The following "Question" was asked by a member of the congregation at Grace Community Church in Panorama City, California, and "Answered" by their pastor, John MacArthur Jr. It was transcribed from the tape, GC 70-5, titled "Bible Questions and Answers."  A copy of the tape can be obtained by writing, Word of Grace, P.O. Box 4000, Panorama City, CA 91412 or by dialing toll free 1-800-55-GRACE.  Copyright John MacArthur Jr., All Rights Reserved.

Question

I have been reading in 1 Timothy 3, about the qualifications for elders and deacons, and I find nowhere from verses 8 to 13 where it says that a deacon can be a woman, because it says, "Let deacons be the husband of one wife."

Answer

Let me tell you what that means--all right?  So you are wondering why there are women deacons?  Verse 11 is a key verse.  I just wrote a book on deacons and rather than try to cover everything (it will be available this week, so could you pick one up on Sunday maybe or next weekend)--I go through all the whole process of discussing it.

If you will look at verse 11, he's talking about elders and then he sort of shifts gears and talks about deacons, verse 9, and the qualifications basically are the same.  In fact, what I found in my study was that the difference, the only difference that I could find between and elder and a deacon basically was skill in teaching the Word of God, and refuting those who taught error.  In other words the primary distinction between an elder and a deacon textually, is that unique ability to handle the Word of God that is a God-given gift.  The spiritual qualifications really aren't any different: it takes just a godly and virtuous a person.  We might also conclude that deacons don't have to be leaders like elders, but that's wrong, because they have to have demonstrated, in verse 12, that they can rule their children and their own house.  So I don't see a difference in leadership capability between an elder and a deacon; all I see is a difference in the skill in which they can articulate the Word of God.

But verse 11, in the midst of the discussion here says, "Even so," and it uses the word "women," rather than wives--wives would be an arbitrary translation, "are to be serious, not slanderers, sober minded, faithful in all things."  And it is my conviction that the reference there is directly to those women who serve in a deacon role.  The word "deacon," by the way, is a very general term in the Bible--it simply means "servant."  "Phoebe" in Romans 16:1 is called a deacon, and she was a woman obviously.  "There are other women who served with me in the gospel," Paul says, he uses the verb form of the same word. 

So, I think that the women are mentioned there in verse 11; and there are some reasons in the Greek text why it seems to me that that is a separate group isolated out from the rest, so that he talks about elders, he talks about deacons, and then he talks about the women who serve as deacons also.  So I think there is room for that.  Early church history corroborates that in that they recognized deacons calling them, I guess in English we call them, deaconesses.

By the way, the footnote too on that "husband of one wife"--that is in the Greek text a "one-woman man."  I think a lot of people have misunderstood it because of the "Authorized" translation.  It isn't saying that in order to be qualified to serve in the church you have to have one wife, because that's not a spiritual qualification for anybody.  You could be an outright pagan and have one wife.  That doesn't qualify anyone for anything.  That would be the only non-spiritual, non-leadership thing thrown in; but what the text says is a "one-woman man."  The issue is not, "have you only had one wife," the issue is, "is the one you have the one you are committed to?"  The issue is, are you a one-woman man?  There are plenty of people in the world who have only one wife, but they have a whole lot of interest in somebody who isn't their wife. 

I heard today about a church in our area where the pastor and the assistant have just been caught in affairs with different women.  They blew the whole leadership of the church.  Now that is not a one-woman man.  He may have only one wife; he may have only had one-wife ever, never a divorce, but he's not a one-woman man.  You show me a one-woman man and I will show you a man who has got spiritual integrity.  You show me a man who is only married to one woman and I can't tell what he is.