John G. Lorimer asserted that “the Church of Rome and the Church of England have considered the deaconship as an order—the first and the lowest in the priesthood” (The Deaconship, p. 11). It has sometimes been suggested that the deacon in the Church of England is half-priest and half-layman. John R. Beard maintained that the makers of the KJV “retain this ecclesiastical term [deacon] only in the places where its retention may serve to support their own ecclesiastical system, by which the Christian ministry is made to consist of three orders, namely, bishop, priest, and deacon” (A Revised English Bible, p. 106).
George Bush claimed that “tradition has separated the deacon and the minister, but in the New Testament they are one and the same word” (Priesthood and Clergy, p. 72). John Beard observed: “When Timothy himself is in the Greek called a deacon [1 Tim. 4:6], then ‘deacon’ is rejected, and the translation ‘minister’ is preferred” (A Revised English Bible, p. 107).
At 1 Timothy 3:10, the pre-1611 English Bibles, including the 1538 Coverdale’s New Testament and 1582 Rheims New Testament from the Latin, have the rendering “minister,” which the makers of the KJV altered and expanded to “use the office of a deacon.” At this verse, the 1842 revision of the KJV has “serve as deacons.” Herbert Lockyer observed that deacons “were not regarded as being in office, (the phrase, ‘the office of a deacon’ 1 Timothy 3:10, is one word, meaning ‘to serve’” (All the Doctrines, p. 246). Concerning 1 Timothy 3:10, George Bush claimed: “In this instance ‘the office of a deacon’ is wholly imaginary; in the original it is, let them serve, or be in service” (Priesthood and Clergy, p. 70). George Bush contended that “the two pompous nouns substantive, ‘the office of a deacon’ when examined by the original, turn out to be phantoms of the translators, introduced into the text to take the place of a verb expressing quite another thought” (Ibid.). George Bush also maintained that this rendering “is plainly a coinage of the [KJV] translators” (p. 73). For the multi-word rendering “used the office of a deacon” that translates one Greek word at 1 Timothy 3:13, the 1611 edition of the KJV may have a more accurate rendering in its marginal note: “ministered.” There is no separate Greek word for office in these two verses.
