John Collins, author of the ground-breaking study Diakonia, explores the pastoral implications of a new scholarly understanding of the role of deacons in the Early Church. In many churches today -- Catholic, Anglican, and others -- deacons have come to serve largely as servants of the poor and needy. In Deacons and the Church, Collins argues that this limited role for deacons was based on misinterpretations of key scriptural passages. Following the history of deacons in the Early Church to modern times, Collins offers extensive reflections on the relevant Scriptures, and suggests that we redefine the role of deacons for today. Rather than limit the role of deacons, he urges the church to adapt ancient meanings to modern pastoral situations. In the words of Ignatius of Antioch, whom he quotes in the final chapter, "Deacons are not providers of bread and drink but are agents of the congregation."

Collins paints a rich picture of deacons as agents of the church, ordained to the service of the bishop, who sends them forth as ministers of the church as a whole, rather than simply social workers. Collins provides an understanding of deacons that embraces social welfare but is not bound by it.

Diakonia Studies closes the account on John N. Collinss 40 years of involvement in groundbreaking linguistic research and argumentation concerning the nature and functioning of Christian ministry. Dispute has swirled around the Greek term diakonia for 50 years. Once seen as enshrining the New Testament value of loving Christian servicewhat Jerome Murphy-O'Connor called "one of the dogmas of New Testament scholarship"the word was exposed by Dieter Georgi in 1964 as arguably meaning something quite different. In 1974 John N. Collins published his first paper on the issue, pointing to inadequacies in Georgi's brief account. Then in 1990 Collins published his exhaustive semantic survey, Diakonia: Re-interpreting the Ancient Sources. His re-interpretation was variously hailed as "devastating," "provocative," "unfashionable," and "a scholarly avalanche whose conclusions are inescapable." Since then, the book has stood at the center of the Collins-Debate. Meanwhile Collins's findings have been incorporated in the authoritative Danker Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament. Diakonia Studies examines, in a non-technical way (i.e., without appeal to particulars of Greek), the reasons why theologians need not only to review cherished readings of leading New Testament passages but also to reassess what some passages might really be saying about the nature and delivery of ministry. These third-millennium issues are the matter of the final papers in the volume, reminding churches of the ministry they have received and of their filed-away commitments to an ecumenically-charged ministry. Among the topics considered are ordained and lay ministries, the tension between office and charism, and prospects for deacons when a diakonia of loving service no longer defines their call.

This is the first comprehensive study of the Greek word ''diakonia, '' from which the word ''deacon'' is derived. Diakonia and its cognates appear frequently throughout the New Testament, but its precise meaning has long been disputed. Today, it is usually translated ''service'' or ''ministry.'' As Collins shows, this understanding of diakonia has been important to the development of a modern consensus about the nature of Christian ministry. Based on the understanding that diakonia is ''service'' and that the diakonos (deacon) is a ''servant, '' nearly all Christian bodies today agree that the central idea of ministry is that of helping the needy, and that the ''servant'' church should be humbly devoted to helping the world, after the model of Jesus. Collins conducts an exhaustive study of diakonia in Christian and non-Christian sources from about 200 BCE to 200 CE. He finds that in all such sources the word is used to mean ''messenger'' or ''emissary, '' and has no implications of humility or of helping the needy. This discovery undermines much of the theological discussion of ministry that has taken place over the past fifty years.