07 What About the Women?

You know, one controversial issue around church life and church government is the roles of men and women and headship. When it comes to the issue of deacons, there is a lot of robust conversation. A lot of opinions that go around. I do want to spend some time looking at the issue of the office of deacon and women.

The relevance and how it works. And husbands and wives, because I think that is something we need to understand. And we need to build, not according to our current culture, not according to pleasing man, not according to the latest trends, but on the foundation that Jesus Christ wants.

Biblical Evidence for Women Deacons

For me, Scripture is quite clear. So, if we look at whether women can be deacons or not, let's just go through this step by step. Block by block. Precept by precept. The first thing we see is that Paul, in Romans 16, greets Phoebe by name as a deacon.

So there is evidence already, from Paul's letter, that there is at least one female deacon. Now, some would argue that the word deacon is used in its non-technical sense. The word deacon can be used technically or generically. But certainly there is an allowance for it.

Paul's Pastoral Epistles and the Meaning of Teaching

Then we look at Paul's pastoral epistles. Paul's pastoral epistles, particularly Timothy and Titus, give us a lot of information about church government and Paul's approach to that. When He's talking about certain things within these letters, He uses terminology in a specific way.

One of Paul's more controversial statements is, I do not permit a woman to teach or have authority over a man. Now is not the time to unpack that particular Scripture in too much detail. But it's interesting that the way He refers to it is, I do not permit a woman to teach.

In the pastoral epistles, generally when He's talking about teaching, He isn't talking about being able to speak about scriptural principles publicly. If He was, then we'd have a real problem. Because I think we all agree that women should be able to teach in some scenarios.

Whether it's with children or other women or things like that. When Paul speaks in the pastoral epistles about teaching, He's speaking about more than just public speaking. He is talking about establishing doctrine. He's talking about setting the boundaries of what is acceptable and what isn't.

That is why He talks about elders having a whole bunch of character qualifications. But also a qualification that an elder must be able to teach. And that doesn't mean an elder must be a good orator. But as elders in partnership with the apostolic, we are guardians of doctrine within the life of the church.

In Titus, He says, elders must hold to the deep truths of the faith and be able to refute those who oppose it. And that is what He means by teaching. He's saying, are we able to keep people within the message, the true Gospel, that Paul preaches.

It is interesting for me, whilst the character qualifications of elders and deacons are almost identical, the one difference is it doesn't say deacons must be able to teach. Because that is a function of government. And deacons are not governmental offices. Because we can see that being a deacon isn't governmental, it doesn't carry an absolute authority.

It carries a delegated authority. That we can look at a future time. Because it doesn't carry that absolute governmental authority, women are not disqualified from being deacons. Women are not second-class citizens. They're not more easily deceived. They're not worse in character. They're not less gifted.

There is no female and male Holy Spirit. We need to understand that the heart of Jesus is for every woman in the life of the church to rise up and serve in the fullness of her gifting and calling in Jesus, and be completely obedient to what He's asked her to do.

What 1 Timothy Says About Women Deacons

So then we get to the qualifications of deacons. And this is where I might be quite offensive to some. And that's okay. I don't want to be offensive, but sometimes Scripture is. And when we talk about the qualifications of a deacon, which we covered in an earlier video, I want to focus on the one part.

It says this, "Let them be blameless, though wives likewise must be dignified." Now that is a translation. If you have a different version of the Bible, your translation might say, "likewise deaconesses". And the two most common words inserted there into the text is either wives or deaconesses.

Neither of those is a literal translation. The literal translation there is "women". When translators get to that verse, they look at that and a literal translation is, "likewise, women must be like this". They then say, what kind of women? Is it deaconesses? Is it deacons' wives?

And the word they choose will often be informed by their theology. But we can't, or we shouldn't, shape our translation by our theology. Our theology shouldn't be shaped by our translation. Our theology should shape our translation. So, literally, if it says "wives," let's have a look at that.

Why does He suddenly stop with the character of a qualification and then says, "Likewise, women must be like this"? If it means that for a deacon to be qualified, there are qualifications for his wife, then that would be quite strange because He doesn't do that with elders.

And it would mean in some ways, there's a higher standard for deacon than for elders. Why in the list of qualifications of an elder does He not address elders' wives? And I think the reason is clear. Because He's not addressing wives, He's addressing women who are potentially being considered to serve as deacons.

And then that is kind of confirmed as we go on. When in that next sentence it says, "The women must be dignified, not slanderers, sober minded and faithful in all things." Basically, what He's talking about here is potential weaknesses of emotion and speech.

Now, I don't want to stereotype and say all women are like this and all men are like that. And I don't think that's Paul's intent either. But in general, women tend to battle more with emotions and women battle more with sins around speech than men do.

So, for example, if there's conflict between two men, they're likely to maybe argue and punch. But, the research has shown that when women are fighting women, they tend to gossip and slander. What Paul is doing here is saying, there's a bunch of general qualifications for people being considered as deacons.

There's a whole bunch of qualifications that apply generally and equally to male and female. But then he says, if you are considering a woman for the office of deacon, also look particularly for this. Does she have her emotions under control? Is her speech under control?

Does she gossip, slander? Then he goes back and says, "Let the men be the husband of one wife." Now he's switching and saying, here's the gender neutral qualifications to consider. Here's the things to consider particularly in women. And now here's the things to consider particularly in men.

And he doesn't say women must be the husband of one wife and able to raise children well. Because he's talking about men being the head of the household. Women are not the head of the household. So that's not something to consider with a potential female deacon.

I hope that makes sense. The last thing to consider, now that we've looked at this, and we've looked at Romans. And we've looked at Paul's concept of teaching, is if we accept that women can be deacons, and we do within JoshGen, and I think that's the safest biblical interpretation.

Should Married Couples Both Serve as Deacons?

What about husbands' wives? This is something that we can discuss outside of the video. But when a husband and wife marry, the two become one. If we have a situation where the husband is a deacon and the wife isn't. Or even more complicated where the wife would be a deacon and the husband wasn't, that would create problems, issues and difficulties.

Not just in that relationship, but for other people who are being led. As a rule and as a principle, I would suggest that within JoshGen in particular, we would say, when it comes to a married couple, either both should be deacons or neither.

So if a deacon gets married, and we think that the lady he is marrying is disqualified from being deacon, he should step down for a season or hopefully bring her through. That is a question I get asked. I think it's worth covering. If we've got married couples in general, both deacons or neither deacons.

Single Men and Women Can Serve as Deacons

But if you're single, you can be a single male, you can be a single female, and you can fulfill the office of a deacon. And I have to say this, we have the privilege in JoshGen to have a number of single ladies who have functioned as deacons.

They have been an incredible blessing and a powerful force for changing who we are for the better. It's not about what sex you are. It's about the grace of God that He's put on you and working within the parameters and under the authority that He's given you as an individual and being obedient to His call.

So whether you're male or female, be a deacon. And be the best deacon you can possibly be.