(The second part of article 13.)

7. God’s Old Testament deacons may speak to the congregation on behalf of the shepherd.

As Joshua was readying himself to lead God’s people across the Jordan into the Promised Land, he instructed “the officers of the people” to visit everyone.

Pass through the midst of the camp and command the people, saying, ‘Prepare provisions for yourselves, for within three days you are to cross this Jordan, to go in to possess the land which the Lord your God is giving you, to possess it.’

The men identified as “officers” fan out to meet with smaller groups of the Lord’s people. They personalize Joshua’s word. They deal with questions that may arise. They adapt it, as necessary, for each tribe.

A church is doing a financial campaign or a building campaign. Every church member needs information, involvement, understanding, and opportunities to participate. Often, the deacons will be enlisted to visit in the homes of the members for this purpose.

On one occasion when I had been at a church for five years, I asked the deacons to help with a pastoral evaluation survey. At my request–this is crucial–they worked up a questionnaire of several pages, and then on their own, they took the membership rolls in hand and selected every seventh family and paid them a personal visit. In a membership of 2,000 people, this was a sizeable undertaking but they did it well. At the conclusion, they took the hundreds of questionnaires and collated the information, turning the results into a graph. Then, they presented me with a composite picture of how the congregation felt about their pastor and his ministry. All in all, it was a wonderful report and performed as thoroughly as anything I’ve ever seen before or since.

8. God’s Old Testament deacons may serve as the eyes and ears of the shepherd.

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(The first six pictures)

Our problem in deciding what deacons are to be doing in the local church results from a paucity of references in the Bible.

We have the account of the seven men chosen by the Jerusalem church to serve groceries to the widows (Acts 6:1-7) and little else.

In the absence of Scriptural instructions on what deacons should do, unwise counselors have stepped into the void and done their dead-level best to make them church managers, business administrators, and preacher bosses. The results have almost always been disastrous.

I suggest that scripture has not been as silent on this subject as we have thought. In fact, throughout the Old Testament we find examples of men–godly, mature, adult men–who have stood by the Lord’s shepherd as his right hand, his strong arm, his defenders, his helpers and his extension.

Think of what follows as photographs of deacons at work among God’s Old Testament people. Think of these as metaphors for what deacons should do today. Think of them as plants set in place by the Holy Spirit for our instruction and edification.

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As a student of American history, I’ve long been intrigued by the massive carnage of the American Civil War, and have wondered whom to blame for this most devastating event. The answer, as I’m finding now in a new book called “America’s Great Debate”(by Fergus M. Bordewich; Simon and Schuster, 2012), lies with a number of rabid politicians from both the South and the North, who for decades tried to shout each other down and fought against anyone proposing anything remotely looking like a compromise.

I’m not sure why I needed to fix the blame for this, to have someone identifiable before whose doorstep we could lay this. One would like to think that modern political leaders would learn important lessons in the failures of their predecessors–that failing to deal with the tough issues and handing them off to the next generation is abject dereliction of duty.

On these pages, as I have railed against the practice of deacons ruling the church and bossing the pastors–a practice not even remotely suggested by anything in Scripture–I’ve wondered where it all started.

Now we know.

It has not been a secret, although it has been pretty much unknown. Howard B. Foshee covered this in his 1968 book, “The Ministry of the Deacon,” published by Convention Press. For a generation, his book was the standard for Southern Baptists wanting to know how to organize and train their church’s deacon groups.

In a chapter chronicling “Evolving Concepts of Deacon Service,” Dr. Foshee identifies the smoking gun.

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Recently, when the directors of missions for our state met in their annual retreat, they asked me to lead an evening session on “Do’s and Do Not’s for DOMs.” On the ride up to our gathering place, a friend asked if I had trouble selecting 10 of each. I said, “Right now, I have the list down to 730.” He laughed, understanding fully what I was saying. There are so many good choices and an equal number of bad.

In this series on “Reforming the Deacons,” that is, remaking your church’s body of deacons into a powerful team of servants, we need to pause and mention some serious practices faithful deacons will avoid.

1. A deacon should never politic to be elected.

Let the church membership choose whom it will. Remembering that diakonos means “the lowliest servant,” one who goes “through the dust” to get a job done, to campaign for election undermines the very idea.

Why would a man (or just as likely, his family and friends) campaign for election as a deacon? In most cases, it’s because that church’s deacons have become the power center of the church and that’s where the authority lies. There is a certain class of humanity that loves to rule, takes pride in exerting influence over others, and enjoys the prestige of being chosen above others. We who find ourselves in that class should take warning, for what it says about our spiritual condition is not good.

Take the deacons’ authority away–which is what we are urging–and ask them to restrict their activities to serving church members in need and working in the background, and you will see an end to the politicking. Few want to be servants; far more want to be the one giving orders to the servants.

2. A deacon should cut no corners of truth in order to be chosen.

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If you had nearly died from a strange illness and the doctors had given up hope, then suddenly you recovered and were able to get on with your life, could you ever ever forget that?

If you had suffered on death’s row at Angola Prison, and the prison chaplain was preparing a final prayer and the chef had laid out your last meal, when suddenly the governor pardoned you and you walked outside a free man, and then got on with your life, could you ever forget it?

Apparently some people can forget the most momentuous events in their lives.

Consider this line: For he who lacks these qualities is blind or short-sighted, having forgotten that he was forgiven from his past sins. (II Peter 1:9)

It appears that some calling themselves Christians no longer remember that they have been forgiven of their sins. How strange is that? And how does it happen?

I think we know.

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If to be a deacon means to serve, and if it really matters the quality of the person chosen to serve the congregation, then someone in church leadership must be able to recognize a servant when they see one.

Otherwise, you may end up with a lot of men in your deacon body who want to do anything in the world except serve.

Which, as you think of it, is a perfect description of a thousand deacon groups: a lot of men who want to do many things, none of them being to serve.

Now, before the Feast of the Passover, Jesus knowing that His hour had come that He should depart out of this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end…. (John 13:1)

You will recognize that as the opening of the Upper Room passage where the Lord washes the feet of His disciples, the ultimate act of servitude. In this one verse, we find a number of insights as to the traits of a great servant.

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If the deacon body is to be healthy, it must get rid of toxic members in its fellowship.

Toxic member number one: The bully. He’s the guy who throws his weight around, demands that everyone follow his agenda, issues orders to the pastor and staff, and instills fear in half the people around him.

You thought the problem with bullies ended after elementary school? Think again.

Bullies can be found in the classroom (as professors), on football fields (as coaches or players), in the workplace (more likely, it’s the boss), and, most surprising of all to most people, in church.

All bullies are dangerous to the success of whatever mission they are engaged in. They can wreck the program by demanding their own way, by undermining the work of leaders, and by driving away good people who refuse to cave in to them.

Since the work of the church is the Kingdom of God on earth, a bully in the sacred place can cause damage having eternal consequences.

Now, the church bully can be a pastor, a Sunday School teacher, a somebody or a nobody. But when the bully is a deacon, particularly in a wonderful church doing significant work for the Lord, he is especially dangerous and must be dealt with.

Just one such monster left unchecked and unchallenged can stop a good ministry in its tracks, destroy the work of a faithful pastor, ruin a church’s reputation, hold the Lord’s people up as a laughingstock before the world, and splinter a united congregation.

Bullies cannot be left unguarded, their tactics unchallenged, and their demands unaddressed. Someone must do something.

Has anyone ever written on what deacons should do concerning the bullies within their fellowship?

Diotrephes was a bully. The Apostle John said, “I wrote something to the church, but Diotrephes, who loves to be first among them, does not accept what we say. For this reason, if I come, I will call attention to his deeds which he does, unjustly accusing us with wicked words, and not satisfied with this, neither does he himself receive the brethren, and he forbids those who desire to do so, and puts them out of the church” (III John 9-10).

The Pharisees were bullies. Jesus said they “shut up the kingdom of heaven from men,” they “devour widows’ houses,” and they are in danger of “the sentence of hell” (Matthew 23).

What should a deacon do about a bully within his own group?

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The list would be long. Mom gave birth to me, the fifth of seven children, on March 28, 1940. The boy born on March 25 of the previous year had not lived, so they referred to me as the fourth child. I owe her my life.

Did she take some teasing or even ridicule because of the rapid-fire way she was bringing children into the world? All 7 of us were born in a 9-year-span.

Lois Jane Kilgore was 17 when she agreed to marry Carl J. McKeever, a 21-year-old she had been seeing for three years. She was a farmer’s daughter with a 9th grade education; he came from a long line of coal miners and dropped out of school in the 7th grade to go to work. He was the oldest of 12, she was the middle child of 9.

They surprised the preacher and got him out of bed that Saturday night, March 3, 1934, and asked him to perform the ceremony. There was no premarital counsel, no fancy surroundings, and for a time, no honorarium for the preacher. The next Monday, the coal miners went out on strike. An inauspicious beginning for marriage.

Lois had no idea what she had gotten herself into. Nothing from her sheltered, happy upbringing in the church-going farm family had prepared her for married life with that Irishman with the temper, a love for the sauce, and an unruly mob of siblings of all ages.

In time, Carl got his life straightened out, their marriage stabilized, and life was good. But for a couple or three decades, Lois paid a severe price for her determination to save her marriage and raise her brood of young’uns well.

As he aged, Carl became a wonderful patriarch in this family, revered and loved. He filled a room when he entered. He loved to talk, to tell a story, to read and learn and tell you what he had learned, and to work on problem-solving for the miners union of which he in time became a 70+ year member.

I grew up thinking he was the dominant force in my upbringing.

It took my wife to make me see otherwise.

I’m 95 percent about Lois McKeever. I owe her far more than I can ever know or say or repay. Here’s what I mean.

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(A sequel to the previous article on Why Fear of Death is Not Allowed for Jesus’ Disciples)

And lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the world. (Matthew 28:20)

The overriding, most awesome, absolutely most compelling reality of the life of a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ is His continuing presence with us throughout this life and on into the life-beyond-this-life.

How can we say this stronger?

The greatest factor in the believer’s fearlessness is that “Jesus is with me.” The reality that tips the scales for all time in favor of bold living and confident dying is the eternal presence of Jesus. Nothing else is so determinative.

I will never leave thee nor forsake thee. (Hebrews 13:5)

As a result of this promise from our Lord, found in both the Old and New Testaments, we “may boldly say, the Lord is my Helper and I will not be afraid” (Hebrews 13:6).

Bold living, confident proclaiming, sweet testimony, and assured dying. That is the plan. That is what Jesus Christ feels He has a right to expect of every disciple.

Throughout Scripture, the Lord had the same answer–almost like a broken record if you remember what that was–to every excuse from those whom He called into His service: I will be with you. This was His panacea, His answer for everything.

It’s all through the Word….

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I’m sorry, followers of Jesus Christ. The one thing you are not allowed in this life–and certainly not the next–is fear of death. It’s verboten, off limits, taboo.

Fearing death ranks first as the ultimate insult to the Lord Jesus Christ.

It is unbelief of the first order.

Death was the biggest gun in Satan’s arsenal when the enemy’s forces trotted it out on that Passover Eve on a hill outside Jerusalem’s walls. This Jesus Person would be dispensed with once and for all.

For a few awful hours, it appeared the diabolical plan had succeeded.

Jesus was dead. Really dead.

Then, on that never-to-be-forgotten Lord’s Day morning, the tomb was found to be empty and reports began popping up that Jesus was appearing to His followers. The disciples, who had been ready to give up and go home and deal with their dashed hopes and the Galilean’s embarrassing claims, suddenly were energized and “shot from cannons” as they blanketed the world with the news: Jesus is alive!

If He was alive, everything else had changed for all time.

That was the point.

Opponents and critics, eager to find holes and loopholes and potholes in the Christian message, rush to inform us that one man’s death and even His resurrection, if indeed there was one, changes little.

They miss the point.

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