Bible word study

Diakonos (Strong’s G1249): Meaning in the Bible

Diakonos (διάκονος) is the Greek word numbered G1249 in Strong’s concordance of the Bible. Strong’s defines it as an attendant, i.e. (genitive case) a waiter (at table or in other menial duties); specially, a Christian teacher and pastor (technically, a deacon or deaconess). In the King James Bible it is translated deacon, minister, servant..

• Original wordδιάκονος
• Transliterationdiákonos
• Pronunciationdee-ak'-on-os
• Strong’s numberG1249
• LanguageGreek

The full Strong’s definition

Derivation. probably from an obsolete (to run on errands; compare G1377);

How the King James Bible translates it

Where Diakonos appears in the Bible

In the King James Bible’s text tagged with Strong’s numbers, Diakonos (G1249) stands behind 30 English renderings in 28 verses across 12 of the 66 books. It is most frequent in 2 Corinthians (5), Romans (4), Colossians (4).

How the King James Bible renders Diakonos, by count

• minister14 of 30 (47 percent)
• ministers6 of 30 (20 percent)
• servant4 of 30 (13 percent)
• deacons3 of 30 (10 percent)
• servants2 of 30 (7 percent)
• to the servants1 of 30 (3 percent)

Three places to read Diakonos

• Matthew 20:26 But it shall not be so among you: but whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister;
• Romans 15:8 Now I say that Jesus Christ was a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made unto the fathers:
• Ephesians 6:21 But that ye also may know my affairs, and how I do, Tychicus, a beloved brother and faithful minister in the Lord, shall make known to you all things:

Counts are made at build time from the King James text tagged with Strong’s numbers (eBible.org, public domain). Verses are read from the stored King James text, never typed.

Why the word matters

Every word the biblical writers chose carries weight. Studying Diakonos in the original Greek lets you read the passages where it appears more carefully, closer to what the first hearers understood, so the meaning is drawn from the text itself rather than from the English alone.

The lexical data on this page comes from the public-domain Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890), a Hebrew and Greek dictionary keyed to the King James Bible. It is a reference tool, not a settled verdict: no single word decides a doctrine, and meaning is finally shaped by how a word is used in its sentences. Read the passages themselves, prayerfully, and in full.

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