The Ministry in Historical Perspectives by Edited by Richard Niebuhr and Daniel D. Wilbanks - 1956

This book is in good condition. There is some wear on the front, back, edges, and spine of the book. There is very little bumping and fraying on the cover boards. The previous owner has signed the first page of the book. The pages are yellowing and tanning, but the pages are clear of markings.

"The Greek word for 'ministry' is diakonia; and it is significant that this term was in the New Testament times, as it is still, the most favored way of referring inclusively to the church's workers and their work. When Paul gives us the first account we posses of the various functions being performed by individuals in the primitive church (I Cor. 12:4-30), he speaks of them as 'varieties of ministry.' He can refer to himself and to other workers as 'ministers' of the new covenant, or of Christ, or of God, or of the church, or of the gospel, or simply as 'ministers,' and to their work as a 'ministry of reconciliation.' (II Cor. 3:6, 11:23, Col. 1:7, 25, 4:7, II Cor. 5:18; etc.) The letter to the Ephesians, probably a generation later, in summing up the significance of 'apostles,' 'prophets,' 'evangelists,' 'pastors and teachers,' uses the same word: 'for the work of the ministry.' In Acts the apostolate itself is referred to as a diakonia (Acts 1:17; cf. Eph. 4:11-12). The word, whether Greek or English, means simply 'service,' and although it soon came to stand for a particular ecclesiastical office, the office of the deacon, its original more inclusive sense was never completely lost. Thus "Timothy" is enjoined to appoint 'ministers' (in the sense of deacons) and to fulfill his own 'ministry' in the other, more general, sense; and the same writer, the author of the Pastoral Epistles, can both describe the qualifications of the 'deacons' and allude to the diakonia of Paul (I Tim. 1:12, 3:8, 12, 4:6; II Tim. 4:5). Thus also, even today, if we wish a term which includes the archbishop as well as the pastor of the humblest congregation, we speak of 'the ministry.' And so, in word at least, we obey Jesus' injunction: 'Whoever would be great among you must be your servant [diakonia], and whoever would be first among you must be the slave of all' (Mark 10: 43-44)...." - Chapter One from The Ministry in Historical Perspectives