Dignified, Blameless, Faithful in All Things

Pastor Carl walked through 1 Timothy 3:8-13, the qualifications for deacons, as the next step in the church's chronological study of the New Testament. He spent time reviewing the overlapping list from the previous week's passage on overseers before working through what is distinct about the deacon qualifications, including a close look at a contested word that has divided careful readers of the text for a long time.

What was said

The sermon opened with a review of the overseer qualifications from 1 Timothy 3:1-7, because the deacon list uses the same language and picks up directly from it. Pastor Carl summarized those attributes, above reproach, a one-woman man, sober minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not a drunkard, not violent, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money, and managing his household well, before noting that the office of elder is represented at First B by the elder board, while the board of trustees serves as the deacon body.

Moving into verses 8-13, he worked through the qualifications specific to deacons. "Not double-tongued" drew his attention first. The Greek word behind it carries the idea of saying one thing to one person and something different to another, which he connected to gossip and to the kind of pandering that goes on in politics. He tied it to the biblical principle of letting your yes be yes and your no be no.

The phrase "not greedy for dishonest gain" came in for particular attention because deacons, more than elders, tend to handle the practical and financial side of church life. He illustrated it with the example of someone steering a contract to a friend in exchange for a kickback, and said plainly that there is no place for that kind of arrangement in the church.

He kept returning to the overarching theme from the beginning of 1 Timothy, that the aim of the charge is love from a pure heart, a good conscience, and a sincere faith. The phrase "hold the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience" gave him the occasion to talk at length about the Greek word mysterion, a secret that can be known through revelation but not fully systematized. He was honest that some things in Scripture remain genuinely open questions, and told a long story about a seminary exam in which he answered a question about the order of salvation by calling it a mystery, lost the points for it, spent two years bothered by it, and then found out the professor had never even read his answer. His point was that holding on to a position nobody else even noticed taught him something about what it costs to grip things too tightly.

The phrase "their wives, likewise" in verse 11 opened a discussion about translation. The underlying Greek word can mean either wives or women, and the English Standard Version itself includes a marginal note offering both readings. Pastor Carl mentioned Phoebe in Romans 16:1 and the way several translations handle her title, and said he was not going to make an absolute of either reading. He put both options side by side and asked the congregation to hold their interpretation with humility, calling the question a kind of mysterion in its own right.

He closed the body of the sermon on verse 13, which says that those who serve well gain a good standing and great confidence in the faith that is in Christ Jesus. He asked everyone in the room who had ever served as a deacon or elder to raise their hand, then asked whether they came out of it with greater confidence in Christ. The room answered with a collective amen and no audible dissent. He reflected that serving in that capacity had given him more knowledge of Jesus than anything else, alongside a more realistic picture of himself. The service moved from there into communion.