Does the Bible teach that women can be deacons?

I have been preaching through the Pastoral Epistles at my church, and a few Sundays ago I delivered a message on deacons from 1 Timothy 3:8-16. You can listen to the sermon below or download it here....

The second point of the sermon focuses on verse 11 and deals with whether Paul intends for women to serve as deacons. This is a controversial question, and I obviously don’t treat it exhaustively in this sermon. Nevertheless, here’s where I came down.

¹¹ Women must likewise be dignified, not malicious gossips, but temperate, faithful in all things.

Verse 11 actually sticks out a little bit in context. Why would Paul drop in a reference to “women” in a passage about deacons? Read more

Amid the news of the appointment of the Church of England's first woman bishop, I thought that it would be interesting to visit the issue of the ordination of women, in this particular case women deacons. Two objections can be raised to women in ordained ministry. The first objection is the lack of a clear scriptural warrant for their ordination as deacons, much less as elder-overseers (or presbyter-bishops). The second objection is more complicated. The movement for the ordination of women is driven by humanistic and secular concerns more than theological ones. One of the unfortunate developments arising from the humanist, secular nature of this movement is that too many women pursuing ordination and attending seminary to that end become influenced by theological liberalism and religious pluralism. This is not to say that women are particularly susceptible to these influences as opposed to men but the environment that women's ordination movement creates and in which it flourishes tends to promote these influences.