English translations of the Bible use various words to describe what are usually called "offices" in the church. In this article, I want to examine what the Bible says about ministers and deacons, examine the Greek words behind these English translations, and see whether there might be some better translations. I am also going to take a look at Acts 6:1-6 to explore whether these verses really tell us of the ordination of the first deacons.

In the previous article in this series, we found that the Bible says nothing about offices in the assembly. We found, in fact, that there are no offices in God’s assembly. We also saw that the Bible says nothing about clergy, although the etymological root of the word “clergy” is applied to all of God’s people. While the Bible says nothing about offices or clergy in the assembly, it does have much to say about several functions of service. In this article, I want to begin examining the various roles named in the New Testament.