ians are the priests, their faith is the sacrifice,
t. Paul’s life-blood is the accompanying libation’ (Lightfoot, in loco); and in Ro 15", though St. Paul is the sacrificing ἜΡεΣ he is so only figur- seer his priestly function is preaching the
ospel, and the sacrifice is the believing Gentiles.
ts uses elsewhere concern the ministration to the wants of the poor saints, 2 Co 914, or of St. Paul himself, Ph -%__the sacrifice of charity ; or the service rendered to God by state officials, Ro 13°, or by the angels of wind and fire, He 17 ™ The fact seems clear that the NT writers prefer διακονεῖν (-la, -os) because it connotes two things:
MINISTER, MINISTRY 377 the first, which λειτουργεῖν also connotes, minis- tration Godward in the service of others; the second, which λειτουργεῖν does not connote, lowli- ness in that ministration. In both these senses it is in the line of succession from classical usage. To the Greek the practically dominant connotation was a service relatively low and even menial. That διάκονος and δοῦλος breathed in classical Greek the same air is obvious from Plato’s junc- tion of διακονικάς with δουλοπρεπεῖς and ἀνελευθέρους (Gorg. 518 A), and from his identification of διακονεῖν and the work of δοῦλοι in tending cattle and tilling the soil (Laws, vii. 805 E). In NT the use is in no wise different. St. Paul employs both δοῦλος and διάκονος to define his relation to his Master (Ph 11, 2 Co 11%) and to his converts δι᾽ ᾿Ιησοῦν (2 Co 4°, 1 Co 3°); and he tells how Christ Himself both took the form of a δοῦλος (Ph 27) and became a διάκονος of the circumcision (Ro 15%), as though his Lord’s own description of His position had impressed him with the parallel (Mt 2056:28), And though, in the parable of the Wedding Garment, it is δοῦλοι that invite and διάκονοι that cast out, Mt 22% 8-10-18, the latter word appears to be preferred in ν. 15 because attendants at table are there spoken of, such attendants being either bond or free, Lk 12%, Mt 8%. This menial service of waiting at table (διακονεῖν) is cited by Christ, Lk 178 22%", as the characteristic sign of the contrast between the relative positions of master and servant, and furnishes Him with a parabolic picture both of His own position among His dis- ciples, Lk 22”, and of the striking way in which the Great Master shall reward His servants’ con- tinued watchfulness, Lk 12%. Even in secular Greek there was an inkling of the dignity of this menial humbleness in relation to the gods. Aris- teides (Orat. 46, p. 198 f., quoted by Hort, Chris- tian Ecclesia, p. 208 1.) ‘refuses to call [Athenian statesmen who had saved their country] διάκονοι of the state, but will gladly call them διάκονοι of the Saviour Gods who had used their instrumentality’ ; and Epictetus (Hort, p. 204) ‘in several remark- able passages (Diss. lil. 22. 69; 24. 65; iv. 7. 20; ef. 111. 26. 28) makes it the dignity of a man to be a διάκονος of God. The Gospel gave the word a still higher consecration of the same kind... For [a Lord who had taken on Himself the form of a servant] every grade and pattern of service was lifted into a higher sphere. . . . Ministration (διακονία) thus became one of the primary aims of all Christian actions’ (e.g. Eph 413, where ‘the work of diaxovla’ is parallel with ‘the edification of the body of Christ’), whether for apostles, 2 Co 4), or for evangelists, 2 Ti 4°, or for the presbyter or episcopus, Col 4", or for the ‘deacon’ himself : whether the emphasis was (Ph 1}) on government (ἐπισκοπὴ) or On service (διακονία), διακονία was ‘ the badge of all the tribe’; whether the service was to God, 2 Co 64, or to Christ, Col 1’, 1 Ti 4°, or to the gospel, Eph 37, or to the Church, Ro 197, or to the material wants of the poor saints, Ac 6}, 2 Co 91), He 6”, or to St. Paul himself, officially Ac 19”, Col 1’, 2 Ti 44, or materially Philem ™, 2 Ti 118 (cf. Lk 8°, women διηκόνουν to Christ and His disciples of their substance). In all cases there was διακονία to the Master for the benelit of others, Col 17. And so also in the technical sense of the word, the definite office, διάκονος (see DEAcON). This office did not exclude teaching: such exclusion, in the presence of πο ΟΣ “would have been contrary to the spirit of the Apostolic age’ (Hort, P. 202). Stephen, one of the Seven, was a powerful preacher (Ac 6. 7); and whether the Seven (cf. Ac 63 διακονεῖν τραπέζαις) were technically deacons or not, they must surely have suggested the office in the several churches later on: ‘analogous wants might well lead to analogous
MINISTER, MINISTRY
institutions’ (Hort, p. 209). That teaching, how- ever, was ‘no part of the official duty ’ of a deacon, is suggested by a comparison of the qualifications required for a deacon at Ephesus and those re- quired for a presbyter or episcopus (1 Ti 3°") ; while the injunction against talebearing in the men-deacons and backbiting in the women suggest a frequent contact with individual Christians and Christian families, a going in and out among them, a visitation from house to house. Thus they ap- pear to have been ‘the main instruments for giving practical effect to the mutual sympathy of the members of the body’; and the efficiency of the office was sensibly increased by being divided between the sexes (1 Ti 31} compared with Ro 163).