Tool Beta
Is It Actually in the Bible?
Phrases people quote as Scripture. The real verse, or the honest answer that there is not one.
"Let him be your minister" (Matthew 20:26) sounds like Jesus is talking about becoming an ordained clergyman.
"Minister" here translates diakonos, meaning "servant": Jesus is describing servanthood, not a church office.
Matthew 20:26, in every translation this tool compares.
Diakonos is the ordinary Greek word for one who serves or waits on others (it's the root of "deacon"). Jesus is overturning the disciples' idea of greatness: whoever wants to be great must become everyone else's servant, full stop, with no clergy role implied.
"Minister" in 1611 still meant simply "one who serves" in the general sense (as in "minister to someone's needs"), before it narrowed heavily toward ordained religious office, which is the near-exclusive sense most readers bring to the word now.
