1 Timothy 3:11

1 Timothy 3:11. Even so must their wives. The mention of women in this parenthetic way is, in any case, remarkable, seeing that the writer returns to the deacons in the next verse. The English of the Authorised Version is a possible rendering, but the absence alike of the article and the pronoun in the Greek, and the obvious parallelism with 1 Timothy 3:8 (διακο ́ νους ω ̔ σαυ ́ τως γυναικο ̀ ς ω ̔ σαυ ́ τως), make it far more probable that St. Paul is speaking of the women who had a like work, the deaconesses of the Apostolic Church, to whom he refers in Romans 16:1, Phoebe, the servant (διάκονος) of the Church at Cenchrea.' As there was no feminine form of the word, it was necessary to use ‘women;' but it is clear that we are dealing with qualifications for office, not with general advice applicable to all. The functions of these deaconesses (the ministrœ of whom Pliny (Ep. x. 96) speaks in writing to Trajan) were probably analogous to those of their male colleagues the distribution of alms to their own sex, caring for the sick, nursing orphan children, instructing female converts, and helping in the administration of their baptism.

Not slanderers. The word so translated is that which commonly appears as the name of the devil, as the great slanderer and accuser of man and God. The Pastoral Epistles are the only part of the New Testament in which it appears in its generic sense.

Faithful. Chiefly in the sense of ‘trust-worthy ‘ in all the details of their work.