Kristen

Mark said:
“I am still interested to know why you think ’one woman man’ is generic (and thus includes female overseers) and yet why Paul needs to single out ’gyne’ in verse 11 since in your own admission it is a restatement of verses 8-10. You seem to talk around in contradictions. I’ll leave it here for you to answer that one query of mine. If Paul is truly being generic (in verse 1-7) why do you state that Paul has instructions for men and then women (in verse 8-13)?”

You have to think about the way the original reader would think, and how the Greek worked. Now, I’m not a Greek scholar, but I do understand what inclusive male-gendered language is, because we used to do the same thing in English, and I am old enough to remember when it was very common.
So looking at the passage again:
Chapter 3 opens with “Whoever [the Greek word there is gender-inclusive] aspires to be an overseer desires a noble task.” Then it goes into the qualifications for an overseer, including “husband of one wife” (which is gender inclusive also. Now, even though Paul uses gender-inclusive language, he does not specifically mention women in the context of overseers. There, we are in agreement. But what Paul does by using gender-inclusive language is to allow for the possibility that women could aspire to this position. However, it is quite possible, since Paul doesn’t mention women specifically, that there were no women overseers at that time. However, he was not assuming that women could never be overseers, or forbid them from aspiring to the position. If he had been, he would not have used the gender-inclusive “whoever” at the beginning of this section.
Then Paul moves on to deacons. He uses the “likewise” to say that the qualifications for deacons are of the same general nature as the qualifications for overseers. Then he speaks of the qualifications for deacons as I described earlier. Now Paul does go ahead and specifically mention women. The thing about saying he is referring to deacon’s wives, and not female deacons, is that it raises the question of why he did not say anything about overseers’ wives in verses 1-7. Overseers were allowed to be married. If Paul is saying that in order for a man to be a deacon, his wife must also rise to a certain level of character, why no such qualifications for overseers’ wives?
It makes more sense that Paul is referring to female deacons. This does, as you said, raise the question of why, if the passage about deacons as a whole is considered gender-inclusive, does Paul specifically raise the issue of qualifications for female deacons? The answer, of course, lies in the mindset of the ancient Greek reader.
When the masculine gender in the English language was considered to be gender inclusive (it still is, in some ways, but is getting less and less so), a person reading about “men” could only guess from the context whether the writer was referring to a group of males only, or a group of males and females. The context was everything. If a writer starts out by talking about “men,” and then later in the same context, mentions “women,” the reader can from that context understand that both women and men are being included in the word “men.”
It would work this way with “deacons.” The word “deacon” could be construed as referring only to male deacons, or it could be construed as referring to male and female deacons both. The reader can only tell from the context. In this case, Paul starts out by talking about “deacons” in a sense in which it is not clear at all whether he means males and females, or males only. So by adding the section about “women,” and using the word “likewise,” he makes it clear that he intends to differentiate between male and female deacons, and yet to include both under the general word “deacon.” The qualifications for women deacons are, as I said, roughly parallel to the first set of qualifications– but also (as Craig said) slightly different, because women and men in that culture faced different sorts of temptations that deacons were expected to rise above.
The last section includes words about deacons’ relationships with their families. It is interesting to note that the passage says nothing about deacons– presuming they were male– properly governing their wives– no, only a deacon’s “children” and “household” are mentioned as being the subjects of such government.
Of course we know that both men and women should be faithful in marriage! But it would seem strange, since Paul took the trouble to set forth roughly parallel commands for men and women, if the commands about being a good spouse, parent and household manager only applied to men in this section. Later in 1 Timothy Chapter 5, verse 14, Paul specifically mentions that young married women (namely widows who have remarried), are to “rule their households (the word is “oikodespotes” — the noun form of this word was used by Jesus to refer to the “master of the house.”) Clearly household government was not restricted only to men. And surely Paul expected women to keep their children under control!
This is why it makes sense for “one-woman man,” among the other phrases referring to deacons’ family relationships, to be gender inclusive.