Academic responsibility

I have mentioned before that a few years back I was taking online courses through Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary. I got about 1/3 or so of the way through the M.Div. program and because of that I have a number of books from my seminary classes that I kept. I was looking through one a few nights ago, Christianity Through the Centuries by Earle Cairns . I wasn’t looking at this specifically but I read a paragraph in the section regarding church offices and came across a paragraph that jumped out at me.

I get that being a church historian can be a tricky task. There are some things you have to deal with that a normal historian doesn’t. A Christian church historian ultimately is a Christian first and a historian second. Having said that, read this paragraph from a seminary textbook and see if you have a problem with it:

The deacons had a subordinate position to the elders, but those who filled the office faced the same rigid qualifications for office that elders had to meet (Acts 6:3, 1 Tim 3: 8-13). The procedure for democratic election was also prescribed by the apostles in Jerusalem (Acts 6: 3,5) The dispensing of charity by the church was the major task of deacons. Later, they aided the elders by giving the elements of the Communion to the people. Stephen and Philip were the most prominent in Acts 6-8. (Christianity Through the Centuries, Earle E. Cairns, Third Edition, pg. 83)

I read that and my jaw just dropped. I would say that out of that paragraph there is one thing that is mostly accurate: the desired qualities in a deacon are very similar to those for an elder. The rest of that paragraph is virtually nonsense. Here is the big problem with that paragraph: there is no linkage that I am aware of anywhere in the New Testament that links Acts 6 with deacons. Also, never once do we see deacons listed as a subordinate in a hierarchical sense to elders and we also never see them giving "the elements of the Communion" to anyone. You would think from that paragraph that Stephen and Philip were the guys passing out plates of oyster crackers and waiting in the back of the church to walk forward together. To assert, in an academic work, that the office of deacon that we traditionally think of in the church is Scripturally based is poor scholarship.

Am I saying that Stephen wasn’t a deacon? Not at all. We really don’t know and that is my point. I am suggesting that to assert that he was is irresponsible. "Deacon" only appears, at least in the ESV, in two places. One is in 1 Tim 3: 8-13 where the qualities of a deacon are outlined and the other is when they are greeted by Paul in his letter to the Philippians (Phil 1: 1). From this brief mention we have created a church office and decided that the seven men called to help with the daily distribution to the widows were deacons even though Scripture never makes that connection. In fact, Stephen was martyred for preaching the Gospel and Philip was also an evangelist and preacher. Far from "behind the scenes" guys who made sure the toilets flush and the grass gets mowed, these men were powerful preachers of the Gospel to the lost. In most churches that I have been involved with, the deacons never preached. That was reserved to the senior pastor, so if Stephen and Philip were deacons then the example they give us says that deacons should be as involved in teaching and preaching as the elders.

What really troubles me is that it is stated in an academic work as if it is settled fact when it is anything but. If Dr. Cairns had added a caveat like “traditionally Stephen and Phillip were considered deacons” or something to the effect that the Scriptures never link deacons with the traditional office we have in the church, that at least would be reasonable. To the casual reader though it sounds as if this is just a Scriptural fact (based on the references to Scripture that in reality don’t support what he is claiming in the least). Again we see the danger of prooftexts and Scripture references that are not investigated.

The history of the church is important. Too often we approach it with denominational or traditional blinders on. We make blanket assertions, state traditions as if they were facts and freely demonize people who were our brothers in Christ. We are ignorant of our history as the people of God and because of that we are prone to accept without question historical events and doctrinal positions without much critical examination. That sort of myopic view of history may fly in secular, agenda driven universities but brothers it should not be so among God’s people. Especially not in a textbook designed for religious instruction.