Reformed Covenanter
Cancelled Commissioner
Commenting on 1 Corinthians 12:28, David Dickson made the following remarks about deacons and ruling elders:
After this sixthly, he names ordinary offices and gifts, viz. helps, or the office of Deacons, whose work it was to see to the maintenance of Ministers, and the necessities of the Saints, and the dispensation of the public revenues of the Church: which office, though it may seem the meanest, it appears to be in no small account, and imposed not upon men of inferior rank, but upon those that were of tried fidelity, and the more able, or men of fairest estate, as vers. 22, 23, 24.
And that for the necessary use of it; for without the help of this office, the work of the Ministry would be much hindered, for had there not been helps or Deacons, who undertook the care of collecting the stipends, that the Ministers might more freely attend the work of the Lord: It is necessary that the Ministers with the Levites, Nehem. 13. to whom a designed portion was not given, should betake themselves to their fields, and their work, or secular businesses, and also to Law-suits, being debarred of their due allowance, they might lose their zeal of labouring in the Lord's Vineyard, or the fruit of their labours. ...
For more, see David Dickson on deacons and ruling elders.
After this sixthly, he names ordinary offices and gifts, viz. helps, or the office of Deacons, whose work it was to see to the maintenance of Ministers, and the necessities of the Saints, and the dispensation of the public revenues of the Church: which office, though it may seem the meanest, it appears to be in no small account, and imposed not upon men of inferior rank, but upon those that were of tried fidelity, and the more able, or men of fairest estate, as vers. 22, 23, 24.
And that for the necessary use of it; for without the help of this office, the work of the Ministry would be much hindered, for had there not been helps or Deacons, who undertook the care of collecting the stipends, that the Ministers might more freely attend the work of the Lord: It is necessary that the Ministers with the Levites, Nehem. 13. to whom a designed portion was not given, should betake themselves to their fields, and their work, or secular businesses, and also to Law-suits, being debarred of their due allowance, they might lose their zeal of labouring in the Lord's Vineyard, or the fruit of their labours. ...
For more, see David Dickson on deacons and ruling elders.
