Women Deacons

Why do you require an all-male diaconate, when it has been show scripturally (Rom 16) that a female was a deacon?

 

1 Timothy 8Likewise deacons must be reverent, not double-tongued, not given to much wine, not greedy for money, 9holding the mystery of the faith with a pure conscience. 10But let these also first be tested; then let them serve as deacons, being found blameless. 11Likewise, their wives must be reverent, not slanderers, temperate, faithful in all things. 12Let deacons be the husbands of one wife, ruling their children and their own houses well. 13For those who have served well as deacons obtain for themselves a good standing and great boldness in the faith which is in Christ Jesus.


Apparently a deacon has a wife, meaning the deacon is a man.

 

That passage assumes the deacon to be a man, but does not require it. What of Rom 16:1?

 

followinghim,

To avoid a pointless argument with some others I just want to tell you it was hard for me to find a church with all male deacons or a church that did not support women as pastors. I finally found a SB church that was traditional in theology and did not support the CBF. I myself pastor an independent Baptist church though I am still SB. Try looking at some SB churches to see which ones support BFM 2000. God bless you. I pray in any case you will find the right church.

 

If one spends time studying the Bible and the practices of the early Christians he will find that women deaconesses had a place in the church among children and other women. In fact the pastor did not deal with women. Other women did.

There is plenty of evidence that the early church utilized women in ministry. There were women whose responsibility was to work with other women and children. They performed pastoral work with the sick and the poor and helped at baptism. From the earliest times deaconesses visited the sick, acted as door-keepers at the women's entrance to the church, kept order among church women, taught females in preparation for baptism and acted as sponsors for homeless children. They also carried official messages. There was a clearer line drawn between the sexes than there is today. Women deacons were not on the same level as men deacons. They could not teach and minister to mixed groups of people or men, and they were not ordained.

For the first 1200 years of Christianity there is loads of evidence of woman deacons in the church. However, the Western Roman Catholic church never had them. Whereas the eastern church did.

Almost every country outside of the U.S. has women deacons in Baptist churches.

The emergence of deaconesses is unclear. But in the third and fourth centuries the office deaconess developed greatly. In a letter dated 112 A.D. Governor Pliny wrote a letter to the emperor Trajan. 'In it he mentions a couple of deaconesses.
(Book X, XCVI, 8, 289)

 

1 Tim. 3:11, "Women must likewise be dignified, not malicious gossips, but temperate, faithful in all things."

 

Natters the word used in Romons 16:1is servent this word don't always traslate to Deacon ,it sometimes means : succourer=helper.

 

Samplewow, that's what a deacon originally was in the early church. A deacon was not the "office" it is in many churches today. Phoebe was a truly a deacon (a 'diakonon') in the original sense of the word.

 

Those are God's instructions, not mine.

 

There is no reasonw hy women can't minister to each other. But they do not have to be ordained deacons.
God has given us an order, and we need to stick to it.

 

Deacons are not "ordained". A deacon is simply a servant, a helper. Like Phoebe.

 

followinghim

The I Tim. passage does not say "the husband of one wife", it says "a one-woman man". It literally referred to a man who was always faithful to his wife. This is a higher standard since men can be unfaithful, and not divorce, and still be disqualified as pastors and deacons.

What I have always found interesting in these texts is that the qualifications for pastors are almost identical to deacons, except in the middle of the qualifications for deacons, the word "women" is used.

It is not "their wives" as some say. That is a different word in Greek. Why would Paul include comments concerning the qualifications of "women" in his statements concerning deacons if he were not referring to the women serving as deacons?

The problems we have in many baptists churches is that deacons hold positions of authority over other men, which would disqualify women.

The deacons have taken on the responsibility of the elders (the pastor being one), which should not happen.

If deacons have no authority over men, then the issue of female deaconate is mute.

By the way, Phobe was the letter carrier for Paul's letter to the Romans. It was standard practice to ask that the letter carrier be taken care of by the recepients. (Rom. 16:1+)

 

natters come on do you really think your bride or anyone elses bride should be a deacon?

 

Why not? Being a helper is not a male-only duty. Phoebe was one. My wife is church treasurer, and Sunday School director. She's already helping out a lot. If someone wants to call her a "deacon", including herself, I have no problem with that.

 

Sometime read what Spurgeon said about ordination. One time I wrote the SBC about it and the responder felt it was mostly because of tax laws that we ordain people. That was from SBC leadership in Nashville.

 

There is a substantial difference between a deaconess and deacon in function and relationship to the pastor in the early church. Most churches today seriously violate early church practices in the lines of communication form the pastor to the females in church. That went through a deacon and then deaconess first.

 

natters I think it's great that your wife is doing this work you speak of.

Do you think that she should be on your chuch board?

 

I don't know. Was Phoebe on a church board?