the church. See now that very much again ties us back to the officers in the Old Testament. I mean they administered the quail that was the initial need but Their whole point was they became a holy bureaucracy if you want to look at it that way.

They administered the temporal affairs so that Moses under Moses oversight under the elders oversight the deacon’s word but nonetheless administer those temporal affairs that includes benevolences but very directly you see it talks to financial management and as a church grows as our church has grown the need for financial management financial devices in place systems in place to make sure things are done well to glorify God to keep us without spot or wrinkle in the eyes of those that watch the financial affairs of the church.

You see, this becomes more and more important as more and more funds come through our particular group. So there’s this direct relationship of the appointing of deacons and the administration of the funds of the church and that should enter into our evaluation of men for the office. We should think through you know which of these deacons can help us in terms of financial administration. How will they go about doing that?

Now benevolences is there but The primary thing being talked about in this text in terms of the jobs of the deacons is that these deacons are to administer the temporal affairs and specifically the financial affairs of the people of the congregation. So that’s the specific thing that is being done this specialization of function. Then And then we see a process in place and this is we can do this very quickly.

There’s a congregational selection of men, right? Choose out from among yourselves men that we may appoint. Okay? So the process is congregation chooses out from themselves guys that they think are good. Apostles are the ones who are called upon to appoint them and actually put them in office. I took your heads and I made them heads. And so the elders are empowered with the idea here. Of the ritual. This ritual is involved with the laying out of hands.

If you look at the structure on your outline, this we will appoint them lines up with they laid hands on them. Sometimes people aren’t sure. Does it mean the congregation and the elders or the apostles or what? I think if you look at it in that way, it’s one more indicator that it’s the apostles who are laying hands on these guys, not the congregation. The apostles are conferring office, not the congregation.

Now, we’re going to do this visually here. When we get to Roger’s ordination installation, the elders will lay hands on Roger and ordain him to office, empower him the way the apostles empowered these deacons. And then all the men of the congregation, the member representing the households and men 20 of older who are voting members of the church, you’ll then put hands on Roger installing him into office at this church.

You see the difference? We believe that the empowerment to office is a singular event and maybe it’s done in different ways in different churches, but we recognize that we will not be ordaining John S. because he’s recognized by our church as having pastored at another church. We will be installing him. What that means is the elders won’t separately put hands on John. All the men of the church will come forward as representing their households and put hands on John, installing him in this church.

Now, you don’t have to do it this way. Remember, holes, humility, and all that stuff, but I think this is a way that we’ve chosen to try to communicate that these men are being empowered by the congregation, but they’re being given to office, ordained an office by the elders of the church. Now, the laying on of hands, let’s talk about that a little bit because that’s what happens here, too, is these guys lay hands on these guys and put them into office.

Where does that come from? Well, you remember the Old Testament sacrificial system. You’d place your hand on the head of that sacrificial animal. You’d lean on that animal. Why? You’re identifying with them. It’s identification. You’re one with that animal. See? The animal when he goes to his work now represents you. This is real important because what it means is that Roger and John aren’t going to be set aside so that you don’t have to do work.

They do work to empower you to do work, right? They train, equip, and organize things so that you can be involved in ministering to Christ in your homes and in your workplace. So there’s an identification which means not just getting rid of anything responsible to me, but a connection ness to the man.

There is also in the laying out of hands an element of guilt. I sent Roger an email that disturbed him earlier this week citation from Leviticus where the term laying out of hands is used almost always for sacrificial animals. But there’s another verse that says there are some guys blaspheming God and the decision was that all of Israel would all the people would lay their hands on these wicked guys and put them to death. So Roger didn’t know what we were headed for today. See, that shows in connection to Leviticus, there’s guilt that’s going on to us, right? I mean, we know that we’re not worthy to lay hands on anybody representing God and his power.

But that sacrificial animal who represented the guilt of the offerer was killed. But remember that what that animal would do, this whole burnt offering thing, it wasn’t primarily death that was being pictured. It was transformation. The whole burnt animal ascends. It’s an ola, not whole, it’s an ola offering. It’s an ascension. offering. It’s transformation of the beast so that he might indeed ascend and serve God.

And so when you ordain these officers and we ordain the officers and you install them, it’s setting apart these guys that they might ascend and receive power from on high that God’s hand of power and blessing might be upon them to serve in this congregation so that you can be not killed but transformed, you see, into greater and greater spheres of ministry and service to Christ. So the process here is like ours congregational involvement, elder empowerment with a particular ritual given to us for that purpose.