Why You Need Good Deacons

Ligon Duncan

We’re supposed to be devoted to the Ministry of prayer and the Word, but this ministry to widows in need in our congregation is too important to ignore, and so we need people who are going to devote themselves to that ministry in the church, we’ve got to have people that are devoted to prayer into the word, but we also need to make sure that we’re taking care of people’s well being.

Matt Smethurst

Welcome back to the everyday pastor a podcast on the nuts and bolts of ministry from the gospel coalition. I’m Matt smitherst and I’m LIG Duncan, and today we’re going to be talking about deacons. In the last couple of episodes, we’ve considered working with fellow elders, and of course, the other office in the local church is that of deacons. But LIG, just to kind of start off the conversation, when the Greek word diakonos or diakonia, when that shows up in the New Testament almost 30 times is that usually referring to the Office of deacon or not.

Ligon Duncan

Usually it is the generic word for minister or servant. And by the way, that teaches us a lot about the Christian life. All of us are called to be servants. Absolutely every elders are called to be servants. Deacons are called to be servants. Members are called to be servants. We are servants of the Lord that we serve a Savior who came not to be served, but to serve. That said, there is the word. He came not to be Deacon, but that’s right, so he’s the ultimate Deacon. There are a few occasions, however, where it is used in a technical sense. From from the time of early Christianity to today, the Christian Church has always had the office of Deacon. Now there was, there was a time under Roman Catholicism where basically a deacon became a priest in training. Protestants have never used the word that way. From the time of the Protestant Reformation, there was a recovery of the biblical doctrine of the deacon. You’ve written about this. I’m going to ask you about this, Matt. But so in places like acts six, I know that the office is not named there, but I think I agree with you that in Acts chapter six, what is being talked about are deacons. And I think that’s the majority view. I know that there are good people that disagree on that, but I think that’s the majority view of Christian interpreters that acts six is actually talking about deacons. And then Paul, again, in First Timothy chapter three, when he’s talking about elders, talks about deacons. And he’s not talking about the generic, we’re all servants. He’s not talking about ministers. He’s talking about a special office of the church. In our tradition, in our book of church order, we say that that office, the Office of the of the deacon, is an office of sympathy and service, after the example of our Lord Jesus Christ. And I think that’s a beautiful description. I’m going to ask you to flesh that out in just a little bit, but I’ve always related the office of the deacon to being the tangible expression of an example of what Jesus taught the disciples in John 13. You remember he says, he says, Love one another as I have loved you. And that’s the context in which he washes their feet. And then he says, A new commandment I give to you, Love one another as I have loved you. And the commandment to love one another is not new. That’s that’s Leviticus 19. But when he says, as I have loved you, he’s given a standard and a pattern of service that excels all other service. And I really think deacons are here in large measure to help all of us serve one another like Christ served. They’re to help us flesh out practically the new commandment in the life of the church. Now you’ve written about this, so I, I’d like for you to how do you define deacon in, you know, formal, informal, we’ve been having this discussion. What’s your definition of Deacon?

Matt Smethurst

Well, let me just first say that I love that you first went to the Lord Jesus as the the King of kings and deacon of deacons. In Luke 24 it says that Jesus was mighty in both word and deed, and I think that through the offices, respectively of elder and Deacon, he continues to minister mightily through word and deed. But yeah, in my book on deacons, I try to establish that this office is is widely misunderstood, and part of that is because, frankly, LIG The Bible doesn’t say a lot about deacons, that’s right, and I think that should lead to at least two responses or. Postures on our part. First, because there’s not a lot of biblical data on the Office of Deacon, we ought to be really charitable and flexible with other traditions and congregations who might do deacons a little differently than we do. But secondly, because the Bible doesn’t say a whole lot about the office. We need to pay all the more careful attention to what it does say so many churches, especially in Baptist life, when it comes to this topic, are operating from custom and tradition with their Bibles closed. Yeah,

Ligon Duncan

and so are Presbyterians. Okay? I think that we’ve both struggled with slightly different issues. Harry reader, who you may remember from the early days of the gospel calling Harry’s home with the Lord now, but he famously used to say in Presbyterian circles, our problem is the pastors are doing the elders job. The elders are doing the deacons job, and the deacons are just doing a job. And it reflects that even in our tradition, there was an uncertainty about what the role was now. And I know from my little snippet knowledge of Baptist life, I can remember when in Greenville County, South Carolina, deacons were the only lay officers in most of the Baptist churches that I knew of personally. In the 1970s and 80s, you

Matt Smethurst

had the solo pastor, yeah, maybe, maybe an associate pastor, but yeah, staff pastor and

Ligon Duncan

a board of defense. That’s exactly right. And they were, they were running the church, right, you know. So I think both of our traditions, in different ways, have struggled to define

Matt Smethurst

what’s interesting. As you were sharing that quote from Harry Reider, I was thinking in Baptist life so often, especially in the last 100 years, it’s been just the reverse order the deacons are doing the elders job, and so on and so forth. And I think that there are basically two ditches that churches fall into here, either they can unduly elevate the role of Deacon to become kind of just de facto elders, or they can wrongly reduce the role of Deacon to just be glorified janitors. Yeah, I’m convinced, though, that that churches impoverish themselves. Pastors impoverish themselves when they don’t give careful attention to what the Bible does say about the office, because it’s a difference maker in the life of the church. For you know, show me a church with a with a with distracted elders or a derailed mission, and I’ll show you a church without effective deacons. Yeah. And so before we think about what deacons are and what deacons do, we’ve already kind of alluded to what they’re not, but you mentioned historically in the Roman Catholic Church, they were just kind of priest and training we’ve talked about. They’re more than just a building and grounds team. They’re also not de facto elders. What are some other ways you’ve seen deacons misunderstood and misdeployed? Well, I

Ligon Duncan

think you’ve hinted at it in saying that, in that in the Baptist tradition, you said you saw deacons being what elders are supposed to be. I think in Presbyterian circles, sometimes deacons are viewed as junior elders, or if they really make it, they’ll become elders. And what I love is when a man realizes what I’m really gifted at is is is being an encouragement to and an example of love in deed in the congregation. And that’s the job of the deacon. I’m not called to be an elder. I’m called to be a deacon. It’s not, it’s not, you’re not stepping up to be an elder. It’s a different responsibility. Yeah, it’s, it’s a different work that’s being called to. And while it’s true, certainly some people are able to do both of those works at different stages in their lives. And we even see people who are called Deacon become evangelists in the book of Acts, you’re going to have some people that they are especially gifted at being deacons, and they should not feel like, Oh, I’m in a second class position here. No, it’s the only class of Officer The Lord Jesus has given to His Church in that area. And it’s really, really important. And I loved your linkage of word. Indeed, I totally agree with that, and I think that, and let me say, become Presbyterians again, and then maybe all of us in the reformed evangelical community, we tend to be a little more theologically wound tight than some of our evangelical friends and other churches, and we care a lot about theology. My guess is not a lot of people look at us and say, you know, those are the deed guys. You know, when the rubber hits the road, they’re gonna be the ones that are out there getting it done, and deacons are there actually to help us make sure that we’re living that out. Yeah, and, and that’s distinctive. So I wouldn’t want people to see deacons as sort of junior elders or second class elders. It’s a different role. And. Responsibility that they’re called to. It’s complimentary. You said. It acts six. It shows up together. It’s so interesting. The the apostles say we’re supposed to be and I love the way they say it. We’re supposed to be devoted to the Ministry of prayer. And the word so nice to see the emphasis on prayer for elders in that context, but yeah, but this ministry to widows in need in our congregation is too important to ignore, yeah, and so we need people who are going to devote themselves to that ministry in the church. And so it’s very clear that it’s not okay. Well, we can, we can do without that. It’s no, no, it’s both. We’ve got to have people that are devoted to prayer into the word, but we also need to make sure that we’re taking care of people’s well being. You know, our sisters in Christ and their children, that we need to be taking care of that. So deacons are doing that. And I would, I would just say to all deacons, don’t, don’t think that that’s a second class job. That’s not a second class job. As you said earlier, you are emulating the ultimate servant when you’re doing that. Nobody served more than Jesus, right? And you get to model the congregation. This is how we serve one

Matt Smethurst

another. Yeah. And in chapter one of the book, I try to share stories from church history of deacons shining and serving in in mighty and edifying ways. And I’m so glad you. You’ve referenced acts six a couple times. I think it’s just worth briefly looking at, because I do agree with you, though, the noun Deacon doesn’t show up. The verb does twice. And even while we might look at Acts six and say, well, the Office of Deacon is not formally being established, I think that it is. It’s a passage that setting in motion, a pattern that will soon lead to the position. And one of the things that strikes me in Acts six is that things are going swimmingly in the life of the early church. And of course, at this point, there’s only one church. It’s the local church in Jerusalem, and Satan has attempted to undermine and undercut the growth of this new church through a variety of measures, and he’s Oh for two by the time we get to act six. So in Acts four, he tries persecution, and it fails. In Acts five, he tries to take out the church through deception. That’s the story of Ananias and Sapphira, and he fails. So persecution didn’t work, deception didn’t work. So now in Acts six, he’s going to try distraction. And we read now in these days when the disciples were increasing in number, so again, things are going well. There’s there’s revival afoot. A complaint by the Hellenists arose, and when I read that as a pastor, I kind of chuckle, because so many of our ministry daydreams LIG are in the first half of that verse, the disciples were increasing in number because of my preaching, but so many of our ministry days, yeah, are in that little phrase a complaint of those. Yeah. So here we are and and things have screeched to a halt. And I think it’s easy to assume that what was going on here with the Hellenist widows being overlooked in the distribution that it was kind of just a mere quibble over food, just kind of a culinary crisis, but no, this was actually a sudden and satanic threat to church unity, the very unity for which Jesus had bled and died,

Ligon Duncan

and It was compromising the trust of congregation members in the leadership of their apostle elders, and so I think it’s so fascinating that the Greek speaking Jewish Christian widows called the Hellenists here are wondering whether they’re getting the short end of the stick. They’re in Jerusalem with a lot of Aramaic speaking Jewish Christian widows. Are we being overlooked because we speak Greek? We’re not we’re outside here. We’re outsiders and and when the apostles appoint those deacons, or proto deacons, they they choose Greek speakers that all their names are Greek, which

Matt Smethurst

is the verse we skim over because it’s the seven names. Yeah, it’s actually the punch line.

Ligon Duncan

It is. And I think that is so pastorally sensitive, they go, you, you’re wondering whether you can trust us. Okay, we’ll just put all of this in charge of Greek speaking brothers in our congregation that are godly men that fit these qualifications. We’ll just put it all in charge of them. They’ll take care of it. They’ll take care of everybody. They’ll take care of the Aramaic speaking Jewish Christian widows. They’ll take care of the Greek speaking Jewish Christian we’ll take care of everybody. And you don’t have to wonder whether we. Hear about you all we do care about you all right?

Matt Smethurst

And I think it’s also noteworthy that just as the seven are functioning as for runners to deacons, the apostles are functioning as, I think, four forerunners to elders. And it’s noteworthy that they don’t say to the complainers, Oh, be quiet, you angsty hellness. Don’t you see how well things are going right? They actually take the complaint really seriously. And instead of enacting just kind of a swift, superficial solution and moving on, because it would be easy to read this and conclude, okay, look at the division of labor. You know, verse two, it’s not right that we should give up preaching the Word of God to serve tables, and then they appoint the seven, and then again, verse four, but we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word. And I one could read that and think, Okay, well, what really matters is word ministry, not deed ministry. But actually they care so much about deed ministry that they are establishing an ongoing church office to care for future, tangible needs. And then the last thing I just wanted to point out from from Acts six is that it begins in verse one, as I as I read now, in those days when the disciples were increasing in number, and then the ominous music sets in, and there’s a complaint, and there’s conflict, and these seven are raised up, and it’s actually not a foregone conclusion how it’s going to end. Verse seven could read it could so easily read in the Word of God, failed to increase as the number of the disciples divided among themselves. But what we read in Acts seven is the word of God continued to increase and the number of disciples multiplied greatly. And the reason we have verse seven is because of what happens in verses two through six, and it has everything to do with the work of Deacon. So I think one thing we would want to encourage pastors to do is to look your Deacons in the eye and make sure they know that they are difference makers in the life of the church, that they are that they are vital. Deacons are like a congregation’s offensive line, right, whose job is, of course, to protect the quarterback lest he be sacked by an onrush of practical demands. There’s a reason Tom Brady would always give his offensive line really expensive gifts because they were making his job doable. And so it is not a small or trifling service that a deacon is offering to the church.

Ligon Duncan

Well said, and I just to reaffirm their answer or attitude was not the ministry of Word, Ministry of prayer. That’s the important thing. This doesn’t matter. They understood that actually, tangibly manifesting love for one another in the care of people in need was essential to the life and ministry and witness of the church, and I don’t think it’s an accident that what is said in verse seven is said because people in Jerusalem, these people actually care for one another, and they’re not related. They speak different languages, and you all care for one another. This isn’t you caring for cousin Susie or Aunt Sally. This is you’re caring for people you’re not related to. You don’t even speak the same language that they speak, but you’re united to Christ, which means you’re brothers and sisters, and you’re actually treating one another like brothers and sisters in your deepest needs. And I people could see that this is real. They’re not just talking about stuff. They’re treating one another in a way that says we are now family, even though we don’t share any blood and we don’t even share the same language, we’re family. And so Deke, you talk. You talked about deacons, building up unity. Maybe we were talking about that before we even started the conversation today, but I think this is one of the ways deacons build up the unity of the church. Absolutely,

Matt Smethurst

you know, before we talk about what it is actually that deacons do, you know, just establishing who deacons are, there’s a reason why the seven had to be full of wisdom in the Holy Spirit. And actually, what I think Paul is doing in the qualifications for deacons. And First Timothy three is it’s like he’s double clicking on that phraseology from ACT six, full of wisdom in the spirit to say, Okay, here’s what that looks like in the life of a person who’s fit for the office. And again, just like with elders, it’s not a skill set, yeah, it is a profile of character. And not only does a deacon need to be exemplary and in character and and just a godly person, but, but also someone, I think, who is a safe pair of hands. So in terms of what am I looking for in a deacon at at River City, Baptist, I’m looking for people who don’t need to be babysat. People who take initiative, to think creatively and constructively about how to solve problems, people who know how to respond to emails, right, people that can help relieve headaches, not exacerbate them. And so all of that, I think, falls under this, this rubric of what deacons are. But then when we think about what deacons do, and I love to hear your input on this, I generally say that there are kind of three main responsibilities of a deacon, and underneath of these, there’s tons of flexibility in application, but deacons spot and meet tangible needs, and we see that most mostly show up in mercy ministry, caring for the distressed and the I love the the phrase, the phrase you used, the sympathy, what was the in service, sympathy and service? The second is, what you just referenced, is, is the unity builders, deacons protect and promote church unity. And the third is that deacons serve and support the ministry of the elders. So let’s just briefly talk about each of those so that first one spotting and meeting tangible needs, which is clear in Acts six, and it’s also been the historic practice of the Christian church. Talk about how Christians, through the centuries, even Presbyterians, perhaps, have thought about even Presbyterian, even Presbyterians, as those untimely born, right? Christ appeared to you. Last of all, no, actually, the Baptist. Last of all, talk to us about how deacons have been deployed in churches. Well,

Ligon Duncan

again, I got to see my deacons deployed in very significant ways. And let me say that I know that different evangelical churches take different approaches to deacons. Some Presbyterian churches and some Baptist churches have women who are deacons. Some of them have deaconesses, some of them women serving along the deacons. In our church, we had all male deacons, but the women in the church worked very closely with them in pastoral care, and even prompted them sometimes in pastoral care and things that were being overlooked. And there was a wonderful partnership there. And here are a few ways that I saw them work at first pres that blessed me. So we had a woman in the congregation that we all thought was a bag lady as a member of the church there every Sunday, you would have thought, okay, she kind of, she’s almost at the homeless level. She owned a laundromat in in the area, and when she passed away, she left over a million dollars to the church. She lived very, very humbly. You would never have guessed that she had a dime to her name. She left over a million dollars to the church, and she said, I would like the deacons to use this for the care of those who are elderly, those who are infirmed, those who are in need, and those who are poor and man, have my deacons deployed that funding wisely and well over the years to people in all of those categories. And sometimes it was people in the congregation that couldn’t pay their light bill, and the deacons were there for them. Sometimes it was a person who didn’t have a family that should have been caring for them, but was far away and not caring for them in their elderly days, and the deacons were actually making sure that that person was taken care of. Sometimes it was the deacons would take food from our Wednesday night fellowship meal and deliver it personally to people in the congregation that were shut in or infirmed or dealing with long term illnesses and such. And the kind of good will and unity that that built up in the congregation was very, very evident to me. So I got to see the effect of that kind of care in the life of the church. There’s there’s a humble, godly woman who we didn’t know. We didn’t know that she had a dime to her name, investing in the church, asking the deacons to care for other people with it, and then the deacons taking that and running with it.

Matt Smethurst

It’s spiritual ministry with a tangible focus. It’s why I prefer the word tangible needs over physical needs, because when you say physical needs, sometimes that can seem like the opposite of spiritual. Now I’m going to break all kinds of podcast rules right here, all right, as leg was just sharing that I he saw, he saw me just kind of on my phone the whole time, pulling up my notes from last Sunday’s sermon. Good, and it doesn’t have to do with deacons. So they might, they might delete this, but what you said about the lady in the church that seemed like a bag lady and was really wealthy? I. It reminded me so much of my opening illustration from Sunday. So preachers, feel free to take this and use it, and it’s not original to me. Mary Wilson, Hannah, in her excellent book, heavenly minded shares this story. In 1982 The Miami Herald printed a story about 66 year old Yvonne Henderson. The article, referred to her as a bag lady. She slept in the streets, fought off muggers and abusers and scrounged for food for 17 years, but in 1982 as some social workers began interacting with her, they discovered something remarkable. Yvonne Henderson was the heiress of a massive fortune and had money in banks all over the world. Her father had served as a high ranking diplomat in the British Foreign Office and held great social prominence. Perhaps the most surprising part of the story is that her true identity wasn’t news to her. She had been telling people for years that she was an important heiress, but no one believed her, nor did she do anything to take advantage of the wealth that was legally hers. She just kept living in the streets. Of course, I was preaching about the inheritance First Peter, one that we all have in Christ, but so often we can live on the streets as if we’re not aware of and drawing from that great account. Okay, back to our regularly scheduled programming on deacons, but maybe that’ll help you in a sermon. So okay, we’ve established what deacons are, what what they’re doing. We talked about that first one, that they’re spotting and meeting tangible needs. And there’s, there’s a lot more we could say about mercy ministry. In fact, Tim Keller kind of began his writing history by focusing on this when he was a pastor in rural Virginia back in the late 80s, he became a long distance demon student and worked on deacons. So actually, his first book was titled resources for deacons, which birthed ministries of mercy, mercy which birthed generous justice. And so yeah, even in your own tradition, yeah, there has been good thinking on this. But I think the reason he was told originally, hey, work on this topic, is precisely because there hadn’t been a lot of thinking for several

Ligon Duncan

decades. Now you’ve written on this. Your book is called deacons. It’s published by crossway. It’s in the nine marks, building a healthy church series. How did you come to write on this? You talked about why? Why? Tim wrote about it. Why did you write about deacons?

Matt Smethurst

I just always my for most of my life, I’ve just had this passion for deacons. In fact, I dressed up as a deacon for Halloween, like three, just kidding. I was asked to write the book, and I, you know, Justin Taylor and Jonathan Lehman. I told them no originally, and a year later they come back. And you know, it’s not the topic or the book. I felt like I was born to write, but I did become convinced it needed to be written. And the thing that convinced me was that the folks at nine marks told me that deacons is consistently the most searched for term on their whole website year after year, but they didn’t have a book about deacons.

Ligon Duncan

It may be because of what you said, because of the lack of specification in the New Testament, right, as the job description, right? People are looking give me some help

Matt Smethurst

well, and pastors are stepping into positions where they’re looking around and saying, this is definitely not how deacons are meant to operate according to the New Testament. So that’s speaking

Ligon Duncan

of which you have in the book, several categories of like, what you’re not looking for in a deacon. You want to, you want to talk,

Matt Smethurst

yeah, I won’t belabor it, but I showed, I showed like this before, and pastor in training, Pete, that’s, you know, hey, it’s a pit stop to becoming a pastor. That’s not what a deacon is. Toolbox. Terry, you know, that’s the guy who can fix anything. He knows his way around Home Depot, but may not know his way around his Bible, but we’re making him a deacon because he’s a handyman spreadsheet. Sam, you know, he’s a financial wizard, corporate cliff. He’s successful in the business world, and he has executive skill, and he serves on all kinds of boards, so of course, we should make him a deacon. Vito Vinny. Now this is going to trigger some pastors. All right, Vito Vinny is the guy who is convinced that it is his calling from God Almighty to keep the pastor humble and to hold his feet to the fire and to just be the opposite of a yes man in a really frustrating way. And then number six is what I think is most common in Baptist life, and that’s what I call pseudo elder, Steve. So that’s the deacon who’s really functioning like an elder. And when the deacons are functioning like elders, not only are you missing out on the biblical office of elders, you’re also missing out on the biblical office of deacons, right? So, okay, back back to the the three things deacons do, the second is what you’ve already brought up, and that is that they’re they’re protecting and promoting church unity, like I actually think this is the most overlooked role. Of a deacon, and it arises directly out of that passage in Acts six, because what were the seven raised up and deployed to do, to be shock absorbers in that conflict? Therefore, you want to look in your church for people as you’re scanning for potential deacons, the kind of people who will muffle shock waves, yeah, not make them reverberate further, yeah, if it’s someone who likes to push the drama button, they’re not going to make a good Deacon. You should look for people with gifts of of encouragement, people who want to be constructive and helpful. You know, sometimes I say deacons are where gossip and conflict should go to die. Yeah. And I just think so often we think only about the financial know how, or the ability to fix an HVAC and we’re not actually giving attention to is this person going to stand in the gap and help to promote unity. Yeah,

Ligon Duncan

I think that’s so good. You had already mentioned the spiritual qualifications that Paul talks about in First Timothy, but he says of deacons there, thank you. You even quoted it that they need to what’s, what’s the language. They need to hold

Matt Smethurst

fast to the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience. And,

Ligon Duncan

yeah, that’s, that’s First Timothy three, nine. I think that’s so significant because it indicates that they understand the connection between truth and life. They understand the connection between word indeed. So they’re not like some sort of an NGO doing something that’s a good deed, but not with a gospel purpose. They understand the connection between the gospel and action. They understand that we want to make tangible this profession of faith and this profession of love that we have. We want the love to be tangible, and that’s got to get their juices going that, you know, so it’s a theologically driven thing, yeah? And, and I think that both of the issues that you just brought up speak into that. And so when you’re looking for a deacon, that Deacon has to understand the Christian faith. Has to understand the gospel, how the gospel relates to John 13, the gospel is not love one another as I love you, but that is an entailment of the Gospel. The Gospel produces, that Paul will even say in First Timothy, chapter one, verse five, that the goal of his instruction is love from a pure heart and a good conscience is a sincere faith. And so there’s a sense in which the deacon is helping flesh out what the goal of Paul’s ministry is, which is to see love produced in the hearts of God’s people. So I love the way that you talk about how they serve to do that, and how that impacts the unity of the church. It certainly impacts the witness of the church as well. Well, interesting,

Matt Smethurst

practically, what kind of sheep are deacons often interacting with struggling sheep, people who are going through crises, people who who are not the shiniest saints. Yeah, and I think that’s one of the reasons Paul warns against, in the qualifications of of not being double tongued, in other words, being the kind of person who in those moments where it would be easy to just commiserate, to say, Yeah, Pastor so and so doesn’t really get it, does he, but rather to be that, that unity builder, that’s right. The the final principle, I think, is just that deacons serve and support the ministry of the elders. That’s arising also out of acts six, the seven are serving at the behest of the apostles, yeah, but we even see that priority show up in Philippians, one one to the overseers, that is the elders and the deacons. So it’s like they’re mentioned in the same breath, but the one office is subordinate to the other. Deacons report to elders, not the reverse. Same thing in First Timothy first, we get the qualifications for elders, then the qualifications for deacons. And as we’ve established, that doesn’t mean the office of Deacon doesn’t matter, but it does mean that it’s a problem. If there is this war of attrition between the two offices where the deacons are saying, elders stay in your lane. We’ve got all the practical stuff. And the elders are saying, deacons, stay in your lane. We’ve got all the spiritual stuff. There is a division of labor, but ultimately, deacons are serving at the pleasure of the elders, who are serving at the pleasure of King Jesus. I do just want to say though, that given. In the division of labor, we shouldn’t make too much of it, because imagine a deacon who goes over to a widow’s house to to replace some light bulbs and do some manual labor for her, if he doesn’t pause at some point that afternoon and say, How are you doing? Yeah, how can I pray for you. Yeah, he’s failed in his work as a deacon. Likewise, if you’re a pastor and you’re going over to the widow’s home to pray for her and read Scripture with her, but you don’t offer to move the heavy table, you failed in your job as a pastor. That’s right. Yeah, any final word you’d want to commend to pastors. When

Ligon Duncan

we talked about elders, we talked about what pastors needed to do in terms of looking for future elders and cultivating Do you have any wisdom from your writing on this and from serving as a pastor of a church that you’ve planted? What are you looking for? How do you cultivate Deacons in your church? Tell us about that a little bit. Well,

Matt Smethurst

I’m looking for people who meet needs discreetly, meaning they don’t need to be noticed or credited and who meet needs with initiative, meaning they don’t have to just be asked to do things. It’s one thing to react to a present problem. It’s an even better thing to anticipate a future problem. So I’m looking for people who have both that fine tuned conflict radar so that they can rush into a situation, to stand in the gap and to be a shock absorber, but also someone who’s thinking creatively about ways to help the trains run on time. If the ministry of the word is the locomotive, the deacons are laying the railroad tracks the way in our church, we say it is that the elders lead ministry, the deacons facilitate ministry, but the congregation does ministry. And without that buffer, that that middle category of deacons facilitating the ministry of the word, we’re all going to suffer and and I think a final charge that’s worth giving to pastors to encourage your deacons with is how the qualifications for deacons end. This is so striking to me. I never noticed it before I was working on the deacons book. At the end of the qualifications for elders, there’s no promise given to elders, so verses one to seven is just qualification, qualification, qualification, but then you step into the qualifications for deacons, and it’s like Paul goes out of his way to end that set of qualifications with a promise. And he says verse 13, for those who serve well as deacons, gain a good standing for themselves and also great confidence in the faith that is in Christ, Jesus. And I just have to think that Paul included that promise for deacons precisely because he knows that it’s easy for deacons to grow discouraged because so much of their work is, by nature, under appreciated. It’s grunt work, not stage work,

Ligon Duncan

and sometimes it has to be it’s under the radar, because you’re ministering to people in sensitive situations. You can’t talk about it to others, yeah,

Matt Smethurst

and you have to have the character right to not blabber. But I just love that note. He sounds this idea that you’re gonna receive a gift that, as it were, descends vertically from God, great confidence in the faith, and there’s this horizontal gift great respect in the church. And it’s like he’s making eye contact with the deacons and saying, Do not grow weary in doing good.

Ligon Duncan

It’s almost like he’s riffing on Jesus a cup of cold water given in my name, I will not forget exactly. And he’s just even when you are doing things that nobody else is going to see, Jesus sees you absolutely, you’re going to be rewarded

Matt Smethurst

Absolutely. Brother pastors, even today, send a text to some of the Deacons in your congregation, just to put wind in their sails, to encourage them to make sure they know you see them and appreciate all they do. We hope this episode of the everyday pastor has been an encouragement to you. We’d appreciate it if you leave a review and if you share this with other pastors or deacons, so that they all can find fresh joy in the work of ministry.