What do Deacons Do?

What do deacons do? That is a rather difficult question to answer. In my own experience, I know of churches that do not have deacons, churches run by deacons, ones where the deacons are simply for building maintenance, and others where they are the meal train for those who need it.

So, as far as practice goes – deacons do a lot of things. But what are they supposed to do according to the Bible?

Again, that is difficult to answer because there are only two passages that unambiguously speak of the office of deacon in the New Testament: Philippians 1:1 and 1 Timothy 3:8-13. In Philippians, Paul addresses his letter to the church along with the “overseers and deacons.” There deacon is clearly used for an office because it is in conjunction with the office of overseer/elder. Similarly, in 1 Timothy, Paul lists the qualifications for deacons immediately after the qualifications for elders. But neither text tells us much of what they do.

However, there are two pieces of information I haven’t mentioned. The first is in the title itself: deacon. Just as the title “overseer” implies elders oversee the church, so the title “deacon” implies something of the function of the deacon. The Greek word can have at least four basic and related meanings:

1. Table waiter/server.
2. Domestic servant.
3. Emissary or messenger.
4. Assistant.

Alexander Stauch argues convincingly that when Paul uses the term, especially given its conjunction with “overseer,” he is using it in the last sense.¹ Deacons are assistants to the elders who help care for the church.

And the second piece of evidence supports that: Acts 6:1-7. In this passage, the early church faces an issue – the Greek widows among them are being neglected, particularly in the distribution of food. The Apostles respond to this by giving these instructions to the church:

It is not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables. ³ Therefore, brothers, pick out from among you seven men of good repute, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we will appoint to this duty. ⁴ But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.

The church does this, and the Apostles prayed over them and laid hands on them, commissioning them to this task. The result was that the church increased greatly (Acts 6:7).

There is some debate over whether these seven men were officially deacons. I believe the language of appointing (v. 3), praying, and laying on of hands (v. 6) does indicate that they were put into an official position in the church. At the very least they functioned as proto-deacons in the same way that the Apostles functioned as proto-elders of the church.

So, then, what do we learn about what deacons are to do? Deacons assist the elders in the care of the church by meeting its particular needs (in this case, caring for widows) and so free the elders to focus on their ministry (prayer and the ministry of the word).

This means that what deacons do will look very different from church to church because the needs of each church will be different. But what remains the same is that godly deacons are a huge blessing to the church. Without them, the elders are likely to get pulled away from their calling into dealing with the whole host of other issues that come up. Godly deacons protect the ministry of the word, not by teaching themselves, but by freeing the elders to teach and preach.

Pay attention to the result that concludes the account in Acts 6,

And the word of God continued to increase, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith.

The proto-deacons were not tasked with ministering the word of God, but through their faithful labors the word of God increased and many came to the faith. Let us pray for the same to happen in our church!

Please prayerfully consider recommending men in our church for this important office.

---

1. Alexander Strauch, Paul’s Vision for the Deacons ↩︎