Their wives in the same way must be reverent, not slanderers, temperate, faithful in all things.
"The office of deaconess is not certain in the New Testament church, but the preponderance of evidence suggests that women had this ministry, for it is certainly seen in the postapostolic period." [Note: H. Wayne House, "The Ministry of Women in the Apostolic and Postapostolic Periods," Bibliotheca Sacra 145:580 (October-December 1988):390. Cf. Hendriksen, pp. 132-33; and Fee, 1 and 2 Timothy . . ., p. 88.] 