Editorial Note
This edition is a modernized and abridged adaptation of R. B. C. Howell's The Deaconship: Its Nature, Qualifications, Relations, and Duties, published by the American Baptist Publication Society in 1846. Howell's original work is in the public domain. The original book contains nine chapters and 154 pages.
The purpose of this CTS edition is not to make Howell sound as though he wrote in the twenty-first century. It is to make his argument readable for contemporary students, including students for whom English is a second language. Archaic vocabulary, punctuation, repetitive argument, and unusually long sentences have therefore been modernized or condensed. Howell's distinctive theological and ecclesiological positions have been retained rather than silently replaced with current practice.
Where Howell's nineteenth-century social setting affects his language or assumptions, the adaptation supplies brief editorial explanation. Such notes represent CTS editorial judgment, not Howell's own words. Students should distinguish between Howell's historical argument, the biblical texts he cites, and contemporary applications proposed by the editor. Howell's central conviction is simple: a deacon is a servant of Christ and the church. The office is not a platform for status or control. Character, wisdom, sound faith, compassion, stewardship, cooperation, and faithfulness matter more than title.
Contents
- 1. The Nature and Origin of the Deacon's Office
- 2. Qualifications for the Deaconship
- 3. Election and Ordination of Deacons
- 4. General Duties of Deacons
- 5. Duties Concerning the Ministry and the Needy
- 6. The Financial Support of the Church
- 7. Deaconesses and Women in Service
- 8. Cooperation Among Pastors, Churches, and Deacons
- 9. The Importance of Faithfulness
- CTS Concluding Observations
- Source Note
1. The Nature and Origin of the Deacon's Office
A servant before an officer
Howell begins with the meaning of the word deacon. At its root, a deacon is a servant or minister. The New Testament can use the language of service broadly, but Howell argues that it also came to designate a recognized church office. This distinction matters. Every Christian is called to serve, but not every Christian occupies the same office or bears the same responsibilities within the congregation.
For Howell, the office should never be understood primarily in terms of rank. A deacon is not a lesser pastor, an assistant ruler, or a church dignitary. The dignity of the office comes from the value of the service performed. Christian leadership follows the pattern of Christ, who taught that greatness in his kingdom is expressed through service rather than domination.
Acts 6 and the problem of neglected widows
Howell locates the practical origin of the office in Acts 6:1-6. The Jerusalem church was growing rapidly, and a complaint arose because some widows were being overlooked in the daily distribution. The apostles refused to neglect prayer and the ministry of the word, but they also refused to dismiss the material need. The congregation therefore selected trustworthy people to oversee the work.
Howell treats this event as the pattern from which the deacon's office developed. The church had both spiritual and material responsibilities. The apostles did not regard care for the needy as unspiritual; they recognized that different servants should carry different responsibilities. The result was not a division between important ministry and unimportant ministry, but an orderly sharing of ministry.
A continuing office
Howell argues that the need addressed in Acts did not disappear with the apostolic age. Churches continue to have material responsibilities, needy members, financial resources, buildings, benevolence, and practical work requiring trustworthy oversight. He therefore regards the deaconship as a continuing office.
His Baptist ecclesiology also shapes the argument. The congregation selects its servants. Deacons serve the church; they do not become a separate authority above it. Their work should strengthen the pastor's ministry and the congregation's mission without confusing the responsibilities of either.
CTS Editor's Note
Modern Baptist churches organize practical ministry in many different ways. Some assign deacons extensive administrative responsibility; others use trustees, finance committees, ministry teams, or staff. Howell's precise organizational model need not be copied in every detail to preserve his strongest insight: practical ministry should be entrusted to spiritually qualified people, and church administration should remain ministry rather than becoming mere bureaucracy.
2. Qualifications for the Deaconship
Character before efficiency
Howell's second chapter turns to Acts 6:3 and 1 Timothy 3:8-13. A church may be tempted to choose a deacon because a person is successful in business, generous, influential, popular, or willing to work. Howell insists that these considerations cannot replace biblical character. The church is not simply filling a vacancy. It is recognizing a servant whose life should commend the gospel.
Reputation and integrity
A deacon should have an honorable reputation both within the congregation and beyond it. Howell applies Paul's warnings about being double-tongued, addicted to much wine, or greedy for dishonest gain to the practical realities of the office. A person who handles church funds, knows private needs, visits vulnerable people, or participates in difficult decisions must be trusted.
Integrity includes consistency of speech. A deacon cannot tell one person one story and another person something different in order to preserve influence. It includes sobriety and self-control. It includes freedom from the love of money. In modern terms, financial transparency and appropriate accountability protect both the church and the deacon.
Spiritual maturity and sound faith
Howell emphasizes that the deacon should be deeply Christian, not merely respectable. Acts describes the seven as people full of the Spirit and wisdom. First Timothy requires deacons to hold the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience. Howell therefore expects deacons to know Christian doctrine well enough to live it, defend it humbly, and help others remain steady in the faith.
He does not require advanced academic education. His emphasis is practical wisdom: the capacity to understand people, recognize consequences, choose appropriate means, and act faithfully. A highly educated person may lack wisdom, while a person with little formal schooling may display exceptional judgment.
Marriage, family, and tested life
Howell reads the requirement that a deacon be the husband of one wife chiefly as a demand for sexual and marital integrity, not as a command that every deacon must be married. He rejects the idea that an unmarried man is automatically disqualified.
The candidate's household and ordinary affairs also provide evidence of character. Howell's nineteenth-century language sometimes reflects the household structures of his period, but his underlying point remains useful: church office should not be used as an experiment to discover whether someone is responsible. Candidates should already have demonstrated faithfulness, self-control, wisdom, and reliability.
CTS Editor's Note
Howell sometimes speaks in categories shaped by nineteenth-century family and social arrangements. CTS retains his biblical emphasis on proven character while avoiding the assumption that every household must have the same social form. The governing principle is that public ministry should be consistent with demonstrated private faithfulness.
3. Election and Ordination of Deacons
The congregation chooses
Howell stresses that Acts 6 places responsibility for selection upon the gathered believers. The apostles state the qualifications, but the congregation identifies the people who meet them. This fits Howell's Baptist conviction that a local church is responsible under Christ for its own officers. Election should therefore be more than a popularity contest. The church is discerning character and fitness for service. Nominations should be made prayerfully, and candidates should understand the work before accepting it.
Recognition rather than creation
Ordination does not manufacture spiritual character. The church recognizes what should already be present. Howell regards prayer and the laying on of hands as an appropriate public act by which the congregation sets apart those it has chosen.
This public recognition serves several purposes. It reminds the deacon that the work is sacred service; it tells the congregation whom it has entrusted with responsibility; and it places the office within the worship and prayer of the church rather than treating it as an ordinary organizational appointment.
No permanent immunity
Being ordained does not make a person permanently qualified regardless of later conduct. The qualifications that justify recognition must continue to characterize the servant. If serious moral, doctrinal, or practical unfaithfulness develops, the church must address it rather than allowing the title of deacon to shield the individual from accountability.
4. General Duties of Deacons
Temporal affairs as spiritual service
Howell gives deacons broad responsibility for what he calls the temporal affairs of the church. His terminology can sound as though spiritual ministry belongs to pastors while secular matters belong to deacons. Yet his larger argument resists that division. Caring for widows, administering gifts, maintaining order, and relieving suffering are Christian ministries performed for Christ. The distinction is primarily one of responsibility. Pastors devote themselves especially to prayer, teaching, shepherding, and the ministry of the word. Deacons relieve them of practical burdens that would unnecessarily distract from those responsibilities.
Benevolence
Care for the poor and suffering stands near the center of Howell's understanding of the office. The Acts 6 narrative is not about buildings or business meetings; it is about people whose needs were being neglected. Deacons should know the needs of the congregation and help the church respond wisely and compassionately.
Benevolence requires both generosity and discernment. Resources are limited. A deacon should neither harden the heart toward genuine need nor distribute church funds carelessly. Compassion and stewardship belong together.
Property, funds, and accountability
Howell assigns deacons substantial responsibility for church property and funds. Modern churches may distribute those duties differently, but his ethical concern remains strong. Those entrusted with money should be above suspicion and should administer it for the purposes for which it was given.
CTS strongly recommends modern safeguards that Howell's era did not consistently possess: written budgets, multiple-person authorization, regular financial reports, documented benevolence procedures, and appropriate external review. Accountability is not distrust; it protects the reputation of faithful servants.
5. Duties Concerning the Ministry and the Needy
Supporting the ministry
Howell argues that churches have a duty to provide for those who labor in gospel ministry. Deacons can help the congregation understand and discharge that responsibility. The pastor should not be forced to become his own chief fundraiser or repeatedly plead for personal support.
The principle extends beyond salary. Ministers and their families experience ordinary human needs, pressures, illnesses, emergencies, and seasons of exhaustion. A healthy deacon ministry notices such realities and helps the congregation care for those who care for it.
Mission and generosity
Howell's concern for church resources is not inward-looking. The church receives in order to give. Gospel work, missions, benevolence, and relief of suffering all require deliberate generosity. Deacons should help transform good intentions into reliable practice.
Howell cites the New Testament pattern of believers contributing according to ability and churches sending assistance where it was needed. Stewardship is therefore connected with fellowship: Christians recognize that their resources belong ultimately to God and are to be used for the good of others and the advance of the gospel.
The vulnerable are not an interruption
Acts 6 begins because overlooked widows mattered. A church can become so occupied with programs, property, and institutional maintenance that vulnerable people become invisible. Howell's treatment repeatedly returns the office to service. Administrative competence that forgets people has missed the purpose of Christian administration.
6. The Financial Support of the Church
Regular and willing giving
Howell devotes considerable attention to the revenues necessary for church ministry. Some of his nineteenth-century financial methods are dated, but his theological principle is durable: Christian work should be supported by Christian generosity.
Giving should not be extracted by manipulation. It should arise from gratitude, conviction, and a sense of stewardship. Churches should teach believers to give regularly and proportionately rather than depending only on emergencies and emotional appeals.
Planning is not unbelief
A congregation that expects to support ministry, relieve need, maintain property, and participate in missions should plan responsibly. Budgets and financial procedures are not substitutes for faith. They are ways of ordering resources so that commitments can be honored. Deacons involved in financial stewardship should communicate clearly. Hidden finances create suspicion; clear reporting encourages confidence and shared responsibility.
Avoiding pressure and favoritism
Money can distort relationships in a church. Wealthy members must not purchase influence, and poorer members must not be treated as less important. Those who administer funds should resist both favoritism and coercion. The church's financial life should reflect the same gospel it proclaims.
CTS Editor's Note
Howell wrote before electronic banking, modern nonprofit accounting, child-protection policies, professional audits, and many current legal requirements. Churches should comply with applicable law and use contemporary financial controls. Howell's principles of honesty, stewardship, generosity, and accountability should be strengthened - not weakened - by modern procedures.
7. Deaconesses and Women in Service
Howell's interpretation
One of the most historically interesting portions of Howell's book is his discussion of women. He argues that the women mentioned in 1 Timothy 3:11 are not merely the wives of male deacons but female assistants commonly called deaconesses. He also appeals to Phoebe in Romans 16 and to evidence from early Christian practice.
This is important because it prevents us from reading a later debate backward into Howell. His own nineteenth-century Baptist argument made room for recognized female service connected with the deacon ministry.
The nature of the work
Howell believed there were ministries in which women could serve other women, the sick, the poor, and households in ways that male deacons sometimes could not appropriately or effectively perform. His descriptions reflect the social conventions of his era, but his larger principle is that the church should recognize and organize the gifts of faithful women rather than leave necessary ministry undone.
A matter on which Baptists differ
Contemporary Baptists disagree about whether the New Testament establishes an office of female deacon, recognizes women serving in a deacon-like ministry, or refers in 1 Timothy 3:11 to deacons' wives. CTS students should know that faithful interpreters hold different views. Howell's position should therefore be studied as Howell's position and evaluated exegetically. The purpose of retaining it is historical and theological honesty, not to settle the contemporary debate by editorial decree.
8. Cooperation Among Pastors, Churches, and Deacons
Distinct responsibilities, common mission
Howell does not envision pastor and deacons as competing centers of power. Their responsibilities differ, but their purpose is shared. Conflict arises when servants begin defending territory rather than serving Christ.
Deacons should make pastoral ministry more effective, not more difficult. Pastors should respect deacons as genuine partners in ministry rather than treating them merely as people who perform errands. The congregation should support both while remembering that all remain accountable to Christ and to the church.
Communication and trust
Many church conflicts begin with poor communication. A pastor assumes deacons know something they do not know. Deacons make decisions without explaining them. Members hear fragments and supply motives. Howell's call for cooperation has a modern application: trustworthy ministry requires timely, truthful communication.
Confidentiality also matters. Deacons may learn sensitive information through benevolence and pastoral care. Confidential information should not become conversation material. At the same time, confidentiality must never be used to conceal abuse, criminal conduct, or matters that must be reported under applicable law.
No ruling class
A deacon body can gradually become an unofficial board that controls the pastor or congregation. Howell's servant-centered definition resists this development. Whatever authority accompanies responsibility exists for service, not status.
Likewise, a pastor should not use spiritual office to avoid legitimate accountability. Healthy cooperation includes mutual respect, defined responsibilities, transparent processes, and a shared commitment to the church's mission.
9. The Importance of Faithfulness
A good beginning is not enough
Howell closes by emphasizing perseverance. A person may accept office enthusiastically and later become passive, irregular, or resentful. The New Testament commends those who serve well. Faithfulness is therefore measured over time.
The work may include tasks that attract little attention: visiting, listening, keeping records, distributing aid, solving practical problems, preparing facilities, helping a family in crisis, or quietly protecting the church from financial confusion. Such service may be largely invisible, but it is not insignificant.
The danger of an empty title
A church is not strengthened merely because it has people called deacons. An inactive office can become a tradition maintained without purpose. Howell's challenge is direct: if the office exists, its work should be done.
Faithfulness also requires humility. Deacons should be willing to learn, accept correction, and adapt methods when circumstances change. The goal is not to preserve personal authority but to serve the body of Christ effectively.
The promise of faithful service
First Timothy 3:13 says that those who serve well gain a good standing and great confidence in the faith. Howell sees this not as worldly promotion but as the spiritual fruit of faithful ministry. Service forms the servant as well as benefiting the church.
The best deacon is therefore not the person with the loudest voice in a meeting. It is the person whose character, wisdom, compassion, stewardship, and steady service make the ministry of the whole church stronger.
CTS Concluding Observations
Howell's book remains valuable because it begins with service rather than status. Some details of his model belong to the nineteenth century, and Baptist churches today differ widely in how they distribute administrative responsibilities. Yet the biblical questions he asks remain important: Who should be trusted with ministry? What kind of character should church servants possess? How should the church care for the vulnerable? How should money be handled? How should pastors and deacons cooperate?
For CTS students, the most useful way to read Howell is neither to canonize his church polity nor to dismiss it because of its age. Test his arguments by Scripture. Preserve what is biblical. Recognize what is historical. Apply enduring principles wisely in the setting where God has called you to serve.
A deacon is first a servant. If that truth is lost, the office has lost its center.
Source Note
Primary source: R. B. C. Howell, The Deaconship: Its Nature, Qualifications, Relations, and Duties (Philadelphia: American Baptist Publication Society, 1846), 154 pages.
This CTS edition is an adapted and abridged teaching text. It should not be cited as a verbatim transcription of Howell. Students doing historical research should consult the 1846 original. Biblical references and Howell's principal arguments have been retained in modernized form. Editorial explanations and contemporary applications are the responsibility of Chapala Theological Seminary.