{"id":8778,"date":"2019-12-10T22:36:25","date_gmt":"2019-12-11T04:36:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/?p=8778"},"modified":"2019-12-10T22:47:01","modified_gmt":"2019-12-11T04:47:01","slug":"does-the-bible-allow-for-women-deacons-no-says-alex-strauch-with-a-response-from-tom-schreiner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/?p=8778","title":{"rendered":"Does the Bible Allow for Women Deacons? No, Says Alex Strauch (with a response from Tom Schreiner)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Editor&rsquo;s note: We asked two scholars&mdash;Tom Schreiner and Alex Strauch&mdash;the question, &ldquo;Does the Bible allow for women deacons?&rdquo; Below, you&rsquo;ll find Alex&rsquo;s answer, as well as Tom&rsquo;s response. (You can read Tom&rsquo;s answer and Alex&rsquo;s response here.)<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>* * * * *&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Alex&rsquo;s answer:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>To determine the identity of the women in 1 Timothy 3:11, we first have to accurately identify the deacons of v. 8. Everything from church coffee-bar servers to the governing body of the local church has been proposed.<\/p>\n<p>Based on the newest lexical research, I contend that we should translate the Greek word&nbsp;<em>diakonoi<\/em>&nbsp;in 1 Timothy 3:8 not as &ldquo;deacons&rdquo; or &ldquo;servants,&rdquo; but as &ldquo;assistants.&rdquo;&nbsp;<a title=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/word2cleanhtml.com\/cleanit#_ftn1\" name=\"_ftnref1\">[1]<\/a>&nbsp;This translation tells us immediately the role of the&nbsp;<em>diakonoi<\/em>&nbsp;and fits well with the preceding context regarding the overseers (<em>episkopoi<\/em>). These officials are designated&nbsp;<em>diakonoi<\/em>, &ldquo;assistants,&rdquo; because of their close and dependent relationship with the&nbsp;<em>episkopoi<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Paul most likely intended this special usage of&nbsp;<em>diakonos&nbsp;<\/em>because, as Clarence Agan III succinctly and correctly explains, the term:<\/p>\n<p>better captures the intermediary function Paul had in mind. He was thinking of a role that involved being simultaneously in-and-under authority&mdash;under the authority of the elders, but having authority over the congregation to carry out tasks as needed.&nbsp;<em>Diakonos<\/em>&nbsp;provided a clear way to<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Can women serve as deacons? Yes, says Tom Schreiner.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[793],"tags":[1313,1314,312],"class_list":["post-8778","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9marks","tag-complementarianism-a-moment-of-reckoning","tag-deacons","tag-leadership","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8778","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8778"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8778\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8780,"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8778\/revisions\/8780"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8778"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}