Are Women Allowed to Be Deaconesses, Ushers or Bishops in the Church?
1) Direct answer
No. Women are not to serve as bishops or deacons, and “deaconess” as an office over the church is not Scriptural. Ushers are not a Bible office, but the work of keeping order and directing the assembly belongs under the deacons’ oversight and should be handled by qualified men. Sisters may serve in helps that do not place them in authority over men.
2) Scriptural explanation
- The Bible says, “I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man; but to be in silence” (1 Timothy 2:11–12). Church offices carry authority over men; therefore they are not given to women.
- For a bishop/elder: “A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife… one that ruleth well his own house, having his children in subjection” (1 Timothy 3:1–5; Titus 1:5–9). That language fixes the office to a man.
- For deacons: “Let the deacons be the husbands of one wife, ruling their children and their own houses well” (1 Timothy 3:8–13). Again, male headship is required.
- The church chose “seven men of honest report” to serve the tables and keep the order of the work (Acts 6:3). That’s the pattern for deacon-type service.
- In the assembly, “Let your women keep silence in the churches” (1 Corinthians 14:34–35). That forbids public authoritative leadership over men in worship.
3) Simple clarifying logic
- Now notice: a bishop must be the husband of one wife and must rule his house. How could that be a woman? It cannot.
- A deacon must rule his house and be a husband of one wife. That sets the office to a man.
- Ushers function under the deacons to keep order and direct the congregation. Since Scripture assigns that kind of oversight to men, ushering in the sanctuary ought to be carried by men as part of that deacon-led service.
- This does not make women secondary in value, but it keeps God’s order. Sisters are called to powerful ministry in their God-given sphere: prayer, testimony, music, hospitality, visiting the sick, helping the needy, teaching children, and older women teaching younger women (Titus 2:3–5)—all without exercising authority over men.
4) Reinforcing statement
It’s not culture; it’s Bible order. One God set one pattern: male headship in church offices, with women richly active in every good work that does not place them over men.
Ask a Follow-up Question
What did the Laodicean Church Age (our age) Angel (- messenger) Say about this?
Ranked passages from the local William Branham sermon and Church Age Book database. Relevance is relative, not a statement of doctrinal certainty.
The uncertain sound
60-1218 §168
Was the Pentecostal church a noisy church back at the beginning when the Holy Ghost first fell? The virgin Mary, like she was drunk, staggering under the power of God, and all of them like that? And the people said, "They're full of new wine." That's the way the church was ordained. That's the way that every church was ordained. Every time God has a church, it will be that same kind of church, 'cause it ain't got no uncertain sound. "Well, our bishop said..." I don't care what the bishop says; what the Word says, s...
Why I'm against organized religion
62-1111E §62
There was Nicodemus, an honorable man, a great man, a bishop in his church, renown man, loved by everybody, and come to Jesus and knowed no more about life than nothing did. He was very ignorant of it when Jesus rebuked him for it, but he was sincere enough to come. The rest of them wouldn't even come. They stood off with the high priests and with the Bishop So-and-so and So-and-so, see. They stood off with them, rather taking their traditions of their elders than to hear the Word of God.
Church Ages, part 3: The Ephesian Church Age
60-1205 §89
[Gap in the audio] ... years later has ... or a bunch of men that want to make an organization, and take the sacredness and the Holy Spirit away from the church, and put it on bishops, and popes, and priests, to ... they'll be holy, and the congregation live any way they want to. And they'll pay the priests, and he'll pray them out of hell, and everything like that. It's a Nicolaitane. God said, "I hate that." Now, listen. Let me see. And you say God said He hated it? Now, let's see if He did: But this thou has, th...
Once more
63-1117 §41
But, see, that went on for three hundred years, until the Nicaea Council, and then we had to have an organization. Then from that on, that fell. And every time that a message comes forth, and they organize it, it dies spiritually and never comes back again. So it's a cursed thing to the church of God for a man to put his hand upon the moving of the Spirit. Always. Then they take them out there and get seminary ministers, and they rub shoulders with the world, and so forth. The first thing you know, they got the wom...
Church Ages, part 7: The Sardisean Church Age
60-1209 §28
Now, in this age here then, when he made up this great big thing, and put up this man here as a universal bishop over all the churches, give them plenty of money and so forth; and promised them ... and did unite the church and state together, and let the church control the state... Made him a great man. So there is exactly... What Constantine did is the very same thing that we found over in this other church that ... what God said, that in the days of Elijah that they suffered that woman Jezebel to subdue His child...