Hungarian Church Press, 1968 (20. évfolyam, 2. szám)
1968-06-01 / 2. szám
HOP Vol XX Special Number 1968 No 2- 47 -(07689) that a church "being uncertain about her werk and fearful about her future is often prone to seek the false solution of absolutizing some of her functions and to attach basic significance to what is but one field of her work. In our usage, the "diakonia pattern" means that it is by being commissioned by Christ the Diakonos that the Church discharges all her vital functions« The "diakonia pattern" is the dominant factor, the spirit, the phronesis (Philippians 2.«5) of the whole of the Churches life and ministry« It ie the life pattern of Christ the Diakonos a It is in this oontext that we interpret the aforesaid group of New Testament words: and this is not an arbitrary procedure but the consequence of a legitimate Christologica! standpoint. The basic stratum in the New Testament usage of the word group diakonos, diakonein, diakonia clearly shows that the whole group of words was taken over from the secular usage of those times® The non—religious, everyday usage in the New Testament writings carries the following meanings: "servant, to serve, to wait on somebody, to serve at the tabic, to help somebody, to carry out order, the bearer of congregational office, beside the bidiop". The most significant use of the term is in the statement that Jesus Christ, during his days on earth, was the Servant. Generally speaking, Mark IŰ445 is considered as the classical text: ho hyios tou anthropou ouk glthen diokonethenal alia diakonesai» The other text of similar weight is Luke 22:27 egP de en me30 hyntii eimi. hQs ho diakonBn« The latter is a rebuke administered to the disciples seeking personal aggrandisement and carries the same message as the narrative of Christas washing the feet cf the disciples, in the fourth Gospel, without containing the verd, and also the Chris t-hymn in the 2nd chapter i of the Epistle to the rhilippians in which the expression "morphe doulou"- is 'used in such a radioal sense as to render our term, the "diakonia pattern" , a rather mild expression*) At any rate, the "servant form" cf Christ is the ground in which the "diakonia pattern" of the church's life is rroted. The New Testament writings also apply the word "diakonos" to the disciples in that they follow their Master, John 12%26 (Jesus meets "the Greeks) only says that those following Jesus are to serve him*. Other Gospel texts go further in the way of announcing what should be the programme of discipleship: those following Christ must minister to all men (Matthew 20:26; 23:11;« It is in these passages that the diakonia pattern, as the life form of the disciples, is just as sharply etched as it was in the former texts which spoke of the diakonia cf Chrost0 Christ draws the Church into his own diakonia in the sense that the diakonia of the Church is to retain that unconditional aid. uni ver sal character which marks the diakonia of Jesus Christ, In the New Testament, we meet with the twofold meaning cf the word diakonia, too: it denotes the ministry"cf the
