Deacon Ministry

Paul outlines the spiritual, moral, and personal qualifications required for deacons:

⁸Likewise must the deacons be grave, not doubletongued, not given to much wine, not greedy of filthy lucre;

⁹Holding the mystery of the faith in a pure conscience.

¹⁰And let these also first be proved; then let them use the office of a deacon, being found blameless.

¹¹Even so must their wives be grave, not slanderers, sober, faithful in all things.

¹²Let the deacons be the husbands of one wife, ruling their children and their own houses well.

¹³For they that have used the office of a deacon well purchase to themselves a good degree, and great boldness in the faith which is in Christ Jesus.

The early church selects seven spirit-filled men to care for practical needs:

¹And in those days, when the number of the disciples was multiplied, there arose a murmuring of the Grecians against the Hebrews, because their widows were neglected in the daily ministration.

²Then the twelve called the multitude of the disciples unto them, and said, It is not reason that we should leave the word of God, and serve tables.

³Wherefore, brethren, look ye out among you seven men of honest report, full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business.

⁴But we will give ourselves continually to prayer, and to the ministry of the word.

⁵And the saying pleased the whole multitude: and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Ghost, and Philip, and Prochorus, and Nicanor, and Timon, and Parmenas, and Nicolas a proselyte of Antioch:

⁶Whom they set before the apostles: and when they had prayed, they laid their hands on them.