Featured Female deacons

Deacons--agreed. We should ALL be servants. But how do most of our churches today define deacon? I submit that today, deacons are viewed as leaders of the church. So that distinction must be reconciled before any meaningful agreement can occur regarding whether women can be deacons in the church today.

 

Certainly we should all be servants, however, the apostles established a grouping in which to make certain that all servants benefited with equity and that none was served but what was needed. That group, called Deacons, included both men and women.

Most of the Baptist churches for the most part has ignored the Scriptures placing elders in a separate grouping than Deacons. Rather, they place the deacon as elder. It has brought confusion, and a hierarchy to the typical Baptist assembly that has often met with being puffed up over the authority of an office rather than the Scriptural structure of the limitations of that office.

Deacons are to be managers of the physical plant and the distributors of helps to those in need. They are not to function as the "spiritual teachers / preachers" accept as given that opportunity under the authority of the assembly.

Elders / pastor(s) are the spiritual leaders, and no pastor or elder is to be over the physical plant and the distribution of helps to those in need. Just as all members of the assembly, they may offer help and advise to the deacons, but they are not in charge of the deacons, nor are they to be an influence over that group in the sense of distributions and helps.

I do consider that in particular the Baptists would benefit enormously from aligning themselves better to the Scriptures in this matter.

 

Uh oh. Aren't there female professors teaching men at Mac's college?

 

He uses women teaching non-biblical stuff to men in the schools. And, he is also not opposed to a woman taking a man aside and giving private instruction as was done to Apollos. (Acts 18)

What MacA is opposed is women elders and women pastors. I consider that his view is correct in this manner.

There is a vast difference in the position of pastor and elder in an assembly than a teacher in a school, even one sponsored by that assembly.

 

http://www.tms.edu/academics/faculty/

Looks like all men on the Seminary Faculty, though there is a Jade listed as Chief Development Officer.

I was surprised to see a professor who earned his PHD at DTS.

 

But the OP in his little article says it derived from Genesis (Adam and Eve). That would apply to any male-female situation (classroom, government, etc.) not just 'in church' scenarios.

 

My mistake; you told him to go chase a rabbit. For not agreeing with a man's writings.

 

You wrote:

 

There are evidences of female deacons in early Christianity. Phoebe from Romans 16 is likely one of the more obvious ones. Outside the Apostolic Era, in Pliny the Younger, in a letter to Trajan, notes that he had interrogated two women who served as "ministrae" or deacons in the local church in Bithynia in the 2nd century. Even as far as the Council of Chalcedon there were specific orders set on how to ordain so-called "deaconesses" in the local churches. The evidence for female deacons is there, you have to explain it away.

Added to this, the Greek term διακονος is gender transitive, which means it can be applied to men and women by changing the spelling. This isn't as significant an argument as some make it out to be, but it is an argument.

All that said, just to pick up a can of gasoline and pour it over all this: John MacArthur is a fine pastor and someone I deeply respect as a leader...he is not, however, a scholar. He has no earned research doctorate nor published materials of a scholarly nature. His works are fine and thorough, but he's not a scholar.

 

He's got this flunky, Phil Johnson, who cobbles together his thoughts into book form. PJ's got just a Bible institute bachelor's degree but's an editing whiz.

 

Paul's statement that women are to be silent in the assembly meetings have direct bearing upon the discussion and teaching work of the assembly where men are involved.

It is sad when an assembly has to have a woman lead them in the worship that is teaching and discussions of Scriptural matters.

However, in the educational setting it is not restricted to men only. There is not a problem with a woman teaching Greek or Hebrew. There is no problem with a woman teaching students doctrinal views without regard to indoctrination of a view. It is not a problem with women teaching the history of the church, or how various esteemed believers impacted the church.

What is a problem is in the worship service, when one is to be receiving that which is from God, and to return to Him honor and praise, women are to be silent.

I might add, that this includes any music offering of worship. Paul didn't say women keep silent but can sing, or women keep silent by can bang on the keyboard and drums.

In worship (as at the temple) men were the teachers, leaders, and slayers. Song leaders and singers of the worship service must also be men. That is taking Paul's statement as pure as it can be taken. Women are to have the authority of husband or father over them and learn at their feet. That is Paul's pure statement.

(I bet I get a load of rebuke at this post from all sides. )