Deacons likewise must be dignified, not double-tongued, not addicted to much wine, not greedy for dishonest gain. They must hold the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience. And let them also be tested first; then let them serve as deacons if they prove themselves blameless. Their wives likewise must be dignified, not slanderers, but sober-minded, faithful in all things. Let deacons each be the husband of one wife, managing their children and their own households well. 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.
Now in these days when the disciples were increasing in number, a complaint by the Hellenists arose against the Hebrews because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution. And the twelve summoned the full number of the disciples and said, “It is not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables. 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. But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.”” And what they said pleased the whole gathering, and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit, and Philip, and Prochorus, and Nicanor, and Timon, and Parmenas, and Nicolaus, a proselyte of Antioch. These they set before the apostles, and they prayed and laid their hands on them.
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.
Any man whose manner, conduct, thoughts, or attitude is not honorable, worthy of respect and admiration, and dignified does not meet this qualification and should not be a deacon.
The same is true of deacons. A deacon should not be seeking dishonest gain. He should not seek to exalt himself among the flock of God by the office of deacon. He should not try to garner to himself power, control, or authority over others.
The deacon’s reputation should be above reproach. No one should be able to lay hold of him or assail him or reproach him because of his sins, whether in speech, conduct, or doctrine. Every Christian sins until the day he lays down this body of sin at death. Daily sins that are common to all men do not bring reproach and blame upon a person from others because they too are guilty of the same sins. A deacon, like an overseer, must have and maintain a good name. There should be no question as to his integrity or upright character.
When a man serves well in the office of deacon and gains the respect and honor of the church, he also becomes more confident in faith in Christ. He gains assurance that what he believes and what he does in service to Christ and his church are pleasing to God and to the church. He becomes bolder and less inhibited in his work as a deacon in the congregation. His trust in Christ becomes stronger and he is able to serve Christ with greater boldness. He is more confident that he knows how to apply God’s Word to the needs of people whom he serves in the office of deacon.
The wife of an overseer or deacon must be faithful in every respect. Her husband should be able to trust her completely in everything. He should have no doubt that she will be faithful to him in marriage. He should have no doubt that he can trust her not to tell others about confidential information that he tells her. He should trust her to teach and train his children. He should trust her to manage the household. He should trust her to be prudent and gracious to others. She should be a trustworthy advisor and helper to her husband. Her word should be reliable. Her husband should be able to depend upon her no matter what the situation.
It was not because the care of widows was unimportant that it was given to deacons. It was because ministry of mercy was so important that a new office was created. In and of itself, it would have been good for the apostles to show Christ’s love by serving tables and getting involved in the nitty-gritty of caring for widows. James, the Lord’s brother, who was in the Jerusalem church at this time, would write some years later, “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world” (Jas. 1:27). Do not think for a minute that the office of deacon is a lesser office. As George C. Fuller puts it, “To denigrate the high office of deacon is practical heresy” (“The High Calling of Deacon,” in Resources for Deacons, by Timothy J. Keller, p. 11).
Deacons are not to be “the servants” of the church in the sense that they personally do anything and everything that needs doing. They are servant-leaders in the church, who on the one hand have hearts willing to do the most menial of tasks for the sake of the body, yet who also have the authority to direct and oversee the involvement of the whole church in such tasks.
If you are a deacon, therefore, the special calling of your office happens to be a reflection of one of the major themes of the Bible: our God has a special concern for the poor. This is not something revealed for the first time in New Testament church polity. Rather, the institution of the diaconate is the fulfillment of a long-standing record of God’s heart for the poor.
Chapter XIX: The Deacon’s Office
The communion of saints is implied in the very notion of an organized church having its polity and its ordinances of worship. But this communion is most impressively exhibited in two ordinances, both of which are emphatically denominated by the word communion, to wit: the Lord’s supper and contributions in money, or its equivalent. (Acts ii. 42-45; 1 Cor. x. 16; 2 Cor. viii. 4; Heb. xiii. 16 ; Rom. xv. 26, 27.) Both of these belong to the worship of God. No definition of worship can be framed which can be justly applied to the Lord’s supper, that will not apply also to these contributions. There is no more glorious act of worship described in the Bible than that in the last chapter of the First Book of the Chronicles.
This view of contributions accounts for the importance ascribed to them in both Testaments. They are the tokens, and, in some respects, the most unexceptionable tokens of the reality of the communion of saints. Considering the power of the feeling of mind, who can read that the primitive Christians were not accustomed to say, “that aught of the things which they possessed was their own,” but that “they had all things common,” can doubt that a new principle was at work in their hearts, a principle not earth-born, but descended from heaven. Still more manifest did this become when the Gentile Christians contributed to the relief of their Jewish brethren. Here there was no bond of blood to prompt the beneficence; rather was there the bitter prejudice of race. No wonder that the great apostle was willing to travel all the way to Jerusalem to seal the gift to the recipients; that is, to expound its comprehensive spiritual meaning, and to impress upon their hearts the reality and the glory of the communion of saints. (Acts xi. 29, 30; Rom. xv. 25-28; 1 Cor. xvi. 1-4; 2 Cor. chaps, viii. ix.)
It was in this form, “in relieving each other in outward things according to their several abilities and necessities” (Con. of Faith, Ch. XXVI., Art. 2), that the communion of saints was first and most conspicuously exhibited in the primitive church; and it was in connection with this form that the deacons first appeared. (Acts vi. 1-6.) They were the deacons of “tables,” as the apostles were deacons of “the word.” The saints had communion with each other in the apostles’ teaching and in breaking of bread and in prayers (Acts ii. 42) ; but they had also communion with each other in “outward things”; and this form of communion is that which the narrative enlarges upon in the succeeding verses (44, 45), and reverts to in ch. iv. 32-37. The prime aspect, then, of the office of deacon is that of a representative of the communion of saints. The word may be and is preached where there are no saints, and therefore no communion; it is conceivable also that ruling elders mav exercise their authority in a dead church; but deacons have nothing to do, except in a church which has life enough to show itself in a ministry to the saints.
This circumstance demonstrates the dignity and spirituality of the deacon’s office. Albeit concerned mainly with “outward things,” it is with the outward things of a spiritual body that the office is concerned, and spiritual qualifications are indispensable to a right administration of them. Hence we find Paul, in prescribing the qualifications of church officers in the third chapter of his First Epistle to Timothy, saying as much of those of the deacon as of those of the elder, if not more. It is not a little remarkable that a deacon should have been chosen rather than an apostle to see that it was God’s plan to abolish the Mosaic form of the true religion, and to establish one which should be spiritual and universal. The celebrated saying of Augustine, “If Stephen had not prayed, we should not have had Paul,” was perhaps more comprehensive in its scope than the great thinker supposed. The prayer of the dying martyr was perhaps the means, not only of the conversion of Saul of Tarsus, but of bringing him upon the scene as Paul the apostle of the Gentiles. Certain it is that the charges against Paul, by which the Jews thought themselves justified in seeking to kill him, were the very same as those which led to the murder of Stephen. (Compare Acts vi. 11-14 with xxi. 28; xxv. 8.) It is also not a little remarkable that while the account of the death of James, the brother of John, one of the three apostles who were admitted to special intimacy with the Lord, is dispatched in one short sentence (see Acts xii. 2), the account of the deacon’s death is given in detail. A dozen verses would embrace all that is said of James in the New Testament; two chapters, one of them long, are occupied with Stephen, the deacon; and every reader of church history knows what a prominent part deacons have played in it. It is not a small office. Paul probably had Stephen in his mind when he wrote the sentence (1 Tim. iii. 13), “They that have served well as deacons gain to themselves a good standing and great boldness in the faith which is in Christ Jesus.” But the same may be true now, if deacons will take the pains to understand their office, and seek grace from God to perform its duties and to improve its privileges.
That special condition of the early church in Jerusalem which gave occasion to the appointment of deacons was temporary and local, and was designed to be so. We know not how long it lasted, probably not long. It is easy to see that a permanent condition of that sort would have resulted in many and great evils, unless prevented by a continued miracle, and there is no trace of such a condition in any of the Gentile churches, nevertheless, “the poor were not to cease out of the land”; they were to have the gospel preached unto them; and to the end of time the ministry to the necessities of the saints should continue to be needful. The office of deacon was therefore intended to be perpetual.
But it would be taking too narrow a view of the office to confine its exercise to this kind of ministry. The communion of saints “in outward things” is more extensive than can be adequately exhibited by the relief of the poor in a single congregation or in a single city. A single congregation, or all the congregations united in a single city, is not the church universal, or even the church of one state or country. The communion, therefore, “is to be extended as our Confession says (Ch. XXVI., Art. 2), “unto all those in every place who call upon the name of the Lord Jesus.” The rule holds still, that “by an equality the abundance of one part should be a supply for the want of another part.” (2 Cor. viii. 14.) “Our committees of Home Missions and Education are but great central deaconships of charitable ministrations, by which in these things the burdens of the church may be equalized; the richer provided with the means of helping the poorer, and the unity and union of the church at once manifested and strengthened. And it is but a slight variation of the same principle that is developed in the work of Foreign Missions, in which the church unites in supporting her sons and daughters whom she has sent forth to the nations, and in sustaining and enlarging the feeble churches established amid the wild wastes of heathenism.” (See Dr. Ramsay’s Essay on the Deaconship p. 20.)
“To the deacons also may be properly committed,” says our Form of Government (Ch. IV., Art. 2), “the management of the temporal affairs of the church.” The church, like the individual Christian, has its “temporal affairs.” This phrase denotes specially the property of the congregation, the house in which it statedly worships and the ground upon which it stands, as well as the expenses necessarily attendant upon the comfortable use of it.1
This brings up the question concerning the relation of the deacons to the trustees of the property—a relation which in many congregations, especially in the cities, is far from being satisfactorily settled. In some congregations, the trustees are allowed to determine the salary of the pastor, for the reason that the salary comes from the rent of the pews, and the pews belong to the house. If this inequitable method of raising the salary were abandoned, as it ought to be, there would be no plausible pretext left for the usurpation of the trustees. The officers who represent the property, it is argued, ought to regulate the disposal of the proceeds thereof. Now, when it is considered that these trustees are often not professing Christians, but men of the world, chosen because they are moneyed men and men of business, and sometimes because they have property in the neighborhood of the church building whose market value will be affected by the character of the vicinage, it needs no argument to prove that the trustees are not the persons who are most likely to seek the spiritual edification of the church in the choice of a pastor. Others propose to remedy or prevent this odious form of “patronage” by having the deacons incorporated as trustees. But the obvious objections to this scheme are, (1), That such trustees would have no more right to usurp, though there might be less temptation to usurp, the prerogative of the congregation as to the pastor’s salary, than the trustees of the other sort; (2), That it would be contrary to the American theory of the relations of church and state to make ecclesiastical officers, as such, officers of the state.2 The trustees, in the eye of the law, are not representatives of the church as such, but of a body of citizens who have a right to claim from the civil authority protection for their property. But deacons are ecclesiastical officers, and represent the church. The remedy of the evil is to be found in the principle that trustees of church property are intended to act only in cases of the purchase or sale of property, or of invasion of right, when litigation before the court becomes necessary. This is the principle acted upon almost invariably in the country congregations of the South. It is doubtful in most of such congregations if the trustees are known at all, or could be found in an emergency, or whether, in consequence of omission to fill vacancies, the board has not entirely expired.
That it is the official duty of the deacons to take charge of the pastor’s salary would probably not have been questioned, if the salary had not been regarded as a pure affair of business, and not in any just sense as an expression of the communion of saints. In point of fact, it partakes of the nature of both; and this is enough to justify our church in inserting the article upon which the foregoing comments have been made, and to refute the notion that the pastor’s salary is an affair of the civil officers called trustees. According to our constitution, the body that calls the pastor is the body that fixes the salary, and that body is the body of communicants. (See Form of Government, Ch. VI., Sec. 3, Arts. 4 and 6.) The deacon, therefore, is the proper officer to take charge of the pastor’s salary, and the trustees as such have nothing to do with it.
Another question to which importance has been given by discussions in the church is concerning the relation of the deacon to the session. How far is the deacon responsible to the session in the performance of his official duties? It is, of course, conceded on all hands that in the case of criminal conduct he is responsible to the session—the court to which, according to the constitution, all original jurisdiction, except in the trial of ministers, belongs. It must be conceded also, that money contributed for a specific purpose, say Home or Foreign Missions, cannot, in good faith, be diverted from that purpose, by either session or deacons, without the consent of the contributors. In reference to all other funds, it would seem that they are under the direction and control of the session. The public purse must be under the control of the government. In free civil commonwealths, the government is distributed into different branches; and the power of the purse, for obvious reasons, is lodged with that branch which more immediately represents the people from whom the money is derived by taxation. But it belongs to the government. So in the church. The government is not, indeed, distributed into branches as it is in the state, neither is there any taxation; but the rulers are the representatives of the people as chosen by them, and the people consent that their voluntary offerings shall be controlled by them. To give the deacons, who are not rulers, power to dispose of the revenues as against the elders, would be virtually to create an imperium in imperio; for the power goes with the purse. Hence we find the contributions of the primitive church laid “at the feet of the apostles.” (Acts iv. 35, 37; v. 2.) It is in accordance with this view that our Form of Government provides (Ch. IV., Sec. 4, Art. 4), that “a complete account of collections and distributions, and a full record of proceedings shall be kept by the deacons, and submitted to the session for examination and approval at least once a year.”
Another question which has been debated in our church concerns the relation of the deacon to the courts above the session. Is he exclusively a congregational officer ? Or, may he be employed also by the presbytery, the synod, and the general assembly ? Is there anything, either in the nature of the office or its relation to the congregation, to forbid the management by it of the Foreign Missionary or any other of the schemes of the Assembly? If not, why not commit such of these schemes to a board of deacons, and set free the ministers of the word for their high calling ? Did not the apostles insist upon the appointment of deacons “to serve tables,” in order that they might give themselves to the “service of the word” ? The answer to these questions may be given in a series of propositions:
- It is plain that the original deacons were not confined in their ministrations to a single congregation (Acts vi.), unless we suppose with the Independents that there was but one congregation in Jerusalem.
- If a deacon may extend his ministrations beyond the bounds of his own congregation, the principle is settled, and it becomes a question merely of expediency how many congregations may be embraced within their scope. Their scope may embrace all the congregations represented by a general assembly.
- There may be cases in which the collection and disbursement of the people’s offerings demand, for their full effect, the accompaniment of instruction which can be best given only by ministers of the word. In such cases ministers may be associated with, or even take the place of, deacons. Instances of this sort we find in Acts i. 29, 30; xxx. 4, compared with xxiv. 17; Horn. xv. 25-28; 2 Cor. viii. 16-24; and Paley’s Horae Paulinae, Ch. II., No. 3. Paul seems to have attached so much importance to the contributions mentioned in these passages as to justify his leaving his work among the Gentiles and his taking laborious journeys to Jerusalem, in order to expound their spiritual significance and to seal to the recipients the precious fruit. How far these principles apply to any or all of the Assembly’s schemes, it is for the wisdom of the church to decide; but it is the author’s conviction that the tendency is now to excess in the employment of ministers of the word, and to a return to plans which the church, many years ago, formally repudiated as wrong in principle and injurious in results.
Touching the qualifications for the deacon’s office, two places of Scripture may be compared: Acts vi. 3, 5; 1 Tim. iii. 8, 9. The differences here may be explained by the difference between a temporary condition of the church, in which gifts of the Spirit were prodigally and generally bestowed, and a condition of the church designed to be permanent, in which gifts are conferred with a more sparing hand. The proportion between the gifts generally bestowed and the special gifts for the exercise of office is in both conditions about the same. The rule for the guidance of the church in all time is, no doubt, that given in the third chapter of the First Epistle to Timothy.
Since the Scriptures do not provide any other concrete revelation about the general task of the deacons, we conclude that the Word of God teaches that the mandate for the diaconate contains these ingredients as normative:
- The office of deacon is a particularized and specialized expression of the office of all believers.
- In their task and calling the deacons demonstrate, model, and teach the Saviour’s love for His own.
- The primary objective of the particular duties and tasks of the deacons is to facilitate, promote and develop the communion of the saints.
- The application of the diaconal mandate varies, depending on circumstances and need.
If I am going to do the duties of a deacon, then I must die. The list of qualifications in 1 Timothy 3 is a list that I have not, do not, nor ever will live up to. I have not, do not, and will not love the Lord my God with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength. I have not, do not, and will not love my neighbor as myself.
Following the example of our Savior, who though He was rich, yet for our sake He became poor, so that we by His poverty might become rich, it is the duty of all saintsto be hospitable and to come to the aid of one another in material things, according totheir various abilities and necessities.
The deacons should encourage members of the church to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share in order to provide for those in want, especially those in the household of faith, such provision to include not only monetary gifts or tangible gifts in kind (i.e., food, clothing, and shelter), but also an appropriate ordering of their affairs so as to be able to volunteer their time and skills to bless and assist those in wan
Diaconal ministry adorns the gospel when it provides tangible evidence of the love of God and of his messengers for the lost of this world. Indeed, in certain circumstances of extreme hardship the ministry of the Word can be virtually unintelligible apart from a ministry of deed.
Para-ecclesiastical relief groups, while serving a crucial purpose at present, should actively implement a practical plan for the transfer of their ministries to churches—either through regular diaconal channels or through diaconal evangelism ministries to unevangelized populations of suffering people.
Why did the Lord repeatedly express such great concern for the plight of the needy in Israel and warn Israel in no uncertain terms of his great wrath and vengeance to those who afflicted the needy and who did not help them (e.g. Ex. 22:22-24)? At the basis of the Lord’s special interest and care for the needy and oppressed is the fact that he, the Lord, had once led Israel out of the bondage and oppression of Egypt and had claimed them as his own precious possession, his covenant people.
The Lord never waited for extreme needs to develop before taking action. The detailed legislation shows how in many and various ways the poor and needy were constantly to be remembered and provided for. The extreme needs and hardships that did develop were due to disobedience to God’s law.
That designation of servant links these officers with their great example and model, Jesus Christ the Servant of the Lord. He points to his own life of service as the model for Christians when he says in Mark 10:43-45: “whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve…” One of the ways that Jesus served was in feeding the multitudes and in caring for the needy. He showed particular compassion for widows and welcomed little ones to himself and blessed them.
To avoid friction between members, to promote happy pastorates, and to develope the grace of liberality, nothing is more important than a good deacon, one who can be patient, who can smile at unreasonable people, and speak a soft word to turn away wrath, one who is willing to give time and take trouble on himself, and make himself “all things to all men” in order to promote the interests of his Master’s cause.
A good deacon is the pastor’s most valuable ally. Officially he is worth two good elders. The one trouble about a good deacon is that the church, desiring to compliment him, will very soon elect him an elder, and thus place him on the retired list. His splendid gifts will at once fall into innocuous desuetude. “For they that have served well as deacons, gain to themselves a good standing, and great boldness in the faith which is in Christ Jesus.”
Happy is that church which has such deacons, and whose deacons decline to give up that “good standing” for another office in which their talents will probably not be so usefully employed.
While the work of the deacon is one of service to the poor and the widows; while the work of the deacon is one of serving tables and making distributions to those in need (thus, handling the monies of the church), we must never lose sight of the fact before us in Acts 6:3—the deacon is to be “full of the Holy Spirit.” It is not enough that a man be respected by or successful in the world, he must exhibit a deep spirituality if he is to be considered for the office of deacon.
As such, it is perpetual. A man may not take up the work and lay it down of his own volition. God has ordained his life to one of service to the church and only God can dismiss.
So long as elders are consumed with temporal matters, the congregation will be temporally minded. When the diaconate fundions as the temporal agents of the church freeing the elders for their spiritual calling and business, the church will grow in grace and the spiritual aptitude and piety of the congregation will rise to new heights.
God’s gift of the office of deacon and the blessings associated with it may not always be fully appreciated, especially in congregations that are financially prosperous and do not have many materially poor in their midst. However, as this book hopes to demonstrate, the importance of the diaconate goes far beyond simply providing for material needs. In order to get a proper understanding of the significance of this office, we must consider it within the context of the entire Bible.
That indeed, is a sadly defective state of the church where there are no poor, there must be something very deficient in its zeal and aggressiveness, if amidst the multitudes of poor around us, and mingling with us, there are none in the church itself.
No church is bound to elect men to an office, however important it may be, unless her Lord has given her men of suitable qualifications, and this is the case in very many of our smaller churches. A sufficient number of individuals cannot be obtained to fill the separate offices of elder and deacon; and in such cases it becomes necessary to have the duties of both offices discharged by the same individuals.
Our blessed Lord does not, like some of his professed followers, make light of temporal wants.
He feels, that amid all his own difficulties and discouragements, he is not standing alone—that other are alive to his circumstances, and sympathise with him, and are forward to aid him—and that he can have their advice and cooperation in many matters, which are otherwise fitted to distract and to burden.
“Animated by the spirit of his office, and acting out the character which the counsels of the Word imply, [a deacon] will not be haughty, or harsh, or suspicions, he will not be cold, and formal, and repulsive, discharging his work as if it were a burden; he will be frank and easy in his intercourse with the poor and take an interest in their avocations, their health, and welfare; kind, and tender, and sympathising, especially when in sickness; but withal firm, and not easily persuaded to what his judgment does not approve. He will also have a deep conviction of the insufficiency of all his efforts to benefit the poor of his charge without the blessing of God, and hence he will not fail to seek the blessing in the exercise of diligent and persevering prayer for the Holy Spirit.”
A deacon, to be relieved from the annoyances sometimes connected with the discharge of his duties, is tempted to put the poor off with insincere words—to say one thing to one man, and an opposite to another. He is in danger also, perhaps, of promising to the pastor, and not fulfilling. This is justly fatal to character and to usefulness. It prevents confidence and creates contempt. The deacon, then, must be sincere.
It is the deacon who best demonstrates the mercy and service of Christ which the elders teach. It is the deacon who thus fills out the Gospel which the elders proclaim. It is the deacon who best reminds us that power in the Church is not to be like power in the world, because true power is first and foremost the power to serve. And thus it is the Gospel which compels us to ordain deacons in the Church so that Christ, our “table-server,” may be seen in all His fullness. We ordain deacons to office so that service is given its proper place of honor next to teaching. That Word and Deed may stand together. We ordain deacons because of the Gospel of Jesus Christ who came not to be served but to serve and to give His life as a ransom for many.
Our charity towards the membership should be such that it makes the world outside her walls jealous for the faith, hope, and charity within. Thus, our deeds toward one another should and will promote our missionary enterprise among the lod and dying of the world.
Do not be come discouraged with little or slow results. Continue your labor. Be faithful in small things. Remember that you are not accountable for the timing of the harvest, but for the labor. When tempted to stop short, when uncertain how you can keep your heart and hand open to the needy, hear these words from R. A. Webb: “But when 1 see that the Lord Jesus identifies himself with them, then as long as I have any intered in Him, and any love for Him, they have claims upon my affections for His sake” (Webb, 113).
The Church, therefore, which shuts up the channel of diaconal ministration must expect to be dwarfed in the development of experimental religion.
More humble and less conspicuous their office may be than that of the elder; but it is not the less divinely warranted, nor is it unilluminated by the splendor of a glorious example. It is a striking fact that the Lord Jesus, in his sojourn on earth, did not occupy the outward seat of the ruler—he condescended to appear as a prisoner at the bar of the eldership of his own visible Church.
Christians today must understand the absolute necessity for and vital importance of New Testament deacons to the local church so that the needy, poor, and suffering of our churches are cared for in a thoroughly Christian manner. This is a matter dear to the heart of God.
There were men that would employ themselves to serve the poor. Others spared not their own property and yet they had not one penny rent. There was not a house to be had upon hire. Thus does God set a looking glass before us, where by we ought to confirm and frame ourselves. But if we look upon ourselves, we shall find the exact opposite: for it seems that we have conspired to do quite otherwise than was then observed in the ancient church.
The deacon’s fund can be a powerful tool for good or ill, so cash or other assistance cannot be distributed without taking the time to assess the recipient’s level of stewardship. If the potential recipient of the diaconal aid wastes his gifts, the church rightly expects that he will be denied funds that would merely subsidize his misuse. Wisdom here is essential, and who has it but a deacon who has been instilled with biblical stewardship?
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