Therefore, brothers and sisters, pick out from among you seven men of good repute, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we will appoint to this duty. –Acts 6:3
There are two different ways they could have went about finding these men. First, they could have been like Prince Charming looking for the Cinderella who dropped her glass slipper. In this instance you have a particular form in which you are looking and you test everyone to see if they fit the mold. Sorry buddy, your foot is a bit too chubby. Sorry tiny, your baby feet aren’t going to fill this shoe.
Or they could have been a bit more like a treasure hunter with a basic guide. If your map says twelve paces left of the big rock, then you’re going to get excited every time you see a big rock. This “men of good repute, full of the Spirit and wisdom” is like searching for all the c’s in a word search because your word, catatonic, starts with the letter c. You’re still looking for something specific but your starting point is a bit different. As I’ve said before the foundation of discernment is hope, and I don’t think that is different when it comes to selecting deacons and elders.
I’m convinced that we read these lists in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1 with the wrong eyes. We’re reading them as if they’re a glass shoe given to help Prince Charming find his Cinderella. And it makes us view these lists in a rigid way. It makes us lazy. We try to make a form fit a man, rather than using these lists as hope-fueled question starters. And it causes us, I believe, to lay hands too swiftly upon some and wrongly pass over others.
I say this as one who firmly believes that character matters deeply. One of the worst things that can happen to a local church is to call an unqualified man to the office of deacon or elder. So this isn’t a call for less discernment it’s a call for better discernment.
What I’m talking about here is more about starting points. If you use the glass slipper method then you’re not really going to be looking for potential leaders until it comes time for the annual ball. Then you’re going to find all the potential candidates—the obvious people—and you will run them through the tests of 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1. So long as nothing really stands out as disqualifying (the shoe fits) then you’re going to bring them on for a year or so trial as a deacon/elder (or in less healthy communities you won’t even give them a trial period).
But what if instead we used these lists of qualifications year around? What if we were constantly on the look out for those who exhibit particular qualities? (That’s a big rock there, I wonder if THIS is the one the treasure map is talking about?) This will help us take note of the young man who has a hunger for attending things like business meetings. And it will encourage us to sit down and ask hopeful questions. We are still looking for a specific person (i.e.“full of the Spirit and wisdom”), but we’re starting with hope and not suspicion. And it helps us to be better disciple-makers.
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A phenomenal resource to help us ask better questions is Finding Faithful Elders and Deacons by Thabiti Anyabwile. He, I believe, comes at these lists from the perspective of hope and because of this he helps us ask good questions that we can be asking year-round.
Photo source: here
