Jonathan Edwards on Deacons

What important role do deacons play in the church? Today, Dr. Stephen Nichols takes us back to 1739 to Jonathan Edwards’ church in Northampton, MA, to look at a sermon that Edwards preached on this topic.

Welcome back to another episode of 5 Minutes in Church History. On this episode, we are returning to our faithful friend, Jonathan Edwards, and to a sermon he preached in 1739. In 1739, Edwards was very busy. He was preaching a massive sermon series, one of my favorite sermon series of his, History of the Work of Redemption. That spanned most of the year, but somewhere along August, Edwards stepped aside from his sermon series, which by the way, is 30 sermons on half a verse out of Isaiah. So, some of you might be in churches where your pastor takes a long time to go through a book but imagine if your pastor took 30 sermons to go through one half of a verse. Well, you might want a little break, and Edwards might want a little break. So, in August, he stepped aside from that series and preached a sermon entitled, “Deacons to Care for the Body, Ministers for the Soul.”

The occasion was the ordaining of several deacons for the work of the ministry there in the church at Northampton. He took for his sermon text, not a half a verse, but four verses out of Romans chapter 12 that speaks of the gifts that were given. Edwards notes that the business, as he calls it, of prophesying, teaching, exhorting, ruling, all those belong to the office of pastor or sometimes called bishop. That would be what is in Presbyterian terms the teaching elders and the ruling elders of the church. But the other businesses that are mentioned in that text, ministering, giving, showing mercy, Edwards sees those as falling under the category of Deacon. He proceeds to say that the Greek word deacon is translated as “ministry.” In the sermon Edwards tells us, “By ‘ministering,’ as the word is used in the New Testament, is most commonly meant giving or communicating of our goods to others.”

He goes on to see how the word is used in Romans 15:25 where Paul says that he goes to Jerusalem, having now gathered up an offering for the saints who are suffering persecution in Jerusalem. Paul says, “I go to Jerusalem to minister…” and the Greek word there is deacon, “to the saints.” Edwards goes on to say there is a symmetry or a harmony in the offices that God has established for the church. And he says very plainly in the doctrine of the sermon that the offices that Christ has appointed in his church do respect either the souls or the bodies of men. And so, what we call pastors are to serve the souls of men and what we call deacons are to minister to the bodies of men. Now, Edwards shows how this is fitting with how God has been dealing with his people through both Old Testament times and New Testament times.

He goes back to the two tablets of the law and one that governs our relationship with God and the commandments that relate to that and the business of our soul, as it were, and the second tablet of the law which deals with more physical and earthly and temporal matters and is the business of the body. He even makes a point to say that taking care of the physical is important. He quotes Paul from 1 Corinthians 6:15, “Know ye not...” He’s quoting the King James. “Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ?” And so, God in his care for the church has appointed deacons to care for the bodies. When he gets to the end of the sermon, Edwards tells his congregation, “Such is the love of the Father of the spiritual family that he looks upon both their spiritual and outward supply of matters of great importance, and therefore has appointed officers to take care of both body and soul.”

He then says, “His fatherly love and tenderness towards his church should be taken notice of by us and thankfully acknowledged and praised.” And so, he wants his congregation with gratitude and praise to thank God for ministers that care for the soul and deacons that care for the body. That's Jonathan Edwards on Deacons. And I'm Steve Nichols, and thanks for listening to 5 Minutes in Church History.