As we begin to bring this series on elders and deacons to an end, we come to the question of whether or not women can serve as deacons. Let me first say that this is not a cut and dry issue. Faithful Christians have arrived at different conclusions on this matter. While all areas of doctrine matter, not all are worthy of division. Whether you agree with my conclusions here or not, I hope we can all agree that whether or not one believes women can, or cannot, be deacons, the gospel is not at stake in regards to this use matter. This means that Christians can, and in fact should, have peace even when there is disagreement on this matter.
From the start I want to say that I am of the persuasion that women can serve in the church as deacons. In order to understand why I believe this to be that case we will have to do some word study in this post. I will try to be brief as we do.
Gender of Greek Words
Greek words, unlike English words, have gender. There are three groups, or declensions, of nouns in Greek. Simply put, this means that a word in Greek is either masculine, feminine, or neuter. Neuter words do not have any gender.
It is important to note that the gender of nouns in greek is NOT connected to the person or object that they refer to. Let me see if I can give an example from Spanish to help with our understanding of this, we will then return to Greek. In Spanish, nouns that end in “o” are masculine while nouns that end in “a” are feminine. For example, the word hermano means brother, while hermana means sister. You can see that the root of the word is the same, but the ending change tells you whether it refers to a male or a female. Greek does not work this way.
Let’s see an example from Spanish of how greek does work, and example we will get from words in Spanish for women’s clothing. The word for “skirt” in Spanish is falda, the a ending telling us that this word is feminine. Contrast that to the word for “dress” which is vestido, a word that you can see is masculine because it ends in an “o.” Both of these articles of clothing are worn by women, but that doesn’t matter. It isn’t who wears the dress that makes the word masculine, the word itself is simply masculine. This is how Greek words work.
So the for wind, breath, or spirit in Greek is pneuma, the a ending telling us that the word is feminine. Even if you use this word in regards to a man’s soul, the word remains feminine because the word is feminine and that doesn’t change. Similarly psyche, or soul, in Greek is a word that is neuter.
What Gender is the Word Deacon?
This brings us to the Greek word for Deacon. What gender is it and what does it mean?
Well the word for deacon in Greek is diakonos and it simply means servant. It is the ordinary word in Greek for servant and doesn’t only refer to the office of deacon in the church. The “os” ending of the word tells us that this word is masculine.
There is only occurrence of this word being used to describe a woman in the New Testament and that is found in Romans 16:1 where Paul uses it to describe Phoebe. In the Greek, the word retains its masculine form because the word is masculine, even when it refers to Phoebe.
Most lexicons state that the word occurs in the feminine gender once in the New Testament, this isn’t because the word get’s a feminine ending there but rather because it refers to Phoebe who is clearly a woman.
Was Phoebe a Deacon?
The question before us is this…was Paul calling Phoebe a servant, or was he saying that she held the office of deacon? The answer is simple…we don’t know.
Any attempt to answer this question cannot be derived from the text of Romans because there is nothing in the text that definitely says. I believe that it is likely that she held the office of deacon and that Paul wasn’t merely calling her a servant. Let me explain why.
First, this letter is being penned more than 30 years after the need for deacons arose in the church in Jerusalem. Though Acts 6 doesn’t seem to describe the establishment of the office of deacon, the letter of Romans was penned much nearer to the end of Paul’s life when it’s reasonable to believe that the church had formally starting appointing people to the office.
Second, Paul says that Phoebe is a deacon “of the church at Cenchrae,” and not “in the church at Cenchrae.”
Before I go any further, let me say that neither of these are highly compelling nor decisive on the matter.
1 Timothy, A More Decisive Text
I think that Paul’s instructions to Timothy in the first letter that bears his name is much more clear. But before we can understand why, we must understand a couple more words in the Greek language.
Particularly the words for man/husband and woman/wife. The word for man and husband are not different words in Greek, they are the same word. The same is true for woman and wife, it’s the same word. This means that context determines whether the word gets translated as man or husband and woman or wife.
Now in 1 Tim. 3:1-7 Paul tells Timothy what the qualifications are for an elder. Then in 1 Tim. 3:8-10 he speaks to the qualifications of a deacon. Then in verse 11 he says “Their wives likewise…” in the ESV. The thing is that the pronoun “their” isn’t in the Greek. So either Paul is saying “the wives likewise…” or “the women likewise…” Which does Paul have in mind?
I’m inclined to believe that he has the second idea in mind, that is to say that Paul is saying “the women likewise…” Why do I believe this? Context.
After giving 7 verses of qualifications of elders in the this chapter Paul begins to give instructions on deacons. Then after only 3 verses on deacons he begins to speak to the women. If he has the wives of deacons in view here, and not women deacons, then why doesn’t he give instruction to the wives of elders? If it is important for the wives of deacons to be well qualified, then why isn’t I the equally or more important for the wives of elders to be well qualified?
I think the answer to this is that Paul didn’t have in mind the idea that “their wives” had to meet a certain set of qualifications but that “the women” who served as deacons had to have a certain character quality just as the men did.
Conclusion
The reality is that there is no verse that says only men can be deacons like there is about elders. And it seems to me that Paul includes women who are deacons in his writings to Timothy and the church at Rome. So, I am inclined to have the elders appoint women to the role of deacon along side men.
Faithful people agree on both sides of the issue and there is no need for division in the church over this matter. I can however say that no matter where one falls on this issue, we can all hopefully agree that women are in many ways the heart of the church. They bring beauty and grace to the church as they do to all creation. I pray that the church of Jesus would highly value the role and service of women in the church, and that women would feel valued and appreciated as essential members of the body of Christ.