Ridgell's Originals

One of the passages frequently studied when discussing deacons is Acts 6. Since my focus on these occasional posts is about the subject of women deacons, I am just going to make a few comments as it pertains to that subject.

First of all, this passage does not say the men selected here are deacons. The work is refered to by apostle's as "waiting on tables", but we have made the assumption these are deacons. Scripture does not say that.

They clearly selected men, not women, to do this ministry. They were told to select men. It seems the entire church, including women, was involved in the selection.

If there was ever a need that could have been filled by using women deacons, this would seem to be it. It was about taking care of widows. And I do not believe there were no women full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom. But it was seven men they chose. And, by the way, it does not say who actually did the work. They picked seven men to handle it. For all I know, they used women to do the actual organization.

I don't know if these men were married or not. I Timothy indicates deacons should be married. So either you assume these men were married, or you assume they were not deacons.

If you are convinced that deacons are men only, this is a great passage to use based on what you can infer. If you are convinced that women can be deacons, focus on the fact that the word deacon is not used here.

As for me, I would never teach that this proves women cannot be deacons. It does not say that. I do teach that men were selected to handle this potentially devisive crisis. Because that's what it says.

So were these men Deacons? Maybe. Maybe they were just ministry leaders. Maybe they were just seven wise, Godly men who fixed this problem. At least two of them (Stephen and Phillip) were preachers. But they were not women.

So what do you think? More to follow later.