That service has traditionally been served by religius women who are trained as nurses, health care aides, hospice workers, teachers, etc.
There’s a heck of a lot of things Jews weren’t comfortable with, such as eating “unclean” meat etc.
This is one reason why I do not buy the “cultural” argument when it comes to female ordination to pastorship.
Christ upsets the apple cart of the Jews throughout Scripture in very fundamental ways. He wasn’t exactly afraid to do so and would have done so if he believed women could be ordained as pastors.
Christ did respect the women in his church very much. He chose women to tell the news of his Resurrection. I used to attend the Reformed Presbyterian Church, a very conservative denomination that is one of the few smaller branches of Presbyterianism that has women deacons. I have come to the conclusion that deaconesses are Biblical.
Now, I am in the Presbyterian Church in America, which doesn’t because honestly I think they are scared of trending toward the mainline PCUSA that is having the fights over gay ministers and already ordain women as pastors. However, the PCA did study it recently and decided to keep things the way they are now with only men deacons. I disagree, but they did a solid Biblical study and tried to look at the issue.
Anyway, the point is....I do think women can be deacons in the sense of Biblical deacons....those that help the sick, comfort and do those sorts of ministry actions. NOT the “deacons” of the Baptist church that really are elders in the Biblical sense.
That service has traditionally been served by religius women who are trained as nurses, health care aides, hospice workers, teachers, etc.