Scot McKnight's Reading Romans Backwards, the Dialogue Part Three<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"BEN: You begin your book by properly introducing us to Phoebe the deacon. I find your presentation right on target, but if you are correct, then an awful\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Scot McKnight's Reading Romans Backwards, the Dialogue Part Three\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"BEN: You begin your book by properly introducing us to Phoebe the deacon. 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{"id":33537,"date":"2019-10-16T01:50:01","date_gmt":"2019-10-16T05:50:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/bibleandculture\/?p=33537"},"modified":"2019-09-29T15:54:12","modified_gmt":"2019-09-29T19:54:12","slug":"scot-mcknights-reading-romans-backwards-the-dialogue-part-three","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/bibleandculture\/2019\/10\/16\/scot-mcknights-reading-romans-backwards-the-dialogue-part-three\/","title":{"rendered":"Scot McKnight’s Reading Romans Backwards, the Dialogue Part Three"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

$\"\"$ <\/a><\/p>\n

SCOT: Ben, you are an expert on all things about women in the 1st Century so I will seek to answer it as I see it. You may well want to add more. First, the terms used for Phoebe are \u201csister\u201d and \u201cdeacon\u201d and \u201cbenefactor\u201d (NIV 2011) \u2026 these strike me as reasonably known terms for specifics: siblings in Christ, patron of the Pauline mission, and then we get to deacon. The term can be general (servant, serving, etc) or it could be more specific, and refer to what we call today the \u201coffice,\u201d as in 1 Tim 3. In light of Phil 1:1, where \u201cdeacon\u201d is a specific kind of ministry\/office.<\/p>\n

In the Pastorals I would say this as important logically: Paul does not specify that only males can be deacons\/overseers. He does not say overseers\/deacons can only be males. He never says that. He assumes they are males but an assumption is not the same as direction. If one can say a \u201cdeacon\u201d has to be a male because only male gender is used in 1 Tim 3, then I can say \u201cwell, yes, but Phoebe is a deacon in Rom 16, so Paul must not be assumed to be directing them only to have male deacons.\u201d<\/p>\n

On 1 Tim 2 and women\u2026 I\u2019ll not even attempt to discuss this here (I have a discussion in my book The Blue Parakeet) except to say that I believe with Keener that the restriction applied only to untaught women, who were probably widows. [And I agree as I say at length in my Letters and Homilies for Hellenized Christians Vol. One].<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"