The Importance of the Office of Deacon

Summary

John L. Girardeau published this article in the Southern Presbyterian Review in 1881, urging the Southern church to take up the neglected Deacon Question now that the Elder Question had been settled. He argues the office matters in two spheres: care of the poor, with whom Christ identifies himself, and the whole temporal business of the church, which deacons should manage so that ministers and elders stay free for spiritual duties.

Presbyterians reject the Prelatical theory of the deacon, he charges, yet act on it whenever they load ministers and elders with the work of collectors and treasurers.

The closing pages hold up Christ himself, who came not to be ministered unto but to minister, as the deacon’s glorious example.

Excerpt

The Church, therefore, which shuts up the channel of diaconal ministration must expect to be dwarfed in the development of experimental religion.

Excerpt

More humble and less conspicuous their office may be than that of the elder; but it is not the less divinely warranted, nor is it unilluminated by the splendor of a glorious example. It is a striking fact that the Lord Jesus, in his sojourn on earth, did not occupy the outward seat of the ruler—he condescended to appear as a prisoner at the bar of the eldership of his own visible Church.

The Importance of the Office of Deacon

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