I always have to laugh when I see a TV show or hear a story about a pastor having to go before the deacons and plead for permission to do this or money to do that.
Where in the world do they get their idea of deacons?
The responsibilities of a deacon are not clearly listed or outlined. They are assumed to be everything that does not include the duties of an elder or pastor, which is to preach, teach, and exhort. That would include financial administration of the church, and there is nothing unbiblical, or even odd, about deacon boards being populated by men who have the spiritual gift of administration. In fact, it makes perfect sense for them to handle those duties, and your characterization of the pastor as having to "beg" is largely a concept of your prejudiced imagination. Pastors and deacon boards in the Baptist churches of the world work together, planning out and giving direction to the ministry of the church, but none of them actually can spend a dime unless the congregation approves them to do so, by voting on the church budget. It is, after all, their money that funds the church's operations.
Qualifications for a deacon’s character are clearly outlined in Scripture. They are to be blameless, the husband of one wife, a good household manager, respectable, honest, not addicted to alcohol and not greedy, as Paul detailed in his epistle to his protégé in 1 Timothy 3:8-12. The position of “deacon,” from
diakonos in the Greek, meaning “through the dirt,” was one of servant leadership to the church. Deacons are separate from elders, while having qualifications that are in many ways similar to those of elders, again, as Paul detailed for Timothy. Deacons assist the church in whatever is needed, as recorded in Acts chapter 6. The apostles/pastors of the Jerusalem church did not engage in anything but ministering and preaching the word. The appointed deacons took care of everything else.
