Can women serve as deacons in the church?

Why do you suddenly mix deacons and elders together when we are only speaking of elders, with reference to which examples fail you? The deacons (this is the meaning of the word) of tables, of the wants of the poor, of the administration of the funds of the Church. The Church gave money, its servants administered it. The word does not leave any doubt or any uncertainty on this point; it does not confound the offices as you do; it leaves no room for the confusion by which you seek to escape the force of what it says. It shews us those who fulfilled the functions of deacons chosen by the churches; and the apostles desiring that it should be so. It shews us those as elders appointed by the apostle or by his delegates and by none else. In cases where such must occur without his intervention, the apostle took care that it should be done by his delegate. The elders are bishops or overseers, that is to say, authorities in the Church, to guide it, to watch over it, to take care of it; and the authority comes from above, not from below. The deacons are servants, and servants of the Church. It is thus that scripture speaks. There might be, and there even were, women on whom this title was conferred; whilst all authority in the Church was forbidden to women. It is only by trying to introduce confusion that you can avoid the perfectly clear force of the word. You say, "No one can pretend that the election of elders and deacons pertained exclusively to the apostles and their delegates." There is nothing to pretend, sir; one has only to receive what the word says. It says, that in every case those charged with the money-matters were chosen by the churches; and that, in every case where it was a question of elders, they were chosen by the apostles or by delegates of the apostle. In the one case they were servants (diakonoi), in the other overseers of the Church from God.

We now have the closing remarks and salutations. The Lord would not have the devoted Phebe forgotten. She was a deaconess, or servant, of the church in Cenchrea. “That ye receive her in the Lord, as becomes saints, and that ye assist her in whatsoever business she has need of you: for she has been a succourer of many, and of myself also.” These verses throw much light on the true character of the deacon, as appointed by the apostles before the failure of the church set in so sadly. There is not a shadow of the modern clerical idea. “A succourer of many.” Evidently this was in temporal things. She was to be received in the Lord, in that relationship. And what beautiful love and care. She is to be assisted in whatsoever business she has in Rome. It might then be said, See how these Christians love one another.

The wives of deacons are specially mentioned in verse 11. This is doubtless because diaconal service was of such a nature that they not infrequently took part in it. Phebe, for instance, was "a servant [deaconess] of the church which is at Cenchrea" (Rom. 16:1), and was highly commended by the Apostle.

We must remember that bishops and deacons were to possess this sterling Christian character inasmuch as they were to set an example to the mass of believers who looked up to them. Hence all of us reading this chapter today must accept these verses as delineating the character which God desires to see in us. Can we read them without feeling rebuked? How about that greed of money, or the slander, or even the being double-tongued — the saying of one thing in one direction and quite another thing in another direction? Pretty searching considerations, these!

12 The duty of deacons is also, as for the elders, expressed in their name. The Greek word diakonos signifies servant. They served the assembly as its servants; there were also sisters (as Phoebe) with the same title. If we examine Acts 6, the seven who cared for the poor widows as deacons had this service specially allotted to them for their portion.

Certain women served as "deacons" (Mark 15:41). They ministered to Christ of their own substance (Luke 8:3). How different is the modern conception of a "deacon," as a man appointed to handle other people's money!

The wife and children of the deacon are, I judge, associated with him in many ways, in the carrying out of details. Hence their qualifications are so strictly laid down (1 Tim.). They live in the place; move in and out among the saints, so as to find out in the gentlest ways where need is on the one hand, and who are those that may be asked to meet it on the other. Hence he is not to be a money-lover; nor his wife a slanderer! O that we knew many of such men to-day! It would be our place to own them where we find them, and to thank God for them: but not having apostolic authority, we cannot appoint them.

A deacon, then, is one that "serves tables" — attending to the bodily needs of the poor saints at the local gathering in which he meets, and he ministers (or serves) in temporal things. (In this way, I suppose, Phoebe was a deaconess, Rom. 16:1.) The deacon may be, besides, a person gifted by the Lord to minister the word, as Stephen and Philip were; in this he would be responsible to the Lord, and to none other; in his office as deacon he is servant of the local assembly. If he removed to another place, he would be "out of office." An evangelist, or a pastor, or a teacher is a gift everywhere; a deacon is in office —and that for temporal things — in his city or town only.

Phoebe was a minister, servant or deacon (Rom. 16:1), not a "deaconess." The masculine form of the word is used in describing her.

Deacon (diakonos) is but a servant. Phoebe was one, and perhaps she swept the room where they met; I cannot tell what she did. "Diakonos" is not a slave.

A christian woman commended by the apostle to the saints at Rome as 'a servant of the church.' He desired that they should assist her in anything in which she needed their aid. She had been a succourer of many and of Paul. The word for 'servant' is διάκονος, 'deaconess,' but may not imply any official service. Rom. 16:1.

However this may be, the apostle goes into remarkable detail in his salutations to those at Rome. "Now I commend to you Phoebe our sister, being minister of the assembly that is in Cenchreae, that ye may receive her in [the] Lord, worthily of the saints, and assist her in whatever matter she has need of you; for she also has been a helper of many and of myself." (Ver. 1, 2.) We know from elsewhere that elderly females, especially widows, held a position official or quasi-official in which they rendered service to the assembly where they lived. A deaconess such as Phoebe was distinct from these widows; but the one illustrates the other: the value of this would be specially felt of old before Christianity had vindicated the place of women, and this too, particularly in the east as well as in dissolute Greece. Indeed at all times and in all places there are functions to be discharged from time to time more fittingly by a godly female rather than by any man, however pure-minded or elderly. Phoebe was one of these in the assembly of the port of Corinth — Cenchreae. As she had thus been honoured of the Lord and recognized by His chief servants in the ordinary circle of her christian duty, so the apostle now introduces her thus to the saints at Rome that they might receive her in a becoming sort, and this, not merely in spiritual things but in whatever business she might need their help, for she too, as he affectionately adds, had been a helper of many and of himself.