CAN WOMEN SERVE AS DEACONS?

At Mercy’s Door, we believe that the office of deacon is conclusively open to both men and women. We believe the Scriptures show women to be gifted to perform the tasks required of deacons, the Scriptures explicitly affirm that the office of deacon is open to women, and that the history of the early Church reveals that women functioned as deacons from the dawn of the office.

1.) Women Are Gifted to Serve in the Diaconate

In function, deacons of the church are charged with organizing practical service to meet the tangible needs of the Church in carrying out the ministries of the body. Practically speaking, they are frequently charged with such tasks as serving the needs of the poor and providing for the needy. This often included managing benevolent giving in the church to meet those needs. Scripture routinely highlights the ability of women to perform such functions.

In Proverbs 31:10-31 we find a poem describing the characteristics of a virtuous woman. In addition to a wide variety of work at home, note that the woman also takes part in managing extra-domestic affairs. She buys a plot of land and starts a vineyard (v. 16), and regularly travels to the market to sell her wares (v. 24). She also takes care of the poor (v. 20). Likewise, in Luke 8:1-3 we see that while He was on earth, our Lord and His disciples had their material needs provided for by an entourage of women.

What we see in examples like these is that the picture of a godly woman in Scripture is one of someone who regularly engages in the types of duties expected of deacons. Even the celebrated qualities of women as household managers reinforce this notion. We must remember that in the ancient world, the household was not merely a place for private life. Much of civic life was carried out in homes. In fact, most of the early churches gathered in homes. Women are celebrated in Scripture for their ability to serve tangible needs in ways and in settings that mirror the responsibilities of deacons.

So, if deacons function to serve and meet the tangible needs of the ministries of the Church, and the Scriptures celebrate the ability of women to perform these kinds of duties, there is nothing about a deacon's responsibilities that would prohibit a woman from occupying the office.

2.) The Scriptures Never Explicitly Limit deaconship to Men

If we pay careful attention to the letters of Paul in the New Testament, we find that not only did Paul never forbid women from being deacons, but he explicitly allowed them to occupy the role. The two passages most often debated to build an understanding of female deaconship come from Romans 16 and 1st Timothy 3.

ROMANS 16

In this verse, Paul explicitly refers to Phoebe as a deacon. Some have argued that when Paul uses the word διάκονος (diakonos) here to describe Phoebe, it should be translated more generically as “servant”. Such a translation is unlikely to be correct. When Paul adds “of the church at Cenchreae” to the title of διάκονος (diakonos), it strongly implies that he is acknowledging Phoebe’s position within that specific church. This understanding is supported by scholars such as Douglas Moo and Thomas Schreiner in their commentaries on Romans.  

Historically, women occupied the office of deacon by the early part of the 2nd century A.D., which provides extra-biblical evidence to reinforce that there is little reason to believe that Phoebe would not or could not have held such an office as of the writing of Romans, as the natural reading of the passage suggests.

Additionally, John Chrysostom (347-407 AD), in his Homily on Romans, understood διάκονος (diakonos) in this passage to refer to the specific office when he wrote, “Moreover he has added her rank, by mentioning her being a deaconess.“

It would be contrary to the earliest and traditional and most natural readings of this passage to translate it as anything other than the office of deacon.

1ST TIMOTHY

Paul gives the qualifications for the office of deacon in 1 Timothy 3:8-12. Arguments for and against women serving in the office of deacon emerge as a matter of debate concerning the appropriate translation of a single word in verse 11. That word is γυναῖκας (gunaîkas).

The word γυναῖκας, is a plural form of the word γυνή (gune). This word can mean either “woman” or “wife” depending on the context, similar to the German word Frau. As a result of the two possible meanings of the word, three interpretations of this verse exist. Some believe that this verse is referring to the wives of deacons. Some believe that this verse is referring to women who are deacons. Some believe that this verse is referring to women in general, and is no longer on the topic of deacons at all. Modern English translations of the Bible are divided on the issue.

For several reasons, outlined below, Mercy’s Door holds that this verse is best understood as referring to female deacons, not the wives of deacons, and not women in some general sense.

Firstly, 1st Timothy 3 addresses the qualifications of elders in verses 1-7 followed by the qualifications of deacons in verses 8-12. it seems strange that Paul would place requirements on the wives of deacons, but does not place any requirements on the wives of elders. John Calvin also found this odd, so in his commentary on 1 Timothy, he tried to rectify this by insisting that verse 11 must refer to the wives of both elders and deacons. But in this section, Paul repeats many of the same requirements for deacons that he mentions for elders just a few verses prior, so it would be a serious break in the pattern of the chapter to expect this sentence to be understood as referring to both positions when all the other requirements shared by both offices are repeated for each one.

Secondly, there is no possessive pronoun associated with γυναῖκας, although Paul could have used one, and the context doesn’t naturally lead the reader to imply possession. Because it would be nonsensical for Paul to randomly insert a requirement upon wives in general in the middle of a list of qualifications for the office of deacons, translators infer possession and translate γυναῖκας as “their wives” rather than “wives”. But because the context of the section imposes that burden on the translator, it suggests the translator is making an unnatural leap to translate this word as “their wives, likewise” rather than the simpler and more contextually coherent, “women, likewise.”

But this does not answer whether “women” should be understood as “women deacons” or just “women in general.” However, randomly giving a single instruction to women in general in the middle of a list of the qualifications for deacons makes as little contextual sense as giving a single instruction to wives in general. Paul is clearly discussing deacons here.

Because a feminine form of διάκονος (diakonos) did not yet exist in Greek, when Paul says, “women likewise,” he seems to be allowing the context of the section (qualification of deacons) to make it clear that he is referring to females serving that office.

Looking again at the testimony of early church history reveals that this passage, just like the Romans passage, was interpreted by those closest to the apostles as referring to women in the office of deacon. About this verse in 1st Timothy, John Chrysostom established an answer for anyone suggesting that this passage is referring to women in general, rather than female deacons. He wrote in his Homily on Timothy, “Some have thought that this is said of women generally, but it is not so, for why should he introduce anything about women to interfere with his subject? He is speaking of those who hold the rank of Deaconesses.“

So, not only do the Scriptures not explicitly limit the office of deacon to men, but they seem to directly hold it open to women.

3.) women were deacons in the early church

Convinced that Scripture describes women as possessing the qualities and abilities to carry out the functions of the office of deacon and that Scripture also explicitly allows women to be deacons, we also care to know if early church history confirms these conclusions. In other words, we don’t just want to know if the early church believed women can be deacons. We want to know if the early church actually had female deacons.

In 112 AD, Pliny the Younger, governor of Bithynia and Pontus, wrote a letter to Emperor Trajan to seek advice on how to deal with the rapid spread of Christianity. In this letter, he describes the torture of two women:

What this shows us is that only 50 years after Paul wrote his letter to the Romans and less than 20 years after the death of the Apostle John, women served as deacons in the church. Records of women as deacons exist as far back as our records of the church itself. There is overwhelming evidence that women continued to serve as deacons for the next three centuries. The office of deacon continued to be open to women as late as the Council of Chalcedon (451 A.D.), which in Canon XV places an age restriction for the ordination of deaconesses. We could list a great number of references to deaconesses in the first several centuries of the church. It is a matter of irrefutable historical fact that women did in fact serve as deacons in the early church, verifying that those closest to the time of the writing of these letters understood the office of deacon to be open to women.

Conclusion

Because Scripture testifies that women are capable of executing the duties of the office of deacon, because Scripture does not limit the office to men, but even opens the office to women, and because history verifies that many of the earliest interpretations of debated passages fall in support of female deacons, and that history also verifies that this interpretation was commonly carried out in practice as women held the office of deacon in the early church, it is the position of Mercy’s Door that the church office of deacon is for both men and women.

Additional Resources

More Quotes from Early Church Fathers

Origen of Alexandria (c. 185 – c. 253)
On Rom 16:1, “This passage teaches that there were women ordained in the church’s ministry by the apostle’s authority.... Not only that -- they ought to be ordained into the ministry, because they helped in many ways and by their good services deserved the praise even of the apostle.” Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans.

Pelagius (c. 354 - c. 418)
“Although the text of the letter is already finished, as it were, Paul has attached this material for the purpose of commendation and greeting, as was his custom. Even today, women deaconesses in the East are known to minister to their own sex in baptism or even in the ministry of the Word, for we find that women taught privately, e.g., Pricscilla, whose husband was called Aquila.” Pelagius’ Commentary on Romans.

Theodoret of Cyrus (423 - 457)
“Cenchreae is a village outside Corinth. It is interesting to note how quickly the gospel was spreading, in that it had already reached the villages. In fact the church at Cenchreae was so large that it even had a woman deaconess, and one who was famous and well-known to boot.”

Academic Papers

On Deaconesses, a paper by Christian Adjemian, Dipl. Div., Ph.D.

Web Articles

9Marks: Does the Bible Allow for Women Deacons? by Tom Schreiner and Alexander Strauch

Acts 29: A Case for Women Deacons by Jeff Medders

TGC: Does the Bible Support Female Deacons? Yes. by Tom Schreiner