Female deacons?
We now come to the central issue to be addressed. Can a woman be a deacon or is the diaconate restricted to men only? This is an important question and there cannot be any trivial approach to answering it.
Kieran Beville
Examination of the word used for 'deacon' in Scripture shows that the same word is used when applying to both men and women. In Romans, Paul says: 'I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a servant of the church in Cenchrea' (16.1). The word used there for 'servant' is the word 'deacon'. So a straight reading of the text tells us that Phoebe was a deacon.
