WWUTT 1630 Q&A Women Pastors, Women Deacons, Women Evangelists

Prayer for Christians in Ukraine and Taiwan

Can a woman be a deacon? Is Roman 16 .1 describing Phoebe as a deacon? And how about an evangelist preaching the gospel on the street? Can a woman do that? The answers to these questions and others, when we understand the text.

This is When We Understand The Text, a daily Bible study in the word of Christ, and the teaching that accords with godliness. Tell your friends about our ministry at www .utt .com. Here once again is Pastor Gabe.

Thank you Becky. You're welcome. Good to have you this week. Yeah. Didn't think we were going to make it though. Yeah. Another week in a row. Yeah. Ice out there on the roads. Yep. Ice everywhere. The trees are hanging real low too.

Yeah. Kind of burdened with the ice. The leaves on the trees are hanging really low. The leaves on the trees? Yeah. There's still leaves on trees. Not all of them. I didn't notice that. But some of them.

Mm-hmm. We still have some around our yard that have leaves on them.

Well, we still have leaves around our yard too. Well, you know. We didn't really take care of that when they were falling from the trees. That's all right. We're protecting the grass. Well, this being the Friday edition of the broadcast, we take questions from the listeners and you can send those questions to whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com.

Before we get to that though, we'd like to take a moment here at the beginning of the program, pray for people in the Ukraine. Mm-hmm. Pray for those in Taiwan. Yes. Now, at the time that we're recording this, there hasn't been an invasion of Taiwan, but there's threats of that happening.

Mm-hmm. Russia has invaded the Ukraine. And I don't know if you've seen some of the video footage that's out there that's been floating around on social media. But it's heartbreaking. Yeah. Seeing some of the stuff that's happening in the Ukraine.

So let's pray for Christians there and in Taiwan, and then we'll get to our questions today. Heavenly Father, we thank you for the goodness that you show to us in our Savior Jesus Christ, who died for our sins, who rose from the grave so that all who believe in him will not perish, but we will have everlasting life.

We know that Christ is seated on his throne. No one can unseat Christ. And we have the promise in scripture that he is going to return to judge the nations with a rod of iron. He will put an end to all of this chaos, all of the evil and destruction that we see going on in the world.

But in the meantime, we continue to to live through and endure in the midst of the effects of sin and war being one of those things that is the result of sin in this world. As Christians in the Ukraine are no doubt very fearful of of the war and the destruction that's going on around them.

I pray that you would hold them up, that you would give them strength, that there would still be some strong pastors there who are shepherding the people of God with the word of God, that they would put their hope and trust not in military might, but they put their trust in Christ.

No matter what the outcome of this conflict would be, they continue to hold fast to Jesus. And though many may die in the midst of this conflict, it is in knowing the Lord that we ultimately triumph and we conquer with him.

We pray for Christians in Taiwan as well, as they're looking at the threat of an invasion of China coming against them, that you would strengthen Christians there also. And we know that even in these nations that are declaring war, China, Russia or anywhere else, there are Christians in those nations, too.

And may they be a light of the gospel of Jesus Christ in those countries in which we live. When it comes to picking sides, we need to be on the side of Christ. And Lord Jesus, come quickly. Put an end to these things.

May your kingdom come and your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. It's in Jesus' name that we pray. Amen. Amen. All right. We continue to remember Christians in your prayers. Remembering people in these nations as you pray.

And teach your kids about it. Let them know about some of these events that are going on in the world and teaching them how to pray as we see this conflict that's taking place. Yeah.

And there's lots of our soldiers over there, too. That's true.

In the U .S. Yeah. So Becky and I had heard just a few mornings ago. Remember that we were at First Southern Baptist Church in Junction City, which is a military church because of Fort Riley being right there.

So we're still connected with a lot of that military community. And we had heard that there were some soldiers who were just days from coming home. Yeah. And their return has been postponed indefinitely because of the crisis that's happening in the Ukraine.

Yeah. And that was before Ukraine was invaded and everything. So they kind of, they were, yeah. It's heartbreaking.

Romans 16, 1 and 2 and Phoebe as a Servant

So yeah. Being in prayer for our own soldiers as well. Yes. Let's get to the questions here. This first one comes from John and he says, Good evening, Pastor Gabriel. Really enjoy your teaching. My question is from Romans 16, 1 and 2, where Phoebe is described as a deaconess.

Does this contradict 1 Timothy 2, 9 through 15? So John didn't indicate this, but I kind of wonder if this question has something to do with what I said last week on the Q &A, which you weren't here for.

Right. You could have been here. I could have. And helped me make sure that I had all my bases covered. But it didn't happen. It didn't happen. We talked about, we talked about women pastors last week, but I kind of brushed over the whole deaconess thing and said, yeah, agree to disagree there.

Now my position, of course, is that only men can be deacons. We'll look at that here as we go to 1 Timothy 2. But I just said, you know, there's kind of some, I don't remember exactly how I put it, but an agree to disagree sort of a position on women serving as deacons.

I don't see a church where women are deacons in the same kind of disobedience as a church where a woman is a pastor, because we see a direct prohibition in 1 Timothy 2 about how a woman cannot teach or have authority over a man.

But then when you get to the qualifications of a deacon in 1 Timothy 3, it's very clear there we're talking about men holding those positions as deacons. And then their wives can serve with them. So there's even, you know, character qualities that a deacon's wife is supposed to have.

That's described there in 1 Timothy 3, which is why to me it's clearly speaking about only men serving as deacons. But there are churches that will read something like in Romans 16, where Phoebe is described as a servant.

And the Greek word there, when you go to the Greek is deaconos, which is the feminine form of deacon. Okay. So therefore, you have women serving as deacons in the early church, so it's okay for us to have deacons in the present church.

That's the argument. Anyway. Women deacons? Yeah. What did I say? I don't know. You just said deacons in our church. Yeah, just deacons. Deacons who are women in the church presently. Okay. So in Romans 16, beginning in verse 1, now I commend to you our sister Phoebe, who is a servant of the church, which is at Syncriae, that you would receive her in the Lord in a manner worthy of the saints, and that you help her in whatever matter she may have need of you, for she herself has also been a benefactor of many and of myself as well.

So the fact there in verse 1 that it says she is a servant of the church, which is at Syncriae, it's that word that's the same word for deacon. So is Phoebe being called a deacon? Now my first argument against the idea that she's being called a deacon is that the text doesn't say that.

Right. It would say it very plainly. Right. It doesn't assign her to an office or a position as deacon. It just simply says she's a servant.

Right. Deacon is the word servant. I look at the functioning of our church and how many women are involved with caring for, like whenever somebody passes away, they're there caring for the family. When somebody has a baby, they're caring for the family.

They're doing Bible studies and helping one another and lifting each other up, making sure that everybody is well taken care of. Prayer groups and care groups. Yes. Share groups. And taking care of the babies.

I mean, there's a lot of servanthood. Feeding you guys.

Yeah. You guys get a lot of food. That's right. It's a Baptist church in Texas. We got good cooks here.

That's the truth. And I reap from that because you bring it home too. But anyway, so there's a lot of servants in our church that are women, but they're not deacons.

None of them have to be deacons to serve that way. So anyway. Now, whenever we have a deacon that fills in the position, we're looking not only at his character, but we're also looking at his wife's character.

Of course. Once again, you have that in 1 Timothy 3. But before getting there, let's kind of finish up with Romans 16. Sure. So it's not ascribing to Phoebe a title of deacon. It's just simply describing her as a servant.

Now, when you expand the context a little bit here, you discover that Paul had referred to Jesus as a servant. Chapter 15, verse 8. For I say that Christ has become a servant to the circumcision on behalf of the truth of God to confirm the promises given to the fathers and for the Gentiles to glorify God for his mercy as it is written.

Therefore, I will give praise to you among the Gentiles, and I will sing to your name. So Christ being a servant to Jews and to Gentiles. And then later on, Paul refers to himself as a servant. This is skipping down to verse 30.

Now, I urge you, brothers, by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the spirit to strive together with me in your prayers to God for me, that I may be rescued from those who are disobedient in Judea and that my service for Jerusalem may prove acceptable to the saints so that I may come to you in joy by the will of God and find rest in your company.

Then chapter 16, verse 1. Now, I commend to you our sister Phoebe, who is a servant of the church, which is at Syncriae. So you're seeing this theme of servant all the way through. Yeah. Christ is not a deacon.

Paul is not a deacon. It's just a word describing their service. And then Phoebe gets included in that. Yeah. And she's the first one mentioned there in chapter 16. It's a huge thing for a woman at the start of Paul's conclusion to this letter to the of those whom you should praise and give thanks for because they are servants on your behalf.

The first one he mentions is Phoebe. Wasn't it thought of that women can't do anything but what they're in charge of? So like they're less than men kind of thing. Well, yeah. In the society. Yes. Yeah.

It was right.

It was considered that women were less. Huge. Yes, exactly. It was a big, big deal. Yes. Right. That Paul would name Phoebe first. Yeah. Among those people who are serving the church. And like you said, the women that we have do so much here in our church.

Oh my goodness, so much. They don't have to be deacons. Yeah. In order to hold those spots. Why do you want to be a deacon? Is it because you want to hold a title? You want to have an office? That recognition.

Yeah. Then are you sure you're going into that for the right reasons? Like, is your heart in the right place? Or are you willing to be submissive to what God has said in his word? So now let's go to those qualifications for deacons.

First of all, with 1 Timothy 2, because that was the question that John asked. He said, does it contradict? Does Romans 16, 1 and 2 contradict 1 Timothy 2, 9 to 15? Well, first of all, we established there that the reference to Phoebe as a servant is not calling her a deacon.

You're reading something into the text that it doesn't say. You want to see that there. Yeah. You want to see her called a deacon whenever you read Romans 16, 1 that way. So now considering the prohibition against women teaching that we have in 1 Timothy 2, 11.

A woman must learn in quietness in all submission, but I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet. For it was Adam who was formed first and then Eve. So we go to the order of creation.

This is the way that God had established it from the beginning. And what I mentioned last week, reading it from 1 Corinthians 14, is that Paul says the law also says this, that the woman is supposed to not put herself in a position of teaching, but rather be in submission and remain quiet.

That's according to the law. And that may be in the same way that Paul references it here as he's going back to Genesis. Of course, that's part of the Torah, part of the law. So Adam's formed first and then Eve, and it was not Adam who was deceived, but the woman was deceived and fell into transgression.

Right. So because Adam was formed first and Eve was deceived first, that's why women are prohibited from holding teaching positions with authority over men. Verse 15, but she will be saved through the bearing of children if they continue in faith and love and sanctification with self-restraint.

Now, as I'm sitting here reading this and explaining this, my wife is sitting next to me nodding the whole time. Yep.

Well, I was also going to say, even though he commends Phoebe, and she was the first person of the congregation that he, you know, like, I mean, he puts her name in the Bible.

Yeah, right. It's a huge deal.

And but he makes sure to say that even though I feel that women are very important, they are not over to be holding office over a man. Right.

And that does not make her less than a man. Right. In fact, this is a very important role that women play to be in submission in the church, because as Paul describes it in Ephesians chapter five, she's a picture of the way that the whole church is to submit to Christ.

So as. That's pressure. As a wife is to be in submission to her husband, so the whole church is to be in submission to Christ. She's not less than the man. Right. In fact, the statement that Peter gives.

Yeah. The statement that Peter gives in first Peter three, seven, is that a husband is supposed to love his wife as the weaker vessel, knowing that they are fellow heirs with you. They're fellow heirs of the kingdom of God.

Yes. It's not that women get anything less than men do. We're all receiving Christ and we all receive his kingdom. Right. So there's the prohibition against women teaching or functioning as a pastor or holding that office as a pastor, the way that Paul puts it there in first Timothy two, skipping the qualifications for a pastor in first Timothy three, one through seven, we go down to the qualifications for deacons starting in verse eight.

So if you go back and you read those qualifications for overseers, only men, even there in the context, it's clearly only men can fill that position, that office as an overseer of the church. Verse eight, deacons likewise must be dignified, not double tongued, not indulging in much wine, not fond of dishonest gain, but holding to the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience.

And these men must also first be tested. Then let them serve as deacons. If they are beyond reproach, women likewise must be dignified, not malicious gossips, but temperate, faithful in all things. Deacons must be husbands of only one wife leading their children and their own households well for those who have served well as deacons obtained for themselves a high standing and great boldness in the faith that is in Christ Jesus.

Now, the confusion there, of course, is going to be verse 11, where it makes the statement, women must likewise be dignified. Is that what you're going to say? Yeah.

So what was your question then? Just clarify that because it sounds like he's talking to men and then addressing women and then mentioning the husbands with wives, right?

And it depends on what translation you read, right? Because I'm reading out of the legacy standard. If you read out of the ESV, they go ahead and take the extra step of saying in verse 11, their wives must likewise also be dignified.

Right.

Could this be back to Jesus's language whenever he called his mom woman? I mean, we look at it as derogatory, but back then it was acceptable. Yeah. That was a title of respect. Right. Right. So yeah.

Like Mrs. or whatever, you know.

In the context that we have here, it would be understood that we're talking about those deacons' wives. Okay. Because notice that there's nothing that's said there about. If it were the situation where a woman is serving as a deacon, what must her husband do?

Yeah. And it doesn't say that.

He couldn't be lazy. Yeah. I mean, it would go through the qualifications of the husband of a deacon if it was allowing women deacons. Yeah. Yeah. Right.

If a woman was a deacon. Yeah. What would be his requirements as the husband of a woman who's a deacon? Which the text doesn't give, but it does give that, you know, it says in the very next verse that a deacon must be husbands of only one wife.

So therefore, we're seeing qualifications for a wife. We don't see a wife can serve as a deacon and now here's the qualifications for her husband. Yeah. So hence why that statement there in verse 11, women must likewise is in reference to wives.

It's in reference to the deacon's wives. Gotcha. When it comes to service in the church, you're talking about, you know, hands and feet, mercy work, charitable service in the church. When a husband does this, a wife will be serving with him.

Right. Because that's not a position of authority.

Either serving with him or being supportive and letting him serve. Because that's a big deal too. Well, sure.

But a wife does that. Keeping the house to let him go. Yeah. Right. But a wife of an elder does that too. True. But you don't have qualifications for elders wives in verses one through seven. You only have that he must keep his house in order.

Right. True. But she doesn't have qualifications she has to meet in order for him to be an elder. Ah, okay. But with regards to deacon serving. They would serve. The wives have requirements because she's likely going to be serving with her husband.

Gotcha. In the work that they do together for the church. You can't step up into the pulpit and help me preach.

I do not that I would want to. Oh, my goodness.

Yeah. You know how much I have to work on this woman to get her to join me on the podcast. You know. And she's so good at it. And everybody knows you're good at it. Thank you. But yeah, we got to work to get her in here.

And she's done a couple of messages for women and stuff like that too. But that even takes some coaxing. Oh, my goodness. To get you to do that. And I'm so happy when it's over. And then she's embarrassed for days.

Stressing about it. Ahead of time. So bad. And then even after. I know you got a stage fright. I just wish I could get you. I wish I could work out of you because you have such a great voice. It's okay.

It may always be the thing for Becky. Let the people around me appreciate my voice.

I talk enough during the day. That's right. Just good conversation and laughter. You can enjoy my voice that way instead of getting up and teaching. But yeah. So anyway, the point being she can't step up into the pulpit and help me teach.

The scripture prohibits that. Right. But if I were going to somebody's house to go pray with them or take them a meal, Becky could do that with me. Right. And that would be, you know, kind of same sort of work that a deacon would do.

Caring for those physical needs of people within the congregation. Very true. All right. So did we cover that one? That was the detail that I didn't give last week. I just brushed right over the whole Roman 16 thing.

And just since we were just focusing on, yeah, women can't be pastors. Deacons, you know, we can agree to disagree there. Now, I hold that only a man can be a deacon. But if a church has a woman as a deacon, I don't see that as being like a deliberate disobedience.

Because there's no prohibition that's given. A woman can't serve in a deacon spot. There's nothing that says that. But 1 Timothy 2 does plainly say that she can't teach or have that authority over a man.

Rather, she's to remain quiet.

Right. Now, my question for you, to kind of piggyback that part, is how old are... Because we can teach children.

But what's the age cutoff? For the age cutoff?

Yeah, where a boy becomes a man. I mean, is it 18 or... Because that's here in the United States, but that's not... Oh, when he can become a deacon? No, like when she needs to quit teaching men.

Oh, I see what you're saying. I would say, I mean, I really don't think that women should be teaching high school boys. Gotcha. So you're talking about boys that are hitting puberty at that point. The woman's got to be out.

There needs to be a man there that's raising up those young men. Gotcha. So once you get to teenager, 13, 14, something like that, you need to be sure that those young men have men that are leading them and discipling them, and that a woman is not teaching them.

Now, that's different than a woman serving as a sponsor for a youth group or something like that. Right. Now, even all that in itself is complicated because there's not a biblical model for youth groups.

Yep, there's not. Eric and I, he's the youth leader here at First Baptist Church. We've had this conversation before. He said, if anybody ever came to the church and said, we need to abolish the youth group because there's no biblical precedent, I would be there like, well, yep, they're right.

I can't stand up and defend the youth group biblically because it's not there. But he does such a great job. Oh, he does. He does a great job with the youth. Just fabulous. And our daughter's in there, of course, so she's 14 now and getting baptized soon.

Yes, praise the Lord. Our first kid to be baptized is coming up soon.

Hopefully the first of many. Oh, of course, yeah.

The rest of the kids want to. They all really want to. This is true. But it's still a matter of, are they ready for it yet?

These are discernment things. Ezekiel, you know, we've had to talk with him about it.

He's still with wide eyes, just kind of looking around, wondering what we're talking about. But yeah, these are discernment matters. Sorry. There's not an age as, you know, as you had just brought up, where's the cutoff?

You know, when you said that, I thought we were talking about in the context of deacons, and you were either saying, at what age can a boy become a deacon? Okay. Or were you saying, I knew you weren't asking this, but since you use the expression cutoff, I was like, at what point does a guy get too old to be a deacon?

Cut him off. Right there. He can't be a deacon anymore. That's sad. Let's just say 199. Yeah, that's a good number. If he gets up to that, yeah, cut him off there. He can't have 200-year-old deacons walking around in your church.

That's just too old. Yeah.

That's what I thought you were asking. That's terrible. I'm glad you didn't think I was asking that, because that's awful.

But some of these things, when it comes to dealing with ages, like even if we were to ask the question, how old does a person have to be before they can become a deacon? Or how old do they have to be before they can be a pastor?

I was ordained at 29. Yeah. All of those are discernment matters. Right. There are some who are pastors that I would say are 50 and shouldn't be ordained, you know? So there's going to be a qualification thing.

There's going to be a maturity level thing. I don't think we should be ordaining 21-year-olds. They just don't have enough life experience. You get into the problem of getting a guy that's too young, and he gets too full of himself, too big in his head.

That definitely would have been me. I mean, I can say for certain, if I had been ordained at 19, 20, 21, somewhere in there, I just would have been way too full of myself. That would have been much too early.

And I've been filling the pulpit. I've been preaching in churches since I was 17. That was too young. I may have had a pretty good grasp or a pretty good knowledge of scripture at that time, but I just did not have

I wasn't mature enough. I was not self-controlled enough. And there were still ways that I was thinking of in my life that I could have certain sins that nobody's going to find out about instead of having a real fear of God and a conviction of the exercise of his word.

Right. So anyway, yeah, that goes back over a decade.

So we've kind of taken your question, and we've kind of

Yeah, we spun it off into something else. Yeah, we spread it out a little. The deacon question, I think that a person can be younger and become a deacon. Okay. Then putting a position or then putting a young guy in a position of pastor.

Because even in the qualifications of pastor, it says that he must not be a recent convert or he may become conceited and fall into the condemnation of the devil. So a guy who just became a Christian six months ago is not ready to suddenly become a pastor, no matter how on fire for the word he is.

You would expect to see that in a new believer. Right. That he's really on fire for the word. Don't platform him too quickly. Disciple that guy. Right. Grow him and see if that desire to want to teach, to want to become a pastor, is something genuine and not just some passing enthusiasm that he had at one particular point.

But with a deacon, with a guy serving in the church, you're going to have young guys that are serving before they become deacons. Deacons are always serving before they're made deacons. Right. So you can find some young men in the church that are probably doing that.

And then, you know, in their young 20s, you see this is a good man who's able to lead in service. And so we can give him that kind of a position. And as he continues to be discipled, maybe that even turns into something bigger in his ministry.

Yeah.

Especially in today. Definitely mentor the younger or the new in faith. Yeah. Because they need to be led in that way. And if you see something in him, by all means, take that and nourish that and make it grow.

Did you say take that and nurse that? Nourish. Nourish. Like, I get what you're saying. That's just probably not the word I would use.

Especially from a man. Don't don't nurse him. No, give him meat. That's right. There you go. Give him a bone. Feed that guy. Grow up on the meat and potatoes of the word. There you go. All right. We did have one other question here.

I'm not sure how much time we got for it now. We've been talking about that most of the time. We have. This is from Eunice. She says, hi, I've been binge watching your videos. Aww. Praise the Lord. And I have learned a lot.

Hallelujah. That's that's her word. I added the praise the Lord. She threw the hallelujah in there. Sweet. So she says, what does the Bible say about a woman doing open air street preaching or evangelizing like John, Jesus, Peter, et cetera?

Is it the same as a woman should not become a pastor? So in other words, the question she's asking is same prohibitions that we see here in First Timothy two against a woman becoming a pastor. Therefore, should a a woman not be an evangelist like a street evangelist?

What would your thoughts be?

Women Evangelizing in the Street

Well, we're all called to evangelize. So I would say that it's OK. But preaching on the street, that would be different. Yeah. Depends on what exactly she's trying to say.

Yeah. I mean, if you're going out there on the street and you're handing out tracks and you're sharing the gospel with people, that's perfectly fine. Right. In fact, I would think that's what we see Priscilla doing.

Right. In Acts chapter 18. So just be sure that if you're married, you're still in submission to the headship of your husband. You're not going out and doing something in rebellion against him. And I would hope he would want to join you.

Right. So you're going out there and you're sharing the gospel, doing street evangelism or walking up to strangers or however you do. Under the care of your pastor. Yeah, that too. Right. Anybody who goes out and does evangelism, make sure your church knows that you're doing that.

Definitely. Especially because, I mean, the way that the world gets and this can differ according to where you live as well. You might live somewhere a little more hostile toward open air preaching than other places.

But if you get arrested, if you get fined or arrested or something like that, you're even told to move on. Like you can't be preaching here. You got to go over there and do whatever it might happen to be.

You need to be sure that your church is aware that those things are happening so that your church can come and defend you and stand up alongside you if the law comes against you. Right. In a situation where, you know, here in America, exercising your freedom of speech and freedom of religion rights that you can.

It's not always there. Yeah, that's true. There's a lot of persecution that goes on in the United States. Even though we have these constitutional freedoms, you might be sure that you can stand up in court and make a defense for yourself because of the laws that have been established.

But that doesn't mean you won't get persecuted. Right. It still does happen. But anyway, so let's say, though, that a woman is standing up on a soapbox and she's doing street preaching. OK. She's got a Bible open in her hand.

She is proclaiming, repent, turn to Jesus Christ for the day of judgment is coming. Can she do that? I don't know. It's kind of sticky. What would you say? Oh, I'd say that's just fine. Yeah. Yeah. Go for it.

It's still evangelizing. Yep. It's still evangelizing. She's out there doing some street preaching, and I hope they hear her preaching and they come to believe in the gospel. That's not the church. True.

She's standing out there in a sinful, wicked world where people are going to hell and she's calling them to repentance, to follow Jesus Christ. She is not standing in a church over the people of God where the scriptures clearly say that in the household of God, overseers are supposed to be men.

She's not an overseer of these people. She's just standing out there proclaiming the gospel. And the men that are there who do not believe in the gospel of Christ, well, she is God's judgment upon them.

Yeah. Because they should be, as men of God, believing in the gospel of Christ, and they should be standing on that box proclaiming the gospel. Very true. But she's there declaring the judgment of God if you do not repent and turn to the Lord Jesus Christ.

So may there be men who would be convicted and turn to the Lord. Yeah. You know, it was Akilah and Priscilla together who went to Apollos and pulled him aside and let him know that the message that he was proclaiming was not the complete gospel, because he only knew up to the baptism of John.

He didn't know about Christ's death, his resurrection, ascension into glory, the promise of him coming back again to judge the living and the dead, and that it was through Christ that God would judge the world in righteousness.