The Ideal Church Service: Introduction

Some of you left interesting feedback on my No Fun or Know Fun post a couple of weeks ago. In case you didn't read it--scandalous!--that post cautioned against the temptation to oppose clown church with mortician church, if you get my drift. Sometimes we work so hard at building a worship experience that's not about bread and circuses, we wind up administering a spiritual sedative.

I appreciated all the feedback I received, including:

Steve: Faith & I recently had the experience of going to a Ghanaian church. All the people, including the pastor were from Ghana. I was a little nervous and not sure what to expect when the worship started, but I soon found myself caught up in the "feel good sensations" of just worshiping the Lord. We sang for over an hour and I have to tell you that it was wonderful to freely worship in that manner without any judgmental eyes watching.

David: The biggest problem I have witnessed in both conservative and circus churches is the lack of participatory worship. The last two churches I attended sang songs composed by their own people, and often many did not know their lyrics and they were hard songs to sing for amateurs....Didn't somebody say that the typical American church resembles a football game in which 22 men work their butts off while 100,000 sit back and watch for entertainment?

Elizabeth: I went to a number of liturgical churches once upon a time because the liturgy was more participatory for the congregation than most other churches I attended.

I noticed a common theme in all these comments: you guys like participatory church. You like being a part of what's happening during the service. You don't want your spiritual experience ladled out to you; when you gather with God's people, you want to get involved in the corporate worship and experience of the Lord. To wax Petrine, you want to exercise your liturgical duty as a royal priest of God, not abdicate the responsibility of worship to the pros (1 Peter 2:9).

I don't think this is unusual. My experience with Christians has typically been that they want to be a part of what's happening during the service, not mere spectators lining the bleachers. I'll go a step further, and say that arena-style programming is one of the biggest contributors to boredom in church. It's been observed before and more articulately by others, but it's worth repeating here: the spiritual can't beat the secular at stage productions. When I attend church, I'm there to do something. If I wanted passive channeling into a pre-arranged experience, I'd be at the theater.

However, as I said in the comments, I think the theory is biblical but it gets fuzzy when you bring it into real life. This is where you come in; it's where you can participate in this series. (Get it?) For an indeterminate number of posts, I want to ransack your imaginations and build a mosaic of the ideal church service as you see it. We'll take the various elements of a church service, and talk about what you would do if you had total freedom to mold it to your will. This series isn't about deep doctrinal truths; it's about your ideas for a church service that maintains maximum participation without compromising the integrity of God-centered worship.

Before we get there, though, we need to decide the broad categories we'll include in our ideal church service. For instance, "music" is a huge box we can fill with little ideas. The easiest way to do this is probably by listing your suggested elements. For instance:

[Edit: since there seems to be confusion on this subject...]

1. Earth Item One
2. Air Item Two
3. Fire Item Three
4. Water etc.

In addition, perhaps there are some things you wouldn't include in your service. Tell me which boxes you would leave outside, if any. Let's get our boxes sorted out, and we can start filling them one at a time.

I Like This Guy

From The Dawn and Twilight of Zoroastrianism (p. 29):

Professor Henning has already demolished two such [improbable scholarly] structures in his Zoroaster, Politician or Witch-Doctor? and my own effort to make sense of Sassanian theology has met with much well-deserved criticism. I hope that I have taken due account of this criticism in the present volume.

I find this attitude refreshing. I don't encounter a lot of published scholars who are this open to "well-deserved" criticism; and as a seminary student, I read a lot of Christian scholars.

Something to think about.

A Scriptural Basis for the Ministry of Deacons: Part Six

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6

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Evaluation of the Deacon’s Role in the Church

The observation that διάκονους are primarily concerned with the ministry of the Word,[1] though perhaps applied more negatively than necessarily, is a valid observation. Based on Acts 6, some commentators seem to relegate the διάκονος strictly to a role of indigent relief, focusing attention on the aid offered to the less financially fortunate.[2] However, as discussed previously,[3] the concept of a διάκονος extends much farther beyond any particular brand of service. The purpose (broadly speaking) of a διάκονος seems to be that of assisting in the ministry of the Word by administrating temporal matters which would otherwise devour the time of those who teach.

This assessment is borne out by the Twelve’s stated intention in appointing the Seven, to avoid entangling the Twelve in the necessary ministry of tables rather than the more vital ministry of the Word. The relief of indigent widows was the occasion of the Seven’s appointment, but not its motivation. If the Seven do indeed represent the prototypical diaconate, then the role of the deacon cannot be constrained simply to the administration of charity. Rather, we can safely derive from Acts 6:1-7 that deacons may be appointed whenever the overseers are threatened with entanglement in temporal affairs which, however necessary, would divert them from their principal responsibility to minister the Word.

Conclusion

Many questions remained unresolved by this brief exploration of the role of the deacon. By what process should a deacon be admitted into service? By what objective standards can a potential deacon’s character be evaluated according to 1 Timothy 3:8-11? Should the entire congregation be involved in the process of appointment, or should the decision reside solely in the hands of current church leadership? How long should a deacon serve? Is there biblical warrant for the appointment of a deaconess?

These and other questions could be asked, but this essay has attempted to settle this first and most important question: what are the duties and responsibilities of a deacon? In summary, there is no shortage of needs which a deacon may be appointed to address. If at any point the overseer (or overseers) of a church believe that time to minister the Word is threatened by encroaching necessities, deacons may be appointed to administer a solution to the problem. In this way, deacons fulfill their primary role in the church: to promote the ministry of the Word by freeing the ministers of the Word from temporal entanglements.

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[1] Nagel, “The Twelve and the Seven,” 119-120.

[2] Herman Hoeksama, Reformed Dogmatics, Third Printing (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Reformed Free Publishing Association, 1976), 628; Calvin, 1061.

[3] pp. 3-4.

Eat Your Hearts Out

Did you know a pound of ahi tuna steak currently costs $19.00 around here? I know this because my wife was introduced to a Rachael Ray recipe on television that calls for it, so she's been pricing it all over town.

We weren't willing to pay that much, but we heard about a little grocery store in Northridge that offers Vietnamese ahi tuna for $10.99/lb. Normally, we wouldn't pay that much for meat, but we picked up two six-ounce steaks after church on Sunday. Last night, to celebrate the end of my second-to-last semester at TMS, my wife fixed a delectable meal of ahi tuna steak with avocado and soy sauce:


This lip-smackin' dish of delightfulness was accompanied by mouth-watering ginger carrots, and generous helpings of cool, refreshing fruit salad.

Setting aside the cost of the tuna, I eat like this all the time.

Single guys, eat your hearts out.

Seven Intensely Interesting Facts about Me

Tagged by Gummby, and who dares refuse him? The tagged are supposed to list seven things about themselves, and then tag seven others to do the same. So, here are seven fascinating personal items. When you consider these are the most interesting things about me, you'll have a good idea of just how wild a life I lead.

1. I can recite the alphabet backward, fluently.


2. My cure for depression is The Truman Show.


3. My only published work is a $35 anecdote in The Christian Digest.


4. I sold a Mountain Dew to Meg Ryan.


5. I've played the piano in a Mormon church.


6. I've spoken with a former cannibal.


7. I once got a political and religious liberal to admit privately that I had a good point.

Now I'm tagging:

The Archiver
The Best Dog in the World
The Thirsty Theologian
The Adventurous Life of Mine
Hullabaloo
Theology IS Life
На Даче

A Scriptural Basis for the Ministry of Deacons: Part Five

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6

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Examination of Acts 6:1-7
(Part 2 of 2)

Third, the majority of references to διάκονος in the epistles refer either to the apostles or to those who assisted them in ministering the Word.[1] Therefore, the diaconate should be understood as primarily concerned with the ministry of the Word, and cannot be compared to the temporary appointment of the Seven to resolve an administrative problem unique to the Jerusalem assembly.[2]

The primary counter-arguments to this view are that Paul does not require a διάκονος to teach; and that the Seven did in fact assist in the ministry of the Word (albeit indirectly) by freeing the Twelve from daily operational concerns and from controversy in the congregation. If a deacon is not required to teach, then his ministry regarding the Word could only be to make more simple the task of those who do teach it. This the Seven did, rendering this objection insignificant.

Argument for. The primary argument in favor of identifying the Seven as the first (or prototypical) deacons is the Lucan usage of διάκονος’s cognate forms. Both διακονέω and διακονία are used in Acts 6:1-7, with the διακονία of the Word by the apostles comparing to the διακονέω of the tables by the Seven (Acts 6:2, 4). Despite the absence of διάκονος from this passage, its cognates provide the lexical foundation upon which the technical term was built.[3]

In response, it could be argued that both the Twelve and the Seven are each explicitly engaged in a διακονία. To single out the Seven as a special class of διάκονους on the basis of cognate forms while excluding the Twelve is logically unjustifiable.

Conclusion. Arguments on both sides of the question have merit. While the fact that διάκονος is absent from Acts 6:1-7 does not automatically preclude the Seven from consideration as the first deacons, it is a glaring weakness of the argument that they represent full-orbed deacons in the Pauline sense of 1 Timothy 3. Likewise, the apparent differences in activity between the Seven and the Pauline conception of the diaconate should give significant pause to any attempt to identify the Seven as fully-developed deacons.

On the other hand, the fact that both the Twelve and the Seven are engaged in a διακονία does not immediately render invalid the observation of cognate forms in Acts 6:1-7. The development of an ecclesiastical office dedicated to διακονία after the pattern of the Seven could find no better title than διάκονος. Despite the significant differences, there are enough similarities of function between the Seven and 1 Timothy 3 to caution against a complete severance between the Seven and the diaconate.

Given both the similarities and the differences between the Seven and the diaconate, it is probably best to understand the Seven as prototypical deacons. While they cannot technically be called deacons, they provide both a pattern and lexicography for scattered local assemblies facing practical dilemmas similar to the Jerusalem congregation. It is inconceivable that local assemblies would not look to the Jerusalem for patterns of church order, and the titling of the διάκονος based on the activities of the Seven was likely a later but natural development.[4] If this assessment is correct, then principles of the function of the diaconate can be safely drawn from Acts 6:1-7 without doing violence to the intention of the sub-apostolic author.

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[1] In addition to Paul’s references to himself and other apostles, διάκονος is also used with reference to Timothy (1 Thess. 3:2), Tychicus (Col. 4:7), and Epaphras (Col. 1:7).

[2] Nagel, “The Twelve and the Seven,” 119-120.

[3] Fitzmyer, 344.

[4] In NT times, the idea of table-waiting continued to persist in the lexical background of διάκονος (Kittel, 92). Since the Seven were engaged specifically in distributing food—waiting on tables—the likelihood is high that later groups patterned after them would become known as διάκονους, though the Seven themselves do not seem to have retained that title.

Self-Contradictions of the Bible: A Review

William Henry Burr. Self-Contradictions of the Bible. New York: A. J. Davis & Company, 1860. Reprint, Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books, 1987. 96 pp. $21.00 (cloth).

For an entertaining evening out, toss this little book into a crowded restaurant. The diners will immediately pick sides, upend tables into barricades, and proceed to cannonade each other with champagne corks and veal flambé. Seriously—it’s that kind of book.

William Henry Burr’s original 1860 barrage against the Bible did not enjoy a tremendous shelf life compared to most classics. On the other hand, it managed to survive thirty years in a solution of concentrated American Christianity before going out of print, and this in itself is no small feat. In 1987, one hundred and twenty-seven years after its original publication, Prometheus Books resurrected…er, excuse me, reprinted this compact compilation of biblical self-contradictions.

One interesting feature of Self-Contradictions is the introduction by R. Joseph Hoffmann of Hartwick College. His utter loathing of Christianity is evident from the first sentence: “Sometimes old diseases demand old cures.” Writing with an abhorring eye on the American evangelical resurgence of the 1970s, Hoffmann makes no effort to conceal his revulsion at Christian fundamentalism and the ignorance he sees animating it. So profoundly does Hoffmann detest Christianity that occasionally he undermines his own credibility. For example, many Christian university students would be amused to discover that according to Hoffmann, they are unaware the New Testament was written in Greek. However, Hoffmann clearly isn’t writing for Christians anyway, and his intended audience isn’t likely to quibble over a little broad-brushing.

Perhaps the most interesting feature of this book is Burr's unique place in his historical context. Laundry lists of scriptural self-contradictions are well familiar to anyone with an interest in religion and an Internet connection. However, Burr beat the Internet atheists to the punch by over a century and hacked out a trail for countless thousands after him. Burr’s book, then, is significant in this respect: it’s not the only or the best attempt to compile internal biblical errors, but it is the first published attempt at listing Christians to death.

As for the validity of the contents, the reader must judge. Burr makes no arguments, gives no reasons, grants no interaction. Self-Contradictions of the Bible is a straightforward coupling of verses which Burr believes directly contradict one another. Some of the alleged contradictions are so weak that even Hoffmann recognizes their speciousness, but this should not prevent the Christian from thinking through the more difficult paradoxes. Christian answers to certain problems collapse under their own weight, but that should not prevent the atheist or the agnostic from thinking through the more thoughtful explanations.

However, realistically, any book of this nature is more likely to divide than it is to promote healthy dialogue. The atheist is more likely to acclaim Burr as an enlightened sage, while the Christian is more likely to dismiss him as an incoherent reprobate. Neither will devote much thought to the other’s arguments, and very little progress will be made in either direction. Gentlemen, champagne corks at six paces, if you please…

Mom My Ride

"Duct tape is the perfect way to say, 'Sorry, fellas. This lady's got a man.'"

H/t: Gummby

A Scriptural Basis for the Ministry of Deacons: Part Four

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6

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Examination of Acts 6:1-7
(Part 1 of 2)

Commentators’ opinions diverge drastically regarding whether or not the seven men appointed to service in Acts 6:1-7 should be linked to deacons. Irenaeus’ writings are the earliest extant witness to the explicit identification of the Seven as deacons,[1] an opinion shared by John Calvin.[2] Current views range from the statement that “few now attempt to defend the view that the Seven were the first deacons”[3] to the opposing assertion that the Seven were indeed the first.[4] A common mediating position is that the seven were “functionally equivalent” to the later-developed concept of a diaconate,[5] and in that sense were prototypical of it.[6]

Arguments against the identification of the Seven as the first deacons will be considered first, then arguments in favor of this identification. A conclusion will then be drawn before progressing to a summary evaluation of the role of the deacon in the church today.

Arguments against. The primary arguments against recognizing the Seven as the first deacons are three. First, although the verbal and substantive derivations of the διακον- root are found in Acts 6:1-7, the term διάκονος is conspicuously absent from Luke’s narrative of the Seven.[7] It is unlikely that the same historian who conscientiously recorded the origination of the title “Christian”[8] would fail to record the origination of one of the most consequential and enduring ecclesiastical titles of the church. Therefore, the appointment of the Seven must be considered a temporary solution to a specific problem, not the institution of a permanent diaconate.[9]

However, it could be argued that Luke’s very attentiveness to historicity prohibits him from introducing an anachronistic title into his narrative. Although the title of διάκονος may not have originated at this time, it is possible the Seven gradually became a functional pattern for local churches at a date subsequent to the events of Acts 6. If indeed the diaconate gradually developed over time in multiple local churches, based on word-of-mouth accounts of the Seven’s activities, Luke would have no more tightly-focused opportunity to introduce the concept of the diaconate than is presented by the narrative of Acts 6:1-7. However, the official title of διάκονος would likely not have arisen until a much later date, once the office had become widespread enough to require technical definition.[10]

Second, the Seven engage not only in administrative and financial oversight, but also in teaching, performing miracles, and baptizing.[11] The duties of a διάκονος do not include these public forms of ministry;[12] indeed, the activities of the Seven seem more closely aligned with those of an overseer than of a deacon. Therefore, the Seven must be viewed as a unique company incomparable to the later diaconate.

However, the fact that a διάκονος is not required to teach does not necessarily preclude him from doing so. No indication is given in Scripture that an individual can prove overqualified for his role, so the extraordinary giftedness of Stephen and Philip cannot preclude them from consideration as deacons. It should also be recognized that apart from names, five of the seven appointees remain shrouded in mystery as far as the apostolic authors are concerned. The assumption cannot be made that Stephen’s and Philip’s notable careers mirror those of their five compatriots, who could have more nearly typified Paul’s qualifications for the diaconate in 1 Timothy 3.

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[1] Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, eds., The Ante-Nicene Fathers, 10 vols. (Grand Rapids, Mich.: William B. Eerdmans, 1973), 1:352. Cf. Norman Nagel, “The Twelve and the Seven in Acts 6 and the Needy,” Concordia Journal 3/2 (April 2005), 124.

[2] John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 2 vols., Eighth Printing, ed. by John T. McNeill, trans. by Ford Lewis Battles (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1977), 2:1061.

[3] Nagel, “The Twelve and the Seven,” 124.

[4] Merrill Unger, The New Unger’s Bible Handbook, rev. by Gary N. Larsen (Chicago: Moody Press, 1984), 442.

[5] E.g., Richard N. Longenecker, “The Acts of the Apostles,” John-Acts, in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, 12 vols., ed. by Frank A Gaebelein and J. D. Douglas (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1981), 9:331. Cf. Douglas, 259; and Joseph A. Fitzmyer, The Acts of the Apostles, in The Anchor Bible (New York: Doubleday, 1988), 344.

[6] Alexander Strauch, Biblical Eldership, Revised and Expanded (Littleton, Colo.: Lewis and Roth Publishers, 1995), 36.

[7] C. K. Barrett, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles, in The International Critical Commentary (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1994), 1:304.

[8] Acts 11:26.

[9] Eduard Schweizer, Church Order in the New Testament, trans. by Frank Clarke (Chatham, Engl.: W. & J. Mackay, 1961), 74.

[10] The author is indebted to Otto Bauernfeind’s view (quoted in Barrett, 304) that the source upon which Luke relies for his Acts 6:1-7 narrative does not contain the title διάκονος, and that Luke conscientiously refuses to introduce a technical term into a source which does not contain it. The author’s response to Barrett is a modified form of this view, though it relies less on form criticism of Acts and more on an evaluation of historical and psychological probabilities given current knowledge of the early church and of Luke himself.

[11] Kittel, 90. Cf. Acts 6:5, 8; 8:12.

[12] Cf. 1 Tim. 3:8-11.

Mountie Job Security

On behalf of numismatists everywhere, we'd like to thank Ian Bennett for minting Canada's new one million dollar gold coin. Ian, we'll see you soon.