Overseers & Deacons, Philippians, 1:1
Philippians · Vern Peterman · Feb 23, 2003
Philippians (2003), No. 07
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/48262253137916

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Now, we're continuing on here with our study of Philippians, and we're in Philippians 1.1. We're taking a look at the last phrase there, and this is including overseers and deacons. Now, some of you may be looking at this and thinking, oh boy, Vern, this is the seventh week you've been in Philippians 1.1? Ah, yes, and if you're thinking that, I know. No big deal. We'll get through it, okay? This is the last week. We'll be in Philippians 1-1, okay? So we'll get over it.

Anyway, we're taking this kind of one phrase or word at a time here, and here in this first verse of the book of Philippians, we're just looking at this last phrase, because it's got some unique things about it, as we'll take a look at here in a bit.

Now, one of the things that It's kind of interesting, I was talking to Courtney just before the service here and in my past life as an engineer, one of the things that I did was called investigative engineering. I would do work for attorneys and insurance companies and one of the things that I like to do since One of the things that that might lead to is testifying in court, which is not something that's real comfortable to do. First of all, there's people who are listening who don't want to hear what you have to say.

So I avoided that, and there were two ways that I went about avoiding it. First, I never testified on behalf of the guilty. But the other thing is to ask a lot of good questions at the beginning. And so as a matter of fact, what it turned out, my goal was to ask all the right questions so that you'd give them a report and never have to testify in court. And so I never did. So at any rate, we're going to do that. We're going to ask some questions here.

As critical as the overseers and deacons are to the New Testament teaching about the church, it's an interesting thing. Here we have this letter to Philippi. It's the only letter in the New Testament that includes a direct greeting in the introduction to the overseers and deacons.

Now, so we ask the question, why this church? How come it gets that distinction? What does it say about their past? How did they get to that place? We want to ask this question. What does it say about their future? Where are they headed because of it?

Alright, let's go on. The overseers and deacons were seen as included within all the saints in Christ Jesus. Did you notice that? You read through that first verse? They're included within. Not as an isolated group, separated in their own little category, okay? But they're included with all the saints.

Is there any significance to that? We want to take a look at that. Does it fit with a New Testament pattern, or is this something unique? So we'll want to take a look at that, too. Answering that question. What insights does the rest of the letter to the Church of Philippi provide regarding these particular overseers and deacons? And then, what can we apply from our answers to these questions that fit here at Hollyhills Bible Church? And right along with that, what does this mean to you personally? Okay.

First thing I think is, just to get some terminology straight, because we're going to use the term elder, and we're going to use the term overseer, we're going to use the term shepherd. And basically just to put it in a mathematical statement here, an elder is an overseer is a shepherd. Each of those words have a different meaning that we'll touch on in a minute here. But just to get that in mind, if I use the word elder, if I use the word overseer or shepherd, or pastor even, that those are basically equal In terms of being the same person, they each have a different significance. What's the difference in significance? The elder is the name for office that implies some longevity.

One of the points brought up, 1 Timothy 3.6, was a requirement for elders that they not be new converts. So that was one.

Another one, this one overseer, that's the one that shows up here in Philippians 1.1. It's the name of the office that looks at anticipating these needs, looking over things, kind of taking a view of the whole picture. What's happening? What are the needs? The third one is the Shepherd. It's the name for this office and it's used as a kind of a picture because it conveys guiding and feeding and all the kinds of care that are needed for the flock, defending the flock.

We can have our modern word, pastor, and it really comes through the Latin, and all it means is a shepherd. Same idea, and that shows up in several places. It's interesting, a lot of churches tend to make a big thing about this title, pastor, but in fact, as we look through the New Testament, it's only used as a noun once in the whole New Testament. It's only used as a title once, and that is only for Jesus Christ as the chief shepherd.

Okay? Is that interesting? Now, some of you, realizing that a lot of folks don't have a background hanging around sheep, and of course, enough of you have heard me talk that you know that I used to hang around sheep a lot, probably more than some people would prefer. Anyway, Just so you understand what a shepherd looks like, I want to make sure that you get that idea. Just to make that clear.

This subject is very timely here at Holly Hills Bible Church. By the way, some of you may not recognize, there's a fellow who isn't here today that this fits. So anyway, we'll clue you in later. There's a reason why this is so timely here at Holy Oath Bible Church.

And the one is we recently went through some adjustments in the relationship between elders and deacons. We've had elders and deacons at this church for many years, but just some adjustments in the relationships and how those roles work themselves out. And to correspond with that, one of the things we've done is to develop kind of a written explanation of some of these adjustments and what the biblical basis is for those. We've made those available, and certainly a number of you may have them. If you don't happen to have them, we've put some copies on the cabinet just as you exit to the right, and feel free to take one if you either would like an additional one or haven't taken advantage of that yet. Another reason is because we've been recently in the process of appointing some new saints in the position of elder and deacon, and more on that in a bit here.

Because this Friday evening we'll be having a meeting here, and if you haven't signed up for that, please be sure to do so, there's a sign-up sheet on the bulletin board in the lobby. But what we'll be doing is presenting, here's some of the things happening, including some of those who are coming on as elder and deacons and deaconess here. The other thing is a couple weeks from now when Hal returns from Okinawa, just those who aren't familiar with who Hal is, that's the shepherd that we had there. When he returns from Okinawa, we will publicly recognize those who have stepped forward to serve as these new elder and deacon appointments. Okay. Now to get a timeline. Timeline is always important because What we're reading here in this letter was kind of the end of a process, wasn't it? So let's first step through these couple of things.

The church was founded, as we looked at before, back around 49-50 AD, and that's described for us in Acts 16, and reference to it is even made in the first chapter there of Philippians, Philippians 1-5. Then we find a half dozen or so years later, Paul and his companions on the second missionary journey, they go through Philippi again and then they make a loop and come through it a third time. In addition to this, something else that doesn't come through real strongly in the passage, there are indications that Luke was probably from Philippi, or at least had spent a lot of time there and was very familiar with it. He and possibly Timothy may have stayed on in Philippi for a time to help convey the truth that Paul was trying to get across to these churches as they were established. The next thing that happened after Paul and his companions went through, we find here this letter that we're looking at, this Book of Philippians. But I think it's important to recognize this letter, this Book of Philippians, didn't just show up all of a sudden.

It was the end of a sequence of events, a series of events that took place over better than a dozen years' time. So this church had had things go on from one year to the next, to the next, to the next, that was helping the church to grow, not just in numbers, certainly that, but there was spiritual growth taking place, not just in individuals, as important as that is, but also corporately. Together this church was growing. And that's a part of what Paul is recognizing here, as he greets the church, not just as a body of individuals, but as believers who are the body of Christ, led by these elders and deacons, who are included among the saints.

And just as we look at this here, one of the things you notice, Paul and his friends came across here, and Philippi was the first place they landed here. And they came there first, Philippi was the first church, as you see, on the European continent, Turkey being still considered a part of Asia here. Now, let's take a look at some of the characteristics of the church at Philippi that are indicative of why they have elders and deacons and why they're particularly mentioned here. First thing, it was the first church on the European continent, as we saw there on the map. Therefore, since that was the first one started, they had a bit more time than some of the other churches that were on in Thessalonica and Macedonia and down into Greece.

They had more time to develop there. And so that's portrayed there in Act 16. The other thing is they had new believers who were quite responsive to the truth. They were taught the truth by Paul and his companions as Paul went through there the first time, and then came back through twice again on the next missionary journey. The next thing we see, they apparently had overseers and deacons appointed earlier. We don't see that explained and described earlier in the Book of Acts, but those had apparently been in place.

One of the things we read as we read through Acts 14.23 and Titus 1.5, as we look at those passages, it was apparent that this was the way that they went about it.

They first would go and appoint elders in each one of these churches, not immediately appointing deacons. But what would happen is as that church began to operate, the elders and all the others very quickly began to see the need for deacons. Just as we saw, as Doug read for us from Acts 6, it became apparent once the church began operating, yes, we definitely need these deacons here because there's a need to handle all these practical ministries within the church body. So the elders would be appointed first and then the deacons brought along as the need was recognized. And it's apparent that the need was recognized in many cases very early as the church began to grow and people within the church body began ministering to one another. One other thing is that those who were called to be deacons, because of their giftedness and because of their heart, became a parent. So it made it a much easier job to pick out which ones are going to take on this role, because you could see them living out the life of Christ expressed through the gift that they had. These elders would then see the need, and they would then appoint deacons as the need became apparent.

That's the pattern that we see in Acts 6, and also in 1 Timothy 3. This, by the way, this is the river where the church at Philippi first started. This is where Paul and his companions went down to the river, and Lydia and others became believers there on the first day.

But they didn't have elders only, that is, no deacons yet. It was apparently like these new-founded churches where they would just have elders until the deacons were recognized. But then, because we can see in this Philippians 1, 1 letter, the pattern there, they had been around long enough to have both elders and deacons. The elders had been appointed. The elders in beginning to operate began to see the need.

We better have some deacons here. We have needs that are showing up. And if we aren't careful, we're going to get distracted from what we're called to do. Therefore, we most definitely need these deacons in place in order to serve as a complementary function and meet the needs of the church body here.

Also, we see there in this first verse consistent with the rest of the New Testament, the pattern of the plurality of elders and deacons. You notice it's plural right there in the first verse. Elders, plural. Deacons, plural. This pattern of plural elders and also deacons is consistent throughout the New Testament. And this same list you'll find in the handout if you've looked at it or You can avail yourself of it afterwards. This plurality is there on purpose. It's not an accident. There are multiple reasons for it, and one of the reasons is just simply to deal with the number of needs that there are. That's one of the reasons among many.

The church at Philippi didn't have just one elder who was kind of like the personal focal point. But they had this plurality of elders. That's the pattern that we see biblically established. We made reference earlier to this Acts 20 passage that Doug read for us. And one of the things you'll notice, Paul called the elders, plural, at the church from Ephesus to meet him in Miletus.

And notice, he says, I want the elders, plural, and there wasn't some particular one they pointed out, oh yes, the elders and the pastor. No. It's this entire group of elders. I want all of them. There wasn't any one of them singled out. And here's an interesting thing. If you go through the New Testament, outside of the church at Jerusalem, as many times as elders are pointed out throughout the New Testament, we have no instance of any name of a particular elder in any church. Isn't that interesting? The elders are rather anonymous.

That's contrary to some of the patterns that the modern churches tended to follow, but it's the biblical pattern. The idea is the focus is upon Jesus Christ as the chief shepherd, right? And not trying to get one particular person to make a name for themselves. The other thing that this shows they didn't evidence the personality cult problems that were apparent, for example, in the church at Corinth. Remember that account? The very first chapter, Paul just starts off kind of saying, Hi, I'm Paul, and you know, I'm glad you're the church. Right out of the chute, what does he do?

He begins dealing with the, oh, and you folks, you're following this one and that one and this one and that one. And they began following after particular individuals, didn't they? And the church was being split up. by that pattern of, I'm following this guy. No, no, no, I'm following that one. No, no, no, I'm going to follow this one. And following personalities instead of Jesus Christ.

And so you notice you don't see that in the church at Philippi. Something else, the flip side, 3 John 9 and 10, there was one fellow there who kept pushing anybody else from coming into a place of prominence and leadership. This particular fellow wanted all the attention. He wanted the church to focus upon him. So there's another personality cult problem. The modern church can easily fall into that same trap if we're not careful, where we can end up splitting according to personalities.

Whole denominations are named after people, aren't they? And even these days, it'll frequently be easier to identify a church by the leader or the pastor than the name of the church. And that's really not the biblical pattern, is it? The biblical pattern is these elders are not trying to seek a name for themselves, but they're all serving as under-shepherds of the Lord Jesus Christ, the chief shepherd. The one who has the title, that word shepherd there is given as a title, okay? He is the one who's really the chief pastor, if you want to give it that name.

Okay, here's more characteristics. Oh, by the way, before we lose folks here, we've got this number here. And particularly today, I think your handout might be easier to follow. This is the page number on the handout. And so if it is on your handout, it's got that number and that'll give you the page one, page two. So anyway, a little easier to index.

Anyway, they received a letter from Paul that, unlike several other churches, did not major in correcting doctrinal and moral problems. You notice that? You go to the letters to Corinth. What is he doing? From chapter 1, he's got problems, problems, problems, and he's dealing with that. You go to the next book there. There's Galatians. What is he dealing with? Problems. For five chapters, he's just dealing with problems. A number of the letters to the churches were dealing with big moral or doctrinal problems. This book, as we go through it, we'll find will be different. And there's a few little things to deal with, but really relatively minor.

So that, in combination with this recognition of the elders and deacons, this is saying these elders and deacons were operating biblically, and this church seemed to be pretty healthy. Goes together, doesn't it? Let's look at something else here. And this might surprise us.

The whole book, from start to finish, zeroes in substantially on Paul's life. Between I, Paul writing I, and me and my, there's over a hundred references with I, me, and my. Now you might say, boy, that's awful egocentric. But what's interesting is Paul uses the entire letter to focus on the Lord Jesus Christ by showing the Lord Jesus Christ through his own life, including his sufferings.

Isn't that something? This letter that at first blush might seem very egocentric is anything but. Okay, something else. This church was very generous, in spite of the fact we know it's not well off. Why do I say that? The 2 Corinthians 8 passage is referenced here, 1-5. It talks about the churches in Macedonia, and Philippi was one of those churches, and was one of the more prominent, and the first church in Macedonia. He calls them very poor, and he uses a term that means barely able to survive. That's how poor. And yet, very generous.

And I would submit to you that, and as we'll see here in a passage just to follow, I would submit to you that the reason for the generosity in the church was because the church was healthy spiritually, and not because the leaders were badgering the people, or beating them over the head with guilt, or nagging them, or hounding them. But instead, It came from their heart, as we'll see just in a minute here.

Here's 2 Corinthians 8, 1-5. This is roughly five years prior to the book of Philippians. He made reference to the churches of Macedonia. And of course, Philippi is one of those churches, and a prominent one. And notice reference here to this abundance of joy, and their deep poverty, and a wealth of liberality.

And look at this, starting in verse 3, They gave of their own accord, begging us with much urging." How about that? Much urging. Please let us help you. How about that? Much urging for the favor of participation and the support of the saints. And this, not as we had expected, but they first gave themselves to the Lord and to us by the will of God. Isn't that neat? That's just a marvelous thing. That's just so neat.

Because this wasn't a matter of, come on folks, give until it hurts. It wasn't a matter of browbeating anybody. This was giving out of the heart. This was a healthy church. That is really cool to see. And the elders and deacons are greeted here, but not made a lot of after that. But it just says, we don't know the name of a single one of those elders or a single one of those deacons. What a neat thing the Lord was doing in that church. That's beautiful. That's gorgeous. That's spiritually marvelous. Okay? Neat.

It shows up here in Philippians 4.15, as we'll be getting to several years from now. Eventually. Okay.

You yourselves also know, Philippians, that at the first preaching of the gospel, I left Macedonia. No church shared with me in the matter of giving and receiving. And this was at first, right? But you alone. How about that? This church eagerly gave, and yet Paul didn't say that you weren't quite as well off. He said you were very poor. Isn't that amazing? Barely able to survive was the word that he used. Now, hang in there with me. Don't fall asleep just yet. Okay? Alright. Hang on. Alright.

So all the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi, including the overseers and deacons, including them. This including or with is based on the Greek word sun. It looks like sun. Sun, and it just means together with. Not so tough. Now, sun is the prefix used in Ephesians 2.6 where it says you've been seated together with Christ, in the heavenlies. That's the word. It's together with is the idea.

So there's an indication in both places of this fellowship and cooperation and closeness, isn't there? That's the idea that's being communicated here. The Greek text actually, in this case here, doesn't have this word the. It's not actually in the Greek text. So here's the way it comes across.

Together with overseers and deacons. That's the way it comes across in the original sense there. The word used of both overseers and deacons in the New Testament is among. Several places that shows up in the book of Acts and in 1 Peter. He keeps talking about among the flock, among the church, among, among, among.

And that's important for us to get across here. There is a tendency, if we're not careful, to start kind of making this group some separate group. And remember what we looked at last week? All the saints are set apart. Not just the pastors. Not just the elders and deacons. All the saints are set apart. And so Paul makes that distinction. You are all set apart together with, not even the overseers and deacons, but together with overseers and deacons. He puts them all in the same. So we show the distinction this way. This word among is really translated from the Greek word en, where it's used elsewhere here. En is shown graphically in the Greek grammars like this, entirely within.

So overseers and deacons are part of the local body, of the saints, not an isolated set of groups or an isolated group. It isn't like this, all the saints in Christ Jesus and overseers and deacons No, the way he spells it out is like this, okay? It's together with, okay? Together with, over his heirs and deacons. They are all saints in Christ Jesus.

The other point that comes across here, elders are to be examples. The Greek is tupos. We get our word type from that, okay? 1 Peter 5.3, examples to the flock. He spells it out real clearly. He's talking specifically to elders there. Then the character of these elders is put there.

You notice when they use the word example, what's that saying? That means they're not to be something entirely unlike the rest of the church body. They're examples. Why? Because the rest of the church body is also to be of the same character. That's God's intent.

He's not talking about something that makes the elders and the deacons separate here, but in fact has them together. The elders are an example because the entire church body is to have the qualifications, the characteristics, if you will, of the elders. That's also why when you look at 1 Timothy 3, 8-13, as you go through that passage, what you find is The deacons are described similarly. Isn't that interesting? A lot of very similar spiritual and character qualifications for the deacons as for the elders.

You see, they are not two names for the same role either. I think that's an important distinction to make. In a number of churches, people have gotten real fuzzy in their thinking and sort of mixed them up. Elders and deacons are interchangeable names. Scripture doesn't make that confusion.

Instead, they're complementary roles. They're a complementary giftedness. Both are needed for building up the body of Christ. I have seen in some churches where they'll look at deacons as sort of junior elders. Not right. The reason being that deacons have one giftedness and the elders have another giftedness.

Between the two, you have complementary roles that meet the needs of the body of Christ. Does that make sense? Both are needed together, and you must have the complementary roles in order for it to work. The deacons serve the practical needs of the church, and therefore the elders aren't taken away from, they're not diverted or distracted from their primary role as the spiritual shepherds and overseers.

What's going to happen in a church if you don't have people serving that function as deacons? You're going to have elders that get distracted or overwhelmed by the practical needs in the church, and therefore get drawn away and off to the side from what the Lord has called them to do. That's exactly what you see taking place in Acts chapter 6 that Doug read for us here. If you don't have the deacons taking their place, then the elders are going to get pulled off course, and they won't be fulfilling their function.

So that's why the roles are complementary, not to be mixed up and thought up as just one. Kind of pictorially, we show it like this. There's elders and deacons and others in the church body. Essentially, all of them are fulfilling needs, aren't they? All of them are fulfilling needs. And not all the spiritual gifts are here. Because there's all sorts of spiritual gifts. The church body needs all the gifts that the Lord has given to all the saints in the church. And so the sum total of these that meet the needs in the church.

Now, another point to make here, these overseers and deacons, these are humble terms. These are not terms designed to put somebody up on a pedestal. Why do I say that? Overseers and deacons were both titles applied to slaves at that time. in which case these positions of serving and subjecting one will of another to another entirely is that of the Lord Jesus Christ. Let me back up and explain what I'm saying.

Right up above the city of Philippi was this mountain. And that mountain had several working gold mines. And the slaves who worked those mines were frequently some of the poorest people and the most mistreated people in the whole empire. You could be a slave, and some slaves had it fairly well off. The ones who worked the mines did not. And there were several gold mines right above the city. And no doubt some of them came to be a part of the church there. Well, guess what? Some of the other slaves who would be in charge of some of the other slaves would be called overseers. So here's an overseer, yes, but he's a slave. A deacon basically means servant. Diakonos means servant. So guess what? Here you are again.

These are not titles of exaltation. They're not designed to put somebody on some kind of a pedestal. Instead, they are humble terms. That's not all. Shepherd, we get our word pastor from the Latin, was a lowly and detested occupation in biblical times. People thought of shepherds and that was a derogatory term. Isn't that interesting? It was not thought well of at all. There were a few rare exceptions where you'd have some person who was a chief shepherd over a number of other shepherds. But for the most part, It was not well thought of. So these are humble terms. They're not positions of exaltation.

Now, the focus of elders and deacons. I think this is real important for us to zero in on. The focus of elders and deacons. Elders and deacons are going to serve, and notice that link to that word servant. They're going to serve in complementary roles. Their purpose is to build up the body of Christ. That is ultimately going to take place as they direct the focus of the body of Christ upon the person of Jesus Christ. And let's get real about something here.

That's not going to happen unless they personally are coming from that place. is one who is going to recognize that they are seated with Christ and therefore shepherding from that place. Shepherding from that place. Going to seminary isn't going to fix that. Being able to speak well isn't going to fix that. Because that shepherd has to come from that place of being seated with Christ. And every other truth and the identification truth sequence. That shepherd must know those things personally, not in his head, not in his head only, but in his heart. The starting place is there seated with Christ.

Elders and deacons will recognize that Jesus Christ is the chief shepherd and that none of these men will replace Christ as the focal point That's why as you scan the pages of the New Testament, outside of a few there in the Jerusalem church, we can't identify any of the churches.

Why? It's because their very role was not to draw attention to themselves, but to direct people to the very person of Jesus Christ. That's what they're there to do. As you see, As you see an elder or a deacon carrying out their role, that role is going to direct you to Jesus Christ and focus your own relationship upon Him. That will be the focal point.

Not making big names for themselves. Not going out and trying to draw everybody's attention or to get everybody to think well of them. But for these people, in the church body to see and recognize that this person who has this role is taking on that role for the very person of Jesus Christ, to direct them to the person of Jesus Christ. Whether it is serving in ways that are inconspicuous, or whether it's a matter of teaching or meeting privately with people, however it's happening.

That role and this greeting here reflects a relationship with Jesus Christ and not just a lot of head knowledge, not just an ability to speak well, not just, you know, he shakes hands really good. but that ongoing personal relationship with Jesus Christ so that the life of Christ is reflected in them.

Let's pray. Lord, we do give you thanks and praise this morning. As we look at this topic, you've greeted these overseers and deacons at this church at Philippi, and yet our brother Paul here makes no big deal of it, and yet we see the church seems to be pretty healthy overall. And Lord, as we look at that, we see that it's not because these guys were great guys, we don't know any of their names, but because, Lord, it is apparent that they directed the focus of the church upon your person, the person of Jesus Christ. And Lord, even in this body, as we look at the things that are happening, we just would ask that the very life of Christ might be evident in each one here and most certainly in the serving and administering of the elders and deacons here. We give you thanks and praise in Jesus' name. Amen.