Cheryl Schatz

Hi Craig and welcome to my blog!

1 Timothy 3:11 fits in really well with 1 Timothy 3:1 where Paul states that “anyone” can desire the work of an overseer. The issue of “husband of one wife” is specifically set up to refer to men’s qualifications in both the overseer (elder) and deacon since only men were allowed to be polygamists but in case anyone would think this would qualify only men to do he work of an elder or deacon Paul specifically mentions women in verse 11. Some will attach women only to deacons by saying that these women are the deacon’s wives but this seems highly unlikely. First of all there is no possessive form for women that would make these the wives of the deacons. Secondly if one makes “women” attached only to deacons, it would not be understandable why only the deacon’s wives would have to have qualifications and elder’s wives would not.

I believe that the most consistent understand of “women” in 1 Tim. 3:11 is that Paul is specifically giving the same qualifications to women who desire to be elders or deacons. He wouldn’t even need to mention women in the text for the entire set of qualifications to refer to women except for the phrase “husband of one wife”. Thus the term “likewise” will connect the qualifications of women to both deacons and elders.

Some will say that since Phoebe was a woman deacon, then the “likewise” can connect women to deacons but they refuse to allow women also to be qualified to elders saying that they see the women only attached to deacons. But Paul has already qualified in 1 Timothy 3:1 that “anyone” can desire to the work of an overseer. If “anyone” can desire this work, and Paul does not say “any male may desire the work”, then we should be able to understand that “women likewise” connects the qualifications of overseer/elder and deacon with women.

The biggest problem for complementarians has been trying to explain how women can be deacons yet they cannot be elders when the term “husband of one wife” is used for both. I have yet to hear any clear answer to this problem for the complementarian camp.

My answer would be that the issue of polygamy which apparently was a problem in the early church caused Paul to specifically set up a qualification that would not allow those who are polygamists to act in any kind of service to the church that would set them up as leaders to follow their example. While they could be part of the body of Christians and they were not required to divorce all their wives but one to be baptized, they were not allowed to be set up as examples to the flock. Women didn’t have that problem as there was no legal precedent that allowed women to have more than one husband, but their inclusion in the list “women likewise” showed that Paul’s setting up qualifications was not meant to exclude women, but only to exclude polygamists.

Is this helpful?