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, Exodus 24:13; Joshua 1:1; 2 Kings 4:43;
(2) to the attaches of a royal court, 1 Kings 10:5; 2 Chronicles 22:8; compare Psalms 104:4;
(3) To the priests and Levites. Ezra 8:17; Nehemiah 10:36; Isaiah 61:6; Ezekiel 44:11; Joel 1:9; Joel 1:13.
One term, in the New Testament, betokens a subordinate public administrator, Romans 13:6; Romans 15:16; Hebrews 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 Luke 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. See Deacon.