Good morning, everyone. My name is Daniel Howe, and I'm pastor of Christ Reformed Presbyterian Church in Providence, Rhode Island. And it's an honor and a pleasure to be with you. It's also really fun to see a lot of people I don't know. I have a long connection with this congregation. I've been a member of this church and twice served on the session, first as as an associate pastor for church planning in Providence, and then later on as interim moderator before Noah Bailey was here. So I always love coming here because I know so many people, and I'm really enjoying coming here because I don't know so many people. So I look forward to meeting you after the service. Today, we are going to be looking at the book of 1 Timothy, chapter 3. you would open there in your Bibles. Before I read, I want to say something that hasn't been said, and that is Happy Father's Day, especially those of you who are dads caring for your kids at home. You're doing hard work. You're doing really, really important work. Good on you. This is, along with motherhood, one of two great callings that the world around us does not recognize very much, but is basic and foundational to the way God has ordered the world and the way that he is raising up disciples for Jesus Christ. So keep up the good work. But we are not looking at fatherhood today, or not primarily at fatherhood. We're looking in a way at motherhood. We're going to be looking at a controversial issue And that is the role of women in the office of deacon in the Christian Church. This is something that I discussed ahead of time with Pastor Bailey. I discussed several possibilities. He thought this would be a pretty good one. And the reasons for that I'll get into in a few minutes. For now, I'd like to read not just Chapter 3, Verse 11, but actually the entire chapter because Verse 11 has a context and a very important and beautiful one. Hear God's word, 1 Timothy 3, verses 1 through 16. The saying is trustworthy. If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task. Therefore, an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. He must manage his own household well with all dignity, keeping his children submissive. For if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God's church? He must not be a recent convert where he may become puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil. Moreover, he must be thought well of by outsiders so that he may not fall into disgrace, into a snare of the devil. Deacons, likewise, must be dignified, not double-tongued, not addicted to much wine, not greedy for dishonest gain. They must hold the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience, and let them also be tested first, then let them serve as deacons if they prove themselves blameless. Their wives, or the women, likewise must be dignified, not slanderers, but sober-minded, faithful in all things. Let deacons each be the husband of one wife, managing their children and their own households well. For those who serve well as deacons gain a good standing for themselves and also great confidence in the faith that is in Christ Jesus. I hope to come to you soon, but I am writing these things to you so that if I delay, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, a pillar and buttress of the truth. Great indeed we confess is the mystery of godliness. He was manifested in the flesh, vindicated by the spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory. And the verse that we'll be giving the most time to is, again, verse 11. Their wives, or sometimes translated, the women, likewise, must be dignified, not slanderers, but sober-minded, faithful in all things. May God add his blessing to the reading of his word. This is probably an unusual sermon for you to hear, and it is an unusual sermon for me to preach, not just because of the subject matter, which is all by itself unusual, but because we're going to be focusing on a pretty small detail of church government. So the first thing I want to address is why I am spending an entire sermon on this verse, and isn't this overkill? It is really rare that I personally would preach an entire sermon on any one verse. I like to cover big distances when I'm preaching through a book of the Bible. And this verse is not about a central matter of the gospel. It's not about the nature of God or Christ's coming or judgment or salvation. Although obviously, First Timothy gets into all of those things in chapter three by the end. But good churches want to spend most of the time talking about the most important matters, matters of life and death, heaven and hell. And yet at the same time, we recognize that the Spirit of God has given this passage, even this single verse, because it's useful for teaching, for reproof, and for training in righteousness. So we give it our attention. We're particularly spending time on this verse because it's puzzling, controversial, and rich. And it is puzzling. Ancient churches applied it in different ways. Modern churches apply it in different ways. Many teachers and preachers have chosen to ignore it, and even more have found it to be confusing. It's also controversial. One of our church's confessional documents, our testimony, states that women as well as men may hold the office of deacon. And this has been our position, I think, since 1888 as a denomination. As far as I know, for the moment at least, no other conservative, reformed, or Presbyterian churches hold to this position, which makes a lot of people, when they come into a reformed Presbyterian church, scratch their heads. What is going on with these people? They seemed so conservative. The New Testament is very clear that women may not hold the office or do the work of elders. They may not rule over men in the church, Paul says this in 1 Timothy 2.12. They may not teach men in the church, 1 Corinthians 14.33-35. And the Reformed Presbyterian Church can hardly be called a liberal or progressive denomination. If we are, we're hiding it very well. But some look at us with concern because of our position, especially on this matter. They wonder whether we're at the top of a slippery slope that will lead down into the ordination of women as elders and pastors, denial of the authority of the Bible over the church, and departure from the Christian faith. And I can tell you with gratitude to God and confidence that that's not happening. If anything, the opposite is happening, and within our little denomination, there's a sizable movement against this position. Those who doubt that women should serve as deacons are not just outside. There are many in our denomination, including many who teach in our theological seminary, who share the same view, and there may be some in this church who also share it. When I was in seminary training to be a pastor, I had to write an exegesis paper on a passage of the New Testament, and I chose intentionally 1st Timothy 3 verses 1 through 13, which is qualifications for officers, specifically so that I could tangle with this passage. In my paper, I disagreed with our denomination stance. I wrote that Paul did not intend for women to serve as deacons. That, by the way, while my mother was serving as a deacon in a Reformed Presbyterian church. In the years since then, I have changed my mind. I'm now convinced that the office should be open to women. But I have lots of sympathy for those who disagree with me because I've been there. My hope today is not just to make the office of deaconess or woman deacon more acceptable to doubters and not just to firm up those who agree with this position already. My hope is to win you over. I think you're going to see that it is right, good, and sometimes even necessary to have women serve in the office of deacon. that having women in this office is supported by scripture, by history, and by wisdom. And even if I fail, well this is the nice thing about being a visiting preacher, you'll learn to appreciate Noah Bailey's weekly preaching even more than you already do. So first of all, let's talk about the terminology a little bit. We sometimes talk about deaconesses and sometimes talk about women deacons. And some people say that there's a significant difference between women deacons and deaconesses. I've heard people say that they support churches having deaconesses, but not women deacons. The shade of difference in this view is that women deacons do all the things that male deacons do, whereas deaconesses have a special ministry to women, which men cannot carry out as well. So I think right now in the PCA, for instance, this is the debate that's taking place about whether there should be deaconesses, not whether there should be female deacons. There are two problems with this position in differentiating these. First of all, the ancient church uses the terms in exactly the same way. Sometimes they use the word diakonos as a technical term for the office of deacon. This was originally a masculine noun and Greek has genders for all of its nouns. Sorry for the technicalities, it's not going to end here. But could be used with feminine pronouns and in context you would read it as woman deacon or female deacon. Sometimes they use the word diakonisa which is another technical term for the office and from which we get the word deaconess and they're used interchangeably. sometimes in the same document. Second, those who are afraid that women deacons will teach or rule over men don't understand the biblical office of deacon. Even male deacons do not preach or administer the sacraments. Their office might lead them to teach a class on household budgeting, but this is not the authoritative teaching of scripture mentioned in the Bible as belonging to the elders and strictly off limits to women in the church. Deacons are servants. They have authority to teach and lead within the context of serving. Misunderstanding deacons leads to misunderstanding deaconesses. And some churches really do get deacons wrong. Some Baptist churches, for instance, treat deacons as if they were elders. That is incorrect. Some of the churches that are closest to ours, reformed churches in the Dutch or the continental tradition, have deacons sit on a council and make decisions alongside the elders. And with respect, they're wrong as well. No wonder those churches in particular react violently to the idea of women deacons. They misunderstand male deacons. If we understand the office of deacon well, we won't be frightened of female deacons practically becoming elders. Deacons teach and lead, but only within their serving. Let me give you an example. You're visiting a very wealthy family. You ring the doorbell, and the butler comes to the door. He then leads you to the dining room. In that moment, he is, in a sense, leading you, but only in the context of serving you. Later, you ask him where the bathroom is, and he tells you it's down the hall. In that moment, he is teaching you, but again, only in the context of serving you. Deacons, whether they're male or female, teach and lead within the confines of their office. There will be kinds of service that men should do and not women. There will be kinds of service that women should do and not men, but the office is one. For that reason, I'll continue to use the terms woman deacon and deaconess interchangeably. With all that said, let's look at some of the important scriptures that provide background for the question of whether women may serve in this office. So first of all, Romans chapter 16, verses 1 and 2. And if you want to turn there with me, you can. But I'm just going to read it to you in a second so you can just sit there like a bum on a log. Romans chapter 16, verses 1 and 2. Here Paul writes to the church in Rome, I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a servant of the church at Cancria, that you may welcome her in the Lord in a way worthy of the saints and help her in whatever she may need from you. For she has been a patron of many and of myself as well. He's telling the Roman Christians in his letter to welcome a woman named Phoebe when she visits their city. He notes that she has been a benefactor, it says, a patron of Paul and of others, perhaps of other preachers, perhaps of the poor in the church. It's evident that Phoebe is a wealthy Christian woman, probably unmarried, a lot like Lydia in Philippi, who we read about in Acts chapter 16. There are echoes here of Luke chapter 8, where the gospel mentions some women who had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities. Mary called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, and Joanna, the wife of Chusa, Herod's household manager, and Susanna and many others who provided for them out of their means. The word provided here is connected to, you guessed it, servant or deacon. Most important for our purposes, Paul calls her, a diakonos, a servant, or perhaps a deacon of the church at Cancria. Depending on how we interpret this term, we may see Phoebe as a deacon or simply as someone who has served the church very faithfully, providing for the church out of her own pockets. In short, Romans 16 does not stand alone in supporting women deacons, but it is a piece of the puzzle. Often when discussing deaconesses, the ancient churches mentioned Exodus chapter 38 verse 8. I'd encourage you to just turn back there if you have a Bible in front of you and you can read and you have fingers to turn pages. Exodus 38 This is talking about the offerings that the various people in Israel brought for the construction of the tabernacle and its furniture. We read in verse 8, and in my Bible it's actually alone under its own heading, he made the basin of bronze and its stand of bronze from the mirrors of the ministering women who ministered in the entrance of the tent of meeting. Now again, this is something that the ancient church talked about a lot when it talked about women deacons or deaconesses. This is a passage, though, that I've never heard a modern theologian connect with the office. I want you to notice two things about this. First of all, there were women serving as doorkeepers at the tabernacle. Very likely, just like in ancient synagogues and later churches, men and women used different entrances to the courts around the tent and worshiped apart from each other. And we know that at Herod's Temple, there was a court of the women. And this, by the way, isn't as ancient as you might think. In my neighborhood, there's an old elementary school with entrances marked boys and girls. And this is still what most churches in Africa do, separate entrances for men and women and separate seating for men and women. The women stood in the door of the tent. Paul makes a promise to deacons in 1 Timothy 3.13, those who serve well as deacons gain a good standing. This connects well with Psalm 84, verse 10. I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of wickedness. Visually, if you want to get an image of this, deacons are people who stand. That doesn't mean you have to stand up right now if you're a deacon in this church. But deacons are people who stand and guard the doors. That's the basic function of deacons in many ways. These women who are mentioned, again, in a worse context, Hophni and Phineas' misbehavior, in 1 Samuel 2, carry out one of the exact roles that we know ancient deacons had, guarding and serving at the doors of God's house. The ancient church made this connection. Why the modern church hasn't is a mystery to me. Who these women were, Levites, average Israelites who were chosen by Lot, is not clear to us. What is clear is that they were serving at the doors just like ancient deacons did. And second, just as Phoebe personally supported Paul and Mary and Joanna personally supported Jesus and the apostles, these ancient doorkeepers personally contributed to making the furnishings of God's tent, the tabernacle. And let's draw from this, whatever we conclude about deaconesses, that serving in the church and personal generosity are deeply connected. The third important passage that points toward women in the diaconate is today's passage, 1 Timothy 3.11. And here Paul lays down qualifications for the women, and that's simply what it says in Greek, in the middle of five other verses which clearly refer to deacons. There are several things to notice about this passage. First of all, taking a look at 1st Timothy 3.11 again. The word likewise connects verse 11 with verse 2, where it says, therefore, an overseer must be, and verse 8, where it says deacons likewise must be. A third group is being introduced, and this group's qualifications are being laid down for us. Second, Greek has the same word for woman and wife. There's only one word. Only context tells you in a given passage which one the author's talking about. If this were about the wives of deacons, we should expect to find the word there, as in their wives, but we don't. Now, some English versions read the word there into the passage. I'll give you some alphabet soup here. The ESV translates it this way. So does the NLT, the CSB, and the KJV. If you don't know what those are, don't worry too much about it. The NASB, the NIV, the RSV, and the YLT have women or the women, choosing a fairly straightforward but not necessarily totally explanatory translation. And the question is simply, is Paul putting down qualifications for all women in the church? Clearly, he isn't. So probably the women is the best translation. Third, it would be odd to have the qualifications of the wives of deacons. There's no qualification listed for the wives of elders, and the wives of apostles are hardly mentioned in the Bible. Why would there be qualifications for the wives of deacons, but no other officers' wives? Fourth, some have proposed that the women here are widows in the care of the church, who Paul talks about much more in chapter But he doesn't call them widows or say anything else that would make us think that they're widows. In 3.2 and 3.12, the elder and deacon are required to be the husband of one wife. And the same requirement, actually, that they be the wives of one husband, is given for widows in 5.9, but not here. Finally, the qualifications for women here map closely to the qualifications for deacon. Deacons must be dignified. The women, whoever they are, must be dignified. Deacons must not be double-tongued. That means they must not be snakes in the way they talk. The women must not be slanderers. Deacons must hold the faith with a clear conscience. The women must be faithful in all things. To state something obvious, this sounds like the qualifications for an office in the church. So far, we have lots of clues, but the matter's not settled. It'll be helpful for us to look at the ancient churches and see how they interpreted this passage and applied it. So now the history lesson on top of the Bible lesson. Now, do ancient churches matter? Does it matter what ancient churches did? Why should we bother with what they've done in the past? As Martin Luther said, Popes and councils have contradicted each other. As Protestant Christians with a very high view of the Bible, which comes from the Bible itself, we do not believe that any church practice, tradition, creed, council, or bishop has final authority over our doctrine or life. That authority belongs to the word of God alone. But while ancient churches and councils don't have final authority, they do have authority. Our own confessions are built on the ancient creeds of Nicaea and Chalcedon. The Protestant reformers worked to reform the church in accordance with the ancient church fathers, but always under the rule of the Bible. The ancient fathers and churches could be wrong, just like your parents can be wrong, but that doesn't mean that we ignore or rebel against them. We may disagree, but we disagree cautiously and respectfully, and we listen to what they have to say. And even when the ancient churches and councils disagree with one another, we have the blessing of learning from their disagreements. How an ancient church in Syria or Mesopotamia applied First Timothy 311 is relevant for us. They were closer in time and culture to the origin of the Bible. They may have understood it better. What they did matters. And what we find in the ancient churches is that many Eastern churches had deaconesses. while they were absent, pretty much entirely, from the Western churches. One Western church, Father Clement of Alexandria, wrote that 1 Timothy 3 does talk about deaconesses, but there's no record of the churches that he cared for in Alexandria having this office. There are eight or more documents that we could talk about from the ancient Eastern churches. I'll only mention a few of these, and I'll only go into detail on the first. That first one is a document called the Didaskalia, written in the early 200s. So we're talking about 150 years or so after First Timothy was written. And it gives directions for what church officers, including deaconesses, are to do. Deaconesses have two or three main areas of service. First of all, they are to visit and nurse Christian women who are sick in their homes. Especially they are to give these women help that men could not appropriately give. such as helping to bathe them. Second, they are to help with baptisms. Now at that time, through most of the ancient church, as far as we can tell, most baptisms were adult baptisms. Furthermore, people about to be baptized were anointed with oil, and very different from our time, baptisms were performed in the nude. So this makes for a very different baptism than we're generally seeing in these churches. Clearly, it was not right for male officers to help anoint and baptize women under these circumstances. So deaconesses anointed women with oil and led them into the baptismal water. But even here, women did not pronounce the words of baptism, I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. This was strictly the work of male pastors. And third, when a woman was baptized, or after a woman was baptized, a deaconess must, quote, receive her and instruct and educate her so that the unbreakable seal of baptism will be preserved in holiness and purity. In other words, the deaconesses had a discipling or mentoring role among the newly baptized women. This is completely in keeping with the rules against women teaching in the assembled church and completely in keeping with Paul's instructions In Titus 2, the older women teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled. Titus 2, verses 3 through 5. Second document. This will just be brief. It has a long name, but I'll only talk about it briefly. It's called The Ordo and the Canons Concerning Ordination in the Holy Church from the 400s. The ordo mainly gives deaconesses the task of assisting in baptism, just as the didaskalia did. But they also served as doorkeepers of the women's part of the church to prevent the impropriety of men entering that area. And finally, we read, finally, it is the responsibility of the deaconesses to exhort the daughters of the covenant as well as laywomen in general to behave themselves properly. Again, there's a mentoring or teaching or discipling role among the women of the church. And thirdly, the Apostolic Constitutions, which dates from the 600s, but it's based on a bunch of earlier documents. A number of earlier writings were put together. Just a few notes from this. First of all, deaconesses were to be highly honored. Second, deaconesses were to work closely in coordination with the male deacons. Third, deaconesses and deacons alike are to visit the sick and to carry out general administration. Fourth, deaconesses and deacons are to serve as doorkeepers for the different parts of the church. The constitutions specifically say that the deaconesses are to have hands laid on them. That is, they are to be ordained to the office and not just appointed. A couple things to point out from these ancient texts. Clearly, there are some areas of church life that are not the same for us. Our baptisms take place with clothes on. and without pouring oil on the heads and bodies of the baptized. And we generally, as far as I know, do not separate men or women in the assembled church. But other areas are very much the same. There are still tasks which women can carry out better than men, especially things related to women and young children. We remain under the authority of the Bible and must not allow women to teach the assembled church. But when it comes to teaching and mentoring young and newly converted women in the practice of Christian life, The best teachers are older and more experienced women. Now, everything I'm saying is very unfashionable. I'm not going to make anybody totally happy today. If you're opposed to women deacons, and I haven't gotten very far in convincing you, you're still maybe thinking that this is an oddball position taken by an oddball denomination. And on the other hand, if you hold to a more modern and less traditional understanding of men's and women's roles, and you don't like what the Apostle Paul says about women in the church in general, then I'm not making anything better either. I'm still insisting that women may not teach or hold authority in the church, and I'm saying that deaconesses have a particular ministry to women. But there is a need. There are areas of practical help that women meet far better than men do. Sick women often need help from other women. Nursing can require contact that a man cannot appropriately carry out for a woman. Even if his heart and mind are pure, the appearance to others is not something that you can help. And I have seen, in my church at least, the development of a used clothing network that would put the Medellin drug cartel to shame. This is the handiwork of responsible, merciful women. There is work that women do better. And we find it's over and over again, such a beautiful illustration of Proverbs 31, 26, talking about the excellent wife. On her tongue is the law of kindness. Women are better at kindness than men are. Even more than giving direct physical help, women are able to teach other women in practical ways. Two stories about this. First of all, when I was younger, as I said earlier, my mother was a deaconess. And more than once, she was called on to visit single mothers whose food stamps had run out. Not only did she bring food, she brought expertise. And what she tried to do was teach these young women how to cook a couple of simple meals so that they wouldn't be totally dependent on expensive packaged food and they'd be able to make their food stamps last the whole month. She was able to do that. And second, a few years ago, I was visiting a refugee family in my church who had a new baby. And another family in the church had given the mother a breast pump, but she didn't know how to use it. The husband, naturally, asked me to teach his wife how to use a breast pump. A day or two later, my wife came over and taught her, and they both had a good laugh about the look on Pastor's face. Young women and less mature women need older women to teach them how to live. Look around you, and you will see a treasury of knowledge. And these are skills that we often take for granted in the Christian church, but which the world around us is forgetting as fast as it can. How about how to recognize a good man, marry him, and be faithful to him? How to get along with your husband once you are married? How to keep a house, manage your money, and cook nutritious food. How to patiently teach children. A woman with these skills, no matter what her education, no matter how humble her background is, is a treasure. A man whose wife can do these things is a millionaire. A church full of such women is a vault of gold that would make Scrooge McDuck envious. Now, there are bad reasons, again, to want deaconesses in the church. You may think it absolutely necessary for women to hold office in the church, because if women aren't holding office, then women don't have a ministry. And that's absolutely untrue. The entire church serves. That's the calling of all Christians, male or female, ordained or unordained. And furthermore, most Christian women will marry and have children, and this is itself a great and praiseworthy ministry. Your children are your first and most important disciples. Teach them the gospel, lead them to Christ, form their characters by example and by loving discipline. And in my experience, Christian women, whether they're ordained or not, whether they're married or not, are, as a group, the hardest workers in the church. One look at the duty roster will tell you that the women already step up. You could also want women deacons to be a stepping stone to women elders. Not only is this wrong, but again, in our denomination, it just isn't working out that way. 131 years into having women deacons, if my math is right, we are not even close to having women elders in the RPCNA. Let me close with this, though. Maybe you think that these ministries are good, but women don't need to be put into office to do them. And you're right about that, they don't. And God has made women strong in hidden ways, tougher than they look, ready to love and care for people who do not appreciate them. How else could they be mothers? But is it right to give people great responsibility but refuse them the honor that goes with that responsibility? We ordain male deacons even though their work could be done without the honor of ordination. We ordain elders, even though much of elders work, although not all of it, can be done without ordination. We have warrant from scripture, from the ancient churches, and from wisdom for the office of deaconesses. But think again about Proverbs 31. An excellent wife, who can find? She is far more precious than jewels. The heart of her husband trusts in her, and he will have no lack of gain. The excellent wife, or the mighty wife of Proverbs 31, is not just a model for Christian women to follow. She's a picture of the church, the bride of Jesus Christ, as she should be. An excellent church, who can find, her Lord and husband will have no lack of gain through her faithful service. The poem in Proverbs 31 chronicles and praises the work of the excellent wife. Twice we read, give her the fruit of her hands, And I believe that that means two things. First of all, it means give her the profit that she's creating by her hard work. And it means give her public honor that she deserves for it. A few chapters ahead in First Timothy, we find that elders who rule well are worthy of double honor, meaning payment, just as much as public acknowledgment. It is important for the practical structure of the church to match the paper structure of the church. That's why Presbyterians work so hard on getting church government right. As much as possible, those who have the honor of serving should do the work of serving, and those who do the work of serving should have the honor that goes with it. The Book of Proverbs ends with this exhortation, give her the fruit of her hands and let her works praise her in the gates. If women are likely to still work hard without public honor, Why give them public honor? Because it's right. And that's my word today. The work of deaconess is indispensable and the office is honorable. Give her the fruit of her hands, ordain her, and let her works praise her in the gates. Let me pray for us. Heavenly Father, we've just looked at a lot of stuff. And for some here, these words will be a little irritating. For some, they will be comforting or affirming. And for some, they will be brand new because they've just never given any thought to this question or this issue. We pray that you would continue to keep the promise that you made through your son, the Lord Jesus, that you would lead us into all truth. We pray that your spirit would work in us, not a spirit of division, not a spirit in which we emphasize what our rights are and we try to take precedence over one another, but a spirit of unity, and of common submission to your word. Lord, we want to be the people that Isaiah described, who tremble at your word. So, Lord, we pray that you would open our eyes, that we would see what is right. We pray that we would see what is right and you would give us courage to do it. We pray this not only about the question of whether women can serve in an ordained office of deacon in the church, but we pray this about the service which you are calling all of us, male or female, to in the context of the body of Christ. Lord, let us be found faithful in our day. And Lord, let us honor one another as we see one another carrying out faithful work before you. Lord God, we thank you for your word. In Jesus' name, amen.