Does the Gender of the Nouns of the Leadership Positions in the Church Age Indicate That They’re Gender Specific?

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DOES THE GENDER OF THE NOUNS RELATED TO THE NAMES OF THE OFFICE GIFTS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT CHURCH FOUND IN THE BOOK OF EPHESIANS INDICATE THAT THEY ARE GENDER-SPECIFIC IN THE CHURCH AGE?

What is the gender ascribed to the names of each of the leadership positions of the New Testament church found in the Book of Ephesians? If the gender is masculine for each of these nouns, then does this indicate that there won’t be a noun found in the female gender that pertains to each of these offices? Let’s begin by looking at the names and gender of each of the nouns that relate to the leadership positions of the New Testament church, which are found in this book.

Ephesians 4:11 And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers;

The office leadership gifts that are given to some members of the body of Christ are mentioned here as being those of apostles, prophets, evangelists, and pastor-teachers. What is the gender of each of these nouns?

● The word apostles is translated from the Greek word apostolos, which is a masculine plural accusative noun.

● The word prophets is translated from the Greek word profeétas, which is a masculine plural accusative noun.

● The word evangelists is translated from the Greek word euangelistas, which is a masculine plural accusative noun.

● The word pastors is translated from the Greek word poimenas, which is a masculine plural accusative noun.

● The word teachers is translated from the Greek word didaskalous, which is a masculine plural accusative noun.

It’s pretty apparent that each of these leadership positions is in the masculine gender.

Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, unto the church of God which is at Corinth, with all the saints which are in all Achaia:

In 2 Corinthians 1:1, Paul is being addressed as an apostle. Both words apostle and Paul are in the masculine gender. As in Hebrew, which we looked at in the last chapter, so as herein Koine Greek, the gender of a noun indicates that the name of the person, who is associated or being ascribed to it, will be of the same gender.

With that said, if we were to draw a conclusion based on the fact that each of the office gifts mentioned is male in gender, we could easily conclude that only males could occupy these positions, end of story. Right? But wait a minute! This leaves us with one fundamental question that still remains to be answered. Is there an example in Scripture of a position of responsibility in the New Testament church in which the initial rending of the noun associated with it was also male, but later it was found out that another noun existed, albeit, in obscurity, that indicated that there was a female rendering of this position?

There’s another position that we have already looked at but will look at again, which is not named as one of the office leadership gifts. This position involved the practical skill of making sure that the widows of the church were adequately cared for. A person who was appointed to this position was called a deacon. Will this position provide us insight as to whether the calling to any of the office gifts is gender-specific?

Suggested Reading: Acts 6:1-6

3 Wherefore, brethren, look ye out among you seven men of honest report, full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business.

There arose a complaining of the Grecian Jews against the Hebrews because their widows were overlooked in the daily administration of money and food. The apostles recommended that the brethren choose seven men of honest report, who were full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom whom they may appoint over this matter. This would allow the apostles to continue in prayer and to the ministry of the Word. Seven men were chosen, voted on, and brought before the apostles, who prayed for them while laying their hands on their [heads,] which was a gesture signifying commissioning and granting of authority.14

1 Timothy 3:8 Likewise must the deacons be grave, not double-tongued, not given to much wine, not greedy of filthy lucre;

At this time, there was no word used to describe this position. However, in another book, the Book of 1 Timothy, it was declared that the word deacons would be the name designated for this position. This word is transliterated from the Greek word Diakónous, which is a masculine plural accusative noun. Not only are the qualifications for this position mentioned, but what is also contained in the same chapter are the qualifications of a particular office position in the church, namely that of pastor-teacher. And by the way, some of the qualifications for either designation is similar. In both cases, the word used to denote a pastor or a bishop, and the word for those who care for the widows of the church, deacons, are in the male gender. If we included the gender rendering for the office gifts from Ephesians 4, then we might also conclude that the position of deacon can only be held by a male. Right?

So, where do we go from here? Should we agree with the conjecture that the position of responsibility of caring for Christian widows can only be performed by males? Or ask the only question left to be answered in this respect. Is there a female rendering of the masculine nouns, deacon, or deacons? In other words, is there such a position of responsibility called a deaconess? Let’s find out. Please open your Bible to 1 Timothy chapter 3.

1 Timothy 3:11 Even so must their wives be grave, not slanderers, sober, faithful in all things.

At first glance, when reading this verse, it appears that like their husbands, who are deacons, their wives, if the deacon is married, should also exhibit certain spiritual qualities in their own lives. If this is how this verse is to be translated, then we could state that their wives must be grave (dignified, which invites respect), not slanderers (not false accusers; not those who say harmful things about others), sober (conduct that is free from any form of excess), and faithful (honest and absolutely trustworthy) in all things.

However, is it possible that this verse could be interpreted in a different way? In a way which might indicate that we’re not talking about the wives of deacons, but of women who are also called to the position of deaconess.

Let’s take another look at some of the words in this verse.

Even so must their wives be grave, not slanderers, sober, faithful in all things.

● The words Even so introduce a second or third in a series. The series here is of Church officials.15

● The words must their is not in the original manuscripts.

● The word wives could either mean women or wives.

Because the possessive pronoun their is missing, then the verse could be translated as:

Even so, wives must be… or in this way, Even so, women must be.

Most of the ancient commentators, along with De Wette, Wiesinger, Wordsworth, Alford, and Ellicott among the moderns, so understand16 that the word wives refer to women, which they believe refers to those occupying the office of deaconess.

Wow! What do you think of that? It’s possible that there’s such a position as a deaconess. Is there anywhere in the New Testament where the feminine version of the male gender of the word deacon or deacons is found? Let’s go to the Book of Romans.

Romans 16:1I commend unto you Phebe our sister, which is a servant of the church which is at Cenchrea:

This woman Phebe was identified as being a servant in the church of Cenchrea. What does the word servant mean? It appears that there were certain functions that a woman was more apt to attend to with more discretion than a male counterpart, such as instructing other women who were candidates for water baptism, visiting females who were ill, in prison, and so forth. This still begs the question, is there any indication that Phebe was a deaconess?

Please consider the following ideas:

● The word servant is translated from the Greek word diakonon, which is in the feminine gender and is derived from the Greek word diakonos.

● The word deacons in 1 Timothy 3:8 is translated from the Greek word diakonos, which is in the male gender and is derived from the same Greek word diakonos.

●Therefore, the Greek word diakonon is the female rendering of the masculine word deacon, which could be rendered as meaning servant or deaconess.

Did you hear the alarm that just went off? The alarm of, oh my God, could this be true ?

That was enlightening. What we have determined is that even though the words deacon or deacons were recorded in the Book of 1 Timothy as being in the male gender, we can say with certainty that there’s such a position in the early church being that of deaconess. The words deacon or deacons is used five times in the New Testament. We also know, according to Acts chapter 6, that there were seven deacons appointed in the early church at Jerusalem even though the word deacon or deacons were not mentioned.

Furthermore, it’s true that the word deaconess does not appear anywhere in the English wording of the New Testament. However, the Greek word for servant (diakonon) only occurs once in the entire New Testament. As we noted earlier in this study, when we looked at how many women were Judges, Kings, or Prophets in the Old Testament, what we found was that in comparison to the number of men who occupied these positions, the number of females was very small, almost insignificant.

One more thing I’d like to mention. There’s another proof that there were indeed female deacons in the early church. According to early ecclesiastical history in about the late second century, there was a book called the Apostolic Constitutions, which indicated in Book III that the office of deaconesses did exist in the early church as this quote signifies, "Ordain a deaconess who is faithful and holy, for the ministries toward the women."17

While this doesn’t prove definitively that a woman can be called to any of the office gifts in the church, what it does do is cause us not to just look at one or two verses, Ephesians 4:11 or 1 Timothy 3:1, and say that these are the end-all on this matter, because all of the leadership positions mentioned are in the masculine gender. What we need to do, as we have done in the case of whether there were female deaconesses in the early church, is to dig deeper into the Word of God and find out if there’s any instance at all where a female apostle, a female prophet, a female evangelist, or a female pastor-teacher is mentioned. If this is indeed found out to be indeed the case, then this will form the basis for declaring that a woman can be called to any of the office gifts of the New Testament church. Is there an instance of such?

Before we turn to the next chapter to find this out, I want to leave you with an article that presents the prevalent attitude of a particular worldwide faith concerning gender distinction as to appointments to positions of leadership. This is contained here not to disparage them, but to help us understand the reasoning which is probably held by many churches that not only according to Scripture were the nouns pertaining to the office leadership gifts in the male gender but that the choice of certain leaders to accompany Jesus during his public ministry were also of such gender.

WHY NOT WOMEN PRIESTS? THE PAPAL THEOLOGIAN EXPLAINS

Feb 5, 2013

by Francis X. Rocca, Catholic News Service

Theology

Vatican City — In October, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith dismissed Roy Bourgeois from the priesthood because of his participation in the invalid ordination of a woman.

Since then, a Jesuit in Wisconsin has had his priestly faculties suspended after he [celebrated liturgy] with a woman purporting to be a Catholic priest, and the Redemptorist order has confirmed that one of its members is under Vatican investigation for alleged ambiguities "regarding fundamental areas of Catholic doctrine," apparently including the question of women's ordination.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church states that only men can receive holy orders because Jesus chose men as his apostles, and the "apostles did the same when they chose collaborators to succeed them in their ministry." Blessed John Paul II wrote in 1994 that this teaching is definitive and not open to debate among Catholics.

Yet some Catholics persist in asking why, as traditional distinctions between the sexes break down in many areas of society, the Catholic clergy must remain an exclusively male vocation, and what this suggests about the church's understanding of women's worth and dignity.

Few are as well qualified to answer such questions as Dominican Fr. Wojciech Giertych.

As the theologian of the papal household, Giertych has the task of reviewing all speeches and texts submitted to Pope Benedict XVI to ensure they are free of doctrinal error. Although his office was not founded until the [thirteenth] century, the Dominican claims St. Paul the Apostle, who corrected St. Peter on important questions of church teaching, as his original forerunner. (A copy of Rembrandt's portrait of St. Paul in prison hangs on a wall in Giertych's apartment in the Apostolic Palace.)

"In theology, we base ourselves not on human expectations, but we base ourselves on the revealed word of God," the theologian told Catholic News Service. "[We’re] not free to invent the priesthood according to our own customs, according to our own expectations."

Giertych rejects the idea that the all-male priesthood is a relic of obsolete social norms as if such norms could have been binding on Jesus.

"Christ was courageous with respect to the local social [customs; he] was not afraid to be countercultural," Giertych said. "He didn't follow the expectations of the powerful, of Pilate, of Herod. He had his own work, his own mission."

According to Giertych, theologians cannot say why Jesus chose only men as his Apostles any more than they can explain the purposes of the incarnation or the Eucharist.

"In the mystery of faith, we need to be on our knees toward something that we received," he said.

Nevertheless, he said, theology can help illuminate the "internal coherence and beauty of the mystery which has been offered to us by God."

"The son of God became [flesh] but became flesh not as sexless humanity but as a male," Giertych [said,] and since a priest is supposed to serve as an image of Christ, his maleness is essential to that role.

Reflecting on differences between the sexes, Giertych suggested other reasons men are especially suited to the priesthood.

Men are more likely to think of God in terms of philosophical definitions and logical syllogisms; he said, a quality valuable for fulfilling a priest's duty to transmit church teaching.

Although the social and administrative aspects of church life are hardly off-limits to women, Giertych said priests love the church in a characteristically "male way" when they show concern "about structures, about the buildings of the church, about the roof of the church which is leaking, about the [bishop’s] conference, about the concordat between the church and the state."

Giertych acknowledged that a Catholic woman might sincerely believe she is called to the priesthood but said such a "subjective" belief does not indicate the objective existence of a vocation.

None of which means women hold an inferior place in the church, he said.

"Every baptized person, both [male,] and female, participates in the priesthood of Christ through the sacrament of baptism, drawing the fruits of the paschal mystery to one's own soul," he said. "And maybe in some [sense,] we could say that, in this, women are more apt to draw from the mystery of Christ, by the quality of their prayer life, by the quality of their faith."

Women are better able than men to perceive the "proximity of God" and enter into a relationship with him, Giertych said, pointing to the privileged role played by women in the New Testament.

"Women have a special access to the heart of Jesus," he said, "[In] a very vivid way of approaching him, of touching him, of praying with him, of pouring ointment on his head, of kissing his feet."

"The mission of the woman in the church is to convince the male that power is not most important in the church, not even sacramental power," he said. "What is most important is the encounter with the living God through faith and charity."

"[So,] women don't need the priesthood," he said, "[Because] their mission is so beautiful in the church anyway."

[“This special relationship,” the theologian said, “Is essentially related to Jesus' maleness.”

"I remember once a contemplative nun told me, 'Oh, wouldn't it be horrible if Jesus were a woman?' And it dawned on me that, for a woman, the access to Jesus in prayer is easier than for us [men] because he's male," Giertych said. "The relationship of love, of attachment, the spousal relationship to Christ is easier for the woman."18

Endnotes

14Bible Knowledge Commentary.

15Weust’s Word Studies from the Greek New Testament Pc Study Bible version 5, 2005, 5 April 2014˂http://www.biblesoft.com>.

16The Pulpit Commentary Pc Study Bible version 5, 2006, 5 April 2014˂http://www.biblesoft.com>.

17Barnes. 18Francis X. Rocca. “Why not women priests? The papal theologian explains”, Feb 5, 2013 print issue. .

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