Bethlen Évkönyv, 1993-1996 (Ligonier)
Frank A. Endrei: Your call to be a servant
full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we may appoint to this duty. ” They chose seven men, deacons, men to do this service of distributing food to their needy, at least two of whom turned out to be great ministers of the word too, Stephen — the first Christian martyr — and Philip — a very effective evangelist. So, to serve the needy was not at all a task considered too lowly or unimportant. It’s just that our duties need to be divided among us so that nobody gets burned out from having too much to do — and that the manifold tasks of the church could also be fulfilled. At a church in the Cleveland area they divided the large area where members come from among their elders, or presbyters. An individual presbyter would be responsible for the spiritual care to people in his area, making sure that people who needed rides to church would get there, inviting new people from their area to church, even meeting together on a monthly basis in their area at their presbyter’s home. These presbyters, of course, also passed on information to the pastor about matters that were up to him to take care of. In the Reformed Church of Hungary — in some congregations — they have an organized group of people doing what they call by the Greek name “diakonia”, or service, visiting the elderly, the sick, the needy and lending a helping hand. We in our church also have a small but dedicated group of people that we can call on to lend a helping hand — and there are some beautiful examples of that here, too. At any rate, diakonia means service, or ministry, that is, ministering to people according to their many different types of needs. The persons doing this kind of service definitely need to have the servant spirit. They can’t ask “what’s in it for me?” except that God will reward every servant for his or her faithful service. The Lord Jesus Christ said (Matthew 10:43), “...whoever gives to one of these little ones even a cup of cold water because he is a disciple, truly, I say to you, he shall not lose his reward. ” The Lord Jesus Christ Himself had that servant spirit, “Who, though He was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking 60
