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Minister: This term is used in the Authorized Version to describe various officials of a religious and civil character. Its meaning, as distinguished from servant, is a voluntary attendant on another. In the Old Testament it is applied (1) to an attendance upon a person of high rank, Ex 24:13; Jos 1:1; 2Ki 4:43 (2) to the attaches of a royal court, 1Ki 10:5; 2Ch 22:8 comp. Psal 104:4
(3) to the priests and Levites. Ezr 8:17; Ne 10:36; Isa 61:6; Eze 44:11; Joe 1:9,13 One term in the New Testament betokens a subordinate public administrator, Ro 13:6; 15:16; Heb 8:2 one who performs certain gratuitous public services. A second term contains the idea of actual and personal attendance upon a superior, as in Lu 4:20 The minister's duty was to open and close the building, to produce and replace the books employed in the service, and generally to wait on the officiating priest or teacher. A third term, diakonos (from which comes our word deacon), is the one usually employed in relation to the ministry of the gospel: its application is twofold, --in a general sense to indicate ministers of any order, whether superior or inferior, and in a special sense to indicate an order of inferiors ministers. [DEACON]
See Also: Deacon
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