Women Serving the Church as Deacons: What is Ordination?

The next few posts I will be breaking up my one huge post that considered if women ought to serve the church as ordained Deacons into seven smaller posts.

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I have heard that some people in the RPCNA would be fine with women serving as Deacons if the church did not ordain them. This position is, at best, a half-way house which avoids the entire basis of Presbyterianism. A Presbyterian form of church government is never practiced because it works efficiently. Ask any Presbyterian Elder how efficient the last session, Presbytery, or Synod meeting went and I am sure the question will either cause him to chuckle or sigh.

Historic Presbyterianism exists because the churches that organize themselves this way believe the Scriptures require a Presbyterian form of church government. As a consequence of this belief, all parts of how the church functions in its various offices need to be based on the Bible or they need to be abandoned. When the church expands into new areas of the world, Presbyterianism ought to go along with the spread of the Gospel regardless of the surrounding culture's form of government. The Gospel is counter-cultural and Presbyterianism is a good and necessary consequence of what the Bible teaches. Therefore, Presbyterianism ought to be part of any church planting work that happens. The RP Testimony says in chapter 25.7:

Christ has appointed in His Word a particular form of government for the visible church. It is government by elders (Greek: presbyters) and is therefore called presbyterian. Each congregation should be ruled by a session of ordained elders, elected by the membership of the congregation.
Acts 15:22; Acts 14:23; Acts 13:1 - 4; Eph. 5:23; Col. 1:18; 2 Cor. 8:19; 1 Tim. 3:1 - 7. (See Testimony, chap. 31, par. 3; and Directory for Church Government, chap. 3, sect. I and II, and chap. 4.)

As a result, a good question to ask is what is ordination? The RP Testimony says in chapter 25.8:

The permanent officers to be set apart by ordination are elders and deacons. The office of elder is restricted in Scripture to men. Women as well as men may hold the office of deacon. Ordination is a solemn setting apart to a specific office by the laying on of the hands of a court of the Church and is not to be repeated. Installation is the official constitution of a relationship between one who is ordained and the congregation.
1 Tim. 2:12; 3:2; Titus 1:6.

Dr. Guy Prentiss Waters in his book How Jesus Runs the Church provides three observations about ordination in chapter 4 (pgs. 107 - 108):

1. We see in Scripture examples of ordination to the offices of both deacon and elder. In Acts 6, the Seven were set apart to the work to which the church had called them. Barnabas and Saul are ordained by the church at Antioch to the ministry of the Word (Acts 13:2).
2. In both Acts 6 and Acts 13, the men who ordain these men are themselves elders of the church. We also read of Paul reminding Timothy of Timothy's ordination (1 Tim. 4:14).
3. Ordination is a public indication that the man being ordained is called of God to this particular ministry.

It must be noted, in observation three, that Dr. Waters disagrees with both the current position of the RPCNA, Dr. Strimple, and myself about qualified women serving as Deacons. Waters's disagreement about women being able to serve as Deacons affects his observations on ordination. Dr. Waters makes his disagreement with Dr. Strimple clear in footnote 84 (pg. 113) by saying that Waters's arguments against B. B. Warfield's editorial "Presbyterian Deaconesses" also apply to Strimple's arguments. Dr. Waters does, however, note that both Warfield's article and Strimple's article have respective differences in presentation. Ironically, though, Waters's then makes the observation that while there were women in the early church who served as Deacons that these women did not have teaching authority in the church. However, if he actually understands Dr. Strimple's paper then Waters ought to understand that Dr. Strimple's position about the Diaconate means that both the men and women called and ordained to be Deacons do not have any teaching authority in church (see quote below). Dr. Waters's comment does not assure me that he has a correct distinction of the offices of Elder and Deacon. In spite of this disagreement, I do find Dr. Waters's observations helpful. Dr. Waters also disagrees with Dr. Strimple about Acts 13:2.

Dr. Strimple provides the following set of considerations about ordination:

One may well say on the basis of the Biblical evidence that ordination appoints one to a ministerial office and function with authority to perform it. The undersigned [Bob Strimple] has no quarrel with such a definition. But it is a leap of logic to say that that office and that function in the case of the deacon involves the kind of teaching and ruling authority which the apostle rules out for women. That is what must be established, and we must not beg that question.
It should be noted, for example, that just two pages later (on p. 328) the Committee says: "Our conclusion ... is that I Corinthians 11:5, 13 imply that in some form public prayer and prophecy by women was an accepted practice in the churches known to Paul." In this way the Committee itself reminds us that we must be very specific as to precisely what kind of teaching and exercise of authority is forbidden to women by Paul's instruction in I Timothy 2:12. ...
John Owen is another who makes the distinction between the elders' authority and the deacons' authority clear, although his point seems to have been missed by the Committee, which quotes him with approval (p. 336) as though supporting its position: "This office of deacons is an office of service, which gives not any authority or power in the rule of the church; but being an office, it gives authority with respect unto the special work."...
It seems to the undersigned [Bob Strimple], however, that in view of what has been seen regarding the analogical relationship between the Seven and the later deacons, and the fact that ordination in the N.T. church was not narrowly restricted to ordination to the office of elder (see Acts 13:3), there is no reason not to ordain deacons, as long as ordination is not misunderstood as in itself investing the recipient with spiritual rule in the church.

Therefore, if the church correctly understands what ordination means then qualified women can be ordained to the office of Deacon based on the Bible's distinctions between the offices of Elder and Deacon.