Deacons Likewise Must be...#3

So first, before we determine who these women are, I want to talk about what these women are. This word translated woman here is a Greek word, gune. You know I don't spend a whole lot of time generally talking about Greek words. But here I think it's helpful. Because this word gune is a really basic, common Greek word that most of the time is translated woman. But sometimes it's translated wife. And so how do we know if we're talking about women as a category or whether we're talking about wives in particular? Well, context is going to teach us that. And there are a couple of other filters that we need to process this verse through to get at the clear meaning of it. But before we get through into all that, I want you to know simply that this is a word that means generally women. It also can mean wives. And by the end of our time...

We'll come to an understanding of it. But I want, before we do that, to see what these women are supposed to be like. What kind of women are we talking about? The first thing is, these women are said likewise to be dignified. And if you look up in verse 8, you'll see that this is the same as the first qualification for deacons. In the same way that men who hold office as deacons must be respectable, sober-minded or serious, dignified, these women also are supposed to possess this attribute. These women next are supposed to refrain from or not be malicious gossips. Now, this is a sin, if we're to be honest and to understand what's going on, this is a sin that's particular to women. It's not to say that men can never gossip or that they can never be malicious, but on the whole, this is the sort of thing and temptation that women are faced with. The men are told not to be double-tongued.

They're told not to be hypocrites. They're told not to be men who don't keep their word. They're not to say one thing and do another. And that's how men can sin with their words and sin with what they say. But women can sin with being malicious gossips, with slandering, with running their mouth, with talking about things that they shouldn't talk about, things that shouldn't be spoken of. This is a particular sin that women deal with. And so Paul says here that these women we're talking about ought not to be malicious gossips. They have to be temperate as well. What does it mean to be temperate? Well, it means that they would be mild-mannered, that they would not easily be stirred up, that they're not pugnacious, that they don't like to argue and fight and get their way, but that they're temperate, that they're moderate, that they have some perspective, that they have a long view in mind, that they possess some self-control, and that they're not given to any excess of any kind. So they need to be temperate in their speech.

They need to be temperate in their conduct or actions. They need to be temperate in their comportment, the way they carry themselves, the way they dress, the way they behave. And then finally, he says that they need to be faithful in all things, which is sort of a general burden that sits on your shoulders. Faithful in all things. What's that mean particularly? Well, it means faithful in all things, which is kind of hard if you think about it. So what's being said of these women? Well, it says that they... Excuse me. that in every area of their life, they need to be the kind of women that you would look up to, and that you wouldn't be ashamed to say, that's Christian godly femininity right there. That's what she is, faithful in all things. And so it's a bit of a burden if you think about it. There's expectations put on women, and the question is, what women? Now before we come specifically to what women we're talking about, I want to ask you, is this stuff supposed to be true of

Just a subset of women or is it to be true of all women? It should be true of all women, okay? In the same way that I said in the beginning about the men, these qualifications for elders and deacons, no man is exempt from pursuing these things. No man is able to say, well, since I'm not an elder, I guess I don't have to be that way. Instead, what these qualifications are with regard to men is saying, the men who lead you, you want to be sure that they're godly men. In these particular ways. All men ought to behave this way. Ought to believe this way. Ought to conduct and order their lives in this way. But the men who rule over you, you need to make inquiry into their lives to see that it's actually true of them. Same thing that's going on with women here. I think that too many times in our lives, When we read scripture, we read a little verse all by itself and we say, well, look, there's this truth, but it's just kind of floating around and it's not attached to anything solid. It's just like, well, there's a nice truth and there's another nice truth and here's a third nice truth. But what happens when those truths seem to come into conflict? Well, if they don't fit into a framework in our minds, what ends up happening is we look at them and we say, which one do I like better? Oh, I don't like this one. We'll just get rid of that one and we'll pay attention to the one I do like.

And yet scripture doesn't contradict itself. God isn't opposed to himself. He doesn't tell us in one place you're supposed to be like this, but in another place you're supposed to be like that. And so what we have to do is labor to understand how these things fit together. And so when we see this description of women, I don't want us going, oh, that's just some truth about some particular set of women and good for them. I want us first to see this is what it means if you're a woman. These are the things that you need to be. These things need to be said of you. You say, well, what if I'm not one of those women? And I say, that has no bearing on this discussion. These are general descriptions of what feminine piety looks like. And so all women ought to pursue these sorts of things. So the question then becomes to us, why in the world is this description of general feminine piety stuck in the middle of qualifications for deacons?

That's a very strange place to put it, if you think about it. There must be some reason it's in there, right? And so there have been generally two schools of thought about this verse and why it's in there. One of them is that this is the qualification for deaconesses or female deacons. I want to talk more about that and open that up some more, but I just want you to know for one, that's a category, a deaconess, female deacon, which are not actually the same thing, but I'll explain it in a minute. The other is that this is something being spoken about the officer's wives. But I want to talk about deaconesses first. And I want to talk about deaconesses first because I'm not at this point convinced that this verse has anything to do with deaconesses. Which is not to say I don't think there is such a thing as deaconesses. But I don't think if you were going to be persuaded that there is such a thing as a deaconess,

taught in scripture. I don't think you're going to go to this verse to teach it, to find it. If you were interested in saying, I think there's deacons or women who are appointed to the work of being what has historically been called a deaconess, you wouldn't come here. Where you would go is to Romans chapter 16, where there's a woman named Phoebe who's described as a deacon. Okay? A deaconess. In Romans 16, 1 and 2, Paul says, And you think, you said she was a deacon. But it doesn't say the word deacon. And I say, well, we have to know what the word deacon actually means. The word deacon, in our language, is pretty much a transliteration. Meaning, we've taken a word from Greek, pulled it into our language, and not changed it much. So what does the word deacon mean? It means servant. That is what the word means. Now you remember at the beginning I said this word gune, this word about women, sometimes it means women in general, and sometimes it means wife.

What do we have to do to figure out who we're talking about here? We have to look at context. The same is true with this word deacon. Oftentimes in Scripture, almost all of the time, the word diakonos is the Greek word, is translated servant. And sometimes, or to serve. When Jesus says the Son of Man didn't come to the earth to be served, but rather to serve, this is the word that's being used. He didn't come. To be served, but to serve, to care for other people. And so this word generally means to be a servant or to care for or give your attention and energy to the interests of other people. That's what it means to deke, is what Abrams likes to say. He takes the word and turns it into a verb and says, when our dekes are deking, okay?

But when he's saying, another way that would make a little more sense to our ears is if he were to say, when our servants are serving, when they're doing what their title requires of them. And so Phoebe is described in Romans 16 as a servant of the church. And then her work is described a little bit, that she was a help that Paul says to them, receive her in a manner worthy of all the saints, help her in whatever she needs help with, because she's been a helper of many and also of me. And so we see that her service was to help people. And you think, well, that's the work of deacons. Isn't that what deacons do? And I say, yeah. In our language, there's not a better word to describe. If we used in our language the word servant, if we said, you are being ordained to the office of servant, it would be a contradiction of terms in our hearts. It would be accurate. It would be accurate to say, Taylor and Louise have been ordained to the office of service.

But it wouldn't make a whole lot of sense to us. And so in that context, we take the word servant and we make it, we transliterate it and say deacon. We don't have any other place in our language where we use the word deacon. It's defined by the way it's used in scripture. And that's helpful to us so that we in our minds can set that work apart, that office apart from the general work of servant. Because a servant could be anything from a slave to an employee to a volunteer. And so we have in the church an office of deacon, and Phoebe here is described as a servant. And so the question is, what was the nature of Phoebe's role in the church? What did she do? Well, we're told that she helped many people, even Paul. How did she help them? We don't know how she helped, but we know that the way that she helped was service-oriented. She did things, she provided things, she cared for needs. Which, if you think about it, tends to be generally what women are good at and what godly women give themselves to. In Scripture, you have three general descriptions in the New Testament of women and what they're supposed to be like. One is in our passage here, women likewise must be dignified and the rest. Another place is a few chapters later, it talks about widows.

Widows have to be a certain age. They can't have family that is able to take care of them financially. And they have to have been godly in their pursuits in caring for the needs of the orphans and giving themselves to good works, if they're to be put on the list. You also have in Titus 2 another description of older women, what older women are supposed to do. Older women are to teach the younger women. to love their husbands, to love their children, to be workers at home, to be sensible and pure, so that the word of God is not dishonored. Now, if I were to make for you a Venn diagram, if I were to make a circle and say, Titus 2, how does it describe women? What are the older women supposed to teach the younger women? You'd find temperate, you'd find hardworking, you'd find sensible, pure, and all these other things, and you'd write it in that circle. And then if I were to make another circle and say,

What are widows supposed to be like? And you wrote down in there, good works, works of charity and love, not given to busybody work, but being compassionate and merciful, not slandering, not gossiping. You'd say, there you go. And then if I were to make another circle of these women, what are they supposed to be like? Dignified, not malicious gossips, and the rest. What you'd find is if we put those circles together, you'd have an awful lot of overlap. An awful lot of overlap. We're left with the work of figuring out, okay, so what is a deaconess? Is a deaconess the same thing as a widow? And are those the same things as a Titus II woman? And if they are, why? And even if there is this certain role that women are supposed to be set apart for and appointed to, how are we supposed to do it?

And so what I want you to know a little bit about deaconesses, without going into a big, long explanation of the history of it, is that it's a practice of having women appointed to this work. It's a practice that's risen and fallen throughout history. Sometimes there's been a lively, thriving practice of having women who've been organized to give themselves to the work of mostly caring for orphans and caring for The sick, the elderly, the dying. And yet when we come into our society today and we think of what a deaconess is or what a woman, if a woman were to appoint women to a work in our church, it's such a muddle in our brains because we want to think is, well, what can't they do in church? Can't they do everything that men can do? And if you have some commitment to Scripture, you'll say, no, they can't do everything a man can do. They can't teach and they can't preach. You say, okay, well, what's that leave for them?

And in our day, men who are pushing to get women into leadership will say that women can do everything an unordained man can do, which is to bring down the work of deacons and to bring up the work of women and say, well, they can do just about everything that an unordained man can do. And what you'll find is people who want to move women into leadership and elevate their standing in the church will stop ordaining their deacons. This has historically been the practice for people who want to put women into leadership, but they would never say that's what they're doing. Now, some of you are looking at me and going, what in the world are you talking about? I don't have a foggiest idea what you're talking about. And I'm saying, just consider this a vaccination for the day that you do understand what I'm talking about. Because there's pressure in our day to elevate the role and the place of women in the church, even among the most conservative denominations in our country.

And one of the Trojan horses that they will use to get inside the church with this work is deaconesses. And they'll say, well, there were deacons in the old... Historically, there have been these women who've been organized and who've been given work to do. And they say, that's all we're trying to do. But I contend that that's not all we're trying to do. There are days when, if we were to look at a bunch of work that the church needs to get done, Or a particular task. Do you ever have in your mind either a group of people or a particular person and you go, they'd be good at that. That's something they're suited for. Can we do that with men and women? Can we look at different spheres of work in the church and say, you know, that's women's work. And I don't mean that in any denigrating sort of way. I just mean to say that's something that women tend to be better at than men.

They tend to be more gifted in that direction. And wouldn't you go so far as to agree that women tend to be more merciful, more compassionate, more tender than men? Okay. I know you feel like you're on thin ice and you feel like you're going to fall through. But this is what's true of us. Women tend to be more merciful and more compassionate. And historically, the women who were set apart to the work of deaconess, were given to taking care of orphans, they were doing things like this. Here's an example. People were poor, and they couldn't take care of their babies. And so they would leave their babies out to be exposed and to die. So what did the Christian women do? Well, they organized wet nurses to come in and to nurse those babies in orphanages so those babies wouldn't die. And they would raise them up. That was one thing, historically, that deaconesses would do. Now, is anyone here opposed?

if we were in that sort of an environment where there was that particular need, would any of us be opposed to that work being done, one, and we say no, and I say, would we also agree that women are probably better suited to that work than men are? Okay. You're with me. Good. What else did they do historically? Well, they would care for the sick and the dying and the infirm. They were nurses. They took care of those who needed comfort. It's a funny thing in the military. There's a camaraderie and a closeness that the men who go into battle with one another have that is lifelong. And it's as if they've been branded with this fellowship and this close-knit unity with these other men. But there is a time when those men don't want their brothers in arms. And when is it? It's when they're hurt. When they're hurt, what do they want?

What do men cry out as they're dying? What do they want? They want their moms. They want a nurturer. They want someone to care for them. They want someone to hold them. Someone who's soft and someone who's tender and someone who's going to be with them. And their weakness isn't going to be a danger to them. This is the kind of thing that historically women would do. that Christian women would do. They would go to the sick and to the dying and to the suffering and they would bear with them in their weakness. And they would be set apart to that work and say, you are in charge of this. You are to organize other women to attend to these things. But in our society, we don't have these needs falling on our laps because we have doctors and we have nursing homes and everything about suffering and dying is hidden from our eyes.

And so the church doesn't even have this need presented to it as something that we're responsible for or that we need to provide for in some way. As much as we get is saying, someone's in the hospital, we ought to go visit them. And so one or more of us, we'll go and we'll bring them some fruit or we'll go and we'll bring them a card or we'll go and we'll read them some scripture and we'll pray with them or we'll bring them some meals when they get home. That's the way that we do this sort of work. nowadays. And is it any surprise that that work falls to the women in our congregation? It should be that the women who organize that and who do that. And so what I want you to understand in your mind is that what historically was done by deaconesses is very different than what's being put forward today as the work of women in the church. What's being put forward today, if it's drawing any attention to itself, is elevating

The role and responsibility and privileges of women to the level of what the men are responsible for. And we as Christians have to be opposed to that. Because we see that in the church God's made very clear to us what our responsibilities are as men and as women. The men are tasked in their homes and in their church and in the workplace with leading and providing and protecting and caring for. Exercising authority. And the women are tasked with the serving and the caring and the supporting and the following. In the nurturing. So I'm not persuaded to think that whatever Phoebe was doing was what women are being thrust into today. I agree that Phoebe in Romans 16 was a servant of the church. And it may well be that she was set apart for that work and that people knew who she was. But there would have been no question of her responsibility and her relationship to the men in the church. You understand me?

Think of it this way. In the Catholic Church, you have nuns, right? Which is, in large part, their iteration of how they've organized women to do women's work. If you think about it. Who's in charge of the convent? What? Mother Superior. So there's a woman who's in charge. And there's a clear hierarchy there. Now, is she the top of the food chain? No. Who's the top of the food chain? The man. There's a man that's over all of that. And that nun, that mother superior understands she's under the authority and watch and direction of the men. And so is it possible for women to be organized within the church to do particular work? Yes. But it needs to be clear in our minds that however they organize and whatever you call it, their work is entirely under the headship of the men of the church or the leadership of the church.

that they're not co-equals with them. I was reading this past week in preparation, and historically there was this argument put forward that women actually be put on the deacon's board, that they be in the deacon's meetings, and that they... be given votes in the deacons meetings. And I've got all these buzzers going off in my head like, that's not good. You can't do that. Those women are going to usurp all the men's authorities. And then I remembered that this was happening in like the 15, 1600s. And I was left thinking, they were not dealing with the particular troubles that we're dealing with. They were actually able to have women and men function together on a board, which I'm not an advocate of in our day at all with regard to the diaconate. But they were able to do it in such a way that those women could function there.

Without exercising any authority over men. But that is something that's gone from us today. We have to give careful attention to the roles of men and women in our society because this is where Satan's attacking and we have to be on our guard and we have to be conscientiously making decisions about how we organize ourselves and how we conduct our business to give glory to God. Meaning we can't look like the world in the way that we organize ourselves and say, and this is being salt and light. Being salt and light is taking the truth of the gospel and the treasures and the mysteries that are hidden in it and having that permeate our whole life and even our church government to the extent that people look and say, you don't have women teaching? We say, no, we don't. Because the scripture teaches that that's not their role and their place. And that doesn't mean they're second-class citizens, but rather they have a different calling on their lives by God. So should women be able to be deacons? Even me saying that historically,

There's precedent for it. I say no. And most of my argument is that there's two reasons. One, the office of deacon is an office of authority. Those men exercise authority. And a few weeks ago, I talked about that. And that beyond that, Scripture teaches us in 1 Timothy 2.12 that women ought not to exercise authority over men. And that in our day, it would be very difficult. You think of your own marriages if you're married. How hard it is. For the woman to follow and the man to lead. And I say, you want to institutionalize that trouble, that's going the wrong direction. Which is not to denigrate women and say, they're too much trouble. I say, it's as much a function of the weakness of male leadership as it is of the stubbornness and uprising of women. And so we need to be careful in how we organize ourselves and conduct ourselves. Do I think women ought to be deacons? No.

Am I opposed entirely to the concept or the idea of deaconess? No. I think it would be great. I think actually in our church what we have is a general expectation, as this passage has, a general expectation for what women ought to be like in our church. We have a general expectation of what women are supposed to be like. They're supposed to love each other. They're supposed to help each other. They're supposed to bear each other's burdens. They're supposed to support each other. They're supposed to instruct each other. We just call, in our church, I think the closest we get to a deaconess is a Titus II woman. We talk about deaconesses and people are like, I don't know about that. And you talk about Titus II women, we're like, oh yeah, that's a good thing. And that's because that's what we've talked about at our church. But what it is, is women organizing and making sure to look after the needs of other women. And we don't even say, and you, and you, and you are Titus II women, but you are not, and you're not. It's not even that organized.

Why? Well, because Scripture teaches us that women ought to have it in their hearts to love and care for other women. And that when they're younger, they're being taught by the older women. And as they become of age and are matured, they take on the responsibilities of caring for others. And it's organic, if you will. So should we have women who serve to help our deacons? I think, yeah, we should have women and men. who served to help our deacons. It'd be great if the deacons had people to administrate to and say, this is something I think you'd be better served at. You go take care of this. I think they should be able to do the same with men. My goal in bringing all of this up about deaconesses is to help us see the attacks. I'm telling you, this is an area where Satan's attacking and where people, good Bible believing, we trust scripture people are going, oh.

and they don't see the problem coming in. And I want you to see that there's a danger, because this is where Satan's waging war against Christ and his church. We have to understand the attacks that we're facing and be prepared to stand against them, or we'll fall to them. It may be that we should have deaconesses, and even that we should formally appoint them to that work, but this passage, 1 Timothy 3, is not the foundational text for initiating that work. This passage does not establish an office in the church, and it's not sufficient to argue that it means bringing women up on and into the same level as the men. If you were to think, we've got how many verses talking about the men and what they're supposed to be like, and we have just this little snippet about the women. It's really pretty thin for establishing an office. If you were applying for a job and they said, well, you need to be dignified and

Not gossip. You need to be temperate and faithful generally. What in the world kind of job would you be signing up for? You really wouldn't know because there's not much else of a job description. But when it comes to deacons, you have Acts 6, 7, and 8 instituting the office, and then you see the first two deacons fulfilling that office. And then you've got an extended passage here in 1 Timothy coming back and saying, this is what these men need to be like. We don't have anything like that in Scripture regarding the women coming into this office. So who then are these women that are being referenced in this passage? Well, I'm convinced that this passage is talking about deacons' wives, and not only deacons' wives, but elders' wives and pastors' wives. And so another way you could state this is to say that one of the qualifications of these men is that their wives meet this standard, that their wives possess these gifts, that it's actually a qualification and a requirement for the man.

that he may have a wife who helps him in this work and is able to help him. And these are the virtues that she's going to need to possess to be able to help him and to not be a hindrance. And I think that's as true of elders and that's as true of pastors as it is of deacons. The reason that I believe this is because every husband's calling is by extension his wife's calling. Now I know many of you, if you were to think of pastors, where you've heard of or you've known, where you have a pastor and that's his job, but his wife has an entirely different thing she does. She's got an entirely different job, an entirely different set of responsibilities. He's a pastor and she's a something else. And that is not as it should be. A husband's calling necessarily affects his wife. And whatever it is that he's called to, she's called to go along with him in it, in that work.

Why is that important in this context? Well, it's important in this context because whether we're talking about pastors or elders or even deacons, there are aspects and elements of each one of those men's work that two things. One, their wives are going to know about because they're dealing with it. And there's going to arise from time to time work that their wives would be better suited to do than they would. I'll give you an example. Some woman in the church, her house is a mess. I mean, it's just filthy. And it's known, it comes to the knowledge of someone, that Mrs. Jones' house is a disaster. She doesn't keep it. What's it going to be like to go talk to Mrs. Jones? What's going to happen to her? The one thing I can tell you about Mrs. Jones is she's going to cry. And she's going to get upset at some point. She may get angry or she may get really discouraged. But at some point, she's going to have an emotionally hard time when someone comes and says to her,

Mrs. Jones, clean your house. So the question comes to us, who's best suited for that? Put yourself in Mrs. Jones' shoes and say, who would you rather come to you and say, your house needs cleaning? Would you rather have a pastor or elder or deacon do it? Or would you rather have one of their wives come do it? I think we'd all say, we'd rather have a wife do it. You'd rather have a woman come and help a woman with her responsibilities. And this is the kind of stuff that pastors and elders and deacons deal with and work through with people. And they need their wives to help them in it. So what has to be true of that man's wife? Well, she has to be fit and able to go do those things. And she has to be able to keep her mouth shut as she's helping cover people's nakedness. Because that's most of what pastors and elders and deacons do.

They engage with people's nakedness and their responsibility is to help the person work through their weakness and their nakedness without exposing it to everybody. And sometimes the person best suited to help them or to accomplish that work is not the deacon but his wife. And so I believe this is speaking about deacons' wives and by extension elders and pastors. Think for a minute about what it would mean if a man's wife didn't meet these qualifications? What if you were a deacon and your wife despised every time your phone rang and you had to go help somebody at the church? Can you imagine how miserable that would be? If she didn't have an understanding and a commitment commensurate with her husband's to serve and sacrifice for the church every time he was called upon, it would create grief and strife in their marriage. Yeah. And the man won't be able to sustain it.

He won't be able to sustain it. And the crazy thing is, in our day, we go, well, then I guess he just shouldn't have to do all that work. And I say, well, then who is supposed to do all that work? If the deacons aren't supposed to do the deacon work, then who's supposed to do the deacon work? The not deacons? No, the deacons should do the deacons work. And for the deacons to be able to do their work, their wives need to be on board with it. And they need to be able to support their husband in it and help him in it when he gets a late phone call or has an early morning.

She needs to encourage him and strengthen him in his work, not be an additional burden to him. She also has to be able to bear her, even if she's not upset about him going and doing the work, she has to have discretion about what she knows. And she has to tread lightly and be wise about how she interacts with people because there's always this question, whenever a need arises with somebody, whether it's spiritual or whether it's physical, there's always this question of who knows. Who knows what's going on? And so we tell you when you become a member of our church, we tell you we do our best to maintain discretion. We don't make your private business known. But there are a couple of things that you can generally count on. One, if you talk to me about something and it's serious, you can trust two things. One, the elders are going to know about it because they're also tasked with loving you and keeping watch over your soul. And unless it's water dripping from the ceiling.

There's a distraction. Something to work on. Deacons? At least it didn't land on anybody. Okay, I'm here. Luis, I'm over here. Later. Sorry. The question is, who knows what's going on in my life? Generally speaking, if one deacon knows you have a need, all the deacons will know you have a need. And you also can presume that unless it's a sex-specific struggle, their spouse is going to know as well. So you can trust that if you come and talk to me, I'm going to talk to my wife, generally, and I'm going to talk to the elders, as needed. You can trust the same thing is true of our deacons. That if Luis has some question or he's dealing with some circumstance, it's possible that he's going to go talk to his wife and ask her something. And that's as it should be. And we have to understand that that's appropriate.

that instead of running away from that reality, we can look here to Scripture and say, oh, those women need to be the kind of women who can carry that load faithfully. The reality is of an officer's wife, she'll be looked to as a leader in the church. And she'll be held to a higher standard. We all know this in our bones. I mean, we could all sit and talk about PKs. You guys know what a PK is? Pastor's kid? Why is there such a thing as a PK? Well, because we have an expectation for pastor's kids, and it's higher than the rest. And they never live up to it. And the pastors don't get nearly the help that everyone else gets in working with their children because their kids are just supposed to be godly because their dad's a pastor. It doesn't work like that. And so I want you to see that the calling on a man's life extends not only to his wife, but to his children. And instead of having these backroom, unspoken expectations for how things work,

We ought to just put it all out on the table and say, you know, those men who have been set apart to keep watch over us and to shepherd our souls and to provide for our needs, their wives have to be of a certain character as well. Because they're going to be participating in that work in some capacity as they're able and gifted to. So this is how it should work. And so in the end, what happens is the bar raises for the men, beyond just himself, to his whole wife, to his whole family. Right? Not in 1 Timothy, but in Titus it says that deacons ought to have children who believe. And so his qualification even extends to the spiritual condition of their children. And so I think we ought to just put it out on the table and say, here's how it is. If a man's going to come into office and we're going to organize ourselves biblically, we're actually going to look at the spiritual condition and character of his wife and his children.

And there's going to be a judgment made, not just about his spiritual condition, but theirs. And so the bar raises. And the wives of officers shrink down in their chairs because they go, oh, people are going to be looking at me. And I say, yeah, trust God. He's faithful. And so how do we go about this work here? This is what I'll end with in our church. What we do is when we talk to men to come into office, elder or deacon, we'll interview them and you'll examine them. we will also always talk to their wives. And we'll ask their wives. We're looking for two things with their wives. One, is your husband actually what he appears to be? Because we understand that she lives with him and she knows him better. And she will know about hidden sin or his hypocrisy or his struggles in a way that nobody else will. And so we actually go and say, hey, is Tom what Tom looks like? And the wife never wants to answer the question. It's a hard question for her to be asked because she's like, ugh.

And we go, well, you're married to him. You know him. What kind of man is he? Is he fit for this? And so she has to give some sort of an accounting of her husband's condition. We'll also ask her, do you understand what it means for your husband to become an officer? This has implications not only for him, but for you and for your children and for your whole life. And we want you to know up front that that's what's being discussed here. Because we want to know if she's going to be a help to her husband or a hindrance to him. And if she's opposed to it, then he's not going to be an officer. And that, you have to understand, is a kindness to them. That's not a hard discipline. That's a kindness. Because they're not fit. He has to be fit. She has to be fit. Or it's going to go sideways. And so the wives of officers are an integral part of the men's ability to fulfill their calling. Even though they're the ones who are the face of the work.

Any man who serves an office in a church who doesn't rely on his wife and her wisdom is a fool because she was given to him to be his helper, but not with diaconal and elder's work. That's men's work. And I say, don't learn the wrong lesson. A man's wife is a huge help to him in his work. And so we ought to look at those women and say, will they be helpful? Are they these type of women? Where do they need to grow? And then we'll say to the women, just like we would say to the men, here's an area of weakness in your life. We love you very much, but this we need to work on. Because we care and are interested in God's glory being made manifest and for our church to be governed well. Okay? Let's pray.