Kay

Mark wrote: “The only two places to suggest women are included in this office are in 1 Tim 3 and Romans 16… To say this is definitive proof is very misleading to suggest. Let me explain, contextually in 1 Tim 3 to insert ‘gunaikas’ where Paul does is unusual, since the verse immediately afterward describes once again the idea of ‘husband of one wife’. The more natural reading would seem to suggest his intention is the ‘wives’ of the deacons talked about as the NIV translates. However it could also mean as you suggest, namely that women are included in the office of deacons. In Romans we have the same delimma. It could rightly mean that Pheobe is a deacon. But it could also equally mean that Paul is simply describing her as a servant.”

Mark,
One more thing I forgot yesterday…Please consider
that in 1 Timothy 3 the KJV, along with various other translations, translates this term as “their wives,” implying that the qualifications given in v. 11 refer to deacons’ wives, rather than to female deacons.
How do we determine which is the best translation? First of all, it is significant that the word “their” is not present in the Greek, although it would have been an expected construction if the intended meaning were “the deacons’ wives.” Most significant of all, however, in my opinion, is the fact that there is no corresponding allusion, in the section on the qualifications of overseers, referencing the overseers’ wives, even though both sections clearly indicate that both an overseer and a deacon should be “the husband of one wife” (or a “one-woman man”). Lest this be regarded as merely an oversight, in the parallel passage in Titus, Paul, while giving the qualifications of overseers, also writes that an overseer should be “the husband of one wife,” yet says nothing regarding the qualifications of the overseers’ wives. It appears highly unlikely, to me, that, in 1 Timothy 3, Paul would single out the deacons’ wives as having special qualifications, while, in the same passage, he completely passes over the qualifications of overseers’ wives. The logical implication, from my perspective, is that Paul, in v. 11, was not referring to “the deacons’ wives,” but rather to “women” in general.

Other translations (most notably, the NASB, the Contemporary English Version, and Young’s Literal Translation) translate this term as “women.” The NIV and ESV both include a footnote indicating either “deaconesses” or “women” as an alternate translation to “wives.”